"This may be the last thing that I write for long
Can you hear me smiling when I sing this song
For you and only you
As I go, remember all the simple things you know
My mind is just a crutch and I still hope
That you will miss me when I'm gone
This is the last song
The hearts start breaking as the year is gone
The dream's beginning and the time rolls on
It seems so surreal, now I sing it
Somehow I knew that it would be this way
Somehow I knew that it would slowly fade
Now I am gone, just try and stop me now..."
"They're gone! He took Scion!" Del yelled from where he still lay on the ground at the edge of the brine pool. Everyone had gathered around him now that the Avatar of Myrkul had fallen, but it was too late to recover their missing companion.
"What happened?" Shadowheart asked as she bent over him. "I wish I could've helped, but I was a bit preoccupied at the moment." Indeed - she'd been the one to strike the final blow against the thing that Ketheric Thorm's death had summoned.
"Gortash knocked Scion out, then they just fucking disappeared! And I couldn't do anything about it…" Del clenched his jaw so hard that he felt something crack, and the small additional pain as he spat out another tooth only fueled his anger further. Scion was his,damn it!
No, he wasn't. The dragonborn was his own person… But that didn't change the fact that Del wanted his friend back.
Del managed to sit up, pushing himself up off the ground with his good hand. "We have to go after them!"
"Alright, easy there. Hold still and let me heal you already!" Shadowheart snapped, pressing her hands to Del's chest as they glowed with a pale blue light. "Damn!" she muttered to herself. "That was the strongest spell I've got left. I can feel the magic working, so why aren't you fully healed?"
Indeed, Del's body still ached terribly, and blood continued to drip from his mouth and nose. But he did feel better than he had a moment ago - the chill from the necrotic magic had gone away, and he felt the swelling in his face subside from where the skeleton had clubbed him.
"It's fine. Just leave me alone," Del huffed, trying to shake her off. "We don't have time for this! We have to get to Baldur's Gate. Save your prayers for someone they can help."
"Look at yourself!" she retorted. "Baldur's Gate is miles away. Do you think you're in any shape to travel?"
"No…" Del admitted. "But it's the tadpole's fault. I'm out of Omeluum's potion, and the Absolute made things worse before it left."
"How do you know that's what this is?" she asked.
In lieu of an answer, Del held up the hand that Gortash had stepped on. The bones of the hand itself had mended, as well as the thumb and first three fingers. But his pinky still stuck out at an odd angle and was far darker in color than the rest of his skin. "Look. Your spell fixed everything… Except for the finger that mind flayers don't have. Same for my teeth." He lisped on the last word, ironically unable to say it properly because he was now missing quite a few of said teeth. "Your magic isn't working right because I'm still tranthforming."
"Perhaps we can still go back to the Underdark…" Gale said. "We could help you. Maybe it still isn't too late to stop your ceremorphosis."
Del groaned. "How am I supposed to get down there? And even if we could stop it, I… don't think I want to. Look at me - I'm dithgusting!" he began to cough violently, bringing up an unpleasant mixture of mucus and blood as if to demonstrate his point. "And…" he said after he recovered a bit. "We need to get to Baldur's Gate. Who knows what Gortash is doing with Scion?"
"You're not disgusting - you're ill, and there's a difference. We won't hold your symptoms against you, no matter how visually unappealing they may be." The wizard smiled sadly. "But I'll admit, this situation is far from ideal. We've lost a companion, failed to destroy the Absolute, and now you are… Maybe I should have…"
"No! Don't go there," Del said fiercely, sensing what the wizard was about to say before he said it. "Your orb would've gotten all of us killed along with the Absolute."
Gale sighed. "You're the sensible one, as always - At least when it comes to others."
Del then proved the second part of Gale's point by trying to stand up, only to collapse back onto the ground as a wave of dizziness washed over him and he nearly fainted.
"Damn it…" he muttered. "You're right, all of you. How am I suppothed to get to Baldur's Gate like this? What do we do now?"
As if in answer to his question, the Astral Prism floated up out of his pocket for the third time that day as the Emperor manipulated the psionic energy within. But this time, there was no clear threat to respond to, so Del and the others were mystified as to what the illithid was doing.
