"Ladies and gentlemen, boys and ghouls!
Step right up…
Behind this curtain lies a ghastly concoction of
Delight, Horror, Fantasy and terror
Your every wish is our command!
Your every whimsical desire brought to life
But I'm warning you, there's always a price
Welcome to the greatest show unearthed…"
There was a ghoul blocking the entrance to the circus. And an elven man, and a locked gate - but the ghoul was the only part of this scene that Del's memories marked as unusual.
"What's this, now?" Alurdel asked.
"Just a safety precaution, Saer," the elf assured him. "Benji here is our doorman. Just let him give you a sniff. If he determines you're not a vicious murderer, you're free to see the best extraplanar circus in town!"
Alurdel reached out to touch the ghoul's mind in much the same way the ghoul came up to scent him - but found nothing. Of course. The damn thing was undead, and not in the same way as Astarion. It had no tadpole, and he wouldn't be able to influence it or take control if things went sideways…
The ghoul leaned uncomfortably close to Alurdel, threatening to shatter his illusion as it took a series of exaggerated sniffs. Alurdel was still under Gale's Seeming spell, of course, but a single touch from the creature or its elven handler could give away the game if either one noticed that his clothing or skin were not what they appeared.
"Garlic breath and brain juice!" the ghoul cackled suddenly. "Such a smelly smell! Benji likes it." It capered around in a little circle, laughing to itself, as its handler eyed Alurdel with a perturbed look. Brain juice? That's a new one. On second thought, something about this guy's face seems off…
Alurdel's tentacles strained to be free of their confinement under his cloak, and he tried to push down his growing concern and irritation.
"Yes, I like garlic," he said stiffly. "Is that going to be a problem?"
Alurdel could sense another thought forming in the handler's mind, about not letting this group in just to be safe…
So he took corrective action.
For the first time, rather than skimming over the surface of someone's mind, he delved deeper. Of course, he could simply tell the elf to let them into the circus, but direct mental domination would be rather obvious. As soon as the compulsion wore off, the man would know that Alurdel had made him do it, and that would raise a whole new set of questions about his motives and identity.
So instead, acting more on instinct than actual knowledge, Alurdel sought out the elf's memories. He realized that, much like their actual brains, people's minds were somewhat compartmentalized. There was the internal monologue of the man's surface thoughts, beneath which brewed emotions and deeper subconscious motivations. The sensory impressions were in one region, and memories in another…
Alurdel muddled through random scenes of setting up tents and eating breakfasts, until he realized that the most recent memories would be closest to the surface. The little scene with the ghoul floated in some blurry boundary between thought and memory. As Alurdel watched, it began to drift deeper down to take its place with the other memories. Rather than allowing it to settle there, he simply reached out and plucked it away like a leaf from a tree.
There. It was gone.
He withdrew from the elf's mind, noticing that mere seconds had passed in the real world around them.
"Don't worry," Astarion was saying to the ghoul's handler. "I'll make sure to remind my friend here to brush his teeth next time."
But rather than replying, the man just gazed at Astarion and Alurdel with a confused expression. "Apologies, Saers," he said finally. "I think the heat is getting to me. You can go right in."
"Not a bad mind trick, but I already had it covered," Astarion whispered as they traipsed through the gate.
Once inside, Alurdel found his companions' reactions more entertaining than the circus itself. Karlach gazed at everything with childlike wonder, taking in the strangely-dressed performers and exotic beasts in the menagerie. Gale, too, was intrigued by what he saw, though his take on things was far more analytical.
Alurdel struggled to stay focused on the attractions around them, as he kept getting distracted by the people passing by. He was getting better at blocking out the worst of the mental noise, especially if he exerted a conscious effort. But every time his control slipped, he was bombarded with random snippets of stray thought.
I'm hungry… How do I get Mom to buy me a funnel cake?
That stupid love psychic doesn't know what she's talking about
Maybe if I just spin the wheel one more time…
Alurdel searched for any distraction from the light and heat and noise of the place, and ended up conducting a silent conversation with Gale about the potential ways a genie had rigged his wheel of fortune, only stopping when the wheel's proprietor became suspicious about the two of them lingering around his booth and smiling to each other - Gale confirmed that Alurdel's disguised form was, indeed, smiling - without saying a word aloud.
Karlach, of course, was the one to actually fork over the gold piece and give the wheel a spin, but she was sorely disappointed by the result.
"Well, that confirms my theory as to the nature of its rigging," Gale began, only he'd forgotten he was speaking out loud now, and the genie shooed the lot of them away.
"Gale, you can't just call out the game for being rigged right in front of the man running it," Shadowheart snickered.
"It was part of an ongoing discussion!"
"I'll include you too next time, Shadowheart," Alurdel promised. "You don't even need to use the tadpole connection. Just think really hard about what you want to say."
The cleric shook her head in exasperation. "I swear, Del, you were made to be a mind flayer. You've always been far more comfortable using those tadpole powers than the rest of us. Why, you and Scion -" She broke off guiltily, looking crestfallen as she remembered what had happened to their most recently acquired companion.
