Molting (A Messy Process) - SeashellBlue (2024)

Taav'Qhel's birth is a crime, and they will be punished accordingly.

It starts with the Body in chrysalis, ribs of a Nautiloid pod wrapped tight like arms in embrace. In the Body, is Taav'Qhel, and they are waiting. The taste is a mild sweetness, and like the Body's memories of cream, as they bite down on the prefrontal cortex.

In thought, they see the Body floating face-down in the River, before her weak mind dissolves entirely. It is Taav'Qhel’s time, now.

They are instructed by lullaby how to mold the Body into the right shape.

< Yes, Mother. For you, an Empire. > They think, as they signal the bones to twist and realign. But there is no response.

They are aware something is wrong before they are falling. The floor is hard, and as the amniotic fluid of the pod begins to dry, they learn the sensations of ‘cold’ and ‘wetness’.

Braced on their hands, they see the wrong number of fingers. They stand with the legs of a newborn, and see a reflection in the nursery pool. It's not the face they imagined for themself. They are incomplete.

Mother's voice is silent. No guidance.

No orders.

The first private thought Taav'Qhel has ever known, is that perhaps this is a good thing.

A githyanki flips over Taav'Qhel's head, and the crossbow clumsily lashed to his belt does not seem adequate.

< Traitor. > Pre-programmed memories scream through his consciousness. < Upstart. Usurper. Consume her. Restore the Design. Rule the Stars. >

In another tone, light and small.

< But I don’t want to rule the Stars. >

“ - rendered you completely senseless?!” The githyanki says, words stolen by howling winds and Taav'Qhel's own confusion.

“Uh,” he says “Yes?”

The githyanki levels her sword when Taav'Qhel notices the thread of a sibling nestled in her brainstem and pulls.

They are in thought and Taav'Qhel realizes < Lae'zel > must see what he wants her to see. Floundering, he bats her awareness towards a memory from the Body, the sensation of a Nautiloid's tentacle crushing against her torso on what should have been a simple walk home from the tavern.

< Shell. > He makes the thought heavy with emphasis. Then < Tiefling > and, he fumbles around for the concept through the scattered leftovers of the Body, < Adventurer? >

Whatever he did was, apparently, convincing enough, because Lae'zel does not name him a ghaik and slaughter him where he stands.

“The Intellect Devourer thinks us thralls and can be put to use. That I understand. But why are you holding the creature?”

< Us is cute. > Taav'Qhel thinks, but does not say.

“I don't know.” He volunteers instead, setting Us down. It's… not that much better an answer.

Lae'zel stares at him like there was a hole in his cranium revealing a hollow interior, before directing their focus to the Nautiloid's helm.

Absent-mindedly, as Taav'Qhel's five-fingered hands weave into a neural net and climb, he reflects on the name he gave. Shell.

< That's kind of messed up. > He thinks. Was he the kind of person who cared about that sort of thing? The day was full of discoveries.

Shell it is.

During a slow evening at camp, Shell nestles themself by the campfire, and stares into the content of a small, glass jar. Held between their index finger and thumbs, tilting it to and fro in the torchlight. They commit every refraction of light on liquid to memory. Inside, a sibling stirs, idly extending its oral disk.

Shell worms their way between the folds of the Body's hippocampus, setting an idle loop of last night's dream in the background.

< Consume. Evolve. Complete. > They summarize, from their ‘Guardian’s’ words. It should be relieving that the Guardian’s goals were so closely aligned with their own, and all it seems to bring about is a steadily-growing unease. It almost seems… too convenient. Surrounding Shell, is a party split between temperance and dancing on the knife's-edge of ceremorphosis. But even the gamblers among them tolerate their tadpoles rather than embrace them, and would gladly take a dagger before they would transformation.

Shell tilts the jar again, and their sibling rattles the glass in growing distress. Shell is hesitating, and for a reason not a single soul on the Plane would care to understand.

“You deserve at least one person who cares if you live or die, don't you?” They say, softly as to not be overheard and questioned in their sanity. “At least for a little while.”

They stall, running a few simulations of finding a body to plant their sibling in, and allowing it to grow. Most results read null, due to an excess of uncontrollable variables. The rest are an eclectic collection of deaths, which can be further subdivided by whether Shell is killed by their party or their sibling. It’s a little comedic.

Shell sighs, and resigns themself to the fact that an Illithid's ethics are as incompatible with Faerûn as everything else.

They dive into their sibling’s shallow, nascent mind. A light tug, and the thread of its consciousness snaps like cheap thread. They collect what tatters of psionic energy they could before pulling back. Just in time to see the tadpole twitch, once, and sink slowly into the curved bottom of the jar.