Unlike every other occasion the Emperor had intervened in their affairs, this time the air itself around the Prism began to shimmer. The effect intensified, as if there was some kind of localized heat wave causing a mirage. The air rippled and warped more dramatically, and then a swirling portal opened around the Prism as it hung suspended in midair. Through the slowly enlarging gap in reality, they could all see the rocky void of the Astral Plane.
Del held his breath as a purple-skinned hand reached through the portal, as if to test the waters... And then the Emperor stepped through.
The illithid was even more regal and magnificent in person, towering above everyone in the room as he surveyed them with glowing violet eyes. He wore the same ornate armor and crested cape as he had in the Prism, and Del wondered idly if this clothing was real or if he could still project the illusion of it out in the real world.
"You're really here…" Del said, looking up at him from where he still sat on the ground. "But how?"
"The Absolute is distant now," the Emperor explained. "Its influence is weak enough here that I can spare a moment here without falling under its sway."
"But why join us now?" Shadowheart asked suspiciously. "When you could've helped us in that fight earlier?"
The Emperor gave the cleric a scathing look, not deigning to answer her question. "You must recover the Netherstone from Ketheric's corpse, then set out for Baldur's Gate to obtain the other two stones from the remaining Chosen. Only then will you be able to force the Absolute to submit to your will. This is a time-sensitive matter, but you have correctly deduced that Del will be unable to travel for the next several days."
"I'm fine, really," Del tried to convince the illithid, who instantly saw right through him.
"You cannot go with them, Del. At least, not on the Material Plane in your present condition. It's time to join me inside the Astral Prism."
Del took one last look at his companions as he walked through the portal. If it turned out that the Emperor's gamble with the Astral-touched tadpole hadn't worked as intended, this would be his last time ever seeing them as himself rather than the illithid that would replace him.
Karlach gave him a little wave, flashing him a smile that didn't reach her eyes. Shadowheart seemed depressed, as if she'd resigned herself to the prospect of Del's demise. Astarion was trying to pretend nothing bothered him, but was rather less successful than usual. And… was that the glint of a tear in Gale's eye?
Del found himself looking for Scion, but of course the dragonborn wasn't there.
He stumbled, feeling his legs turn to jelly and give away beneath him as the Emperor half-carried, half-levitated him the rest of the way.
The world inside the Astral Prism looked no different in reality from how Del had seen it in dreams, but he himself was different. In dreams, the Prism had always proved to be a respite from whatever ailed him. But now that the battle with Ketheric was over, the last vestiges of strength had left his body. His head pounded, an ache gnawed at the pit of his stomach, and each limb felt as if it weighed a ton.
The Emperor levitated Del through the Astral void until they alighted upon a flat stretch of rock that may have once been a pelvis or scapula. The longer Del spent in this plane of existence, the more he was convinced that every stone they trod upon was some bone fragment of an enormous fossilized skeleton, though he couldn't begin to imagine what kind of being it may have once belonged to.
Though the Emperor set him down gently, Del couldn't help a wince at the hardness of the stone.
The Emperor's brow furrowed, and he held up a long-fingered hand. "Wait a moment. I believe there's something I can do."
A look of concentration came over his face as two of his tentacles twined themselves together. He lifted a hand, as if to call something into being, and Del felt a rug materialize underneath him. It was the softest, plushest thing that he had ever laid upon, and he marveled at the realism of the illusion. He stretched out on it and closed his eyes, relishing the softness for a moment - until a sudden wave of pain twisted his insides.
He curled in on himself, unable to think of anything but the cramps that wrenched their way through him.
A nonsensical thought flashed through his mind – was this what giving birth felt like to a woman? If it was anything like this, he was surprised anyone would ever have more than a single child...
"Del?" the Emperor asked. "Are you well?"
"What do you think?" Del managed to say in reply as he clutched his stomach. His breath came in short pants that barely allowed for speech, so he switched to telepathy. "Sorry... that was uncalled for. It just hurts..."
The illithid sat down on the rug beside him. "I wish there was more I could do. The Absolute seems to have found a way to accelerate the transformation and make it happen instantaneously, but it is too far away now and has ceased directly ordering you to transform. I doubt much would change now even if I were to withdraw Orpheus's protection."
"Never thought I'd say this, but I wish the Absolute would pay attention to me again… How much longer do you think it'll be?"