Alurdel, too, felt his mood sour as he remembered how Scion had been snatched out from right under the party's noses. Even though he'd never met the white dragonborn in his current incarnation, he rather wanted to. And if that involved rescuing him from Gortash, so be it…
"We'll get Scion back," Alurdel promised. "I'll bet Gortash took him here, to the city. With my present capabilities, it shouldn't be hard to find him, and then we can strategize on how to get him away from the tyrant."
"I agree," Gale said. "As soon as you're acclimated, we should find a way to enter through Wyrm's Crossing."
"And get stamped into the ground by those metal monstrosities?" Shadowheart countered. "Didn't you see all those things they're calling Steel Watchers around now? I'll admit I didn't get out much when I lived in the city before, but I never saw them around here a few months ago. They must be Gortash's doing. I hear he's taking over the place."
"Oh, would it kill you all to have some fun for a second?" Astarion complained. "I, personally, am in no hurry to return to-" master-tormentor-Cazador "-the gloomy den of iniquity that I've stewed in for two centuries."
"Yes, let's talk about Gortash later," Karlach agreed. "I know we need to get Scion back as soon as we can. But there's nothing we can do about it right this minute. Can't we just… enjoy ourselves for a bit?"
So they continued winding their way through the fire-eaters, skeletal dancers, and yippy kobolds selling greasy foodstuffs. A displacer beast caught Gale's attention, and Alurdel joined him in getting a closer look at another one of the creatures that had, however indirectly, set into motion the chain of events that led to his birth.
This was a different displacer than the one in the Shar temple, of course. It hissed at the sight of him, probably seeing through his magical illusion. He freed one of the two longest tentacles from his outer robe, knowing that the illusion would still hold for anyone else as long as he didn't touch them with it, and waved the tip of it at the creature. Sure enough, the displacer's eyes tracked the motion, and it extended a paw through the bars of its cage as if to bat at the tendril.
A large group of people walked by behind them, and Alurdel quickly stuffed the tentacle back down into his robes. With the people came their thoughts, a cacophony of;
what kind of creature is that?
oh look the clown will be performing soon
that's them alright, I need to tell Orin…
Wait. That was strange. The fleeting thought was like a single discordant note disrupting a symphony of small joys and petty squabbles. Alurdel craned his neck, trying to see which direction it had come from, but he was still too inexperienced to trace the thought back to its source in a large crowd like this one.
"We should stay together," he said silently to the others. "Something isn't right here."
But Karlach and Shadowheart had already run off together toward the central stage, and Gale was still back by the displacer beast's cage. Astarion and Jaheira were the only two party members who stayed close to Alurdel and seemed appropriately wary.
"What are you sensing?" Jaheira asked him. Thankfully, the High Harper seemed willing to take him seriously despite her low opinion of illithids in general.
"Someone here is working with Orin," Alurdel said. "But I can't tell who, so let's keep our guard up."
The three of them collected Gale, then made their way to the stage to join the rest of the party. "There you are! Come on, Dribbles is about to perform," Karlach exclaimed, unthinkingly reaching out for Alurdel's hand to pull him closer into the crowd. Her hot fingertips just barely brushed against his moist skin before he pulled away, and the two of them stared at each other for an awkward moment.
"What are you doing?" Alurdel admonished. "I can't get so close to all these people. What if someone notices something?"
"Sorry," Karlach said, the light in her eyes dimming for a moment. "I was just trying to get my mind off things. And even though I know we still have to face Gortash, part of me is just glad to be home."
Just then, a brightly-dressed man appeared on stage and proclaimed himself to be Dribbles the Clown.
The clown instantly put Alurdel on edge. Something about Dribbles' demeanor gave him an odd sense of foreboding, and the man's surface thoughts didn't exactly inspire confidence either.
That's them on the edge of the crowd. Gotta avoid tipping them off too early…
As these unsettling thoughts rattled through the clown's head, he put on a good show of performing a routine full of slapstick comedy and truly awful puns. Midway through the show, he was joined by a dog, or at least a construct made out of some claylike material vaguely in the shape of one.
"Gods, I hate clowns. I bet even clowns don't like clowns," Shadowheart muttered as the children in the audience cheered louder and louder the worse the jokes became.
"And now it's time for a magic trick," said Dribbles. "I need a volunteer from the audience, with nerves of steel and the heart of a lion. How… about…" He scanned the crowd, and Alurdel tensed as a wave of malicious glee rolled off the clown. "You." The fever-bright eyes in the painted face locked with his own.
This will be my best trick yet, thought the clown. The tribunal will be so proud…
"You should do it, Astarion," Karlach ribbed, unaware of the danger. "C'mon, it'll be fun!"
"Not a chance," said the vampire. "This isn't happening. Absolutely not."
Karlach ignored Astarion's protestations and began to not-so-gently nudge him forward toward the stage.
