Chapter Text
While Merle and Magnus were getting acquainted with a severed head, Taako was running the numbers. Math had never been among his strong suits, but it didn't take a particularly high intelligence to know that things didn't look good. He could take one, maaaybe two good hits before he was toast.
He looked back at Magnus and Merle, who seemed to be largely ignoring his current predicament. He couldn’t decide whether he was happy about that. Magnus, who was normally bursting with emotion and pity, chose the one time Taako would’ve taken some sympathy to rise above it. Taako had always thought he’d rather die than ask for help, directly anyway, but he was in No-Healing-Wonderland and he was hurt, badly. Still, like hell was he going to let those bozos know that if he could help it. It's not like they were able to do anything about it.
He tuned back into the conversation in time to hear Cam say there wasn't any way out of Wonderland. "Then why do people come here?" he asked. The unasked questions about how and why they themselves were there hung in the air, but before Taako had time to start dealing with any of that, Cam answered him.
“They come here because whatever their heart desires is supposedly waiting for them here"
Taako knew what desperation felt like. He’d been doing all right for long enough that he was almost embarrassed how quickly he was able to recall the feeling. Though maybe it was the sharpness in his ribs whenever he breathed or the bloody bile that kept creeping up into his throat whenever his focus drifted from keeping it down.
When Cam mentioned liches Taako knew what he had to do. He had one card left to play and while he definitely wasn't looking forward to using it up, it was still better than any of the alternatives. He carefully slipped his hand into his pocket and took out his stone of farspeech, switching it away from the Bureau’s frequency and onto another. He didn’t have the energy to explain the situation, but hoped that all the background blabber about liches and suffering and code words would get the message across. He definitely wasn’t asking for help. He was doing this dude a favor. Wasn’t dealing with weird undead magic shit Kravitz’s whole deal?
They left Cam in the pocket workshop. As they made their way (back?) to the fucking Wheel of Sacrifice, Magnus’s blathering about the four lights above the door meant that he hadn’t heard the rift tear open behind them. Taako wavered for a moment, wondering if he could still play this off somehow.
He looked down at his feet and realized that despite his height, he had already considerably lagged behind the other two boys. With little regard to what he considered his very positive attitude (all things considered) black smoke seeped out of his mouth with every breath, making even more conspicuous the way it hitched every time he almost forgot about his ribs. He heard a throat clear behind them to the right and with all the confidence of someone who had somehow survived this long, he opened his mouth.
“Okay, hey, this one, I’ve got this one. Mags, just hold on. Here’s the thing. I promise that I will explain a whole bunch of stuff as soon as we get out of this fucking pain orgy or whatever. But first my dudes, and you’re not going to like it, especially you Merle, uh sorry, but you have to trust me. He’s here to help. I think.”
Kravitz had imagined he would walk straight out of the rift, march up to Taako, and demand to know what in the realm was going on, but as soon as the rift closed behind him, he felt something off about this place. He’d heard of Wonderland, of course, the Raven Queen had long suspected something unnatural going on there and it had been easy enough to get her leave to investigate. But nothing could have prepared him for the sight of Taako, hunched over and trailing behind his friends, badly bloodied. Thoughts flashed through his head. Taako was by far the worst off of the three. His connection to the Raven Queen seemed distant when he tried to charge a healing spell. Perhaps that was why the cleric had left Taako like this. Taako was hurt. Taako could die here. Kravitz hadn’t even realized how much–
His thoughts were interrupted by Taako’s declaration. It seemed safe to assume the elf hadn’t told the other two about their meeting, or their date. That should be interesting. As Taako turned towards him, Magnus seemed to be confusedly trying to form words and Merle began to object, growing only louder as the facts of the situation dawned on him.
However, before any of them got the chance to do anything, two extremely glamorous elves appeared in the room. The liches. Kravitz stiffened. The female elf appeared to his right, midway between him and where Merle and Magnus stood. The male elf appeared between Taako and his companions, seeming to magnify the distance between them. The two liches looked around, apparently delighted by what they saw. Kravitz could only see the black necrotic energy emanating with each of Taako’s shallow breaths. Anger welled up inside him as the female elf spoke:
"Welcome to Wonderland! We don’t usually get additions mid-journey"
“Usually the opposite!” the male elf chimed in. “But then, we haven’t had a reaper here in an age either!"
“Hmmm, Kravitz, is it?” The female elf cooed. She was closer to him now, though he hadn’t seen her move. “What do we have for you here?"
“Oooh, that’s very interesting” The male elf, the second lich, mimed like he was paging through a book. “As I’m sure you know, the purpose of Wonderland is to give beings what they most desire and help them get rid of the pesky things holding them back!”
The sound of papers fluttered between the two elves, who looked between the four of them and back at each other with a growing sense of glee that made Kravitz’s stomach tense. He tried to shake his feeling of dread. He needed to focus, he had a job to do.
The male elf shifted his gaze between Kravitz, Merle, and Magnus as the female elf continued, “Normally, this is where we make adventurers spin the Wheel of Sacrifice. But this round, given the current state of affairs,” her glance flashed towards Taako, then to his friends and back to Kravitz, "we’ve decided to do something even more fun!"
“Wonderland is about sacrificing the things that are holding you back in order to get what you truly desire!” As the male lich spoke, the female appeared beside him, just on the other side of Taako. Her phantom arm seemed remarkably solid as it wrapped itself around his bloodied torso. At her touch, the black smoke that had been leaking from Taako’s mouth now streamed out, and the lich seemed to bask in it.
The wizard cast his gaze in the direction of Magnus and Merle, before looking back towards Kravitz. As Taako’s eyes locked onto his own, they betrayed the elf's fear and, for just a moment, a realization of something else, before all three elves vanished, leaving Kravitz and the other two adventurers alone.
The female elf’s voice rang through the darkness. “It’s up to you to decide which is which!”