"I can't say precisely. I, too, have had little firsthand experience with ceremorphosis."
"Ugh," Del groaned. "I've gotta be at least halfway done, right? This is ridiculous."
"I would say so. Honestly, I am surprised you're still conscious at this stage. Perhaps it's because you spent so long in a partial illithid state. But, if you are suffering... I can rectify that. You can go to sleep and awaken as your fully evolved self. Would you like that?"
Del was about to say yes, but just then the vice grip of pain on his insides loosened enough for him to take a full breath. "Maybe in a bit," he said instead. "The next time it gets thith bad again." He frowned at the sound of his own voice - even if the pain had improved momentarily, the lisp hadn't. "But… What if what we did with the Astral Tadpole doesn't work, and I forget who I am? What if this is the last day I spend with you, and I waste it all by sleeping?"
"I believe it will work," the Emperor reassured him. "But I do not want you to suffer needlessly." He took off his cloak and pulled it over Del, noticing how he was beginning to shiver.
The Emperor lay down next to him under the cloak. Del's sensation of temperature was completely off - he felt cold, yet his skin must be on fire considering how chill the Emperor's touch felt against his body.
"Fever's coming back, I guess," Del tried to put on a brave face even as his teeth chattered. He tried not to think about how it felt like more and more of them were loosening in his jaw, preparing to join the ones he'd lost in the battle.
"Don't fight this," the Emperor said. "Just let it happen. Do not force yourself to suffer for fear of missing time spent with me. I will still be here when you awaken, and we will have centuries to spend together as equals. The Absolute won't stand a chance against us…. The Brain and the Chosen will regret the day they first put a tadpole in your skull."
Del let the illithid's soothing words lull him into a state of half-consciousness, but the many aches and pains in his body kept him from falling asleep fully. "Fine," he mumbled. "You can do it. Put me to sleep."
"Sleep now," the Emperor said, his mental voice resonating into deeper frequencies as an audible purr rumbled deep in his throat. "I will still be here when you awaken."
Del leaned into the Emperor and nestled his aching head against the illithid's chest. His last conscious thought was that, despite the pain, he wished this moment could last forever.
As the illithid tadpole consumed the last vestiges of his brain, Del dreamed. Perhaps it was the equivalent of his life flashing before his eyes, because the dream was a memory far more detailed and vivid than any he'd previously managed to recover.
He was his younger self again; that boy by the name of Jonas who still felt as foreign to Del as a distant cousin. Unlike the last memory, he came into it wide awake, dressed in light leather armor and holding a sword. He stood in an enormous shadowed cavern with the other three members of his original adventuring party: Tyron the human, Rhogar the dragonborn, and Winren the halfling. They all held torches, but Jonas could see in the dark without one well enough.
The slick wet thing on the ground that he was looking down at, he slowly realized, was the bloodied corpse of a goblin. As he lifted his head to survey his surroundings, he could see five or six other such creatures in varied states of death and dismemberment.
"I don't understand," Tyron was saying. The young paladin's brow was furrowed in an uncharacteristic expression of worry as he wiped the blood from his blade. "The goblins were here as promised, but there's no sign of any hostages, or even a campsite."
"You worry too much," Winren scoffed. "Maybe this was only part of the band, and they were just passing through here. Let's go and check out some of these other caves, and I bet we'll find the rest of 'em with the girl. And if not - I saw a nice big lake back the way we came. Maybe we can go fishing…"
"No, Tyron's right… There's something off about this." Rhogar scanned the room, his tail swishing in agitation as the torchlight glinted off his green scales. "Those goblins sure didn't fight like they were just passing through. Shouldn't they have tried to get some reinforcements, or run off to join their friends? But they fought to the death with those stupid smiles on their faces."
"I knew we shouldn't have taken this quest," Winren complained to Jonas. "You and your damn bleeding heart. The old guy at the inn tried to warn us about the girl who posted it, remember? Aren't we like the third party to try and save her sister? And no one's ever heard from the other two again…"
"Yes, but the other two were useless idiots," Jonas countered. "We're the ones who are actually gonna do it." He was ready to say more in defense of the quest and the girl, but his attention was drawn to a flicker of movement seen from the corner of his eye. He turned toward the cave entrance - this cavern was a dead end, with only a single way in or out - just in time to see a slight figure emerging out of the darkness beyond.
