Taylor was sitting on her own little asteroid. Well, kinda. It was the finger-bone of some giant skeleton drifting through space. The skeleton's skull was visible in the distance - it was maybe the size of a small theatre, with a dull crown placed on its head. Far beneath the skeleton, a sphere of unclear size and material drifted sedately. She couldn't tell how far away it was, or how big it was, because there were no real landmarks in space. There was a pressure building in her chest, as if she was having trouble breathing, but she seemed to be breathing just fine.

There was a man approaching. She couldn't tell what he looked like, his features seemed to be shifting too fast for her to notice anything in particular. But he was proportioned like a man. He w g

"Taylor, you need to wake up." It sounded like her dad. Taylor frowned. She was dreaming, of course she was dreaming. She was probably late for school, and she'd have to hurry up and get dressed so dad could drive her over. Not that she wanted to go back to school, but break was over. The tightness in her chest had increased, as if someone was sitting on her chest.

[Taylor, wake up!] Had his lips moved? She wasn't sure. She'd been looking right at them, but they didn't look right, they were too rubbery and wet and not even really lips. That...who...

[AWAKEN]

Taylor thrashed, limbs sluggish, but her head broke the surface. Water spewed from between her lips as she heaved to draw in air. Her lungs hurt, which was a very odd sensation in and of itself, but she was treading water now. The water wasn't too deep, and with several seconds of swimming forward, it was shallow enough she was wading instead of swimming. The gunk that had been stuck to her clothes from the locker and pod has all been washed away, leaving her surprisingly clean (albeit absolutely soaked, but she wasn't going to look a gift horse in the mouth).

Taylor looked around to take stock of her surroundings. She was on the bank of a river, the wreckage of the crashed nautiloid surrounding her. The sun was high in the sky, so it was probably around-she shook her head. She was making assumptions. She'd left her old world at the tail end of winter sometime late morning, but that didn't mean anything if she was in another world entirely. The ambient temperature, the foliage of what few trees she could see from where she was standing, the position of the sun in the sky...it was all useful information if she knew she was on her own Earth, but the odds seemed slim. And if she wasn't, that meant she couldn't count on telling the climate from the trees, couldn't count on telling the time from the sun, couldn't count on telling the season from the temperature. She was out of her depth.

As she was glancing around, she spotted the dark-haired healer weakly struggling close to shore. She was about as close as Taylor had been, could wade if she got a bit closer, but she was clearly on her last legs breath-wise, and that armor wasn't doing her any favors. Taylor swore quietly before returning to the river. By the time she arrived, Shadowheart had gone under and ceased struggling against the water. Taylor got a deep breath and ducked down below the surface. The woman's eyes were half-lidded, and bubbles slipped from her lips while the light in her eyes died. Taylor seized the edge of her armor, dug her heels into the silt, and heaved her closer to the shore one step at a time. Shadowheart's head broke the surface again after several steps, with Taylor's not far behind, but her endurance was already flagging. The water carried their body weight a bit, since humans were close to buoyant, but the woman and her gear had to be about 200 lbs, and Taylor was maybe half that soaking wet.

Abruptly, the wind picked up, a massive howling noise that seemed to surround them. Taylor looked up, and saw Durge floating down out of the sky. Despite the lack of wings, it seems the overgrown reptile-person could fly by commanding the winds. She looked closer and revised her opinion - perhaps the more accurate description for what they were doing was "falling slowly", as Durge crashed into the water a little ways away after a few moments. Their head popped right out of the water, able to stand where Taylor had been underwater, and made their way towards the two girls.

"Help her, I'll get myself to shore," she said, spitting out some water. Durge nodded and yanked the healer up out of the water, carrying her over their shoulder to the shore without any signs of struggle. Taylor envied them a brief moment, but mostly appreciated the sudden alleviation of 200 lbs of dead weight. As she waded in, she called out "Get her armor off and lay her down on the beach."

"Potions won't help," Durge replied in an odd tone she couldn't quite place. "She belongs to Umberlee now."

"The hell she does. Armor off!"

Durge shrugged and slipped Shadowheart straight out of her chain shirt, before laying her down. "You're a bit young to be this ruthless. Most people wait 'til the body cools to start looting."

Taylor ignored them. Shadowheart's undershirt felt thin enough for this to work. Taylor started giving her mouth-to-mouth ("...well there's something you don't see every day") and chest compressions, alternating between the two for almost a minute before the healer's body started twitching. Taylor backed up as the woman's body rolled over and her guts heaved. The remains of some previous meal and an unbelievable amount of river water poured forth. The two of them watched (Taylor in satisfaction, Durge in shock) as Shadowheart slowly got her breath back.

