Taylor's world was dark, and light, and silence, and sound, and rotting, and delicious, and everything in between. A kaleidoscope of sensations assaulted her mind, too many to make sense of. The sea of stars that made up her new self thrashed in place, sending every last twinkling light in her sky jittering in agitation. One constellation slammed itself against a metal barrier, but it was too strong, and they were too few. It would take a galaxy to have a chance to-
BZZZORP
-and suddenly the sea of her mind shrunk to a puddle, leaving her naught but a small constellation, every star twirling around her as if in orbit. Taylor gasped, breath heaving in new scents for the first time in hours; her head was still far too full of points of light and the world still didn't quite make sense, but it was no longer as overwhelming as it had been. She was one pod among hundreds overlooking a long thin ovaloid room. She struggled to move, as she had for hours, but her new prison was no less cruel than her own, and the transparent barrier between her and freedom remained stubbornly intact.
Her pod began moving, maneuvered away from the wall and placed in the center of the room. She was surrounded be empty thrones of an alien design. Directly ahead was a large sphincter; was she inside some massive creature? Is that why this new place smelled so weird? And then it opened and she suddenly had new concerns, for a monster had emerged. It was vaguely humanoid in shape, and its form was lithe and lightly-muscled, like one might see on a swimmer, but that was where all semblance of familiarity ended. Its skin was rubbery and glistening with a thin layer of slime. Both of its hands ended in three fingers and a thumb, each sporting a deadly-looking claw. The sides of its skull were missing, exposing parts of its oversized brain to the open air. Beady orange eyes stared her down, drowning in the black sea of its sclera. And in place of its mouth were four long, muscular tentacles, twitching back and forth as if in anticipation.
Taylor renewed her struggles to escape. Where before she merely wished to move around unrestricted, now she sought to flee from what she knew in her heart was a predator. The creature caught her eyes with its own and screamed. It was like experiencing every sensation she had ever felt layered on top of each other. it wasn't that she wasn't seeing, it was more that everything she had ever seen was flashing before her eyes, a million home movies playing at the same time. The cacophony of it echoed in her ears despite the stillness of her eardrums. The memory of every gentle kiss goodnight and scraped knee and unbearable itch and shoulder check ravaged her skin. Everything she had ever eaten was doing a reunion tour in her mouth, and the venue wasn't big enough for all of them.
For most people, drowning in more sensory input than they had ever felt would be utterly incapacitating. For Taylor, it wasn't even the first time today. As the cover of the pod opened up at the creature's gesture, she tried to clamber out, barely treading water in the surface of her own personal sea. Her constellation surged forward, and she saw a small squad of flies and cockroaches rush the creature. But it didn't matter - another gesture arrested their momentum, and hers as well. The bugs were crushed, and she was held in the pod, more immobile than she'd been all day. She couldn't even blink, as the force keeping her limbs locked in place was also holding her eyelids open.
One hand approached her, and she could see something wriggling on it. Before, the light of her constellation had drowned it out, but now with naught in her sky but it and her, she could feel it. This dimmest star, this alien tadpole, slithered over the squid-man's hand as he brought it to her face. It got right up to her unblinking eye, and she could see a half-dozen rows of razor-sharp teeth within its maw. Four tentacles surrounding the mouth whipped towards her, latching on around her eye socket and a n d
a̸̹̍ ̵̡͋ṇ̴͊ ̸̲̓d̶̖͛ ̷͇̽ ̵̼̕ ̵̾͜i̶͓̿ ̶̰̆t̵͙͝ ̷̱͛ ̴̹́ ̷̫͒ṗ̴̼ ̶͈͐u̶̲̔ ̷̳̉s̶̪̃ ̷͎̔ḧ̴̹ ̶̠͛e̵͙̊ ̸͕̽d̶͎̕ ̴̠̐ ̴̢͂ ̷̱̚p̴͙̍ ̷̣̈a̸̦̔ ̵̻̐s̴͎͂ ̷̢͛t̸̡͗ ̷̪̂ ̷̻̈́ ̶͈̚h̵̟͐ ̶̲̐e̷̖̊ ̴̼́r̵̖̍ ̷͓̓ ̷͎̍ ̷͉̇ë̸͎́ ̷̬͌y̸̩͛ ̷̳̂e̴͕̽
Taylor passed out for the second time that day.
