"I'm waking up to ash and dust
I wipe my brow and I sweat my rust
I'm breathing in the chemicals
I'm waking up, I feel it in my bones
Enough to make my system blow
Welcome to the new age, to the new age..."
Fidelius lay sprawled in the sand of the riverbank like a child's discarded doll. Among the charred corpses and assorted organometallic debris scattered across this ravaged stretch of land, he dreamt uneasy dreams.
The nautiloid's massive tentacle descended upon him, again and again. One moment he was walking at Eldriss's side down the streets of Baldur's Gate, and in the next instant a shadow washed over them and the panicked screams began. The tentacle was just there , out of nowhere. Del tried to throw himself in front of Eldriss, but the massive trunk of flesh whipped just past him as his master bore the brunt of the blow. Del saw their elven disguise flicker and fade as the blood on the cracked masonry shifted from crimson to silver mid-splatter.
The tentacle's second blow shattered the adjacent building entirely, and Del was still scrambling to his feet as Eldriss disappeared into the black hole it had become. Del shrieked wordlessly, reaching out toward the ruin, as he felt the psychic connection to his master – something that had been there as long as he could remember, as natural as a dog's well-worn collar, - shudder and stretch like a rubber band before snapping entirely.
And then reality stuttered, and the dream began again. Eldriss was there, and Del was so glad to see them, but before he could say a word of warning the tentacle descended again.
Tragic, yet fascinating, a voice whispered, somehow intelligible over the sounds of mass hysteria and Del's own anguish. Such devotion to one who has used you so callously. But it's time to move forward now, and cease dwelling on the past. Open your eyes and begin.
Del awoke abruptly, the afternoon sun searing his retinas as he went from nightmarish dreams to awful reality. The debris still smoked around him, a twisted mass of flesh and metal. He got to his feet slowly, still feeling oddly unmoored from the waking world, and checked himself over for injuries. Del was amazed to note that nothing seemed to be broken. Aside from a variety of minor cuts and bruises, there was only the headache he'd had since the nautiloid, which hadn't been done any favors by the blow he'd suffered during the descent.
A bit further down the beach, he saw a slight figure similarly struggling to its feet. It looked like Shadowheart… How had she survived the crash? How had he, for that matter?
Del waved and started toward her, glad to see at least something or someone familiar in this bizarre landscape. It was indeed his fellow castaway. Her clothes were torn and streaked in soot, and her hair was even more disheveled than it had been aboard the nautiloid, but she looked similarly relieved to see him.
"I can't believe we're both still alive," Shadowheart said as she reached Del, echoing his own thoughts. "I thought we were done for, but someone or something caught us before we hit the ground. Did you happen to see what it was?"
"No idea. I was knocked out on the way down."
An odd, unreadable expression crossed Shadowheart's face. "Perhaps it was divine intervention."
Del shrugged. Everyone in Faerûn knew the gods existed, but he'd never prayed as far as he could remember since the folks at home weren't exactly big on religion. "Well, we're here now. What should we do?"
"Look for a healer, I guess. Sooner rather than later, since I doubt these tadpoles were shaken out of our heads by the fall."
Ah damn, for one blessed moment he had forgotten about the tadpole. But now that Shadowheart mentioned it, it decided to make itself known again through an odd squirming sensation in his head. How long had he been unconscious on the beach? He knew the process of ceremorphosis took about seven days, but had never witnessed it personally and couldn't remember when the first symptoms were supposed to appear.
Del nodded his assent – it was critical to find a healer - and the two of them started walking despite not knowing where they were or which way they were going. The river they had landed near was a large one, with swiftly running water and a bank so far they could hardly make out details on the other side.
As they made their way further down the beach, they saw corpses of illithids and humanoids alike, some from the ship and some whose lives must have been ended by its untimely descent from the sky.
As they passed by a section of the nautiloid's shattered hull, Del felt a sudden urge to investigate more of the wreckage. It was a strange, insistent curiosity, almost as if something in the wrecked ship was pulling him toward it. Motioning for Shadowheart to accompany him, he followed the odd sense of attraction until he came upon an injured illithid pinned to the ground by a twisted mass of metal.
Del knew it was a follower of the Absolute, but he couldn't help but feel sympathy for the trapped creature. It was awful to see one of them brought so low, lying in the dirt and dependent on the care of another to survive. Del knelt before it, and for a moment Eldriss's face was superimposed on the one before him. He leaned closer, bowing his head…
"You idiot, what are you DOING?"