"I-I'm alive. You're alive." Shadowheart looked around at the wreckage of the nautiloid that blotted out most of their surroundings. "How..."

"You and I got lucky," Taylor replied. She jerked her head to the side. "Durge is just too magic to die from a little something like falling out of the sky, apparently."

Durge spoke up. "Falls aren't a problem...tadpoles are, though. Did you both also receive an extra resident in your skull?" When they received affirmative responses, they continued. "I did as well. Those teeth looked nasty, can't imagine I'll appreciate it chewing through any more of my mind."

"It'll be worse than that," Shadowheart replied. "Illithid tadpoles aren't in there to eat your brains. They infect you, and over time they transform you into a mind flayer."

Taylor's breath hitched. "How long have we got?" she asked. She'd made it sound almost like a disease; did they have months, weeks?

"I don't remember exactly, but it hits you quick. We've got...maybe a week at most." A shadow crossed the woman's face. "That gith might know better, her kind have been enemies of the illithids forever. I notice she's not here to celebrate my survival. Did she wander off."

"She landed further up the river, from what I saw," Durge replied, before pointing. "I saw her making her way that way, maybe a bit north of our current position. Shouldn't be too hard to catch up, since she's no longer on a ship she's memorized seiging," they added with a chuckle. Taylor made a note in her head to have that direction marked as 'north' for her internal compass. Taylor gathered her thoughts, and absently noticed something...important: the kaleidoscope was back. When she closed her eyes, she could sense the forest around her teeming with life. It wasn't the sense that could detect the melody of minds - although that was present as well, presenting an orchestra of nature. No, she could feel a sea of stars once more, far denser than she'd witnessed while trapped in the locker. It would've been overwhelming if it was still forced upon her constantly, but while she'd been in danger, it had been held at bay. Waiting until she was ready to process it.

Maybe that was the wrong phrase, though, since she still felt unready. It was an overwhelming amount of sensation, but the ratio of noise to signal was too heavily-weighted against comprehension. She calmed herself by waving her arms around to confirm she wasn't still trapped, and thought back. When the illithid had infested her, her little constellation had attacked, and bugs flew out towards it with malicious intent. She pushed aside the sea of stars surrounding her and narrowed her mental field of view. Most of the stars faded from her attention as she focused it down, down, down.

By the river, there was a faint little star all on its own. She wandered next to it and flipped the crab back onto its feet. It didn't move, for it was drowning in her song, no matter how she tried to quiet her own melody. She could affect the others, and the trees, but it took effort; with the crab, it was effortless. It was like an extension of her own body. The crab climbed up onto her shoulder, every twitch of its muscles occurring only because she commanded it to do so. Some part of her mind was vaguely tracking the conversation, and noticed it had stopped. She glanced over, and the two were looking at her.

"Are you coming? Durge says he spotted roads not too far from here. We can follow those until we arrive somewhere, and get our bearings properly."

Taylor nodded, and returned the crab to the water. She followed along, and found she could focus on the conversation without losing track of all her little stars. She still couldn't handle the mass of them all at once, especially if she was understanding her power correctly, but she was playing with adding them one at time to see how it affected her ability to respond with words in a timely fashion.

"So what was that thing you did? I've never seen magic like that before," Durge asked.

"Wasn't magic. It's called CPR but I don't remember what it stands for. If someone has a heart attack, or starts drowning, it's a way for someone to manually force the heart to keep beating and the lungs to keep pumping. It's not guarantee, but it'll at least keep someone from dying to stuff like that long enough for a real healer to arrive." She'd meant to say 'medic' in her head, but the closest word in whatever tongue this was, was 'healer', so that's what she went with. She'd reached twenty bugs she was able to focus on without losing herself mid-sentence.

"Does it always crack a rib?" Shadowheart asked, her tone teasing.

Thirty bugs. Taylor shrugged. "First time I've had to do it. I think that's pretty common, but I mean if you'd prefer I can let you drown next time." She tried to match the teasing tone, but she was out of practice talking with much of anyone, let alone getting chummy with adults.

The healer shook her head with a soft smile. "I suppose I'll live...which is the point, after all." A moment of quiet, as she eyed Taylor. Forty. "So what was your business with the crab?"

