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Thick black ichor slipped down his throat, and with it came memories, enough to choke on.
War. Strife. The Grand Relics; the single moon above Faerûn. All the words that had been static before.
“Welcome,” said the human man before them, “to the Bureau of Balance.” His white-blond hair was neatly tied back, and his face faintly lined with age. “You may call me the Director. Now that you can comprehend my words, allow me to explain…”
The Director said that they should remember everything, now. Archie decided not to mention that he only called New Elfington his home for lack of anything else to say; decided not to say anything about how he still wasn’t sure how exactly he’d managed to get his brewing show started, only that it had always felt like someone else should have been there, someone who had stepped out for a moment. Someone far more important to it than he could ever be.
Even after the absolute disaster of Glamour Springs, he’d still turn his head and expect to see—someone—there. He’d never quite figured out who, though.
“Will you join us as reclaimers, then?” asked the Director.
Archie shared a look with Hermione and Pansy—the two women who had fought by his side and been brought up to the moon base along with him—then turned back to the Director.
“Well, I can’t decide for these two, but I’m in,” he said, in spite of his memories and misgivings.
It wasn’t like he had anything to go back to, after all, with the brewing show gone forever and some warrants still out for his arrest.
Maybe there was no grand conspiracy. Maybe his memory just sucked.
Against his back, the umbrella from Wave Echo Cave hummed with a comforting, familiar magic.