At first, Jonas thought he was looking at the kidnapped sister of the girl who had petitioned the Adventurer's Guild of Ormath for help. But as she came closer, he realized that it was none other than the girl herself. She looked younger than Jonas, probably only in her late teens, and long black hair hung around her pale face like a curtain. The girl's features were the same as they'd been back at the inn, but her expression of wild happiness was a far cry from the way she'd been seemingly overcome with grief and worry for her missing sister the last time they'd met.
"What are you doing here? It's not safe!" Jonas exclaimed. "Did you follow us all the way down here? Are you trying to get the goblins to kidnap you too?"
"Aw, that's adorable," the girl said coyly, but there was a glint of something dangerous in her eyes. "Thank you ever so much for defending my honor, but I'm perfectly safe here. I think you'll find that you're the ones in danger…" She let out a high-pitched giggle.
"Great, another crazy woman," Winren muttered. "I bet she's double-crossed us somehow." He began to make a series of complex gestures in the air to set up for a spell in case things went sideways. Winren hadn't exactly had the best luck with romance lately, and Jonas wondered if that had made him jaded about women in general. But he, too, admitted that the way this girl was acting was suspicious.
The others reached for their weapons. Jonas felt a prickle on the back of his neck as if someone aside from the girl was watching them, but he couldn't pinpoint which direction the sensation was coming from.
"Oh!" the girl exclaimed, her laughter turning off as abruptly as it had started. She had the appearance of someone who'd been awoken by a bucketful of cold water to the face. "I'm sorry…" she apologized to an unseen person. "I shouldn't have said that."
As if the party's suspicions had summoned them, four dark shapes chose that moment to float down from the corners of the cavern where they'd been hovering up high near the ceiling. The silhouettes seemed roughly humanoid in appearance, at least until they got close enough for Jonas to see their elongated squidlike heads and the mass of tentacles where their mouths should be. The creatures' alien faces showed no emotion as they approached, but their tentacles wriggled in ghoulish excitement.
Before Jonas and the others had time to do much aside from realize just how fucked they were, the mind flayers let loose synchronized blasts of psionic energy centered on the area where everyone was standing. Jonas felt as if he'd been struck in the head by an invisible club. His vision grayed out for a moment, and all he could see was thousands of tiny twinkling stars…
When his head cleared again, he was lying on his side staring at the stone floor that was now mere inches away from his face. Jonas rolled over and tried to scramble to his feet despite the lingering dizziness. He got halfway up and then tipped over again as the floor seemed to tilt beneath his feet. He fell hard, banging his elbow on the way down, and realized he wasn't even holding his sword anyway.
His sword was… underneath the odd two-toed boot of the nearest mind flayer. Though the illithid said nothing, Jonas had the unpleasant sensation that it was laughing at his struggles. And, standing at the monster's side with an oddly blank expression on her face, was none other than the girl from earlier. The one who, Jonas now realized, had deliberately lured them into this cave for the mind flayers to catch.
"Why?" he gasped, appealing to the only human among their enemies. "Why'd you lead us here? What do you get out of it if these things eat our brains?"
The monster's clawed hand wound its way through the girl's shiny black hair. Her eyes practically rolled back into her head with bliss, and if she were a cat she'd have purred. "Everything I ever wanted…" she said dreamily. "And if you're good for our masters, maybe you'll get it all too."
It was useless trying to reason with her. Jonas tore himself away from the sickening sight of the girl and the monster to search the cavern for the rest of his friends.
Tyron and Rhogar were still unconscious, and each of them was being examined by their respective mind flayers. Jonas found it odd that the creatures weren't moving to crack open their skulls, but he definitely wasn't about to complain. If they were being taken prisoner rather than eaten immediately, maybe they'd have more of a chance to escape…
Winren, too, still appeared to be out - at least, until Jonas looked closely and saw his mouth moving ever-so-slightly through the words of an incantation. As Jonas watched, the halfling reared up suddenly, a ball of flame springing into being from between his cupped hands…. Which he proceeded to throw directly into the face of the nearest illithid.
The mind flayer realized what was happening just in time to make its escape. It seemed to phase out of existence for a moment, then reappear in another corner of the cavern. But it hadn't been quite fast enough – one side of its cape was smoking, and large swathes of its slimy purple-gray skin had been charred.
