"From my heart and from my hand
Why don't people understand
My intentions?

Plastic tubes and pots and pans
Bits and pieces and
The magic from my hand
We're making

Weird science..."

The next morning, Del's headache was no better. It felt like the tadpole was doing somersaults inside his skull, and he winced at the light of the torches his companions lit to keep the darkness at bay. He felt alternately hot and cold despite the still air and unchanging temperature of the Underdark, and kept jumping at shadows that flickered at the edges of his vision.

"I'm fine!" he insisted when Gale asked if he was feeling all right. "Everything's fine."

Del didn't want to admit it to anyone -least of all himself - but he was beginning to freak out a little. He tried to reach out to the Emperor for answers. What's going on? Is this ceremorphosis again? But instead of the familiar voice in his head, there was only silence.

So he trudged forward silently, focused on putting one foot in front of the other and refusing to show weakness despite the shivers that ran through his body.

When Del saw the first mushroom-person, he had gotten so deep into his own misery that at first he thought he'd gone from seeing shadows to straight-up hallucinations.

It was roughly in the shape of a man, but covered in odd bumps and protrusions that turned out to be literal mushrooms growing out from between cracks in the larger fungal plates that covered its body like armor.

"Hey," Del whispered. "Gale. Karlach. Is anyone else seeing this?"

"Myconids!" Gale exclaimed, his voice a touch too loud for comfort in the Underdark. "I've read about them, but never thought I'd encounter one in the flesh. It's said that their song can inspire euphoria or madness, depending on how they feel about you. We should tread carefully."

The mushroom man - or myconid, as Gale had said - seemed to notice them too.

Del winced and put a hand to his forehead as the myconid sent out a mental probe to investigate the intruders. Though unexpected, its psychic presence felt nothing like an illithid. It was curious rather than commanding, and there was a musical undertone to its thoughts that would be beautiful if the song didn't sound so sad.

As Del and the others cautiously approached, the melody sharpened and gained a thrumming urgency.

"We come in peace," Karlach said loudly, holding up her hands.

Instead of speaking aloud, Del reached out to the myconid with his mind even though it only made his head throb more aggressively. He tried to project non-threatening intentions as he thought, "We mean no harm. We're just trying to pass by."

He was surprised when the creature replied in images rather than words. It seemed to be beckoning him, showing him a third-person perspective of himself following it back into the passageway it had emerged from.

"Del, where do you think you're going? Is this like the beach again?" Shadowheart seemed doubtful, and Del didn't blame her - but this time was different.

"It's okay, they mean no harm. But someone back there wants to meet us."

Karlach clutched the handle of her axe and Gale started muttering spells to himself, trying to memorize the ones he would need in case there was a fight... but they must have still had some measure of faith in him, for they followed him anyway.

The myconid colony was full of exotic mushrooms and even more exotic mushroom people. Their guide led them through several narrow passageways that opened into a broad plaza floored with giant mushrooms growing from below. Smaller fungal blooms sprouted from the caps themselves, using their larger neighbors as a substrate from which to grow. These smaller fungi served as trees and light-poles, since some of them were naturally luminescent. Everywhere Del looked, myconids of various shapes and sizes were walking aroudn or performing tasks whose purposes were mysterious to Del. One of them was even doing something unpleasant-looking to the corpse of a duergar, while another supervised.

The song Del had heard earlier as an undertone to the mental conversation with their sentry swelled louder now, and it was all he could do not to cover his ears with his hands - because that would be rude, wouldn't it? And so Del tried to project a sense of comfort and ease that he most certainly did not feel as he strode deeper into the mushroom colony.

In a smaller antechamber off to the side of the main plaza, Del found a tall spindly myconid hunched over a deep gnome who was not a corpse yet, but seemed well on her way to becoming one. Del motioned for the others to stop as he examined her more closely.

"What's the matter with you?" he asked. "Did the myconids do this?"

The gnome woman groaned weakly, curled into a fetal position, but then gathered the wits to answer. "Duergar slashed me... Poison. Myconids helped... Not that it matters now."

"Duergar aren't big poisoners," Del wondered aloud. "I bet they got something from the drow that live down here. Does anyone have an antidote in their bag?"

"Drow poison?" Gale started digging around inside his bag. "I should have an antidote for that. Drow tend to use spider venoms as a base, and I stocked up on antivenom before we went underground. Aha! There it is." He came up holding a vial of black liquid jarred with a crystal stopper, then turned to the gnome. "I know this is experimental, but are you willing to give it a try?"

"I'll take anything," she gasped, holding out one hand while the other clutched her side.