"This isn't funny!" Astarion growled through gritted teeth, but he trudged up to the stage at Karlach's urging.
"All right, let's see this," Karlach said gleefully. "It'd better be violent, sexy, or both."
"I don't think this is the best idea," Alurdel said to the others, dropping the pretense of speaking aloud for the moment. "The clown's thoughts are - off. He's planning something here, more than just a magic trick or a sad attempt at comedy. It likely has to do with what I heard about Orin earlier…"
"If the clown has nefarious motives, then this should make him declare himself," Gale seemed worried too, but tried to justify their more impulsive party members' actions. "Then we'll know exactly where we stand. Just be prepared, everyone, in case this turns into a battle."
An odd little chill ran down Alurdel's spine. Was that anxiety? Was he really nervous about the prospect of a fight? Sure, it would be his first battle as a mind flayer, but even a newborn ulitharid could more than handle some clown with a penchant for violence. It was just...
Past-Del had rushed into fights without thinking plenty of times; without considering the implications or the possibility of what would happen if he'd lost. A carryover from his adventuring days, only strengthened by his time as a thrall, since Del hadn't had much choice when to fight in the arena or to protect Eldriss.
But now Alurdel began to consider the possibility of what would happen if he were to somehow die in battle. Many humanoid scholars said that illithids were soulless creatures, and even mind flayers themselves claimed to have no need for a traditional afterlife as long as they could join their Elder Brain in death. But there was no Elder here; no prospect of what Eldriss had once called Commencement.
And Eldriss themselves never got to experience it either, some long-buried part of Del thought sadly.
But as for Alurdel's current situation... Fear is a weakness, he told himself. Fear is the mind-killer. It was best to put aside existential questions and trust in his prowess as an ulitharid to carry him through.
"Hey, Del," Shadowheart whispered, distracting Alurdel from his unpleasant thoughts. "I think you're right about this guy."
"And do you know why you're special?" the clown was asking an uncomfortable-looking Astarion. "It's because I have a message Just. For. You." Dribbles leaned in, as if to whisper in the vampire's ear. "Praise the Absolute."
The clown's painted face rippled, shifting like water as his features blurred and his eyes went from brown to a blank pupil-less white, just like Orin's had been. At that same moment, his dog leapt toward Astarion and knocked the surprised elf to the ground.
Somewhere nearby, a child screamed. The audience began to scatter, sensing that this was no longer part of the show. Karlach and Shadowheart reached for their weapons, and Alurdel reacted on instinct.
"STOP."
The burst of psionic energy that emanated from Alurdel was more of a command than a mind blast, but it accomplished a similar purpose. The construct-dog was unaffected, since it had no true mind to speak of, but the clown-turned-doppelganger reeled back, clutching at his head as he stumbled.
Karlach made it up to the stage in two bounds and engaged the doppelganger in battle before he could recover his wits. Meanwhile, Astarion was having trouble with the dog, since it was now trying to shoot beams of magic out of its mouth while he wrestled with it on the stage.
Alurdel telekinetically lifted the dog-thing up off Astarion. It was heavy, at least in the sense that it took a lot of effort to keep it up in the air, so he heaved it over the edge of the stage and slammed it down hard on the ground for good measure. The dog's stony outer skin cracked in several places at the impact, and it lay still after it hit the ground.
That just left four more doppelgangers sowing mayhem in the crowd. Three of them were still in disguise as circus employees, but it was obvious who was an imposter by their actions alone. For gods' sake, one was even releasing all the animals!
This time, Alurdel tried for a true mind blast. He channeled his psionic potential into a wordless surge of energy, and managed to score a direct hit on the Dribbles impersonator in clown makeup. He found that, strangely enough, the clothing and makeup were real, despite the changed face underneath them. Also fascinating was the way the doppelganger instantly reverted to its original form once it fell unconscious, as if maintaining the disguise was a deliberate act of will. Karlach quickly used the opportunity to finish it off, and then it was time to take down the next one.
After the first mind blast, Alurdel found his confidence in battle, and killing or disabling the rest of the cultists with the help of his companions was child's play. Once the last of them were dead, Alurdel and the others approached the body of the doppelganger who'd pretended to be Dribbles. They took his hammer, which was a hefty weapon despite its coat of whimsical paint, and searched the pockets of his brightly-colored outfit for any hints of what had brought him to the circus. Of course, Alurdel suspected that he was a minion of Orin, the doppelganger representing Bhaal in the cult of the Absolute, but more information never hurt anyone.
Unfortunately, all they found was a note in one of his pockets addressed to someone or something called the Murder Tribunal, saying that he hoped his offering would prove sufficient. None of them had heard of any such tribunal, so all they could do was file away that bit of information for later.
As they turned away from the imposter's body, Karlach voiced the question that had also been hovering at the back of Alurdel's mind since the clown had been revealed as a doppelganger.
"So if this Dribbles is fake, what did they do with the real one?"