Taylor came awake with a groan. After a few moments of (barely) stretching her aching limbs, she took stock of her surroundings. The creature was gone, the door it had come through closed once more. The cover of her pod had been raised once more, so she was still trapped.
...or was she?
She could still feel that dimmest of stars as it burrowed between her brain wrinkles. But she could also feel many more, spread throughout the room - one in each of the pods adorning the walls around her. And beyond the sphincter-door, many more could be felt moving around inside...whatever this place was. And that was just with one sense. With another, it was like she could hear every mind around her thrumming out its own tune. The pod she was in, and all the ones on the walls surrounding her, sounded like clanging cymbals. Within each one, another mind cried out a frantic melody like a flute soloist having a nervous breakdown. And above it, below it, around it all, the ship itself hummed quietly, a constant buzz almost too low in pitch to detect.
Taylor reached out to the cymbals in her ears, trying to hold them, but her hands could barely move. She relaxed a moment, and her awareness expanded. She surrounded the pod with her own flute solo, enveloping it as the ship enveloped them all, and willed it to match her note for note. She flexed her [AUTHORITY] and the cymbals fell into line. The lid of the pod sunk downwards, and the strands inside binding her legs loosened for the first time since she arrived.
Taylor climbed out of the pod and fell to the floor before it, feeling as if she'd run a marathon. She sat there for some time, reveling in her freedom and the scent of air that wasn't as overwhelmingly biological as she'd been subjected to for who-knows-how-long at this point. It was only a few minutes, but it felt so sweet to just exist there, not having to struggle for every momentary comfort. She lost herself in the melodies around her, until some new notes seeped into her orchestra. The door opened once more, and she tensed involuntarily, expecting the creature to have returned. Instead, it was two new creatures, almost as alien as the previous.
The first was...well it was uncharitable, but she looked like one of the Who's from that awful live-action Grinch movie. Her nose and lips had that same not-quite-right look to them. She was a bit shorter than Taylor, with yellowish-green skin reminiscent, with brown spots speckled across her upper face. The look was completed by four smears of thick makeup - two surrounding her eyes, making them pop, and the other two streaked across her cheeks like soldiers trying to camouflage themselves. Her skin's texture was off, more like a toad than a human or the squid-man. Her rust-colored hair was tied back in a loose bun, and yellow eyes with vertical slits stared at, regarding Taylor with the same curiosity she herself displayed. Her body was clad in gleaming silver armor adorned with red gemstones, and she clutched a nasty-looking sword in her hands. To Taylor's mind, her melody was that of a military march, a brash decisive drumbeat driving a soldier to war.
The other was tall, towering nearly a foot higher than either of them. Loose clothes hid most of what must have been an incredibly fit individual, if the bulging sleeveless arms were any indication. Every inch of skin she could see was covered in scales - white mostly, but with flecks of red. In some places, it seemed a natural coloring, while in others...was that blood? She couldn't be sure. Did anyone here even bleed red? Seven scaly horns adorned their head, and their mouth looked wide enough that she suspected they could unhinge it like a snake. The whole of their eyes were like dancing fire but for two slits black as the void, and had a hungry look to them, as if the mind behind them wondered what she tasted like. Their melody was a dirge, slow and mournful.
As she locked eyes with each in turn, Taylor felt their minds probing at her own song, sampling its melody.
The frog-woman spat a curse in a language Taylor didn't understand, then said "Your mind remains your own. How fortunate for you. Follow, or perish with the rest of the ship!" Taylor could understand the words, but at the same time she could clearly tell what she'd just heard wasn't English. It was like some part of her brain was real-time translating a language she'd never learned...but inexplicably didn't work on the first part? She turned and stalked back the way she came. The lizard-person shrugged and waved her to follow, before returning as well. Taylor didn't really want to follow either of them, but it sounded better than staying here alone, so she clambered to her feet and set off after them.
Despite their similar height, the frog-woman seemed to constantly outpace Taylor. She wasn't in bad shape, but the other woman was marching along at a brisk pace despite what had to be a great deal of weigh bearing down on her shoulders from the armor, and the occasional explosion rocking the whole ship from side to side that sent Taylor stumbling. What's more, despite the twisting maze of corridors that made up the ship, the woman never paused or hesitated when it came time to pick a new path forward. Wherever she was headed, she must have the route memorized. A note of doubt crept through Taylor - literally, she could hear a change in the chanting of her mind's flute. The ship was going down, but were these two attackers sabotaging the ship, or were they the ship's crew, evacuating whoever they could? Were they enemies or allies to the squid-man?
