Darkness. That's all there had been for what seems like forever. My mind muddied with something like a dream, or maybe more than that. Flashes of the inside of a place I can't describe, both living and yet mechanical and utterly alien. Of tentacled faces and glowing eyes. Eyes. My mind stalls on that word as a pulse of pain surges through my skull. My eyes. Those…things. They forced a worm, no, a tadpole in my eye. Even now I can feel it writhing in my head. My stomach lurches at the thought as the pod I had been trapped in hisses to life. I jump out, landing on the unnervingly soft floor.
It takes a moment to get a hold of my surroundings. I glance around the room, more pods, others must have been trapped here too. I can only pray they got out as I have. The air is thick with fire and smoke which is more than enough to keep me from lingering here. There seems to be only one exit, fashioned in that same not-quite-living not-quite-mechanical style, the circular portal opens as I approach. Revealing a larger space, which must have been a lab or examination floor of some sort. Surgeons' tables with half-dissected beings splayed across them or strewn on the floor from impact, alongside tablets and instruments whose uses I can't begin to consider. On the far side a massive hole has been blown into the wall, revealing a hellish scenery. I don't know what could have been large enough to make it but I don't plan on staying long enough to find out.
We are trapped. I hear a soft voice call from somewhere in the room causing my attention to drift. We are trapped, help us. It pleads again. I bite my lip, torn between two options. I don't know when this ship will crash and need to get out as fast as possible, but I also can't leave someone helpless stranded in this hellspit. Not if I can do something about it. The sense of duty to the latter option wins out in the end. I follow the voice as best I can up to the second level of the room. The sight I come upon is grim.
A half-elven man by the looks of it. Bare from the waist up, slumped in an unholy throne. Red blood drips down his face from the cut in his skull. His skull looks more like a cracked walnut, the pink spongy flesh of his brain wholly exposed. His eyes are what stop me though. His dark eyes are so wide I can see the whites of them. He's alive, or at least conscious. He's capable of nothing more than grunts, his mouth slack, hands barley twitching. I kneel down to his level, trying to block out the pleads of the voice whispering in my head.
'That voice you?' I ask him.
A single tear squeezes out of the corner of his eye, he makes a choking sound trying to speak but he can't, his dark eyes pleading. The voice continues to make pleads of its own in my head, it doesn't take me long to realize what it is. I have read of such creatures–intellect devourers, a minion of the Mind flayers, who use people as living hosts. This man is gone and it is all I can do to help end his suffering. I give him a solemn nod and begin my work.
'Crying God and Blessed Father, may your embrace comfort your child in their time of need,' I pray as I take one of his hands in mine, squeezing it tight and receiving a weak squeeze in return. I place my other hand over his heart, 'Take in the pain I am soon to deal, thus removing the source of his suffering,' I continue as I summon the guiding light of Ilmater and push it through the man's chest to his heart. In a flash of light it's over, his hand falls limp and his eyes glaze. 'From your hands we were formed, and to your eternal embrace we return. Suffering no longer.' I say in nothing more than a whisper, shutting the man's eyes and laying his arms over his chest. At least granting him dignity in death as I haul myself up and head out of the gaping hole in the far wall.
I dodge the still burning fires, and the embers of old ones. The scent of brimstone and burning flesh fills my nostrils. It takes a moment to realize the ship is gliding through the literal hells. Sickly purple beams of energy streak across the hells, as dragons dance with both Illithid and Demons in the sky. I shake my head and the confusion and awe therein as I continue down the path before me. I have to find a way out of here, there is no time for distractions. I go to continue my path but find it blocked.
'Abomination, this is your end.' the Githyanki woman sneers, her sword aimed at my chest. Her eyes are of the fiercest determination she likely has made up her mind about killing me. I swallow against that fear.
I go to raise my palms in peace, but my hands quickly grasp my own head as it throbs in pain, my skin pricking. Visions rush past in my mind a dragon's red wing, leathery and membranous, and a silver sword glittering in the light. Then a flash of my own face, seen as though from the strange woman's eyes.
The woman is also doubled over, seeming to have had the same symptoms. 'Ugh, my head…what is this?' she asks, her breathing as heavy as mine.
'Tsk'va, you are no thrall,' she says, almost surprised, as she regains her composure, 'Vlaakith blesses me this day,' she continues, sheathing the greatsword across her back, 'Together we might survive.'
A great relief washes over me, at least I won't be killed yet, 'What made you think I's'a thrall?' I ask.
'We carry mind flayer parasites,' her lip curling at the words, 'Unless we escape - unless we are cleansed - our bodies and minds will be tainted and twisted. Within days we will be ghaik, Mind flayers.'
I suck in a sharp breath, but quickly push the prospect and images it conjures away for now. I have to act. There's no time for looking further than the predicament I find myself in.
'I'm Silas, by the way, Silas Thibodeaux.' I say sure not to forget my manners, even in this place, 'What's your name?'
'I'm your only chance at survival,' she states, albeit with a bit more force than I expected, 'That's all you need to know. Our first priority is escape, we can do nothing until then.' She turns, gesturing further down the path, I can make out the small red bodies of imps, feasting on a corpse. 'First we exterminate the imps, then we find the helm and take control of the ship.' she says with all the confidence of a commander as she takes off toward the fight to come, and with me quickly on her heels.