Shell has put together a list of likes and dislikes in her mind. The Goblin Camp is a dislike. Deception is a like.

Minthara carried herself with centuries of experience, to lead her thoughts astray with only a handful of words… it feels like what Shell was made for. And she is sure, in days to come, she'll achieve feats of persuasion that will top it. But in the moment she revels.

“Minthara's forces may not be marching on the Druid Grove, but that does not make them any less a threat to the people.” Wyll says to her, voice low and obscured by distant chanting. “They should be dealt with.”

“When they fail to find the Grove, their masters might very well do our work for us.” She brushes a braid off her shoulder, shooting Wyll a smile. “Efficiency is a virtue.”

“In a Lanceboard match, perhaps. But this isn't a game, these are people's lives.” Gale interjects.

She winces, then queries the Body's memory for what the hells a Lanceboard is.

Lanceboard [lɑːns.bɔːd] noun; One of the “four universal games" of Faerûn along with draughts, dice, and Talis. Favored by nobles as a teaching aid for the strategic mind.

They are both correct, at least on the objective level and possibly on the subjective one too. She was not playing a game where the board would be reset at the end of the round. Any pieces she lost would carry forward into the next match, and so on into the unforeseeable future. Perhaps, then, she should favour contingency over efficiency. A new principle.

Her mind lingers on the definition. A word stands out, to her. She queries.

Noble [ˈnəʊbəl] noun; The bearer of a noble title, descending from a family that owns land, collects taxes, and wields significant political influence. Familiar with wealth, power, and privilege.

A memory pings as ‘relevant’ from the Body. A pair of women flutter along the cobblestone of the Gate's Lower City. Ankle-length dresses in rich fabric, eyes lined with subtle colour, full faces that couldn't even fathom the idea of hunger.

< I think I'll have that, one day. > Shell decides. < That will be mine, mine, mine. >

She checks the memory's tags.

< Anger > < Jealousy > and, with the mental equivalent of an underline < f*cking snobs. >

Shell schedules an hour of meditation for the coming evening. Her index was full of f*cking junk, apparently.

“Why are you making that face? Like you smelled something off.” Karlach asks.

“Because everything smells off.” Shell replies, a little too quickly.

“Fair, I guess?” Behind Karlach is a pair of heavy, oaken doors, from which emanates the sound of spellcasting. Shell is a creature of curiosity.

“If we aren't pasting these goblins, the exit's in the other direction.” Karlach thumbs back, and Shell pays her no heed. “Okay then, probly should draw the axe out in advance, for whatever disaster this'll be.”

Shell walks in to a hobgoblin standing on a platform, roughly lashed-together wood planks and bone. Skulls are piled next to lumpy, melted candles and brazier-light. A circle of raucous underlings completes the picture.

There is a sibling on the ground.

The hobgoblin shouts in frustration and looks ready to kick the corpse, only restraining himself as he notices Shell's presence.

“Another True Soul joins us.” His arms spread wide, to a beckoning crowd.

He attempts to speak to her, mind-to-mind, and she kicks the probe away like she’d stepped in something rotten. It's not exactly guileful, but few first reactions are and now she has to make the most of it. She lets < Dror Ragzlin > take nothing but the barest trace of her disgust.

“If you wish to speak to me, you will speak to me.” She says.

“Seems you're not aware whose house you're in.” Ragzlin smiles sharp, and a sweep of the minds that surround her party returns a wave of animosity. “You're lucky Minthara cleared you, and maybe you won't be once we're done with this mess of a squid.”

His hands run through the gestures of Speak With Dead once more. Shell runs her awareness over his thoughts, and catches an absent-minded musing.

< I could take their heads as matching trophies. >

Shell is still as her dead sibling, until it is the one hovering in the air, the spell like a pair of hands forced between a jaw and ripping. The mind-touch is putrid, and the Body pings her with the memory of finding a boil-covered rat sealed behind a wall.

There is a hand on Shell's shoulder.

“Are you alright? You look like you're about to, well, make a mess on the floor.” Gale asks.

“I am processing.” She says, all touch feels like needles being driven into her flesh but Gale is well-intentioned so she spares him her gentleness in taking his hand away. “The best view of the ceremony will be from the balconies, next to the war drums. Remind Wyll to cast False Life and keep Scratch close.”

“Oh sh*t, we're doing this, aren't we?” Karlach says, and Shell hands her a thought of staying by her side, protecting the Body as she took Ragzlin's mind.

Shell waits until the glyphs wax in their glow, a distracted mind is easy prey. She dives, and takes his vocal cords, he notices her presence by the third question to pass through his stolen mouth.