Gale handed her the vial, and she drank without a second glance as if it was the last drop of water in the desert. "Ah... gods," she gasped in relief as something inside of her unclenched. "Whatever it was, I needed that." Then, she paused and looked sharply at Del and Gale. "Why are you helping me, anyway?"

Del recognized the question from his own thoughts. He, too, had suspicion as a first gut reaction when someone was being too nice.

"I saw you were hurting," Del said. "Felt bad about it." Something about being in pain himself seemed to make him a bit more sympathetic to others', but he left that part unsaid. "Hey, by the way, was the duergar who poisoned you your master? He was looking for an escaped gnome slave with some pretty nice boots." He looked pointedly at her footwear, which didn't match the rest of her ragged clothing.

The gnome immediately tensed up at the question, and so did Del's companions. Del waved them off – he had this handled. "Don't worry," he continued. "We killed him, so you should be safe."

"Safe?" she said with a touch of bitterness. "None of us is ever safe. But if you've killed Gekh, that's a good start. Thank you for your help, but I've gotta get moving. Got more of my kin that need helping." She tried to rise, but almost immediately eased back down again, wincing. "Well, maybe the cure isn't instant. That potion helped, but guess I need to rest here for a while."

The myconid leading Del's group shuffled around, looking impatient. They waved goodbye to the gnome with a promise to check in on her again later and continued on toward the mushroom people's leader.

The further they got into the mushroom grove, the more Del kept getting strange flashes of violent scenes in his mind. He couldn't tell if they came from the myconids or his own mind, but it was rather jarring to be suddenly subjected to split-second flashes of a duergar splitting the skull of a myconid in between lifting his foot and setting it down on the spongy ground.

"Seek me," a voice whispered inside Del's mind. "Seek the sovereign."

They found the leader in a small alcove in the deepest part of the colony, lined on three sides by thick-stalked mushrooms creating a nigh-impenetrable wall around it. When they first walked in, the sovereign seemed... otherwise occupied. The myconid's thick fingers stroked a corpse at its feet, doing gods knew what to it. A haunting melody swelled up as they approached, sounding something like a wordless funeral dirge. But yet there was a hint of hope there, too - and perhaps curiosity.

The elder myconid was tall, nearly half again the size of the others, and its roughly-hewn features shone in a variety of prismatic colors. The shifting hues were oddly psychedelic, and Del found himself staring at its face as if hypnotized...

"Hey, Del?" Karlach asked. "Earth to Del. The mushroom guy is talking to you specifically."

"Hello, flesh-talker," said the sovereign in an odd mixture of silent words and mental images. "You are easier to speak to than the others. I allow you and yours into my colony, but only because we need your help."

"What kind of help?" Del questioned it in much the same manner.

"To explain, I must show you. Watch and listen."

The vision gripped Del with a suddenness and violence that sent him reeling. He saw duergar, much like the ones they had fought the previous day, chopping up myconid remains. Some of them even looked like the same duergar. The image was distorted and off-color as seen through myconid eyes, but Del thought he recognized Gekh...

"They broke our peace," the sovereign intoned as the memory continued to play. "They killed our young." Indeed, some of the dead myconids were smaller than the ones they had seen in the colony, closer to Del's own height than the seven or eight-footers they were surrounded by. Other corpses appeared to be half-myconid and half-humanoid, composed of an unholy mixture of sprouting mushrooms and cold grey flesh. Was that how they reproduced? By seeding spores in the dead? Ah well. Del was briefly disgusted at the thought, but then remembered that he had seen worse.

The memory shifted, now showing gnomes in mining gear chased by the very same duergar. The gnomes fled blindly, seeking refuge, only to come upon the myconids... Del realized that this memory must actually be a prelude to the other.

"They were seeking a gnome. Many were caught, but not all. This one is a guest." Del saw a flash of the gnome they had met earlier; the one Gale gave the antidote to.

The sovereign gave a brief flash of approval at the thought of the antidote, but then its song slowed to the pace of a dirge as the memory sputtered out. "We laid waste to many duergar, but intruders remain. They can be found lakeward. Cleanse the rot. Destroy them, and we will repay you."

"Del, what was it talking about?" Shadowheart asked, making Del jump a bit at hearing words actually spoken aloud. "Something about fighting duergar? We can manage that. Better than picking a fight with these mushrooms..."

"Agreed," Del said, then slipped into silent communication with the sovereign again. "We can handle those duergar nearby." He did hope, though, that the sovereign didn't mean for them to go fight the invaders right this second. It was still relatively early in the day and they hadn't had to face battle yet, so they should still be fresh and energetic... but Del was tired all the same. It must be from that damned headache - that and the fever he probably had, but he didn't mention that.