Taylor shrugged once more. "Still figuring that out myself. Might have answer eventually. Might be useful in a fight." Fifty bugs reached, and still not even a hint of strain. She decided to start increasing by two bugs at a time.

"One crab?" Taylor smiled and shrugged again. The elven woman rolled her eyes with a huff. "Fine, be mysterious. We'll see how you like it when you can no longer contain your curiosity about my life and experiences." She glanced at Durge. "How about you, big fella? Got any dark secrets you're willing to be forthcoming with?"

"No idea," they replied with a careless shrug. At Shadowheart's look, they clarified. "Oh it's not that I'm withholding exactly." Durge tapped their temple. "Most of my memories are gone. I can remember some things like how money works, vague recollections of maps of the Sword Coast, speaking the Common Tongue. But what I was doing before the squid-heads snatched me up? I know how to open up someone's neck so they can breathe but not talk, and I can recall reasons why doing so might be helpful to the person being sliced up, but I can't for the life of me recall why I learned that."

"Bit gruesome. How exactly does that help?" Taylor's count had reached a hundred with no sign of increased pressure. Increasing to ten bugs per step.

Taylor spoke up. "I've heard of this. Not sure if there's a word in the Common Tongue for it but I've heard it called a Tracheostomy." The last bit was in English, similar to how Lae'zel occasionally swore in...whatever her people's language was called. "If you're choking on something pretty close to the top of your throat, or experiencing an allergic reaction in that area that's causing your throat to close up, you can put a hole in their neck leading to their windpipe and they'll be able to keep breathing. Makes it hard to talk, but so does being dead." She paused a moment. 250 bugs. "I don't know how to do one and I wouldn't want to try; there's a couple big blood vessels in the neck, would be very easy to make things even worse by nicking them." 350. "If they're choking on something, there's also the Heimlich maneuver. I sorta know how to do that one."

"Well hopefully anyone who joins up with us isn't liable to be such a messy eater as to need a demonstration any time soon," Shadowheart replied dryly. 500 bugs, and she couldn't feel any strain keeping track of every single one. It was if a copy of her mind existed within each bug, commanding its movements exactly as Taylor would have, so that she didn't have to dedicate mental energy to issuing the command. 25 bugs per step!

Suddenly a distraction, and Taylor was alert. "There's an illithid up ahead," she said quietly, and the others tensed. "Injured and pinned down."

"Still dangerous," Durge said, sounding serious. "I'll take care of it." The other two followed, to provide backup in case it proved necessary. They found the creature half-trapped beneath a large section of walkway that must have fallen during the crash. Hateful orange eyes up at them and Taylor winced at the accusation within them. They had dallied so long getting, it's injuries were so severe. If they'd arrived sooner, perhaps peace could have prevailed, but now it would need to feed. It was only just that one of them offer a rejuvenating meal to their ailing master. She kneeled dow-

Durge stomped the illithid's head hard, closing those hateful eyes forever, and it was like Taylor had been hit with a blast of cold water. Unlike previous exposures to mind-flayer manipulations, this one had been subtle rather than a blast of sensation, and Taylor had almost lost her life as a result.

"Well! There's something you don't see every day," an unfamiliar voice drawled. Taylor spun, and took a step back with a double-take. Several feet away, looking for all the world like someone enjoying a show, was a vampire. Extremely pale skin, blood-red eyes, exaggerated canines, one of the three hair colors acceptable for vampires, and two puncture scars on his neck big enough to be visible from here. His clothes screamed 'nobility', and there was a hunger in his eyes as he idly played with a knife. His melody was that of a violin, careful and precise and quiet but filled with the promise of screaming high notes. "You're not thralls, then? Seems it's my lucky day."

"Well met, friend," Durge greeted the man cheerfully, and Taylor's eyes flicked to them. Didn't they realize the obvious? Or worse, was Durge a vampire too, and that's why their scales where red-flecked white? Taylor shook her head to clear the cobwebs. She was being silly. Just because Twilight was a thing doesn't mean daywalking vampires were a thing, even in her own world's mythology. Shadowheart seemed on edge, but she wasn't preparing any wooden stakes or anything like that. Taylor prepared her bugs just in case, though - the man had a weapon drawn and ready before they'd know he was there, after all.