A loud banging interrupted Taylor's thoughts. Fists pounding against not-glass, the cover of another pod. She paused and looked up.
A person! A normal human person! Her skin was quite pale, and her dark hair was pulled back in a high ponytail, with the tail braided and...bound in chains? Green eyes and shouted words begged for release. The song of her soul was dueling cellos, one with frenetic high-pitched notes, the other holding soft deep notes as long as possible. Taylor's pace slowed.
"This ship is crashing! Do you intend to die for a stranger?" the frog-woman snapped, but Taylor ignored her. [Authority] rang through the room, audible only to her, and the pod creaked open.
The woman inside practically fell out, and almost immediately turned to search through the mucus near the bottom. She fished out a small many-sided prism of metal, perhaps the size of a baseball, and stowed it away. A snap of her fingers and the muck sloughed off her hands. She glanced at the group, eyes flicking from Taylor, to the frog-woman, then back again. "You keep dangerous company," she said cautiously.
Taylor was a touch disappointed; the woman's ears were pointed, and it was easier to see her armor and weapons now. Wherever she was from, it wasn't home. "Already tried to fight one of those squid-guys on my own. Ended poorly. I'll take whatever I can get."
"Fair enough," the woman replied. "I'm Shadowheart, by the way."
"Taylor."
"I'm Durge," the lizard-person spoke up. He sounded almost cheerful, as if this were just another day. Maybe it was, for him, maybe this was more normal for wherever these people had come from.
The frog-woman seemed peeved, and her tone turned simpering. "You can call me Lae'zel. Now that all the social niceties are observed and we can put names to faces, perhaps we should focus on escaping this ship before it crashes into an army of devils?!" She spat another curse Taylor didn't understand before turning on her heel and continuing her march down the corridor. Taylor glanced at Shadowheart, who shrugged as if to say 'told you so' before the three of them set off after Lae'zel.
Several turns later, they stood before a massive door. This time, even Lae'zel has faltered - not to catch her breath, she seemed perfectly fine physically. But her melody was tinged with trepidation and fear, with notes of her previous confident resolve slowly seeping back in.
"Lae'zel...what awaits us in there?" Taylor asked between breaths. She shouldn't be this out of shape from a brisk walk, she was going to need to start exercising regularly.
"The helm. As many as a dozen ghaik, if fully crewed. Even one would be a challenge for us as we are. But we should have seen some patrolling the gh'ath. If they are under attack from the Hells outside...there will be fewer of them, and will be engaged in combat with Zariel's forces. If the former...we are lost. If the latter, we can jez'rathki back to the Astral or the Material using the controls at the far end, let the devils and illithids weaken each other, then take on the survivors and hope it's enough." She paused a moment, hesitating, before adding. "Even then, we may be overwhelmed. If you've any prayers to offer up before death, the time is now."
There was a few moments of silence. Lae'zel was murmuring something under her breath that Taylor couldn't quite hear. Shadowheart's lips were still, but her eyes were closed and she was almost certainly praying too. Durge, meanwhile, was practically bouncing from one foot to the other, excited at the danger to come. Were they deranged? Perhaps it was something else, maybe lizard-people are more powerful than elf-bloods and frog-people, more on par with the ghaik, as Lae'zel had called them. Taylor, for her part, mentally recited a prayer of her own. She'd never been particularly religious, but it was better safe than sorry. If Lae'zel was to be believed, they were flying through Hell right now, and the servants of a fallen angel might be attacking the ship. As Lae'zel straightened and Shadowheart gripped her shield tighter, the door opened.
There were five illithids manning the helm, locked in combat with a number of terrible creatures. They clashed with three men, each clad in armor wielding a huge sword...and each wearing deep crimson skin, with enormous horns, and wings to match. Quadrupedal brains the size of small dogs were desperately fending off rabid boars with twisted tusks sprouting extra points like branches shooting out of a tree trunk. Above it all swarmed a dozen winged humanoids maybe the size of cats, which swarmed illithids like bats when they got too distracted fighting back the more heavily-armed devils. Bodies littered the floor, indicating the battle had been raging for quite some time.
