"Just ahead there lies a village compromised
By creatures in disguise
Wearing skin of men so they blend right in
But I see right through those guys
I approach in silence
They will not be expecting me
I leap out of the darkness
And slay no less than three
Before my presence is detected
I will have them by the throat
These creatures are no match for me
And they will do as they're told..."
Del and the others had barely reached the borders of the goblin camp when things began to diverge from their plan.
The goblins had left a lone guard stationed near the entrance, but the creature's incompetence actually ended up aiding their cause. The guard was asleep in his perch on a scaffold when Del's party approached, and so they didn't immediately notice him. By the time they did, the guard had already awoken and was preparing to beat the signal drum that would call any remaining goblins left in camp to rally at the gates.
Del had a sudden stroke of inspiration. "Wait!" he called. "We're with the Absolute!" His head throbbed once in warning, but the statement slipped past his internal filters since it was so obviously a lie.
The goblin glared down at them. "Oi, are you? Prove it then! Where's your brand?"
Brand? They had a brand to identify their followers? Del thought quickly. "Here it is!" He pointed to the markings on his forehead, hoping against hope that the Absolutists marked their followers the same way as Oryndoll marked its favored thralls.
The goblin squinted suspiciously, then clambered down from his guard post to take a closer look.
"That don't look like no brand I've ever seen. Not one of Priestess Gut's, that's for sure."
Had his gamble been all for nothing? The rest of the group was now staring at Del's forehead too, and for what? Lae'zel in particular was looking at Del as if she was only seeing him now for the first time... Could she recognize the illithids' written language?
As the goblin drew closer, Del heard the voice of the Emperor inside his head, even though he was awake and standing in broad daylight. "You have the power," he whispered. "Don't be afraid to use it."
"We're with the Absolute," Del repeated again. "We've been chosen."
This time, there was a strange sense of power behind his words. He winced a bit as he said the words -who did he think he was, to command another being like that? - but it worked anyway.
"Ah!" The goblin exclaimed. "Pardon sir, didn't realize you was a True Soul. Should've known, only other drow here is the boss lady."
"True what?" Shadowheart mouthed in the background.
"Many of us're away, taking care of those druids. The boss lady's with them, and our own Dror Ragzlin. But I can take you to Priestess Gut, I can."
"That would be wonderful," Astarion took over from there. "We have urgent business with her; True Souls only."
And so they were allowed to walk freely into the belly of the beast.
Del had once been taken to visit a goblin farm, and found the creatures to be barely more than animals. This camp of wild goblins both affirmed and denied his initial impression of the species, depending on where he happened to look.
Crude? Yes. Filthy? For sure. But, at the same time, there was a society here, with surprisingly complex dwellings and elements of art and culture. They even had a bard for entertainment, though the man was a human who'd clearly been captured on some raid or other. The bard followed them with his eyes, silently pleading for rescue, as their group walked past. Del whispered "Later," as he allowed himself to be led deeper into the camp.
"Nice performer you've got there," Astarion noted. "Keeping many other prisoners these days?"
"This'n, the bear, and that guy who told us where the druids live. Little torture loosened 'is tongue right up!" The goblin chuckled.
It turned out that their priestess resided in what had one been a temple of Selune, at least according to Shadowheart, who had many choice words to share about the moon goddess.
With the guard acting as an escort, Del and his group were granted an audience with the priestess. He hoped Astarion or Shadowheart had thought of some clever pretense about why they had come to meet with her, because he found himself drawing a blank.
It turned out that the whole of their brilliant plan was to ask the priestess for help with tadpole removal. At first, Priestess Gut didn't know what they were talking about, but then Del felt her mind, aided by its own tadpole, meet his own and recoil in disgust.
"You lot have been infected with something... A little squid-worm wiggled its way into your skulls, didn't it?"
"Exactly," Del said, forgetting for a moment that he wasn't supposed to be the one doing the talking here. "A tadpole, just like the one you have. Do you know any way to get rid of it?"