"Astarion. Those things snatched me up back in Baldur's Gate. I saw that one-" he indicated Taylor, "-break out of her cage, and then you came along. Since you don't seem to be in league with those monsters, perhaps we can be allies!" He flashed what would've been a charming smile of Taylor could focus on anything but how sharp those canines were. "Oh, I don't suppose any of you happened to receive an...unwanted guest in your skull? I can still feel mind writhing around. I'd hoped it was a hivemind sort of thing and the ship crashing would soothe it, but no such luck."

Taylor spoke up. "Bad news on that front. The little tadpoles they put in our heads? They're going to turn us into illithids before too much longer."

"Turn us into-" The man let out a disbelieving laugh for a few seconds. "Of course! Of course it'll turn me into a monster!" She could hear a familiar tone in his voice, one she'd heard in her own voice on particularly bad days. The voice of someone who thought they'd hit rock bottom only for life to toss them a shovel. "What else did I expect?" he said, more to himself than the others. He ran a hand through his hair. "Removal would be difficult even for skilled healers. If we can find an expert of some kind, they might know what to do to keep it docile - leave us the benefits, without the downsides."

Shadowheart finally spoke up. "We're planning to follow the road towards whatever we can find, and see if anyone there can help, or knows someone that can. You're welcome to join us."

Astarion shrugged. "I was prepared to go this alone, if needed. But sticking with the herd might be safer. Any predators are more likely to go after an easier meal than me," he said, eyes flicking towards Taylor for a moment. If this guy wasn't a vampire, he was doing an excellent job of accidentally pretending to be one. Taylor continued counting up with her bug control, but made sure that Astarion was walking in front of her instead of behind. He didn't seem worried to have her at his back; maybe he really did consider her weak. It struck a nerve with her, and she wasn't sure if it'd be better to prove him wrong, or keep her powers concealed until she needed to fend him off in the night.

She blinked, feeling the world through her bugs. Another person on the road! The others spotted him pretty quickly too, so she didn't need to give them a heads up the way she had with the illithid - his elegant purple robes made him stick out like a sore thumb. He was munching away on a sandwich, taking an occasional sip from a hip-flask. His was a song of discordant notes; if the world was an orchestra, then he was a trumpet playing on the wrong tempo, and it was clashing with everything around him, actively fighting against the world to play his own song instead of theirs. When he saw them, he gave a big smile and a jaunty wave. "Ho there, fellow travelers! Mind if I join...whatever this is?" he said with a wave of his hands. "Won't be any trouble, just need to return to civilization post-haste."

"You don't seem wounded," Durge replied, eyeing the man up and down.

The man grinned again, a bit more strained this time. "Well, given the direction you're coming from, and the aberrant bile stuck to your boots, I can only surmise you've come from the crash site to the south? And if I could speculate further on the assumption my previous hypothesis was correct, I would wager each of you has also been the recipient of an unwanted insertion in the ocular region?"

Taylor had never heard a person more in love with the sound of his own voice. But if he was afflicted too, it was best not to leave him behind. "Eloquently put," she replied, and the man's eyes shifted to her. "Yes, we're all infected. You were on the ship too, then, I take it?"

He nodded. "The exact timeline of events is unclear, but not not too long after arriving back in the Material Plane, the ship was coming to pieces in the sky above and I found myself in freefall. As I was plummeting to certain death, I spied a glimmer near where I estimated my body to impact with less-than-savory propulsion." He gestured over his shoulder, and down the path there was an enormous rune carved into the rock wall, faintly glowing purple. "Identifying the glimmer as a wormhole, I twisted the Weave around myself and the portal and pulled. It was almost a complete success! I was a bit stuck within the portal initially, but a kind soul passing by lent me a hand and pulled me free. A little slip of a woman, a drow if her mode of dress is anything to go by. Alas, she was less interested in company than doing a good deed for a stranger, so we bid each other farewell." Taylor wasn't sure what a drow was.

Shadowheart chuckled. "That's an awful lot of words to say 'I forgot to prepare feather fall this morning'."

The man looked affronted for a moment. "Even the greatest of mages cannot be prepared for every eventuality. I'm sure you didn't wake up this morning expecting to be kidnapped into the midst of some illithid plot." He clapped his hands and stood up. "I've not heard any disagreement, so if you're willing, I shall accompany you to whatever lies further down this path! But first, introductions. I am Gale, of Waterdeep." Taylor noticed Astarion stiffen at the name, although neither of the others did, nor did they seem to notice the pale elf's discomfort. "Here's hoping for a quick solution to all our problems!" he said cheerfully.

Taylor couldn't bring herself to share his optimism.