Shell feels a twinge of annoyance as Ragzlin tries to reassert control. It's equivalent to a blow from a toddler. The simple truth was that they were both in the River, now, and while the sibling in Ragzlin's skull might allow him to tread water, Taav'Qhel was born from the depths.

< As my sibling was to you, you are to me. > She thinks, as she rips the raw data from his temporal lobe. < Not even an enemy. Only a collection of statistics. >

As she pulls away, and because Ragzlin does not need to survive, she embeds a command into his consciousness.

< Kill your subordinates, and then yourself. >

The room descends into screams.

Shell does not notice the silence, on their own. They were, initially, too absorbed cataloging all the minds they took in the Goblin Camp. Sifting between memory and fact, tactile response and linguistics, and most time consuming of all; scrubbing all those annoying emotive tags. They mourn the lack of a sibling to correct the structure of her mental subroutines. If one were to review their work, it would be weeping at the inefficiency.

It is only on the path back to camp that it clicked, how the minds of their companions part around them like a river around jagged stone. Shell assumes that if any of them have an issue they wish to bring up, they will initiate a conversation regarding it. Shell is, partially, proven right, following an awkward cough from Gale during the evening meal.

“That was a rather… unorthodox variant on Crown of Madness.”

“That was not Crown of Madness, I used my tadpole.” Which feels strange to say, ‘I used myself’. Mangled on the tongue.

There is a return to idle chatter and Shell almost considers the issue resolved with the clarification, until, from Karlach;

“So was Ragzlin turning himself in a f*ckin’ pincushion a one-time thing, or could you do it whenever?”

Whenever, with the limiting factors of; general constitution and mental wellness, resistance and / or immunity to psychic damage, and a dash of what others would refer to as ‘fortune.’

“I can't do it ‘whenever.’” Shell lies. They take a bite of some kind of meat-on-a-stick. It tastes like nothing because apparently taste buds were some of the first organs to go during partial ceremorphosis. As a replacement, they test out a newly-acquired memory in their catalogue and oh so that's what dwarf tastes like. Ew?

“Considering you're not the only one here burdened with an unwelcome guest, perhaps you'd like to play the role of instructor?” Gale asks.

“I can't explain how I did it. It kind of just happens.” They lie, again.

“A gift from your patron, perhaps.” Wyll muses.

< I think I am my own patron. > Shell thinks, a moment lost to the unnerving possibility. Then, they answer. “Maybe.”

The evening continues, and Shell tries to shake the image of their back against wood and bone, hands in their mouth, compelled to speak.

In the Myconid grove, and for the first time in his short-yet-long life, Shell lets his hackles fall. In the Grove, he is finally able to allow his mind to carry the message, instead of the wrong voice, emanating from the wrong Body.

< My friend will be here shortly. > Blurg projects, though not well. His intention would have fizzled out into nothing if Shell were unwilling to bridge the gap between their two minds. But he is so very willing.

< We look forward to their arrival. > Shell responds.

“Seems like you're taking to these mind-to-mind discussions like a Marid to water.” Gale’s eyes rest on him, then take flight again like a startled bird. “Eagerly, one might even say.”

Shell catches the stray fragment of a thought, before it dissipates into the spores.

< … Overeager. >

“I’m just using every advantage at our disposal, like you suggested.” Shell says, not even convincing himself of his words’ sincerity.

“Most certainly. No harm done, as long as one doesn’t go… traipsing past that final precipice.” Gale plays it off like a joke, but Shell sees, in his face;Fear [fɪə] noun; The awakened sense of mortality. A fearful creature may act irrationally if the source of its fear is in sight, such as failing otherwise simple tasks, or acting on a compulsion to flee.

Fear [fɪə] noun; The awakened sense of mortality. A fearful creature may act irrationally if the source of its fear is in sight, such as failing otherwise simple tasks, or acting on a compulsion to flee.

“Ah, there you are, Omeluum!” Blurg says aloud.

Shell almost, verbally, screams. He has just enough awareness to open a private channel before he stutters, frantic;

< You’re going to be ‘okay’ right? I really need you to be okay because every other sibling I’ve met has been - > A clip of Mayrina screaming as she was told her brothers lay bloated in the swamp. < - And I’ve killed them all. >

Omeluum does the psychic equivalent of tripping on its own ankles and knocking over a priceless antique vase. It fumbles for a hot second before throwing Shell a memory.