Shadowheart's voice pulled him back to reality just as her hands grasped his shoulders and yanked him backwards away from the illithid.
The eyes of the dying creature now radiated pure malice, enraged at its plans being foiled but too weak to enthrall both of them at once. Del cringed as the waves of its hate washed over him. He was disgusting. A pitiful excuse for a thrall. Couldn't even save his own master, and now he wouldn't atone for his sins by helping Sluask of the Absolute…
Defy the Absolute.
"N-no," Del stuttered. "I can't help you. I won't."
He braced himself for a mind blast, but before it could come, Shadowheart's dagger flashed down and stabbed the illithid directly through the skull, closing those glowing orange eyes forever.
Del sagged in relief as Shadowheart wiped silver blood from her blade. "Oh," was all he could say as he blinked up at the disgusted face of his savior. "Thanks. Guess that's twice now you've saved me from doing something stupid."
The half-elf just shook her head at him. "So far, you've been nothing but a liability. I hope that was just regular mind control – ha! As if there is such a thing - and not the first sign of the tadpole feeling sympathy for its own."
"I don't think I feel any different," Del replied. It was true – even his headache was improving. "I don't know when I was infected , but I think we have a few hours before these tadpoles really start taking over."
"Hours? Gods damn it!" Shadowheart cursed. She had clearly been under the impression that the timeline was longer. "All the better reason to keep looking for a healer."
As they continued their journey down the beach, Del's mind swarmed with unpleasantly complicated thoughts. Did a mere tadpole count as illithid for the sake of the command that prevented him from harming one? If it came to it, would Del even be able to consent to having it removed? He would be killing a child of a race far more worthy than his own, but he couldn't allow his body to be taken over in service of an enemy elder brain, especially one so twisted as the Absolute.
Oh, if only there was a way to get to Oryndoll, to raise the newborn in the company of his own colony… But the subterranean city was hundreds of miles away, and there was no way of reaching it within a week. Del sighed, massaging his temples. He wished someone else was there to make decisions for him. If it wasn't for Shadowheart, he'd probably still be sitting there on the beach, or lying in the wreckage as a brainless husk as that illithid rejoined its fellows.
"Copper for your thoughts?" Shadowheart asked beside him some time later. He hesitated, unsure how to explain the turmoil roiling in his skull. Luckily for him, however, the two of them suddenly noticed a sight so strange that all thoughts of a reply were forgotten. Dead ahead of them on the path lay a large stone marked with glowing violet sigils. That was already unusual, but the strangest sight of all was a man's hand protruding directly out of the stone amongst the symbols.
"Help!" called a voice from... inside the rock? "A hand, please?"
Del hesitated for a moment, then shrugged and grasped the hand that extended from the portal. He pulled, hard, and with an odd popping noise an entire human body came free of the stone. The person Del had rescued turned out to be a brown-haired man in purple robes who lay winded for a moment, then clambered to his feet.
"I'm Gale Dekarios," he introduced himself with a flourish, extending his hand. "My apologies, I'm usually better at this whole traveling through portals thing."
Del gaped at the proffered hand for a second before remembering that in many cultures the polite thing to do was to shake it.
"My name is Del, of..." He paused, remembering Eldriss instructing him not to tell surface dwellers where they were from. Particularly not well-educated surface dwellers, as this one appeared to be. "Just Del."
Shadowheart came closer as well, since unlike Del she had been keeping a healthy distance from the stone with the hand sticking out of it. "Ignore Just Del, he's a bit soft in the head. I'm Shadowheart."
"You some kind of wizard or something?" Del asked, motioning at the man's robes as well as the portal he had come from. Magic had been forbidden in Oryndoll, and Del had never seen a real live wizard before. He'd expected someone more intimidating, but the reality was a bit of a disappointment.
"Indeed! The Wizard of Waterdeep, at your service."
If anyone from home knew he was traveling with a wizard, he'd be in for a whipping - or worse. But, Del mused, one of the very few silver linings to his present situation was that without his link to Eldriss, the Colony likely didn't even know where he was right now, let alone who he was traveling with. And what they didn't know wouldn't hurt them...
"Say, I remember you from the nautiloid!" Gale suddenly exclaimed. "The mind flayer ship, I mean - that's what they're called. I hate to bring up an uncomfortable topic, but I wonder... Were you also a recipient of a rather unwelcome insertion in the ocular region? Something resembling a slug, perhaps?"
"The tadpole?" Del asked. "I don't think I was fully conscious when they stuck it in my eye, but I can feel it in my head, wriggling around."