The mind flayer that had been guarding Tyron was spurred to action upon seeing its companion's plight. It flared its tentacles, exposing a round maw full of dozens of wicked-sharp teeth, and let out a mind blast toward the halfling. The attack caught Winren off guard, since he'd taken a misguided moment to gloat over injuring one of the legendary monsters of the Underdark. The fourth illithid similarly knocked out Rhogar, who had been awakened by the sound and heat of the nearby explosion.
But Tyron himself had been left unguarded for the moment while his captor focused on Winren and the injured mind flayer worked at putting out the flames that still licked at its cloak. The one next to Jonas seemed somewhat detached from the whole matter, though it had finally stopped stroking the head of its human pet.
"Tyron…" Jonas whispered, hoping the sound would carry far enough to reach the paladin without alerting their captors. "Are you awake?" The blonde man's eyes opened. He'd been biding his time, only pretending to still be unconscious. "Good. Listen to me. You've gotta run for it, okay? You're the one that has the amulet." He was referring to the amulet of Misty Step that they took turns carrying and that Tyron currently wore around his neck. "Get the rest of us some help."
Tyron seemed to agonize over the thought of running from a battle, but he was spurred into motion by one of the mind flayers' renewed attention on him. Just as the creature fixed its baleful gaze upon him, the paladin clutched at the amulet that peeked out from under his armor and disappeared in an instant. He reappeared as a tiny figure beyond the doorway of the cavern, then made a run for it. In a few more moments, Tyron was out of sight entirely.
The four mind flayers conferred silently, probably debating if it was worth going after him. Jonas tried to use their momentary distraction to pick up his sword and creep up on the one closest to him. He'd hoped to surprise the monster with a slash to the back, but without even turning back around it almost lazily flicked a hand in his direction.
Jonas was slammed back down to the ground so hard that he bit his lip and tasted blood.
"This one's got spirit," the closest illithid said to its companions in an amused tone, deliberately speaking so that Jonas could hear. "Would be a waste to eat it, when breaking it would be so much more delicious. Perhaps one for the thrall caverns?"
Again, the impression of silent laughter from all of them except the injured one, who advanced on the now-unconscious Winren. Clearly, it was holding a grudge. Was it even acting with the approval of the others?
Jonas watched with his heart in his throat as the mind flayer levitated his friend's unconscious body off the ground. The creature wrapped three of its tentacles around the halfling's head, seemingly favoring the one that had been burned.
Wake up… Jonas silently pleaded to Winren as he crawled toward his sword, which lay on the cave floor a short distance away from him. C'mon, wake up and cast something now…
With a hand on his weapon, Jonas once more tried to rise, but this time the other mind flayers seemed more angry than amused by his struggles. His sword was pulled from his grip with telekinesis, and one of the creatures approached him, flaring its tentacles in the way that meant it was about to let loose another psionic blast.
From just beyond it, he heard a crunch, followed by an awful squelching sound. Jonas made the mistake of looking, and was faced with an image that burned itself into his mind's eye forever. (At least, until they made him forget.) Winren's limp body clutched in the mind flayer's tentacled grip, his eyes empty as blood ran in rivulets down his face…
"NO!" Jonas roared, forgetting any attempts at strategy and surging toward the monster in front of him without even a weapon in his hand. This couldn't be real. This couldn't be happening. Maybe if he got to Winren fast enough, they could still somehow save him…
But all his hopes were dashed by a single glimpse into a pair of malevolent yellow eyes. Fifteen years in the past, the illithid mind-blasted him into submission once more.
And back in the present, the tadpole inside Del's head finally finished its grisly work.
Author's Note: Omg it's finally happening next chapter, illithid Del! I'm honestly a bit nervous if you guys will like how I write the squid version of him. I'm playing with the idea of having him only partially retain his identity, or only his memories but not his identity... Let me know in the comments if you have any thoughts on a significantly different version of squid!Del. Your comments give me life through my IRL stress.
Speaking of stress, I'm rapidly burning through my buffer of prewritten but unposted/unedited chapters as I suffer through the last few months of grad school, so just a heads up - I might have to skip a week or two of updates at some point, or post a chapter without editing it as much. Hopefully not though, since I still have the next two chapters at least semi written as rough drafts.