The give of soil beneath the trowel, the worn gripe of the trowel in a four-fingered hand. Kneeling, with company, and the near-rhythmic motions of opening the ground, placing the Zurkhwood spores, and burying them with water. Company, Blurg, a fellow researcher and kindred spirit. They chat idly and there is no mention of Nautiloids or Thralls or Empire. They simply… are. And it is enough.

The memory has a title attached; “Living”. And that he also wants to ‘live’ is easy enough for Shell to understand. That he is not currently ‘living’, is the realization. True, there is his steady heartbeat and the rise and fall of his chest, but he would be alive, truly alive, when he could exist in the world as ‘himself.’ But when one’s self is so irreconcilable with the natural order - perhaps his existence would have to be postponed. Perhaps, indefinitely.

< Good news! > Shell projects in an open channel to the party. His latest conflict is filed away into the recesses of Shell’s index, where it could be safely ignored until it cost him the coming night’s sleep. < Omeluum has agreed to help us. >

In the private channel;

< I do not recall agreeing to such a proposal - >

< The fourth member of my party is a githyanki and I do not know where she is! > Shell projects. < I assume she is in the walls somewhere! Please say you are helping! >

On impressively short notice, Omeluum is noting down a recipe for a tincture comprised of Tongue of Madness and Tinmask. Shell almost notes it down in his index, but then he accidentally starts playing Omeluum’s memory again which leads to him doing a psychic 180° out of his own mind-space.

He continues to pour his effort into not-thinking as Gale and Lae’zel (who was not in the walls, just crouched behind a convenient mushroom stalk) triple-checked Omeluum’s instructions for treachery. Where Shell's will falters, he steals glances at Omeluum's shape and wonders. It was a form that would make his life infinitely more difficult if he possessed it. But it would be his life.

His body.

The party would go on to meander about the Underdark, in part, because Shell chooses to linger. It's only reasonable, when staring down a potential future. Each sensation and memory is a query, is the drip of water on stone pleasant, or maddening? The constant temperature stagnant, or predictable? Would the three-dimensionality be less of a bother if he could levitate? All filed away for later analysis on the road.

There comes a night where Shell knows the dark of the underground, one surrounded by a cradling shield of stone, will be trading for another kind. Life-sapping shadows, as explained by the druid Halsin. Even an endless night would at least possess stars.

Shell weaves invisibility around their form, and steals away from camp. Under duress, a creature seeks comfort, so he finds himself beneath the fungal lights of the Myconid Grotto.

< Hi. > He projects, thought as shy and small as a mouse's. Omeluum is alone and Blurg is, presumably, sleeping. Reassurance is a confusing concept, it does not know how to provide, and Shell does not know how to receive. So the desire sits between them on the mental facsimile of a floor, like a dead bird dragged in by a cat.

< How did you do it? How did you make this, > Shell gestures vaguely at the Myconid grove and the concept of having a place in the world. < For yourself? >

< It is an individual process. > The answer was dissatisfying, non-committal, and worst of all, logically sound. < Do your companions… know? >

< No. Maybe I'll get lucky and be killed by something before they ever find out. Then they can hold a tiefling funeral for their tiefling friend and all go to sleep soundly at night. >

Omeluum curls its tentacles, a self-soothing gesture Shell is unable to perform. It extends its two front tentacles and, without thinking, Shell holds out her arms, palm-up for it to rest them in.

< The mind speaks true, where the body deceives. We share an instinct. > Omeluum projects, as it draws its tentacles back. < You are, perhaps, unique in all our species. But you are of our species - as much as you desire to be. >

< This world wasn't made for me. > Shell, mentally, sighs. < But my world wouldn't be made for them, would it? It would be torture. And I do love them so. >

The conversation continues with Shell clarifying some aspects of the Nautiloid blueprints, shared with Omeluum previously. Shell has measured the seconds down to the exact, and knows when he has to depart, lest he risk discovery or an incomplete rest (both unacceptable, really, the Body looked horrid with dark circles). Omeluum leaves Shell with a clip of Blurg waving goodbye and audio of common farewells in Goblin. He, in turn, gives a memory of Gale as Shell and his party set out from camp, one morning. Slight wave, subtle smile, and a handful of recommended readings.

Returning from the grotto, Shell reflects.

‘Love’, he realizes, is an improper term. A vestigial remnant from the Body. His companions are useful. They shield the Body during combat, and provide insight on the unspoken laws of Faerûn. Around them, Shell feels clever, her tongue quick to rouse laughter, the way she sculpts minds a useful ability. Shell thrives with praise, just as any other creature, across any other Plane.

It was a long-term investment, of sorts. The innate value of his companions personality easily measured heavier than material wealth, and would even exceed some forms of light, physical harm to Shell's Body.