"So, you have an unwelcome guest too. Are you aware that, after a period of excruciating gestation, our little friends here will turn us into mind flayers?"
"I am, actually." Del was beginning to get annoyed at the wizard's self-important tone. If only this Gale fellow knew how much experience he really had with the cause of their current predicament... "And they're called illithids. Mind flayer isn't even the right way to describe them. They eat minds, not flay them."
Gale let out a surprised chuckle. "I see you know your illithids, then. Well, then you must know about ceremorphosis, which is the process of the parasite turning us into one of those things. I assure you, it is to be avoided."
"Well good thing we're planning on avoiding it," Shadowheart said drily. "We're looking for a healer."
"Ah, here I'd hoped you were one of the rare clerics who could handle such a thing," Gale said. Del hadn't even realized the girl was a cleric, since she hadn't said any prayers or mentioned any specific gods. "But as I'm sure you know, they are few and far between. In that case, mind if I join you in your search? A parasite shared is a parasite halved."
"I... don't think it works that way," Del said. "But sure, come with us. Not that we know where we're going or anything. Just... warn us before doing any wizardly things, okay? I'm not really used to magic."
Shadowheart made a little hmph sound at Del unilaterally deciding to add a member to their party, but didn't protest aloud in front of the wizard.
The ragtag group continued on along a dirt path near the bank of the river, their duo having become a trio. Gale rambled incessantly, seemingly determined to fill every silent moment with his inane chatter as the sun grew lower in the sky.
"I wonder if Tara is looking for me. She's my cat, you see, or rather – a tressym."
"I think we've crashed on the banks of the river Chionthar, between Elturel and Baldur's Gate. I was snatched back in Waterdeep, but it would be nice to stop by the Gate on my way home..."
"I'm not sure if it's all this shock and exertion, or if I'm starting to feel feverish. Can someone feel my forehead? Do I have a fever yet?"
Del was about to assure the wizard, for the hundredth time, that he would realize pretty quickly if he was turning into an illithid... But then his attention was drawn away by a movement in the brush up ahead. The rustling bushes along the path parted to reveal a white-haired high elf dressed like Del's idea of what someone from the nobility would wear.
"You! Sir!" called the pale elf. He seemed to be addressing Del directly, ignoring the others in their group. "You look like a strapping strong lad. I've got one of those brain things cornered back here. You can kill it, can't you?"
"An intellect devourer? From the ship?" Shouldn't hurt you unless you hurt it first." Del said, not realizing that the brains aboard the ship had only been friendly because they assumed all the passengers were thralls.
"Are you sure this is a good idea?" Shadowheart asked as Del followed the elf to get a closer look.
Del's eyes narrowed as he looked deeper into the tangled brush toward the spot the elf had indicated. There didn't seem to be anything lurking there, nor in the trees beyond. He turned back toward the elf in relief, which turned out to be short-lived as he saw the white-haired man was now holding a dagger.
"Whoa there," Del cautioned, holding up his hands. "Put that thing down. What do you want with me?"
"Information. I saw you scuttling about on the ship while the rest of us were stuck in those pods. You're in league with them, aren't you? Those tentacled freaks."
"I am not," Del said indignantly. "Those Absolutists kidnapped me and their damn nautiloid smashed my friend into a building!"
The elf didn't look convinced by Del's little speech. Gale and Shadowheart, drawn by the raised voices, followed Del into the trees. Del quickly looked them over, trying to determine how helpful his companions would be if this confrontation got violent. Gale seemed pretty useless in a fight – he looked appalled that someone would dare point a knife at his new associate. Shadowheart, by contrast, seemed to be preparing some kind of magic, muttering something under her breath that sounded like a prayer. So it looked like she was a cleric after all.
Del grabbed the hammer he had looted from the corspe of a workman on the beach, prepared for a fight... But then the pale elf's face twisted in sudden pain. With a lurch, Del felt their minds connect involuntarily, and he saw the elf prowling through darkened city streets. Unfortunately, the connection went both ways, and Del found himself accidentally transmitting his own confused jumble of memories and impressions.
He felt the elf watching him, or rather his memory-self, as he stepped out into the dimly-lit arena and saluted a glowing crystal that hovered in the stands. The memory stuttered, and suddenly he was staring into a lizard-man's glazed-over eyes as his arm drove a blade through its guts again and again... An addictive euphoria ran though him as he fell to his knees on the blood-slicked stone, then raised an arm in victory... The moment shiftd again, and Del was leaning against a shadowy figure, its moist touch soothing the stinging slashes on his shoulder...