Gut's eyes narrowed into slits. "I've got a what, now?"
"You must know," Del continued, completely missing the silent warnings from the others to just shut up already. "Isn't that what a True Soul is? Someone with the parasite?"
"Stop spouting heresy! I was chosen by the Absolute herself at the top of Moonrise Towers!" Uh oh, the priestess didn't look very happy with them all of a sudden...
"The Absolute? What did it look like?"
"Beautiful, powerful. The sword in the storm and the storm itself. As you should very well know, if you're a True Soul!" The goblin paused, her nostrils flaring, as she shot them a challenging look.
"Okay, okay, I get it," Del said placatingly. For a moment it looked like they might manage to avoid a confrontation, and then he just had to run his damn mouth again. "Don't worry, that's not the strangest thing they've made someone believe. I once heard of a woman who thought an illithid was her husband!"
He physically clapped his hands over his mouth once he saw the appalled looks on his companions' faces, but it was already too late.
"You think me stupid, drow." The priestess's voice was dangerously soft. "You say I'm deluded about the nature of the Absolute. So now, prepare to feel Her true power!"
Without warning, the worm in Del's head spasmed so hard he stumbled, and then the overwhelming force of authority forced him to his knees. It felt the same as what had allowed him to tell the guard to let them enter, but overwhelmingly stronger.
Del prostrated himself on the bone-strewn floor, muttering nonsensical apologies under his breath. Around him, his companions were similarly affected, though to varying degrees. Astarion knelt, looking mutinous. Shadowheart stumbled, resisting for a moment, and then fell. Only Lae'zel remained standing, just barely, though her eyes streamed tears of pain and effort.
"Yes, children, bow to me. Hear my voice. Obey my command."
Del groaned, feeling as though his ears were about to start bleeding even though the voice made no sound outside his own head.
"My power grows. My forces gather. The reckoning draws near."
And then suddenly, the pressure became less overwhelming. Del lifted his head a few inches to see that the many-sided Githyanki artifact had wiggled its way out of Shadowheart's pocket and was hovering in the air in front of them. It throbbed with energy, giving off a pulsing orange glow.
"Don't listen to the Absolute. I will not let it control you."
Was that... The Emperor? In all the turmoil of that morning, Del hadn't quite made the connection between the illithid visitor in his dreams and the artifact that they carried, but now he couldn't unsee it.
Slowly, the pain ebbed, and Del and the others were able to stagger to their feet. But Priestess Gut had used their temporary incapacitation to summon allies; three more goblins had appeared, armed with long and wicked knives. And she wasn't done yet...
"Oi!" Gut called. "Ragzlin! You were right about the rogue True Souls."
"Oh, don't tell me he's here," Astarion swore. "I thought he was out raiding the grove!"
"Change of plans," the priestess said with a broad toadlike grin. "We've heard of your little band, see. Sent the raiders out under Minthara, and Dror Ragzlin stayed here in case you decided to pay us a visit."
Dror Ragzlin turned out to be a hobgoblin, twice as large and vicious as the smaller goblins he led. But he and Gut were expecting Del's group to be cowed by the voice of the Absolute, and were surprised to see how much fight was still left in them.
The next few minutes were something of a bloody mess. Del dodged the opening salvo from Dror Ragzlin, only to run right into the path of a smaller goblin's knife, leaving him bleeding from a long gash across his arm. He retaliated by smashing his new warhammer down on the offending creature's back, putting it down in a single blow.
One goblin down. Just the other two and the guard and the chief and the priestess to go...
No matter what personal feelings Del had toward her, Lae'zel was worth her weight in gold in the fight that followed. She took down two of the remaining goblins herself, while Shadowheart and the priestess tried to out-cleric each other and Del dodged hit after hit from Dror Ragzlin.
Finally, the goblin chief overextended himself, leaving a momentary opening in his guard that Del took advantage of. He felt his hammer meet the side of the hobgoblin's head with a satisfying crack, and Ragzlin dropped like a sack of potatoes.