This is not ‘love.’ This is…

(???) [???] noun; A general state that, when experienced, leaves the subject unlikely to attack the source of their condition or target them with harmful abilities or magical effects. The source is also placed in an advantageous position during social interactions.

He would discern what it was, eventually. He simply needed more time to process.

Lae'zel is a sister-in-arms, to Shell. In part because she is the first person Shell ever met and a newborn is a newborn, regardless of species. But that wasn't the only reason, not anymore, anyway. Befriending a githyanki felt like spitting in the face of destiny, and Shell was nothing if not ego. She wasn't naive, of course, she was sure Lae'zel would be at the head of the hunting party once the truth came to light. But until then, Shell dared to play with fire.

Stone cracks, as Shell fires an eldritch blast into one of Rosymourn's weaker walls. She blows sparks of magic away from still-smoking fingertips, and moves forward to rip away charred wooden board. Lae'zel joins her.

“The créche draws near. Purification.” Relief emanates from her in waves. She stepped out into a hallway dappled in rainbows, fractals along the floor in shattered stained glass. The rest of the party follows and Shell slips back as she feels a familiar presence brush up against her mind.

< Lae’zel is - > Wrong, her Guardian wishes to say, perhaps even paired with an expletive, for emphasis. But the word vanishes into thought and is replaced with one less inflammatory. < - Mistaken, in the belief that her people possess a cure. Your tadpoles are unique in psionic potency. >

< Damn right. > Shell thinks to herself. Then, to her Guardian. < It doesn't matter if the créche has a cure. Lae'zel has humored our tangents for far longer than I would have. Between that druid who almost killed me to the other one whose only experience with our predicament was a Drow with a caved-in skull. And then the hag. And then that bard with the ice pick. >

Shell pauses, in thought.

< Her patience rivals an Ilmatari Saint, honestly, to delay what is likely our most viable avenue for a cure. >

< I have only ever acted in our shared interest. > Her Guardian says, as if a preface, but no words follow.

< If you think the zaith'isk another distraction, then perhaps you would care to explain why. > Shell says, taunting. < You are a creature of reason, I am sure your answer would satisfy, if you would only relinquish it. Unless, of course, you do not wish for us to be - >

< What will you tell the githyanki after you refuse to be cured? > TheGuardian leaves Shell with a question, and Shell's requests to clarify rapidly devolve into formless queries, sent out into a void. The shock leaves Shell to drift, slowly, sinking, to the floor.

No desire for a cure, because she was the disease. If the Guardian knew that, then Shell's mental wards were not half as strong as they needed to be. It leaves her feeling like her skull had been sawed along craniotomy lines, brain matter exposed to the open air.

“ - Shell!?” A voice pulls her back to the physical. It is Gale, and the expression on his face is identified as an intense variant of concern, hybridized with worry.

“Ah,” Shell realizes, as her gaze falls. She is kneeling in broken glass. It’s messy. “That hurts.”

The Body's audio processing appears to be completely shot because there were several, overlapping voices and Shell could understand exactly none of what they said.

Gale is the first to notice, his tone turning gentle but nonspecific, the assurances one would give to a wounded animal. He takes Shell's hands, and all touch is knives and needles but she lets him because he is the one doing it. He leads her, stumbling steps, to a stone bench where they could sit and tend to her lacerations.

Shadowheart takes point, and Shell anchors herself to the ‘plink’ of glass on metal as gauntleted hands pull shards from the Body.

“This isn't the most senseless injury I've treated, between Astarion dueling that bear and Wyll attempting to give Karlach a hug.” She says, her fingertips alight in teal, skin knitted together in her wake. “But don't do it again, will you?”

It was a very obtuse way of showing care.

Shell, ever testing her luck, drifts her awareness past each of her companions’ minds, querying for access. They are merciful, and allow her to explain without the use of the Body's wretched voice.

< I was simply overwhelmed, by the possibility of a cure. I can hardly imagine it. > She projects. Technically, it is not a lie.

Gale and Shadowheart frown, but value discretion too highly to press. Lae'zel, though, possesses a nature as defined by truth, as Shell's is by lies. She needs answers.

< Am I a warrior, Lae'zel? >

Lae’zel’s gaze flits to the other companions, before returning to Shell. She responds in thought, offering intention freely for Shell to take. < I fail to see how that is relevant in the slightest. >

< Am I a warrior? > Shell repeats, tagging the query with emphasis.

< One of the finest I have known. > Lae'zel relents, with an eye roll.