Still, the myconid must have heard him on some level. "I see you have killed some duergar already... Good. You need not seek the others yet. Stay here as our guests, if you promise justice will be done."

Del relayed the sovereign's message to the others, who had understood it to varying degrees. Astarion was the only one aside from Del that had been able to actually see the memory, which Gale found fascinating, wondering if the ability had some correlation with consuming illithid tadpoles. Since they didn't have to leave immediately, Del and the others walked further into the mushroom colony to explore their new surroundings.

Aside from the poisoned gnome, the first non-myconid they met in the colony was a trader; a no-nonsense dwarf woman named Derryth who seemed disappointed to see Del and his companions rather than her husband, who had been sent out to gather rare mushrooms the day before and had not yet returned. She described him, and he sounded an awful lot like the dead dwarf they had seen in the patch of poisonous mushrooms the day before...

Del was too tired to mince words. "I met him in a field of deadly mushrooms... I'm sorry, but he died there."

"Dead? Worthless old fool... He had one job... One!"

"No love lost between the two of you, I gather," Astarion said sardonically.

"Love?" The dwarf snorted. "Never heard of it."

But Del could tell that she was just putting up a front. She looked down at the ground and swiped angrily at her eyes before a single tear could escape, and continued. "Baelen was a rotten old bastard. Treated me like an old shoe for seventy years before his mind started to go."

"Now that's settled, what are you really doing down here?" Astarion decided to get straight to the point, and Karlach and Gale glared at him with the look they usually reserved for Del when he was being particularly obtuse.

"Collecting noblestalk," said the dwarf, clearly preferring not to talk about her dead husband further. "Valuable mushroom, we've a shop selling it in Baldur's Gate. I've yet to meet an ailment it couldn't help. Baldness, blindness, piles..."

Del interrupted her. "What else can the noblestalk cure? Memory loss, maybe? Or... ceremorphosis?" He'd taken a break from investigating methods for tadpole removal after the Emperor had told him to use the power instead of squandering it, but this damn headache combined with the Emperor's ominous silence was making him quite interested again.

"Amnesia, sure. But ceremorphosis? Isn't that when you turn into one of those mind flayers? Oh, I don't know about that one, it's more Blurg's area of expertise. Him and that partner of his..." She trailed off, shivering as if with a sudden chill. "That guy gives me the creeps. They've set up shop on the other side of the colony, since Blurg's something of a trader in addition to his research. Talk to him if you want to know more about mind flayers." She smirked to herself as if telling a joke to which only she knew the punchline.

They followed Derryth's directions to where Blurg had set up his camp and makeshift shop, trailed by several curious myconids. Del couldn't help but wince every time their minds brushed against his and he heard that strange and dissonant song.

Blurg turned out to be a red-skinned hobgoblin, which gave Del unpleasant flashbacks to Dror Ragzlin, but the two representatives of their species couldn't have been any more different from one other. Blurg was an older fellow, a bit stout around the middle, and unusually well-spoken. It turned out that he was a researcher from some organization called the Society of Brilliance, and was investigating ways to improve life for denizens of the Underdark. Oh, and studying mushrooms. Cataloguing and categorizing lots and lots of mushrooms.

He and Gale got along brilliantly, talking about a lot of technical things that were, quiet frankly, over Del's head, so he zoned out and tried not to think about anything at all in the hopes that it would calm his headache. But he snapped to attention again when he heard Gale mention that they were all infected with mind flayer tadpoles.

"Truly, illithid tadpoles?" Blurg asked in amazement. "It's a miracle you're still intact! You must be worried sick about transforming, but have no fear. I have a friend who may be able to assist." And then, to Del's surprise, he continued the conversation mentally. "Omeluum? Are you there?"

And then another mental voice joined the conversation, one that sounded suspiciously... familiar. Not the speaker itself, but something about its cadence and intonation. "I hope this is important, Blurg. My zurkhwood samples need constant attention."

"It is! These adventurers have had illithid tadpoles inside their heads for a tenday now, but they haven't yet turned."

"No ceremorphosis?" The mysterious 'Omeluum' figure asked on a public telepathic frequency for all to hear. "That's impossible... but intriguing if somehow true. I must come to see this for myself."

Del felt the presence before he saw it. He turned around a beat before the rest of his companions and saw an illithid float down from a fungal platform above their heads and into the little clearing where they now stood.

