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The scrolling memories came to a stop at yet another bit of static, seemingly the end of the line, before Magnus could remember anything. Apprehension still reigned in his mind, though he had to admit this was more relaxing than most thralls he’d faced; at least this time, he figured he could think his way around whatever argument the cup threw at him. The lack of his weapons and armor unnerved him, but he figured standing within his own memories didn’t require an axe anyway.
The memories reversed, faster this time, before slowing to a stop in the Hammer and Tongs.
Of course it was here, Magnus could’ve guessed it from the start. Any emotional pull within his own mind came from here. His life here. He had convinced himself he’d be ok seeing it again, that he saw it every night when he went to sleep, but he wasn’t. Of course he wasn’t.
Stephen was there; where else would he be? A younger Magnus stood polishing that damned chair; he hated that thing. He’d set fire to it after he learned about the bomb.
“That- the chair smells good! How did you do that?” Stephen’s voice was laughably fond, and Young Magnus’s reply was drowned out and the scene blurred as Magnus began to cry, tears obscuring his vision only briefly before he scrubbed them away, not wanting to miss a moment.
He ignored his younger self’s bloviating, choosing to focus instead on memorizing the lines in Stephen– truly, his father’s– face. He’d been steadily going grey, beard and temples already giving up the ghost. His age and the strength it took to get there were written clearly in every line and scar, and it hit Magnus yet again how old he’d been. The rebellion had taken years from him, and just when he should have been allowed to retire in peace, Kailen decided to take the rest.
Magnus reached out, hand mere inches from Stephen’s face, when the door creaked open.
The new addition to the room was mildly obscured by the enormous stack of papers she carried, but Magnus would have known her blind and deaf and half dead. When Julia dropped the order forms on the desk, Magnus’s knees hit the floor. Being a mere shade within a memory, the floor didn’t offer the bite or stab of pain he’d expected, nothing to ground him as he stared at his wife. She was as radiant as the sun, her warmth making that hollow ache in his chest he’d nearly learned to grow around burn anew.
He wanted to scream, to call out to her, to hear her say his name again, to tear through the very mountainside until he found the cave where the miserable Kailen was hidden and rip him limb from limb for depriving him of her. His love, his life, his Julia.
He scarcely breathed as she spoke, not even tears escaping as he took her in once more. As she and the memory of himself joked, laughed, kissed, and said goodbye. And as his memory turned to leave the room, the world froze again. Julia’s hand on Stephen's arm, both looking at Magnus’ retreating back. They both looked so proud, unaware he was going to fail them so monumentally. They were so happy, so alive that Magnus couldn’t help but reach towards them, wishing beyond hope or dream that he could simply touch this life once more, touch her. Instead, his hand passed straight through, fingers turning to smoke as Julia stood steady, smiling. Magnus sobbed
June spoke again, her little-girl voice rehashing the worst moment of his life. Magnus withdrew his hand, curling inward to protect himself from the reality of the chalice's words. His wife was dead. His father was dead. His life with them was gone. In that moment, had he the strength to draw breath and speak, Magnus would have agreed with whatever the relic wanted, if only to hold his Julia in his arms one last time.
For a few moments, the room was silent but for the sound of his tears, until Magnus found himself sitting upright once more. There was no apparent transition between the two scenes, one moment curled on the floor with his last happy moment slipping through his fingers, the next in a chair between Taako and Merle, tears still running down his cheeks but breaths blessedly even.
As he wiped away tears, Magnus appraised the other two. Merle looked chagrined, looking intently at his soulwood arm, his dwarven hand fidgeting with the belt buckle holding it in place like he did when it was hurting him. Taako sat stiller than Magnus had ever seen, staring past Magnus’s shoulder at nothing. He looked like he’d seen a ghost.
The Temporal Chalice addressed them all, laying out the rules of its offer, June’s young voice monotone and businesslike. Magnus stared at his hands, trying to listen.
The cup finished, looking to them all for their answer. Magnus sat for a moment, the weight of his own memories, the life he could’ve had, the life the cup had promised weighing on his chest. Eventually, he took a breath.
“Uh, Taako. Merle… I uh… I assume that we all kind of just had… similar, but different experiences.” He stalled, fidgeting, “Of things that we might be able to change, if we were to pick up this cup. ” He knew what his answer was already, but he wanted to hear what the others had to say.
Takko nodded, eyes still fixed over Magnus’s shoulder, “Yeah.”
“Merle, same deal?”
“You wanna talk about it?” Merle asked, messing with the knots and bumps of his wooden hand
“Not really. Soon. Soon! I’ll tell y’all about it when this is done, but…” He sighed. He was probably lying; he didn’t know if an alternate timeline would give him a chance to explain himself. “I know my answer.”
And he did. Although the days he got to spend, the things he got to do, and the people he got to help with these two would be sorely missed in his life with Julia.
Magnus froze, his mouth open, his yes caught halfway up his throat as the others talked around him. The people he’d helped. The people he’d saved. In exchange for a life he’d had, just not for long enough? The echoes of Julia playing around his thoughts grew louder, even as his stomach sank, and his mind was made up.