Ugh, a whole section of his skull was pulverized. This was why Del never liked to use hammers in the arena... But it was the best weapon that tiefling smith had, what with its enchantment to increase the chances of a lethal blow.
Sure enough, the hobgoblin was dead. Around him, his companions had also finished their fight. The goblins lay dead around them, and their priestess was gasping her last. As Del watched in simultaneous disgust and fascination, a sluglike creature wormed its way out of the dying goblin's ear. It was a deep indigo color, as smooth and slimy as the illithid it was destined to become. The circlet of sharp lamprey-like teeth, too, hinted at its true potential.
"Those are the things in our heads?" Astarion said, sounding like he was about to gag. "Quick, Del, step on it. I don't want to look at it anymore."
Del, however, was marching to the beat of a different drum – or rather, a different voice in his head.
"Use the tadpole," the Emperor whispered. "Absorb its power."
"But how?" Del wondered. "I don't want to stick another one of those in my eye, especially not in front of everyone..."
"Just hold it and concentrate. Reach out to it using the power gained from your own tadpole."
Del did so, feeling the creature in his own brain reach out to the slug he carried.
"Del? What are you doing?" Shadowheart demanded, her voice rising in concern – but he barely noticed.
The boundaries between his own mind, that of his parasite, and the tadpole he held began to blur. He was standing in the shattered temple he was nestled in the dark and warm he was clasped in a predator's clutches...
Astarion caught Del as he stumbled, surprised by the sudden surge of power that ran through him as the mental barriers collapsed entirely. "What in the hells?" the vampire cried out in alarm.
Del's hand opened, letting the tadpole fall to the ground. It lay limp on the bloodied floor, all the life wrung out of it. Inside Del's head, he basked in the Emperor's approval as if it was the light of a long-forgotten sun.
In the real world, however, Shadowheart and Lae'zel shot Del matching looks of disgust and horror.
"Illithid filth!" Lae'zel spat. "You touch it. You commune with it. Is this what the dream visitor wants from us all?"
"It was bad enough getting stuck with just one of those tadpoles," Shadowheart scoffed. "But now you're going ahead and inflicting more upon yourself? What you did was better than actually putting another worm in your eye, I guess. But still - ugh ."
Why had they all reacted so badly?
"I figured it was worth a shot, at least," Del said defensively. "The dream visitor was talking to me just now, telling me what to do. Didn't you all hear it?"
The rest of his companions shook their heads.
"How are you feeling, though?" Astarion asked. "If that thing gave you some kind of power, and if you're not in any more danger of sprouting tentacles than the rest of us... then maybe tomorrow I'll give it a go myself."
"I don't know... Too early to tell. But I don't feel sick like we all did last night. If anything, I feel better. Stronger, less tired after that tough fight we just had. I'll let you know if anything changes."
They found Halsin in the emptied-out camp, locked in the worg pens with the animals. He was technically an animal at the time, wild-shifted into the shape of a bear, but regained the form of an oddly muscular elf as soon as he saw that Del's group aimed to help him break out of his prison.
The bard, Volo, was also freed, though they had to take down a few more stray goblins to do it. Del could swear that one of the goblins fell over a second before the hammer even touched him, as if the force of his will alone knocked the creature off balance.
And then they set off for the grove in the company of the archdruid, hoping that their companions' battle had gone as well as their own.
They were not disappointed. Of course, there had been a few casualties, but Del was just glad to hear that Gale and Karlach were not among them. Though he'd known these people for less than a tenday, they had been through a lot together, and he felt surprisingly attached to them already. The goblin raiding party was all either dead or scattered, since the last few had fled after archers took down the drow woman leading them.
The druids were elated to see Halsin - all except for Kagha, who did not want to cede her temporary authority over the grove. The Archdruid took her off to speak in private, and returned after some time with an appropriately chastised-looking Kagha dressed in what the other druids whispered were novice's robes. Del was just relieved that things had been smoothed over without any additional bloodshed.
