Before the real chapter, I have some rambling to do.

First, I've changed the rating to M for..some reasons. I'm not exactly sure what reasons exactly, except that MotB should've been rated to M as well. I mean, you're playing a spirit-eater – you cavort around Rashemen eating people's souls just for fun! So M rating is it and any criticism will be accepted and thought over.

Second, Today is a very special day for me - it's been exactly six months since I bought MotB. And met Gann. This makes today the official "Humiliate Gann" day, at least for me. So I would like to warn you that this chapter involves Gann having problems with a tentacled monster. You're all probably thinking "OHMAGAWD, tentacle pr0n"! Well guess again. He's not exactly having a tea party with it, but it's not that either.

So, have fun!

It was question time.

Usually people don't have the habit of asking the right questions. Rarely, there is the time for things such as "What am I?" and "What am I doing here?" but these queries usually stand aside in order to give more space to stuff like "What are we going to have for dinner?" and "What's the time?" Still, even though those questions seem deeply philosophical, they are not enunciated correctly. One shouldn't ask what is he, but WHY is he – because one couldn't be anything but himself, but why is he devised in such a manner is something elusive and unclear. But for such a..simple creature as Cayla, those askings, simple or not, were all the same.

'One, how did you become undead?' she asked her servant, while lying on a bed inside one of the rooms in the Veil theater.

.:I died.:

'How?'

.:I got killed.:

'Oh..it must've been really.. – if her inner dictionary contained words with more than five letters in them, she would've used 'dreadful' - ..bad.'

.:If you really must know, I don't remember how I got killed. The minds of the undead work in a different manner than the minds of the living.

'I..see. Is there a way for you to remember how you died?'

.:No.:

'Really?'

.:Well..no.: He sighed deeply and waved a tentacle dramatically in the air, trying to show how annoyed he was. It didn't work - the sorceress rarely understood anyone's hints. .:We..the souls of the Many..remember more details about their lives when we are not the dominant soul. So you must simply switch me with the Child or the Brute, then share a vision with me.:

'Share a..what?'

.:A vision. Try to go to sleep, but while doing it, connect yourself with the hive mind of the Many. After that, it would be simple enough to find me.:

He lied, of course. It would be simple enough for anyone with an IQ above room temperature to do this. But for a person like Cayla, things were bound to screw up. Because she had forgotten about Gannayev.

It was Gann's fault – the shaman had been trying to enter her dreams for a long time, but something had always stopped him – a dark presence inside her mind that prevented him from merging her thoughts with his own. Until now, when she tried to enter the mind of another creature, letting her defenses down for him.

So three minds were fused into one in order to share one single dream. It was going to be a long night..

The fiend had been right – it was simple enough for her to enter his little haven inside the Many. When she found him, he was sitting..well, floating in mid-air as he always did. So she hugged him, interrupting his meditation and he had no other option but to hug her back, because his Mistress should get what she wants. It was a basic instinct, following her orders. And then he sensed another presence inside the Many – not Cayla but the shaman, trapped inside the circle of another soul.

"You promised to tell me how you died. Remember?" she asked, chin propped on his shoulder.

"I believe we have bigger problems than this. Your friend the shaman is trapped here as well."

"Gann could bother a tentacled monster, for all I care. Now tell me!" she demanded.

"Very well then. A long time ago when I was still alive, I guarded traveling merchants from Kara-Tur to Rashemen and Thesk. It was a long road and we encountered bandits daily, so I got good money out of it and nobody paid any attention to my horns and wings as long as I protected my employers and their wares. But..once I overestimated my powers. I got killed near Mulsantir. However, most people in these lands aren't allowed to rest even after they die." Watching the puzzled expression on her face, he sighed, then stood up and started pacing nervously around her.

"The rashemi are rather..superstitious. They believe in spirits because they have to believe in something and the telthor spirits exist only because somebody believes in them. They are nothing but a hollow shell, forced to be..for somebody needs them. Do you see the power of beliefs now?"

"Yes, but how does that.. she tried to ask him, but got interrupted.

"I'll get to that, don't worry. As I was saying, faith has powers here in Rashemen. And I thought myself to be invulnerable. Immortal. With beliefs like these, I was bound to become a spirit after I die. And I did, but soon after that something begun to pull me to enter the city. As you can guess..well, as someone with an IQ above 7 can guess, it was the Forge. As a spirit, I entered the temple of Myrkul and got trapped in a mass of souls. And after that, I think you know the tale."