“I-I’m ready to give my answer, but I don’t… Listen, boys. I know what my offer was, and I can only assume that yours was as powerful, so I’m not going to judge either one of you for whatever you say. Um… But my offer, the ability to go back and change that thing… It was everything I’ve wanted for a really long time. And it would mean… that I wouldn’t be there to help people who really needed help and save many, many, many lives– and I don’t care. Because it’s what I want.” His next words tore through his chest like a battle axe. “But it’s not what Julia would want. And I’m going to have to pass.” Magnus closed his eyes, praying Julia would know he was sorry.
Taako and June spoke again before both of them turned to Merle, and Magnus shook himself, wanting to listen.
Merle puffed out his chest, tearing his eyes away from his godly prosthetic. “I’m not a big one for regrets. I figure you make your best choices with the information at hand, and you live with the consequences. That’s kind of a “Merle Pearl” to throw out to everybody. So I’m going to say… Thanks, but no thanks, little, strange girl with a shalice.”
Taako huffed a laugh as June prompted him for his answer. Magnus could see that impish grin playing on his face, the one that always meant something ridiculous was about to happen. “Hm… I mean, here’s the thing for me-” he was laughing now, coming back to life. “Here’s where I’m at. The vision revealed to me was chill as hell. Here’s how it shook out for Taako-- and we can get into this a bit more if you guys want. But as it turns out, remember that thing that I’ve spent so long feeling kind of bad about– not super bad, but like pretty darn bad?”
“Yeah,” Magnus still didn’t know what had happened, but it had come up a few times, most often around a dinner table.
“Get this! Not my fault! Like, I have nothing to change! I didn’t do anything wrong! This is a, it was a very chill vision for me. I’m feeling, like, amazing! And I’m feeling no obligation to go back and change anything, ‘cause it was like” He stuttered, waving his hands as he spoke “I’m in the best possible timeline for Taako; personally. Just from my vantage point. It is very good for Taako.”
And Magnus was laughing too. “So it kinda sounds like it’s a ‘no’ all around, cup lady.”
June’s face fell, “I would be lying if I said I wasn’t… disappointed. I… I’m- I’m sorry. I have to make one more offer.” and the scenery changed again. They stood now in the path of destruction left by the Phoenix Fire Gauntlet, looking down from the treeline at the wreckage of a wagon train. An orc boy was sitting sullenly in a cage.
“This is the last offer I have to make. It’s the last thing I can think of that the three of you could fix. You free Kurtze, and Kurtze, in an act of vengeance, sets off a series of events that destroy Phandalin. You can stop this from happening if you just don’t let him out of the cage. It’s my last offer, and will any of you reconsider?” Magnus looked at June rather than the orc. Her face was still growing steadily younger; soon she’d be no more than the child she was supposed to be.
Magnus stuttered, unsure again.
Taako sounded chagrined as he said, “Well, this one’s tougher, right?”
Magnus almost laughed again. No, this wasn’t quite tougher than the idea of seeing Julia again, but still, “‘Cause this was- this was our fault. Hands down, yeah.”
“This was our bad one hundred percent,” Taako said over him.
Merle tilted his head to call out, “Sorry!”
“Kinda hard to, to shift the blame on this one. Uh–” Magnus coughed.
Merle turned, “But we didn’t know! We had the best of intentions.”
“We could shift it onto Kurtze. Like, eff that dude, right? We have that to… yeah…”
Taako was still uncharacteristically regretful as he spoke. “Kurtze… I mean.” He sniffed, “We wrote the check and Kurtze cashed it.”
Magnus examined the scene in front of him and the caged orc boy. “Yeah, that’s true.”
Merle took a deep breath. “You know,” Magnus smiled, a sentence starter like that couldn’t mean anything good. “Blowing up Phandalin was kind of our signature move though…”
Taako was grinning now. “Right? It was a very explosive beginning.”
“Yeah, I mean…”
Magnus knew what they were doing. “It did kind of establish a pattern.”
Taako spoke over him again, “It elevated- elevated the drama.”
Magnus hummed, smiling at his friends. Really, if the cup had wanted him to say yes, it should have kept them separate. Merle and Taako made even the denial of everything he’d ever wanted seem easy.
June sounded offended when she spoke again, “It sounds like it was maybe a cool moment for you-- let me just show you something really quick.”
Magnus’ stomach dropped. “No… no, no…”
The image around them scrolled over to the inn in Phandalin, a still shot of horrified townsfolk cowering from the wrath of the gauntlet outside. As Magnus looked, he recognized the logo of Noelle’s family farm, and seeing the true face of his friend for the first time, moments before her death, was enough to knock the wind from him again.
Magnus looked at the others. Both seemed unsure, and the color was draining from Taako’s face again. He took a breath. He could be strong for them. “Yeah, but at the same time, can you show us Rockport if we didn’t stop the train? Can you show us the world if we didn’t stop the pink tourmaline from taking over?”