His companions gasped as they saw the mind flayer and instinctively reached for their weapons. Del just stood there, surprised and yet not completely shocked, since some part of him had suspected this since he'd first heard Omeluum's silent voice.

The illithid was rather short by the standards of its kind, standing only six inches or so above Del's six-foot height, and wore simpler robes than Del was used to seeing. Rather than elaborate metal filigree and an ornate crest, these robes were cut of simple cloth and dyed a deep navy blue. A strange symbol was drawn in silver on the chest – the icon of a large eye with rays of light shining down from it. Del saw that Blurg was wearing an outfit with an identical symbol and realized that this must be the logo of the Society of Brilliance they were a part of.

"An illithid is your friend?" Shadowheart asked Blurg. "Are you sure you're not being controlled or enthralled by it? Those things can really do a number on one's head." She shot Del a side-eyed glance that he didn't appreciate.

"This makes me almost glad our Githyanki friend is no longer among us," Astarion muttered. "She seemed the type who would resort to violence first and ask questions later. Though, I do also have many questions about what's going on here."

"Stand down, everyone," Blurg said in a bracing tone, his eyes scanning the group for signs of impending violence. "I assure you, I am not being controlled by anyone. I'll let Omeluum itself explain."

"I have broken free of my elder brain's yoke," the illithid told them. "I no longer serve the Grand Design. I ask that you all refrain from violence, even if your opinion of my kind does not change."

Shadowheart audibly snorted, but Gale held up a hand to silence her before she offended the creature.

"Wait, Shadowheart," Gale said. "Let's hear them out. Who better to help us with our little parasite problem than a mind flayer itself?" And then, to Omeluum, "Do you know anything about how we can get these tadpoles out of our heads?"

"Perhaps, but only if you are open to a diagnosis. Would one of you be willing to voluntarily open your minds to me so I can take a look?"

The illithid fixed its piercing yellow eyes on Del in particular, noting the sheen of sweat on his forehead and the way he squinted even in the dim light of the Underdark. It addressed him directly. "You, perhaps?"

"Sure, go for it." Since these strange symptoms had started, Del was getting more and more desperate for a cure for the tadpole - regardless of what the Emperor said about keeping it to use its power.

Omeluum sent out a mental probe, and Del tried to relax as the illithid poked around inside his head. It sifted through a few memories, but politely withdrew at Del's first mental flinch. And then it reached out to the parasite, which wriggled in what felt like excitement as Omeluum made contact with it.

"Hmm," the illithid mused. "How unusual. This tadpole is shielded by a powerful magic, one that holds its growth in stasis but also prevents any attempts at removal. If we operate to remove it now, you will certainly die, I'm sorry to say. But there is something else. Your tadpole is somehow eating away at the magic; breaking through the barrier halting its growth. Are the others like this as well?"

Omeluum was broadcasting its thoughts publicly, so the others heard this discussion.

Shadowheart frowned. "Eating away at it? What do you mean?"

"Your friend is experiencing the early stages of ceremorphosis. Were you unaware?"

"Del!" yelled Karlach. "Come on, don't try to be the strong and silent type. Just tell us if you're not feeling well!"

"Thought it was just a headache," Del muttered. "Sorry, guys. I was just hoping it would go away on its own like it did that one night in camp, or maybe we'd find a way to get this thing out before it got any worse."

"You should check me next," Astarion suggested. Volunteering for something like this seemed a bit out of character for him, but Del wondered if it was because the vampire was the only other member of their party who had absorbed powers from the illithid parasites.

Omeluum switched its focus to Astarion.

"An undead, but yet not mindless. I have never met a group of travelers so full of curiosities."

Astarion bristled at this description. "Excuse me? Who are you saying should be mindless?"

"I meant no insult – it was merely an expression of surprise. I had not known it was possible for one of our tadpoles to successfully infect one such as you, and somehow its presence allows me to touch your mind."

"They couldn't normally read a vampire's thoughts," Del explained. "Or a zombie's, or a skeleton's. That's why they hate the undead so much."

"I never realized even mind flayers were prejudiced against us," Astarion drawled. "But do go on."

Omeluum paused, looking into Astarion's mind the same way as he had done to Del.

"It seems the magical barrier around your tadpole is still intact, unlike your friend's. Is anyone else experiencing symptoms of ceremorphosis?"

They all shook their heads.

"Perhaps Del's tadpole is naturally more powerful than the others. Or the spell on it may have been miscast. His transformation is still somewhat delayed compared to the usual timeline, but if left untreated... Mark my words, he will transform."

