What if Lup somehow got trapped in a stone of farspeech instead of the umbrastaff... now she’s like Siri to Taako but half of what she says is static to him...

oh, god. okay. that’s fun.

Here’s the thing, right? A rock can be an arcane focus. A stone of far speech sure as hell isn’t designed to be a focus, but if you’re locking a powerful wizard inside of it, do you really think that’s going to stop her?

(Also, how did she get inside of it, anyway? Did she make a stone of far speech instead of an umbrella?)

Lup: I’ve decided to invent the smartstone.

Taako: The what

Lup: It eats wands.

So, anyway, back to the future, in the cave, where Merle (devoid of memories) is trying to pull the necklace off this skeleton, and it blasts him back. And Lup knows she doesn’t even need to speak to get Taako to try the same thing.

(She hasn’t spoken, yet. She nearly yelled when they came in, but she waited just long enough that she realized what was wrong, what they didn’t remember, and now–now she’s being wise. Because if her brother doesn’t remember her, he’s going to be too cautious to believe a rock calling itself his sister.)

(Well, he’d probably be that cautious, she thinks, as he reaches for the rock that just blasted his companion into the wall.)

(–Reaches for her.)

As he makes contact with the stone, she swallows the cracks in her voice, the worry, the relief, the fear.

She says, “User registered: Taako! How can I help you?”

“Whoa, creepy. How’s this thing know my name?”

“I am the smartstone! A prototype for an advanced stone of far speech! I know many things,” she says, knowing exactly how much cheeriness to put into her voice to unsettle him.

“Hey, why’s he get to use the fancy stone and I just get blasted?” Merle whines.

“Gay rights,” Taako says.

“Gay rights,” the stone echoes.

“Kids these days,” Magnus says, shaking his head, before Merle can get another word in. “No respect for Pan.”

…

(Oh, and if you want to get really swap-y about this idea: Magnus might have a slightly harder time swallowing the Philosopher’s Parasol.)

…

“Are you afraid?” asks the most dangerous being that any of them can remember meeting in their lives.

“What?” says the smartstone.

“What?” says the lich, the ghostly, echoey quality instantly dropped from his voice. And then he makes a sound that’s uncomfortably reminiscent of static. Static they thought they were done hearing a month ago, when they were inoculated.

Static pours out of the stone, too.

And the lich laughs, and then they’re both laughing, or maybe crying, until the the living people in the room are all looking at each other in fear and wondering what the hell this undead bastard did to hack Taako’s stone.

Until it’s over. Until the lich pulls himself together, and speaks more static, and vanishes.

Until the stone says in her best flight-attendant voice, “Sorry about those… technical difficulties.”