As Taylor watched, one of the illithids was torn apart in a frenzy of tiny claws. A second one glanced in their direction. [EGRESS] it projected at them mentally. Taylor flinched; it wasn't the sensory overload she'd experience before, it was more like the creature was deliberately communicating a concept. It was remarkably efficient communication, far moreso than speech with no room for misunderstanding. The ghaik saw them wandering free and concluded they were servants, and had given them orders to make their way through the melee to the controls, where pulling on a pair of tentacles latched together would transport the whole ship elsewhere. The message contained no indication of destination, on the assumption that these were servants and they didn't need to know why a thing was being ordered, they only needed to follow through.
Taylor tensed, not sure she was willing to take commands from this creature, and Lae'zel looked similarly conflicted, but Durge shot a thumbs up before lumbering forward. Taylor and the others followed suit.
Lae'zel engaged with a couple of the boars, which freed up the brains-on-legs to assist the illithids with pushing back the devils, making room for the others to go through. A swarm of imps descended to meet them, but were turned back when Durge sucked in a big breath and spewed icicles at them. Taylor and Shadowheart ducked through, working their way past the dueling monsters. On the other side awaited more boars. Shadowheart charged forward, seeming to duplicate midair. The foul creatures attempted to engage both of her, leaving a clear path for Taylor to move forward. She started towards the controls, but was yanked back; one of the illithids had fell, and the cambion that killed it had decided keeping the ship above Hell was more important than killing them all personally. His grip on her arm was as iron.
Taylor's awareness enveloped the cambion and the volume of her flute drowned him out momentarily. She projected to him every pain the trio had ever inflicted on her. He chuckled and hoisted her into the air by her arm. Perhaps as an expert of torture, he simply experienced pain differently? It still stung that all of her torment got laughed off. Wait...
Despite the fatigue that shot through her with every expression of her power , she narrowed her eyes and tried again - but this time, visiting upon the devil the sensation of every joke she'd ever heard, the first time she heard them. Every terrible pun and clever misdirection and astute observation rushed through his mind, all at once. His chuckles turned to full-blown wheezing laughter, and he released her to clutch at his gut as he fell to the floor. Taylor dashed towards the console without a second thought. With Shadowheart and her shadow-clone holding off these boars, she was able to connect with the ship. She couldn't tell what the destination was - everything felt strange and she had no idea how to reprogram the destination to take her home. But anywhere was better than staying here. She plucked the cord-
BZZZORP
-and the ship almost immediately collided with a mountain. It was a grazing hit, but still sent everybody flying all over the room. Taylor had a bit of trouble keeping track of things as she was thrown about, until she rather abruptly came to. Shadowheart was leaning over her, hands glowing with a pleasant-blue energy. "Can't do much more of that, so try to not get hurt again." A healer! Taylor made a note to stick close to her going forward. She turned her attention back to the melee.
It seemed the sudden impact had been harder on the wing-bound devils than on the telekinetic mind flayers, who had seized the advantage. It had still been a hard-fought battle, but now all that remained was a single illithid standing tall, battered but unbeaten, with one last cambion dying at his feet. A gesture, and the devil's head came clean off his shoulders, flying up towards the illithid's awaiting maw where it-
Taylor flinched and looked away, not wanting to witness the meal. When she looked back, though, her thoughts stuttered; the creature had turned its attention to her, and floated to where she was resting on one knee. [Sustenance] it projected to her, at a volume that compelled her to freeze in place. She couldn't move, she couldn't scream, she couldn't even blink n
Had Taylor not witnessed it, she couldn't be sure it wasn't some figment of her imagination, but all three of her companions seemed to move at the same time, as if they'd practiced this maneuver over and over. Lae'zel slammed into the illithid from the size, sending him toppling towards a pile of transparent barrels filled with strange purple liquid. A flick of Shadowheart's wrist and the barrels exploded, propelling the mind flayer back towards Lae'zel...but it was intercepted by a haymaker from Durge's bulging arms, lightning streaking across their fingers with malicious intent. Their electrified fist went through the illithid's skull, and there was a spray of bile and ichor from the creature that gave each of them a fine misting of biological fluids.
Taylor faintly remembered one of the early serious concerns following contact with Earth Aleph was slight differences in disease history that could cause a mild flu from one world to be deadly in another, which was why physical trade was so limited. Well, there was a magic healer on hand apparently. She didn't have much time to think about that, though, as the ship crashed into a bridge between two large hills, tearing an enormous hole in the side of the helm. Suddenly they were screaming through the sky, just barely hanging on inside the ship as air rushed past them, dragging with it anything not nailed down.
Some broken piece of furniture nailed Taylor in the side of the head, and she knew no more.