Chapter 3 - The Start of a 'New' Adventure

Five years have passed and Del has all but forgotten about the mind flayers' invasion. It was due at any time, but she had had her arms full with various missions. The one she was currently on was supposed to be a simple theft. She had gotten hold of the book she was supposed to steal, but she must have missed the memo about it being a stealth mission, because she was being chased by a handful of people. And they were, rightfully, very mad at her.

She had just managed to dodge her way outside of their stronghold - a dilapidated warehouse just outside of Baldur's Gate, but she was worse for wear. She held tightly to her upper arm where a sword had sliced her, simultaneously ruining her favorite shirt. She was bleeding quite heavily, but she couldn't afford to stop, as they were right on her tail and one of them was shooting fire arrows at her. So she booked it as fast as she could manage. She was diving around the corner of another warehouse when she heard it.

Wooooosh-boom!

At first, there was just confusion, but then out of nowhere a giant tentacle came down from the sky and smashed through one of the buildings to her left. The nautiloid had finally shown up.

This had to be the worst timing ever.

The destruction of the building forced her to turn another corner as she attempted to run farther away from the mind flayers' ship. She refused to be caught up in that mess right now. She was in the middle of a mission - one she was failing spectacularly. At this rate, she's liable to get smashed into smithereens by one of the tentacles.

She wasn't even supposed to be here! She had taken mostly jobs that were far from the city and had been away most of the year, but then she got a message from one of her brokers that they needed her help. So back towards the city she came, thinking one day doing a "simple" mission was going to be safe. There was absolutely nothing that was safe or simple about this mission anymore. And it all started because she had missed one stupid little trip wire.

Well, that's the least of her problems, because now it looked like it was going to end with her being splattered across the cobblestones during an invasion she wasn't even supposed to be here for.

Del could hear screaming behind her. Glancing just over her shoulder she caught the moment another tentacle tore through another structure, causing it to fall over right on top of her pursuers. That took care of one of her problems, at least. Up ahead more people were running away from the nautiloid same as her and she could feel the air around her cool as its shadow crept over her.

The next tentacle that dropped down decimated an entire row of houses just ahead. Debris scattered across the narrow road and she had to slide to a stop. She quickly looked around but there were no alleyways for her to duck into around here and her only option was to run back the way she came. With the air thrumming above her, she decided to risk it and turned on her heel.

She was desperate to get away from the ship before she ended up as one of its casualties, but before she could move even an inch she was caught up by one of the tentacles. She could almost feel it reverberate across her entire body, stopping her in her tracks. Not only was her body numbing, but her mind was, as well. She had a short moment of panic hit her and then everything went dark.

When Del came to, she found she couldn't move. The air she was breathing felt moist and warm and she had to convince herself she was not suffocating. After a few more moments she realized she could move her head a little and she managed to open her eyes. They felt so heavy like she was waking from a deep slumber. When she gazed blearily about, she was able to identify she was inside of some sort of coffin-like contraption and there were many more surrounding her. A brief wave of nausea overcame her and she had to shut her eyes once more.

She wasn't sure if she lost consciousness again, but when she was able to reopen her eyes, it was to the sight of a mind flayer depositing a wriggling white worm into the eyes of a very green woman. A githyanki, in fact. Del could feel her heart leap into her throat as she realized who she was looking at. Not once in her many years in Faerun had she ever run into one of her kind before, which wasn't a surprise, but for it to be the one she would recognize from another time and another place, it couldn't be a coincidence. And this was looking all too familiar.

Looking away from Lae'zel, Del found herself making direct eye contact with the mind flayer as he approached her with another of those wriggly white worms.

Her tadpole.

No, this wasn't right. This wasn't supposed to be happening. As her pod opened, she started to struggle in earnest, her attention completely on the tadpole as it was brought closer and closer to her face. Soon, all she could see was its frightening set of teeth and then all she could feel was a searing pain. It traveled, sluggish but sure, from the tops of her eye and began to bury itself deep into her brain matter. She felt her entire head pulse in pain, until she could handle it no more and she was lost to the dark once again.

She wasn't sure how long she had been out, but she was awoken by a sudden shudder and the feeling of the ship swaying in a way that illustrated that this was by no means normal. The room she was in was now a mess. The pool where the tadpoles came from was broken and there were spots of fire here and there, lighting up the room in flashes of yellow and red. Half the pods were open and when she felt the ship shudder once again, she found herself spilling onto the floor as her pod joined them.

Her head was still killing her and she took a moment to stay on her hands and knees while she waited for the room to stop swimming. If she had the fortitude for it, she would be berating whatever gods may be for her current predicament, but she felt too off kilter for it at the moment. She was tempted to just sit there and allow whatever was happening to happen without her. Surely, there was someone else out there who was meant to solve all their problems. There was no way it was meant to be her. But she didn't dare leave it to chance. She wanted to survive and that meant taking things into her own hands.