"If Del's parasite doesn't have the magic stopping it anymore, does that mean it can be removed?" Gale asked thoughtfully.

Omeluum shook its head. "Enough of the magic is still intact to make me worry about removing the parasite outright. But perhaps a potion..."

The illithid seemed deep in thought, gesturing to itself with hands and tentacles as it spoke. "Yes, a potion to briefly lower the magical barrier around the tadpole so I can examine it more fully, and then another to strengthen it again the hopes of stalling the transformation. Many alchemical substances are known to influence the mind. I would require tinmask spores, and a fresh tongue of madness... Noblestalk as well. It would be best to gather on your own, but I hear Derryth may have some for sale if you can't find it fresh."

"Quite the hazardous ingredients you've chosen," Gale said thoughtfully. "But if what you say is true about Del's ceremorphosis being accelerated compared to the rest of us, then it shouldn't hurt to give this plan of yours a try."

"Are we heading out now?" Del asked, rubbing at his stinging eyes. "I know this has to be done soon, but I'm just so tired."

"If Omeluum is right, and it usually is-" Blurg gave his companion a fond look - "Then it's no wonder you're tired. It's probably best if you stay here actually, so we can keep an eye on you."

Del put up a token protest, but everyone seemed to agree that he would be better off staying with the hobgoblin and the mind flayer. Some bitter part of him sneered that of course they thought he'd do better with the illithid, and that this was just another excuse to exclude him from the party. But the more reasonable part of his mind won out, so he allowed Gale to break the spell on his earrings and Blurg to lead him back into the hobgoblin and mind flayer's living quarters.

Blurg pulled back a curtain strung between two mushrooms and ushered Del through. On the other side he found an enclosed alcove, lined on two sides by natural cave walls and on the other two by a mixture of mushroom stalks and wooden beams. It had clearly been intended for half of the space to be devoted to research and the other half to living quarters, but he could see by the proliferation of books and racks of test tubes that one had encroached upon the other.

Del collapsed onto the bed offered to him, which seemed small and unused compared to the other larger one in the center of the 'living' half of the room. A small puff of dust even escaped from the sheets as Del sat down on it, causing Blurg some embarrassment as he fussed around looking for new bedclothes. The hobgoblin brushed off all of Del's assurances that it was fine, he didn't care, it was still nicer than sleeping in a tent in the wilderness...

It was funny, Del mused as he was finally allowed to lie down on the freshly-made bed. It was almost as if this bed only existed to make outsiders believe that the occupants of the room slept separately. Contemplating this possibility allowed him to crack a small smile despite the way his skull felt like it was about to split in two.

Omeluum brewed the first potion in under an hour. The mind flayer worked quickly, and Del's companions had barely even left by the time it was done. It seemed that the complicated ingredients belonged to the second potion, the one that Omeluum had pinned its hopes on to slow Del's transformation.

Del sat up in bed and drank the potion, then allowed Omeluum to look into his mind again. "Please try to hurry," he implored the illithid. Lowering the protections around the parasite had made him feel worse almost immediately, and it was a mark of the depth of his pain that the request to an illithid lacked its usual deference.

Unfortunately, Omeluum learned little more from this experiment than it had known already. Del's parasite was unusually powerful, and something about its intrinsic nature was interacting poorly with the spell that had been placed to hold it in stasis. Omeluum could sense another force that it could not define, that was trying to hold the tadpole in check... And it was only the combination of the magic and this unknown factor that had prevented the full transformation for this long.

Del wanted to tell Omeluum about the Emperor, but something held him back. His dream visitor had been explicitly clear not to mention his nature to anyone... Would that even apply to another mind flayer? What would the Emperor do if Del decided to test this theory?

"I am sorry to put you through this for nothing," Omeluum said sadly. "The good news is that this potion is short-acting, and is wearing off already. The bad news is that your condition is still progressing at its previous rate. In the meantime, all I can offer you is another draught to make you sleep until your friends return."

Del nodded his assent to the second potion, wincing when the simple movement sent stabs of pain down his stiffening neck. "Thank you," he managed to say, and drank the offered bottle in a single gulp.

The potion began working almost immediately, and the world went mercifully dark.

Author's Note: Gotta long one for you guys this time, hope you enjoy! I've realized sometimes I end chapters too early before much happens, so I'll try not to do that quite so often. If anyone sees this: Do you feel like the other chapters are too short? I could always update a tad less often but have longer chapters when I do post.

Also just a heads up, I used some quotes from minor NPCs here, just to get the authentic flavor of the dialogue... but all credit for those goes to Larian of course.