With the transfer of power complete, the druids wanted to give Halsin a few hours to rest after his ordeal in the goblin camp. Instead, he insisted on helping them tend to the wounded and bury the bodies of friend and foe alike.
Del found another tadpole near the corpse of the drow leader. It must have crawled out of her eye or ear after she died, and it was well on its way to death itself but still just barely alive when Del found it. He picked it up and absorbed its power in much the same way he had the first one's. He'd been hoping to do this in private, but was worried that the tadpole would die before he found an excuse to get away from everyone.
Aside from the one incident of possible psionics earlier, he still didn't notice much of a difference, but the euphoric rush it gave him was worth it all the same. He would have to be more careful in the future, though, since his companions once again scoffed and disapproved of the decision. At least this time Lae'zel was otherwise occupied.
While everyone else was distracted by Del's antics with the tadpole, he noticed Gale lean over and slide a tarnished ring off a dead goblin's hand. A deep purple glow emanated from the ring and then the wizard's chest, but it was gone before Del could ask about or draw anyone's attention to it. Maybe this was something to do with that orb Gale had mentioned? He did say he needed to absorb magic sometimes to keep the thing fed. If that was the case, then it was good that Del hadn't mentioned anything to the others per their mutual arrangement. Gale, of course, was much more subtle than Del had been with the tadpole, and successfully pretended that nothing had even happened. Honestly, Del was a bit jealous.
Toward evening, the bulk of the dirty work was done, and Gale insisted they approach Halsin about removing their parasites. Despite the other druids' relief at the end of the goblin threat, Halsin seemed deep in unpleasant thoughts when they found him. The druid sat on a carved stone bench in the grove's inner sanctum – into which they had been allowed on this special occasion - absentmindedly stroking a giant wolf who laid its head in his lap.
"Maybe this is a bad time," Shadowheart whispered, unable to look away from the enormous animal.
Halsin must have had ears like a wolf himself, because he heard her from across the room. "Nonsense," he said, making an effort to smile as he beckoned them closer. "I'll always have time for the heroes who helped save our grove. Now, what troubles you? It was no coincidence that you found me in that goblin camp, I'd wager. You've been wanting to speak with me all day."
Del hesitated, remembering what the Emperor had said about their tadpoles being both useful and unusually hard to remove. But Gale spoke up instead, explaining their predicament in unnecessarily verbose terms as usual.
"Oak Father preserve you..." For a moment the druid looked even more troubled than before, but then something seemed to occur to him. "You all carry parasites," he mused. "And yet, you are not mind flayers, nor servants of the Absolute. That means there is still hope."
"Hope for our specific tadpoles to get removed?" Astarion asked wryly. "Or is this a more, let us say, abstract kind of hope for the fate of the world in general?"
Halsin sighed. "I've been studying these parasites for some time now, ever since I discovered that the so-called True Souls are infected with them. They are spreading like wildfire, along with the cult of the Absolute, and the two are inextricably linked. Someone is using very powerful magic to modify these tadpoles. I'm sorry to say, I can't undo that magic, which means I can't cure you right now. Trying to remove the tadpoles without breaking the spell would guarantee your deaths."
"So all this was for nothing, then," Shadowheart muttered, her eyes downcast.
"But," the druid continued. "Being unable to cure you right now does not mean I can't help. I didn't find what I was looking for when I was captured by the goblins – a way to remove the tadpole - but I found out where they came from. Moonrise Towers. That must be where these enchantments are placed on them, and it's where you'll find your cure."
"Finally, someone with a good head on their shoulders," the Emperor mused inside Del's head. "I was afraid I would have to stop the druid from digging around in your eye socket with an ice pick, but instead I find myself agreeing with him. You must go to Moonrise and learn more about the cult in order to cut its rot out at the root."
And so, the group left Halsin with more questions than answers, but the druid promised to speak further about their journey to Moonrise Towers the next morning. It was getting late, and half the inhabitants of the grove wanted to get some sleep after the exhausting battle that day. The other half, however, wanted to celebrate.