"So I could doom someone..lets say Gann, to an endless zombified existence of pain and hollowness just by believing he can't die?"

"Hmm..yes, I think you can. But it has to be a strong belief anyway."

"Well..wow. Now I know what to do if he tries to enter my dreams again. But about your story.. I expected something more..heroic. With dragons and maidens and stuff."

"Silly little gi.. he tried to tell her. But stupid people are unpredictable and Cayla had had enough talking for one day, so she kissed him, using his horns as handles. And she would've continued with something more rash and aggressive, but got interrupted by a wave of energy. She could've sworn she could feel it, taste it..and it had the scent and flavor of death and decay.

"What just happened?" she asked him, pretending not to notice his horrified expression.

"Do..do you remember what you said about Gann and a tentacled monster?"

"So you're saying that he's entered the world..um..the cage of the local ancient god H..Hm .. tell me how is that pronounced again?

"H'mq'harkf'tyfd."

"I..see. And if we don't get him out fast he's going to get killed?"

"Yes."

"You know..now that I think of it, we're not in a hurry. Maybe before we go to rescue him we could drink a cup of tea, play some Monopoly, discuss our relationship..stuff like that."

She had uttered the magic word: "relationship". With shivers running across his spine and a furious blush, he blurted out:

"We should get him out! NOW!"

"Fine, fine. Just chill." She patted his broad and rather purplish shoulders, as if to calm him down. "What's the worst that could happen?"

"Your friend could die and then join the Many."

"Oh..

"Yeah, 'oh'. Now do you see why we should get him out?"

"Perhaps. But how can we exactly?"

"It's rather simple. All you need to do is to think of your friend, then of us and imagine us moving towards him."

"One..did I mishear you or did you just say "us"? She said with a wicked grin across her face, one hand on his back.

"Err..no?"

"Spoilsport." Sadly enough, she expected him to fight back, protest a little so she could tease him and see him blush, because Cayla thought him to be cute when blushing. She had this behavior as a habit, because she could do it mechanically and no brain-cells were required for it.

So she imagined them, then that shaman and then..she felt lighter..before she landed on solid ground and her perfect nose hit the floor.

The Many usually don't travel like that. Most of the souls can't do this, but as their Mistress, Cayla had power over them - her own little heaven when she was ubiquitous. Another reason for the lack of traveling is that the place that one soul of the Many inhabits is completely different from the habitat of another. So if, lets say, Malvor the Fiend preferred mysterious places with the lack of a floor underneath him, the ancient and mysterious tentacled monster with an unpronounceable name preferred his haven to look like a giant, abandoned temple, located in a jungle.

Behind one moss-covered column, Gann was hiding from something. They weren't sure what was he hiding from, but at least they could guess. The cages of the Many aren't exactly crowded.

And then they saw it. Floating around the columns and stairways, a deformed mass with octopus-like features appeared not to notice them at all.

"He looks a little bit like you, you know?" Cayla told her puppy. She wasn't trying to make a joke – people like her usually don't have a sense of humor.

"What? I have no idea what you're talking about! He is slimy, has tentacles and is covered with rotting flesh!"

"No need to get so defensive, hon. In real life, you too have gooey tentacles and long, skinny claws that are covered by rotting dead skin. Not to mention that you have the habit of drifting in the air with the grace of a wet towel – just like him..err, it. Also, your breath smells."

"But that's because the Many are undead! I'm supposed to be like that!" Being angry at her, the demon didn't acknowledge the fact Cayla used two sophisticated sentences one after another.

"So is he, I guess."

When she started walking towards Gann (without paying any thoughts to what she was doing. It was more of an instinct that the pure desire to help him.) she could've sword she heard the half-fiend murmuring.

".and my breath doesn't smell. Stupid human."

Before she could answer that, the shaman noticed her. He was kneeling before that, back propped up on a column, but when he recognized her he stood up with palms on his knees and ran to her. Gann's face was flushed, something not exactly pleasant to look upon when one's skin is blue, and his clothes were mostly torn apart(in a manner that made him look even more charming and not like a dirty, grubby peasant who has just returned from cleaning the pig's den, mind you).