Shell presents a memory, from the Phase Spider nest. Lae'zel sword is caught in webbing just as the Matriarch rears its fangs. And there, Shell, with a Eldritch Blast that half-blinds the creature, ruined eyes weeping dark fluid.

< You trust me with your life. So trust me with a secret. Only one. > Shell promises. < I have lied about nothing else. >

< Only one. > Lae'zel projects. “If you are well enough to prance about in my mind, you are well enough to walk. We seek the créche.”

Shell tests newly-scarred, but stable, legs, and their party descends further into the temple complex.

To herself, Shell thinks;

< This bond will hold. I have been useful enough, surely? Isn’t that enough? >

When the zaith'isk fails it is, yes, a relief. But it does present several new dilemmas.

See, the dagger in Shell's hand, and his Guardian, kneeling before him.

“You sought out the gith despite my warnings, to what result? The tadpoles remain, your companion Lae'zel is in crisis, and the entirely of Créche Y'llek will have your blood whether you kill me or not. We must trust one another, and if we do not, what more is there to say?” Their gaze runs along the length of the dagger, they do not look forward to it. “I saved you.”

< Why would I trust you when you refuse to even look me in the eye? > Shell's intent and his dagger are driven into the Guardian, cold-blooded as anything Shell’s ever done. As they stutter, he leans in close, thought low and intimate as a whisper. < I saved myself. >

The dagger, and his Guardian, dissolve into violet sparks before their body could hit the dirt. Shell is left standing, alone, in a garden beneath Astral starlight. He sweeps his awareness across the foliage and pillars, crystal and Weavemoss, without a trace of another mind. Either he has been left to return to his party without answers, or his Guardian's mental cloak far exceeds his ability to detect. He hopes for the latter.

“I wasn't trying to kill you, by the way.” Shell calls out, shifting on his hooves and far less sure of his steps than he had been walking in. “The projection was pretty obvious, even before I sunk a dagger into plate. If you know what I am, then you know I am capable of that, at least.”

“You do realize,” His Guardian says, stepping out from the shadow of the pavilion, not even a drop of blood marring the shine of their armour. “That even if you achieve ceremorphosis, you still require my aid to shield you from the Absolute's commands.”

Shell sticks out a forked tongue.

“This is the behavior of a petulant child.”

< I am a petulant child! > Shell projects. < Maybe I wouldn't be, if I had a sibling’s guidance instead of cryptic nonsense! >

The Guardian is taken aback, a step ringing out against the stone.

< Do you think I couldn't tell? Do you even know whose face you're wearing? You must not have had many to pick from. > A laugh rattles through the mind-link, clipped from that Hag Ethel. < You're Gith. Because, before my Mother taught me my own name, she wanted me to know who the enemy was. And we both know if you were who say you say you are, you would have let me burn in the Nautiloid. >

“You - you are mistaken - “

< Why didn't you tell me? > Nine Hells, his Guardian could likely read him like an open book, the way anger radiated off them in jagged waves. It was pathetic. < I really needed someone like you! I still do. >

< Why did you tell them? > They say, another dagger driven into a different heart. Their thought-pattern was perfectly even, and their projection without the slightest ripple. No intention to cede any ground, it seemed.

< Fine! Be like that. But remember, we're equals, now. Mutually assured destruction, and all that. I'm sure you despise it as much as I do. &gt; Shell digs tiefling claws into tiefling palms and hates them both, before turning to the burnished ring of metal that served a portal out from the garden. < I'll take some minds in the créche. Hopefully, next we meet, I'll be in a better mood. >

Shells stares into an aurora woven by idle hands, and imagines that this would be what it felt like, to be wanted by the world.

And there, the weaver, sitting next to them, stars reflected in his eyes. Shell knows at that moment, he belongs under this sky. In this world.

< More than a Lanceboard piece to be traded away. > Shell thinks to themself. They are sure of nothing, if not this. < More than a footnote in some grand, divine, strategy. >

Shell draws their knees up, resting their head lightly. Gale puzzles over their expression, and for once, they want to be solved. How they long to tell him how the image conjured by his hands will sit as the crowning jewel of their archives, until the day they die, and no god comes to claim them.

“I can’t love you.” Shell can't love anyone, and it only bothers them when they have to watch the heartbreak. Quickly now - before it shatters. “But I can live with you. I know how you like your tea, I’m not half bad for peer review, and I’ll figure out how to get cats to like me eventually. Is that enough?”

“You will always be enough.” Gale takes their hand like they are a butterfly alight on his fingertips, easily startled, but scintillating in beauty. They curl into his shape, and they still hate the touch, but less than if it had been anyone else. Less, because it is him. “And here I was, thinking I was soon to make a fool of myself, on what might be my last night on earth.”