She took a few deep breaths through her nose, trying to ignore the sounds of chaos that were coming from all around the ship. Once she had steadied herself and it felt like her brain wasn't about to explode she pushed up onto her feet and took quick stock of her body. She still had her pack, her weapons, basically everything she had on her when she was abducted.

Except the damn book.

"Shit!"

She had been holding it in her hands, due to her sudden need to flee, and it must have been left behind when the nautiloid had transferred her to one of its pods. All of that work was done for nothing. And the book was probably lost underneath all of that rubble.

The nautiloid swayed once more, knocking her out of her thoughts as she steadied herself. Right, now was not the time. She needed to get off this damn ship first.

She made quick work of checking all the pods first. The githyanki was nowhere to be found. She can't decide if she is thankful for that, or not. In the next room she found a few bodies. She checked them to make sure, but they were very dead and she continued on, avoiding the intellect devourers as they scurried about, obviously confused and in distress.

When she got to the next doorway, all she could see was the open sky. The side of the ship had been ripped open here. She stopped, staring in amazement at the red skies and the derelict landscape as it whizzed by. Dragons swooped around the nautiloid, breathing fire, adding another level of ridiculousness that had her questioning her sanity. It felt almost as unreal as her first few days arriving on Toril. After all, it's not every day you get to see Avernus. It's not every day you get to see a dragon, either.

"Come on, Del," she muttered to herself. "We don't have time to sightsee. We need to get to the helm."

As she moved away from the doorway and out into the open, a blurry shape seemed to vault into the space in front of her, as if it fell from the sky. She thought she might have been impressed, until she found herself on her back with a githyanki pointing a sword at her throat from above. She guessed she wasn't meant to survive this, after all.

"Abomination. This is your end," the githyanki told her right before they were both hit with a wave of psychic pain. Their tadpoles were communicating with each other and Del was able to see flashes of images through Lae'zel's eyes, including her own face. As the tadpoles finally released them both, she watched as the githyanki woman realized she wasn't the enemy.

"Tsk'va. You are no thrall," she said, putting her sword away. "Vlaakith blesses me this day. Together we might survive."

With the pounding of her head still receding, Del merely grimaced as she pulled herself up off the ground. A sense of deja vu wrapped around her like a cloak. If she had had any doubts left, they were definitely gone now. This was not a coincidence. She was meant to be here. Despite all her years trying to find her place in this world, it turned out she was meant to have a purpose in it anyway. Because she was meant to be Tav.

Gods, it had been years since she last played that stupid video game. It was hard to even remember what it was like playing video games at all. She was essentially not even the same person she was back then. Is she supposed to know the lines Tav would have spoken? Because she definitely wasn't going to remember them all. Should she act confused, even if she isn't? She would have to figure that all out later, though, because she needed to talk to Lae'zel and not just stare at her like a moron.

"I will take any help I can get," she told the green stranger/not stranger. "I was trying to find my way to the helm. I don't think we want to be stranded here in Avernus of all places."

Her new companion nodded. "I agree, but we will need to take care of those imps before we can move on." She gestured behind her and Del could see a group of the red, winged monstrosities chowing down on the carcass of some poor soul. She's had run in with imps before, but never this many at once.

Drawing out her crossbow, she told the githyanki, "Not a problem. This isn't my first rodeo."

"I'm not familiar with this word… rodeo."

Del nearly smacked herself. After all these years, you would think she would stop using vernacular from her old world, but just like any habit, they are hard to quit. "Ah, yes, erm, rodeo is like another word for fight."

Lae'zel drew her sword once more and turned towards the imps. "Then let us get on with this rodeo."

They both made quick work of the imps and soon found themselves back inside the ship. They entered another room full of pods and Del quickly noticed activity in one as someone beat against the opening. She could faintly hear them yelling to let them out.

Ah, yes. That would be Shadowheart.

Rolling her eyes at their desperation, Del passed them to enter another room and could practically hear the pitch of their voice raise in panic, but after she located what she needed she promptly came back and walked over to a slimy console where she placed the rune. Now, she could open the pod.

"What are you-" Lae'zel began, before Del promptly slammed her hand on one of the buttons, opening it.

The woman who was inside slid out, falling onto her hands and knees.