"You've got to help me! It's..it's..it's after me!" Gannayev screamed, his fingers getting a tight grip on her wrists.

"What's after you?" Cayla asked, a clueless expression painted on her face.

Her slave, the demon-spawn, had forgotten about the way normal people think. Things like annoyance and happiness were distant to him, all of them drowning under the sea of primal hate that is so typical for all undead species. But now he was really annoyed at the stupid questions those two mortals were asking and he had a good reason for that. They were just so..pointless, because the answers were right in front of them! There were only the three of them and the ancient god that were inside the cage, so who could really be chasing Gannayev if not the floating pile of tentacles? Besides, screaming would just draw him to them.

But he didn't bother to speak that aloud, because he'd drive some sort of twisted pleasure by watching them deal with the god later.

And then..suddenly a tentacle grabbed Gannayev's foot. It was a rather stupid thing to do, because there were areas one could grapple more successfully and the victim couldn't free itself so easily. But the shaman showed a specific lack of intellect again and didn't fight back; instead he tried to grab something on the floor in order to pull himself away from the monster. Perhaps he was expecting the others to free him. And their jolly little group thought Cayla to be the stupid one..
"What? Why are you looking at me like that, One?" The sorceress asked her 'puppy', ignoring Gann's agonizing screams.

"Nothing. But if he dies, he would join the Many, you know?"

"Well what do you expect me to do?"

"Save him."

"Why?" She asked, the clueless expression stuck on her face again. He sighed - just as he thought there is some hope for her to learn something from he, she seemingly shattered all of his illusions.

"Do you want him to join the Many?" Gritting his teeth and folding his palms in tight fists, the fiend wondered why wasn't he allowed to hit his mistress. Hard. On her oh-so-perfect face. After all, it would be rather edifying for her and very pleasurable for him. So, why not?

"Some help here?" Gann was screaming from the very bottom of his lungs now.„PLEASE?!

"Oh Gann, watch out for the tentacles!" Cayla yelled at him, trying (unsuccessfully) to make fun of him. Well, he really had to watch out for them..

Hey, look! It's the Censorship Panda. Say hello to the Censorship Panda, guys and girls, while Gann is having problems with the nasty monster. Hello, mr. Panda!

"There..there goes my sanity." She barely whispered, shocked from what she had just seen.

"You had one? I've had no idea."

"Very funny, puppy."

"It was, wasn't it?"

"Hmm..yeah, I guess."

After an awkward period of silence, filled with staring, she managed to mumble:

"He seems to be enjoying this, right?"

"Well you'd better get him out now, lest he decides he likes our new friend and wants to visit him every now and then."

"I guess you're right. Still, I have one more reason to make fun of him."

"I'm very happy for you, now 'save' him."

Humans these days were perfectly useless, he thought while watching her run into the distance and nuke the giant monster of a god.

"Now what, brave and honorable leader?" Gann asked Cayla, three days after the "Noodle incident", while she was lying next to the shore of Mulsantir river, staring blankly at the sky.

He had been pretending that nothing happened there, lest she decides to make fun of him. So whenever he couldn't afford not to say something to her, he asked things about their mission in order to distract her.

"Well..One says that according to my visions from the magic pool of Whatsthename and the one I had under the giant rock, the Red Woman from my dreams was Akachi's girlfriend. So we must go and check it out." It was fairly simple for her, because she didn't understand a thing from the plan One of Many gave her.

"Go where?"

"To Thay. Prob'ly to Safiya's old school, they're just bound to know something about that. Also, I want to see her."

"Well if you don't want her to turn into a raving lunatic again, I guess you shouldn't bring the Dove."

"Yeah. But Gann, I have something I want to ask you about..

"Oh, is that a beautiful farmer's daughter I see on the other side of the road?"

"Wha..

"I SAID, is that a beautiful and seemingly innocent farmer's daughter I see on the other side of the road?"

"Gann, we're near the river. How could you see someone on the other side of the road when there is no road?"

"Whoops, I meant river. Excuse me while I swim to the other side. It'll probably make me look more dashing, cause my hair looks good when I'm wet."

With that, he jumped into the water. So, their next destination was going to be Thay and then preferably someplace quiet and without any hagspawn there.

Without having any seer-like powers, Cayla could predict that her future will involve lots of walking. As always.

OK, I lied about the tentacles. But Gann deserves all of this.