"What was that?" gasped the other. "What's going on?"
"Uh, I think our tadpoles are making us hallucinate," Del tried, and surprisingly the elf took the bait.
"The worm, of course. That explains things." The elf smirked, his red eyes twinkling in the sunlight. "And to think, I was ready to decorate the ground with your innards."
Del found himself falling into the nervous banter he had once engaged in before with other fighters, prisoners and thralls who he harbored no particular animosity towards but who he may soon find himself slaughtering all the same. "No hard feelings. If the roles were reversed, I might be seeing yours."
The pale elf and the half-drow shook hands. Del was getting the hang of them now, these greetings among the free peoples of the surface.
"My name's Astarion. I was in Baldur's Gate when the nautiloid snatched me."
"Del. Funny enough, that's where they got me too."
"Really?" Astarion quirked an eyebrow. "You don't strike me as a Baldurian."
"Are we really going to ignore the fact that this man just threatened you?" Shadowheart cut in, glaring at Astarion. "We should get out of here and leave him to rob and scare some other poor travelers."
"Wait, Shadowheart. He's infected like us. The parasite let us read each other's minds just now. Maybe we can find a cure together."
"A cure?" Astarion asked with interest. "For those worms they put in our heads? Filthy little creatures."
"And deadly, if we don't get moving soon." Gale clapped his hands together. "I, for one, am not enthusiastic about bringing you along, but neither am I excited about sprouting tentacles. Shall we talk while we walk? We've been wandering the banks of the Chionthar, but there should be a proper road somewhere up ahead that should lead us to a settlement eventually."
"Tentacles?" Astarion asked with a look of horror. "You mean to say, these beasties will turn us into mind flayers ? Ah yes, of course," his tone turned to bitterness. "Why wouldn't it make me into a monster?" He turned to follow the rest of them, looking oddly subdued.
Three had become four, but even after their group found what a sign proclaimed to be the Risen Road, they didn't see another living soul for hours. The sun was fading below the horizon, but Del was hesitant to find shelter for the night, since the symptoms of ceremorphosis might begin at any moment. Eventually, though, it became simply too dark to go on. Shadowheart spotted the ruin of an old temple just off the path, and went off to gather firewood while Astarion searched the interior of the temple for anything else they could use to set up a makeshift campsite.
Frustrated by his companions' insistence on stopping, Del briefly considered going on and leaving the group behind. He could see in the dark far better than the rest of them, after all – except, maybe, for Astarion, who seemed to have unusually good darkvision for a surface elf. But he was just as exhausted as the rest of them, and a million little aches and pains were beginning to make themselves known. He had fallen out of the sky and then spent the rest of the day walking, after all. And, though he hated to admit it, Del was afraid to strike out on his own. That would involve making decisions, not to mention navigating the unfamiliar world of the Sword Coast and the surface in general. A tall order for someone who had spent his entire life in the Underdark in service to another.
Del did try, briefly, to raise an objection. "Are you sure we should have stopped?" he asked Gale once Shadowheart and Astarion had gone. "Can we even afford to? I'd hate to think what shape we might be in come morning."
Gale seemed to be deep in thought, staring off into a darkened corner. "Come here, why don't you? Humor me for a moment." Del did as the wizard asked, sitting down on the stone floor beside him. Gale continued. "Ceremorphosis... What does that make you think of?" His tone was oddly detached, pedantic - as if he was lecturing a hall of students instead of discussing his own upcoming fate.
"Well, besides the obvious... I guess it's something that should be happening already," Del said slowly, realizing this as he spoke. "Wait a second. We must've gotten these tadpoles this morning, if not last night. And now it's night again."
"Spot on!" Gale said, as if he was a proud teacher and Del was his star student. "I've managed to recall the usual timeline for the transformation. Day one: fever and memory loss. Day two: hallucinations and graying skin. Day three: hair loss and blood leaking from all orifices. Need I go on?"
"And you said I know a lot about illithids?" Del was impressed despite himself. "You're a walking encyclopedia."
"But it's true what you said, though," Gale continued. "My point is, my temperature remains normal, and I don't think I'm missing any memories. No hallucinations yet, either. Is the same true for you?"
Del nodded. "Feeling pretty good, all things considered." He decided not to mention the strange melding of minds he'd experienced with Shadowheart and Lae'zel aboard the ship, as well as with Astarion later. Those weren't actually hallucinations, were they? More like a series of strange impressions. And the others involved had shared the experience, so it wasn't like it was all in Del's own head.