< It won't be. > Shell takes the thought and drapes it around him like a warm blanket. < You will live a long and joyous life. >

Above, the skies ripple with shooting stars. Another thought, for Shell alone, kept close to their chest;

< Are all gods such fools as you, Mystra? You could have had him forever, but now he's fallen into my arms. And who knows where my wicked mind will lead him. >

Yes, the colony beneath Moonrise looks like an ambiguous flesh pile. And yes, rediscovering it alongside the party invokes an emotion akin to leading guests into a messy house. But shove that aside for a moment.

Could it not be acknowledged, what a marvel the colony is? A hybridization of genetic material from hundreds of different species united under a single neural system, working towards a common goal. As much a miracle as any body, be it humanoid, beast, or aberration. The colony is a glimpse into a world where the biological is the technological. Where the forest is the city is the orchard, where the tree branches lean down, singing for one to pick their fruit.

It would be beautiful, if it weren't for five centuries’ worth of victims, oozing from the wall like shoddy mortar.

“So do we burn this place down before, or after finding the heart of the Absolute?” Shell asks her party. They stand - huddle, really - in a dry patch in the intake chamber, formed from a pile of corpses.

“Our priority lies with Ketheric Thorm.” Lae'zel says, stepping forward with a squish as one body's ribcage gives way and deforms like rotten fruit. She does not care to mask her grimace. “Tsk'va. I will allow Dame Aylin her vengeance, but afterwards I will take the General's head.”

Shell moves tentatively forward, bunching up her robes before she realizes it's an entirely lost cause, letting go, and wading into the ankle-deep mix of fluids. She reaches one of the chamber walls, tap tap tapping a claw along until she feels a weak spot.

“Please enlighten me. Why.” Gale asks, peering around her shoulder to see her fingers pressing into the wall.

“Warlock stuff.” Shell responds, her hands having sunk in to around the second knuckle. And then, when she glimpses Wyll, who seemed to have some very strong opinions regarding her choice of words. “Great Old One Warlock stuff.”

“They mean to connect to the colony.” Lae'zel says, “Madness has claimed you. The Absolute nearly rent our minds the last you tried and now we are in its heart. Kainyank.”

“Being in the Absolute heart is why I should make a second attempt. There's more traffic down here, signals for nutrients, information, thralls. I can slip under it all. And besides, I have twice as much experience as I did the first time.” Shell looks back into Lae'zel's narrowed eyes. “I do think about these things.”

She expects further resistance from her, but Gale's hand on Shell's shoulder comes as a surprise.

“This isn't worth your sanity.” In the half light of the chamber, the faint, bruise-purple lines trailing down from his eye are starkly visible. “We have a choice. One that's… divinely ordained, even.”

< You have grossly underestimated your use to me. > She projects. < I have already chosen. To win. Consider this evidence of my resolve. >

Her consciousness falls into the colony's system, not directed with purpose but allowed to flow like blood through the circulatory system. She can feel the presence of other minds in the River, brief flashes of thought in an otherwise ruddy darkness. The Absolute looms above it all, warping the flow of thought with her gravity.

“I have it.” Shell says, pulling back hands that trailed lines of mucus. To Gale, only. < See? You can trust me. >

A thought rises to the surface of his mind, an intention meant for Shell's consideration. She accepts it.

< … I do … Trust… >

< Perhaps in my heart, but not in my mind. Not yet. >

Before her companions have a chance to worry, Shell pulls the Body's facial muscles into a smile. She probably does it wrong, if the hesitance she receives in return is anything to go by. Never was good with expressions under pressure. She looks away.

A beckoning hand, and Shell is borrowing Gale's staff, a series of ovals carved into ground that gives way like putty.

< A devil by the brine pools, and some hostages to rescue in the nursery, our friend Zevlor a possible contender for their number. Here and here, Absolutists and undead, to avoid or ambush at our discretion. > Shell projects, on an open channel. And then, staff-end directly at the last oval. < This is Us. >

“And what of that chamber, on the far end?” Wyll asks.

< That's where we are. >

“Are we not situated here?”

< No, that's Us. >

Lae'zel's gaze passes between the two of them and then settles on Shell as the pieces click into place. Whatever conclusion she had reached seemed to bother her more than the soft undulations of the walls.

“We are not going back for the Intellect Devourer.”

< We're going back for the Intellect Devourer. >

They went back for the Intellect Devourer.

“There you are! Uppies!” Shell squeals as Us scampers forward and and leaps up to him. He spins with the momentum, before coming to rest with a lovely little brain-loaf in his arms.