As Del approached her, the woman pushed back up to her feet. "I thought that damn thing was going to be my coffin," she said, still catching her breath. "Thank you-"

The woman is interrupted as her tadpole connected with Del and Lae'zel's. Del winced, noticing the more her tadpole connected with people, the less it was starting to hurt. It was still overwhelming on a psychic scale, but at least the pain was becoming more bearable. Just as before, she saw images flash before her eyes, as well as a general understanding of the person who stood before her. She had a strong will to survive and Del could feel her tadpole reflect the same sentiment back to their newest member.

As the tadpoles' receded, Shadowheart clutched at her head. The first time seemed to always be the worst.

"We're headed to the helm," Del told her. "You can come with us, if you'd like."

"I think I'd better," she replied. "It'll be safer if we stick together. My name's Shadowheart."

"I'm Del, and that's," she gestured to Lae'zel, forgetting the githyanki hadn't actually introduced herself yet. "Oh, right. Um, what is your name?"

"I don't think now is the time for pleasantries," Lae'zel pointed out, rather crossly. "We need to get to the helm - now."

Del wanted to point out that giving her name would have taken way less time than her short tirade had, but she kept her mouth shut. It was probably too early to poke fun at her green skinned companion. The deja vu was strong and Del had to stop herself from slapping her own face to see if she was dreaming.

"One moment," Shadowheart replied, before turning back to the pod she had just come out of. Del watched with interest as she pulled out the astral prism and put it away in her pack. She knew better than to comment on it.

With one other person in their party, it was taking no time for them to move through the ship. After years of working alone, Del had forgotten how much quicker it was to take down enemies when you had a team. It was quite nice. At least, until they approached the helm.

Lae'zel had turned to Del to tell her to follow her lead and Shadowheart had a hissy fit about Lae'zel trying to take the lead. Del remembered quite liking both of the women, but had forgotten they had always been fighting. Luckily, Lae'zel decided to not argue with her and they entered the helm.

It was utter chaos inside. Cambions and imps were fighting mindflayers. And there were those devil boars. Del couldn't remember what they were called. As they watched, one mindflayer fed on the brain of one of the cambions, before being taken down by several imps. The other mindflayer, thinking they were thralls, commanded them to get to the transponder so they could escape.

Del turned to the other two women before either of them could say anything. "Cover me," she yelled at them. And ran off towards the console covered in tentacles the mindflayer had called nodes.

She could hear the battle continuing behind her as she ran, so she knew they were listening to her. As she got closer to the transponder though, a couple of imps noticed her and tried to cut her off. She dodged them both. As she reached her objective, she grabbed two of the tentacle nodes and slammed them together. There was no way for her to know which nodes did what, so she just had to pray that they worked.

Of course, right at that moment, a dragon appeared and roasted the transponder as she was standing in front of it. She did her best to dodge the flames and rolled away. It just missed her and she thought she still had her eyebrows. She had time to check the nodes were still connected before the dragon suddenly disappeared. The ship listed heavily to one side, causing her to slide away from the transponder. The floor was slick and she had nothing to hold onto to stop the movement. She groaned internally, knowing that whatever happened next was going to hurt. A lot.

And with that thought, the ship lurched again and tilted forward into a steep dive. The sudden shift in pitch caused her body to leave the floor and fall straight towards the front of the ship. The sudden change in gravity made her stomach lurch and she reached out her arms, hoping to find anything to stop her fall. The transponder loomed below her and she grabbed onto the ledge of it, holding on for dear life. She stared up at the two nodes she had connected earlier.

Oh yeah, maybe now would be a good time to disconnect them.

Gritting her teeth she hauled herself closer before grabbing on to them. It took more effort than she thought, but eventually they came apart. The nautiloid shuddered once more, causing her to lose her grip on the nodes. She fell hard, her body catching on the sides of one of the windows. For a moment, she locked eyes with one of the injured mind flayers who had fallen across from her, before an object came falling from the back of the helm and hit her. The force of it dislodged her from her spot and she fell away into the sky.

As she fell further from the nautiloid she could see it was still on fire and the light was bright enough to blind her to most of the stars in the sky, but not enough for her to not recognize it as the night sky of Faerun. A sky so familiar to her now, she knew it like the back of her hand. This was probably the closest to the sky she would ever be and she took a moment to enjoy it, imminent death notwithstanding.

It was beautiful. And if it was the last thing she saw before she died, she would be happy with that.

Del turned her face towards the ground. It was getting closer and her heart was hammering even faster in her chest. Bracing herself, she shut her eyes, too afraid to watch. It felt like an eternity passed, when all of a sudden her body jerked to a stop. When she opened her eyes, she could see she was hanging a few feet from the ground, upside down and she had a moment of elation -

She wasn't going to die!

And then she was falling again.

She hit the ground face first. Once her body followed she let out a loud groan. The landing really could have been softer. After all of that, though, her body decided it had had enough and she promptly passed out.