Merle and Taako looked to him, standing straighter.
“Can you show us all of that?” He asked the cup.
June met his gaze. “This is the only offer I can make to you.”
A tempting offer to be sure, but Magnus was righteous now. How dare she guilt his friends? “Yeah, but like– you’re showing us one thing we can change, and not the stuff that we did change.”
“Is there– is there any reason to think that– is there any reason to think that we wouldn’t do all that other stuff if we save Phandalin?” Taako asked, ever the pragmatist
“Well, yeah!” Magnus gestured to June, “She said the rules. We gotta stay away from the Bureau of Balance. We’d never know about all that stuff! The Voidfish would knock us out, we’d- like, we wouldn’t be able to join the bureau. We would have to stay away from… everything! We forfeit our place in the timeline. We’d save these people, but we wouldn’t save any of the others.”
Taako worried his bottom lip with his teeth and said, “Yeah, but certainly they have some competent people they could send, right?” which made Merle laugh.
Magnus huffed. “Apparently not! We were the first people to bring any item in.”
“You know, fellas.” Merle was grandstanding as he spoke. “I know this is big, and I know there’s been a lot of death, and destruction, and other crap, but… You know, we’ve had some laughs! We’ve had some good times! Crashing trains, and getting our arms chopped off, and y’know, poisonin’ a lot of folks, and… I’d hate to lose the good times that we had. I’m still not tempted. I’m still happy with the Merle life!”
Magnus was laughing properly by the end of Merle’s speech. “Yeah, I’m going to have to pass as well. Like Merle said, y’know. I spent a lot of time living my life in regret, and I don’t do that anymore. We gotta keep moving forward towards good. Not looking back at the bad.”
“Listen.” Taako chuckled, “If I wasn’t gonna use this to clean up a mess that was half my fault, I’m certainly not going to use it to clean up a mess that’s one third my fault– at best! Um… Plus, I can’t say as I was much better off before.” Magnus blinked at the unexpected vulnerability on Taako’s face. “I mean, we’ve certainly helped some people. There’s some people that’ve been– let’s call it “unhelped”, I think, certainly along the way. We’ve unhelped some folks. Uh…” The openness was gone, but the grin was back, even as he appeared hung up on the end of his sentence
Magnus stepped in, “And you know what? Noelle ended up with a new shiny robot body, so like-”
“An unkillable robot; I think that’s an upgrade!” Taako finished
Magnus nodded. “That could be significantly worse, really.”
“Barry stings. That one…” Magnus flinched at Taako’s words
“Yeah, the Barry one hurts. If we could get him into a robot, eventually down the line, that would be super cool.”
June took a breath, seeming incredibly glum. “Okay. Well. I did my best.”
Magnus remembered something, “I have one question.”
“What?”
“If we pass on this, what happens to June?”
June sighed, “I told you- if you- I just wanted to give you my offer, and if you listened, I’d let her go. And I’ll let her go because you’ve listened to my offer, and you have abstained- and since you’re apparently so okay with living with the consequences of your actions, then,” She paused, and Magnus felt a chill as the scenery began to move. “I guess… Well, I guess I’ll leave you with this.”
The cup’s plan sank in as the fire consumed Noelle and the others hiding in that stockroom.
“Oh, gods,” Merle said, sounding nauseous.
“You’re kidding,” Taako’s voice was lacking most of its humor.
Magnus simply stared, “...no,” was all he managed.
Time crawled, each image must have lasted no more than a few seconds when the destruction of Phandalin truly happened, but now stretched for minutes on end under the cup’s power.
Countless passed by, and still more followed. Merle began to pray. Taako grew still again, staring. Magnus slowly fell, each life lost weighing on his shoulders. At the scene of a young family, a man with a reddish brown beard and a pregnant woman, Magnus flinched, hiding his head in his hands.
A scant few moments passed before Taako nudged Magnus’s shoulder. When he garnered no response, he spoke, voice breaking on the edges.
“Magnus, Magnus, you need to– I think you have to watch”
Magnus looked up, baffled, at Taako. “Wh- I can’t– Why?’
Taako simply gestured forward, to the scene of the family that had not yet changed. When Magnus looked at the tragedy again, the image continued.
“She… It wants us to watch.” Taako croaked.
And so they did. Merle’s muttered prayers for the lost souls continued. Magnus stayed on the ground. Taako joined him eventually.
And they watched as the victims of their greatest failure died in front of them. Magnus resolved to remember every face, every life, every death. Next to no one even knew these people existed, much less that they died, and if Magnus was to be the only witness to their existence, then so be it.
Eventually, the images stop, coming to rest on that perfect circle of black glass, the ruins of a dwarf at its epicenter. Magnus looked at the others. Merle looked like he’d aged a decade, and Taako looked shell-shocked, like he’d never stand up.
And then they were back in the mine, and June was free, and there was a purple worm to fight and a day to save.
Magnus steeled himself. One last try.