"Good to hear," Gale said. "So both of our transformations have been delayed, for whatever reason. That's definitely something to sleep on, since it may actually be safe to go to sleep. Perhaps we can find a healer in the morning."
Soon enough, Shadowheart brought back firewood and Astarion returned with some old blankets and bedrolls he'd found deeper in the temple.
Del laid a bedroll by the fire, but sleep did not come easy. Every time he closed his eyes, he found himself reaching for the mental thread that connected him to Eldriss, only to stop short as he remembered it had been severed. He tortured himself for what felt like hours – was he really so sure that his master was dead? The last he saw, they had been crushed by a tentacle and thrown into a collapsing building. The chances of death were high, but not certain.
What was he even doing here? As Gale had said, their ceremorphosis was delayed for some unknown reason, but probably not stalled entirely. He was on borrowed time here, and he didn't know if he should be spending it searching for his master or trying to get back to Oryndoll.
Del groaned. How did free humans and elves and tieflings and whatnot live like this, day after day?
He emerged from his bedroll with a sigh. "Gale…" he whispered at the huddled shape next to him. "Are you still awake?"
The wizard rolled over to face him. "More or less... Not used to sleeping rough like this. Is anything the matter?"
"Can't sleep. Even after our talk earlier, I just feel like we're wasting so much time here. Do you have some kind of long-range teleportation spell?" He hated to ask for a magical solution to his problems, but perhaps the use of magic would be forgiven if it led him to get home sooner.
"Unfortunately, no. My capacity to channel the Weave has been decreased by… an unfortunate event in recent circumstances. And this tadpole certainly hasn't improved things. I could teleport you, but only somewhere within my line of sight, which isn't very far right now. But why do you ask? It's not like where we know where the closest healer is located."
"I need to get back to Baldur's gate, to see if my m- my friend is really dead. And after that, I want to go home. I need to make it back there before the parasite takes over."
"I wish the same," the wizard sighed. "What I wouldn't give to get back to my tower in Waterdeep. There might be something in the library there that could help us, something in some book that I missed… And even if not, at least I could say goodbye to my mother and Tara."
Del nodded sympathetically.
"What about you?" the wizard continued. "Where is home for you? And is there anyone awaiting your return?"
Del should have known that people would start asking about his background eventually, and he mentally kicked himself for not being more prepared to field these sorts of questions.
"I don't really want to talk about it. That's not so strange, is it? It's not like Shadowheart is an open book either. But I'll tell you this much – I lost everything I cared about back in Baldur's Gate." Despite his effort to stay composed, his voice cracked a little on that last line.
"I'm sorry," Gale said genuinely. "I didn't mean to bring up something that would cause you pain."
"It's okay," Del sniffed. "I just don't know what to do without them…"
"If you don't mind me asking," Gale said gently. "How far is your homeland? Even if I can't teleport you, I'd be glad to help you get back there any way I can. Is it anywhere along the road to Baldur's Gate?"
"Too far to get to within a week," Del sighed. "I know we're not changing yet, but I don't really trust our luck to hold. If anything starts happening, we'll end up sick and helpless long before it really gets going. Baldur's gate is only halfway to where I live, and that's not counting the journey underground… Ugh!" Del groaned, burying his face in his hands. "What am I supposed to do ?"
He could feel the boundaries of his mind stretching thin, the parasite in his head reaching out to Gale's and inadvertently radiating Del's helplessness and pain. Del felt like... Like the shattered old man he had seen once at a performance with Eldriss. The human had kneeled unrestrained in the stocks, resigned to his impending fate. The man had just been told that all captured family and friends had been killed already – the knowledge imparted at the very last moment for maximum shock value. But the man had already suspected as much, and tears rolled down his weathered cheeks as the illithid on stage intoned, Now we will sup on a truly exquisite despair.
Del pulled himself out of the vision through sheer force of will, then slapped his own face for good measure. Gale stared at him in alarm, watching the blood rush to Del's scarred cheek.
Oh, shit... he thought. Did Gale see any of that?
"This was a bad idea," Del bit out. "TaIking about feelings while this tadpole is in our heads. And I don't know what that was just now, so don't even ask. Thanks for chatting, but I think I'm going back to bed now."
He stalked back to his bedroll and hid as deep inside it as the old material allowed. Maybe if he closed his eyes, he could pretend he was in his bed back home. His own bed, not the mossy one in Eldriss's chambers. Don't think about them. Don't think about them. Don't think. Don't….
At some point, Del's exhaustion got the better of him, and he finally slipped into an uneasy sleep.