A colony of mind flayers is like a cancer. Unseen at first, lurking just below the skin, it festers and grows, feeding on and destroying the healthy body until finally the tumors become too large for the organism to support. Vital systems like digestion and breathing start shutting down until the poor, unfortunate soul expires.
At one point in time, the mind flayers traveled the stars, but now they find safety far beneath the earth. Away from their many, many enemies, the hidden colonies bide their time, metastasizing until they are certain that victory is assured before they even act.
The illithids lurk and scheme in their subterranean lairs while an unsuspecting populace lives their happy lives on the surface. Mind flayers have many such colonies in every kingdom, every world, and every plane of existence. Though the tentacle-faced aberrations had long ago forgotten their true origins, they had never forgotten their objective: to dominate the entire multiverse.
An enormous, pulsing brain acts as each colony's command center, sending its servants to do its bidding. With their blasphemous mental powers, the mind flayers capture and enslave what they consider lesser beings. These slaves are used as mindless thralls or served as foodstuffs. And some cursed few are chosen for a more nefarious purpose. To be implanted with a mind flayer tadpole. To become one of them.
I was one who was implanted. I was to become one of them. And I cannot help but wonder if it would be easier if I had completed the transformation rather than living like I do now. Even though I remain a human, most do not regard me as such. They immediately know something is wrong with me. My left eye, completely white and yet still sees. My long arms and fingers mark me as abnormal and inhuman. My hairless pate and my fishbelly white complexion tell anyone who looks upon me that I am, in some way, unclean. The list of my deformities goes on. Though I do not know what I looked like before my time with the mind flayers, I am certain I did not always look so unwholesome.
As I travel the upper world, I still feel the call. That I would be forgiven for my trespasses if I were to just return home. And as the days pass, without finding shelter, a job, allies, or a place in this realm, the call gets a little harder to resist.
Author Note: Welcome to The Aberrant Mind of Euclid! If you enjoyed Baldur's Gate III and the horrible mind flayers, you'll love this story. This isn't a chapter, not exactly. More like an intro, which is why I made sure to post a chapter immediately after this one. In the Legend of Drizzt Do'Urden books, sometimes there would be a journal entry by Drizzt himself, so that served as inspiration for this one. I hope you enjoy the next chapter!