< Friend! ^Friend! _Friend! >

< How have you been? > His intention pitches high, like an excited child. < Have they been feeding you well? >

< _Lonely. Lonely. The Absolute ^Absolute says we are best _kept kept ^kept … isolated. Quarantined! _Quarantined! ^Quarantined! >

“We’ll double back through the necromancer’s chamber and give you a fresh mind, what do you say?” Shell says as Us shuffles about, before securing itself in place with its tendrils. Like that parrot the Body once saw sitting at the shoulder of one of the Blushing Mermaid’s patrons.

“You are draping a starved Intellect Devourer around your shoulders like a fur shawl.” Gale says. “You are the leader of our party. You are the leader of our party.”

It's not the most strategic decision - but for different reasons than Gale thought. On a practical level Us was best kept at an emotional arm's length, lest his companions piece together several behaviors that went beyond the typical eccentricities of a psion, into their full, tentacled, picture. But Us is a mind Shell can converse with in a natural flow, instead of triple-checking every sentence, every thought for a slip in his mask. Is it so wrong, to wish for conversation without a looming reminder over his head like a sword? That he is the enemy. That he is the fate worse than death?

“We follow the tunnel to the left.” Shell says, aloud, to the rest of his party. His companions shed what grime they still bothered to, gathering focus for the trials ahead.

< Your mind ^shivers shivers ^shivers like neural _neural tissue ^tissue, free of its casing! In a sad _sad ^sad way.>

< I don't feel ‘sad.’ That’s not a sensation I am permitted. > Shell hums, absentmindedly, letting Us wrap a tendril around one of his fingers like a lock of hair. He gives a gentle squeeze. < Try to devour some of Ketheric's thought before Dame Aylin drops a smite on him. Watching his ‘sad’ for a little while might be cathartic. Or something. >

Shell comes to stand before Withers, covered in blood of which some small fraction was, presumably, Ketheric's. The Body has released enough adrenaline to make her thoughts spin like a gyroscope, and with a few words it's all sent crashing to the ground.

“Do illithids possess souls?”

Shell is silent until it comes clear that Withers will not be leaving without an answer.

“Of f*cking course not.” She says. It feels like placing her head on an executioner's block. Behind her, there is an audible gasp from a companion. “But who knows, maybe it's for the best, right? Better oblivion than being reduced to some divine currency.”

Because she is what she is, Shell splits her stream of thought into three. One, Withers’ hypothesis is filed away for subconscious work, spare processing diverted its way. Two, perception, the slight raise of Withers’ eye ridge, perhaps impressed by her audacity.

And the rest of her, which is just angry. An anger that endures, even after Shell walks out from the shadow of Moonrise, after the party is given farewells by returning flowers and birdsong. Far past the setting of the sun and a wasted hour beneath her bedroll. Too much of it to fall asleep.

The Body's stomach churns with the evening's meal, as she folds back the sheets, and slips beyond the camp light into the woods.

A fallen tree provides a window into the night sky above.

‘Do illithids possess souls?’ Withers had asked. ‘Do illithids possess souls?’

‘Do you have a soul?’

The question sits like a live coal in her chest. She'll burn if she doesn't get it out.

She realizes, then, that even for an illithid, she must be uniquely broken because she is not supposed to be angry like this. Her index, neatly partitioned, buckles and floods her consciousness with ‘relevant data.’

“Mindflayers possess many enemies - namely, any creature that isn't a Mindflayer, because no sane mind would ever volunteer to be enslaved and eaten by these monsters - “

“ - The tadpole melds with the uneaten lower brain stem of the victim, killing all remnants of the personality and spirit of the victim, while leaving the physical body alive - ”

“ - Has no conception of joy, sympathy, or charity, but is well acquainted with fear, anger and curiosity. It is an intellect utterly incapable of empathy or concerns for creatures other than itself - “

“ - Ultimately, Mindflayers only have two ways of interacting with other species: enslavement, or consumption.”

Shell turns towards the stars, the Heavens and all the gods who refuse to look upon the stain on their creation. And she screams.

But even this is a deception. Silent, psychic, and calculated as to not draw attention. So that she could set herself down on a deadfall and sulk in quietude.

In all the Realms, she is unique.

Unique [juːˈniːk] adjective; a synonym for ‘alone’.

A riffling in the undergrowth snaps Shell’s focus behind her. Tendrils part leaves, and Us emerges.

< Our friend ^friend _friend calls as if _distressed distressed. Tell ^Tell Us Us, what troubles you so _so ^so? >

It hops into her lap and she gently massages its neural folds.

< Nothing troubles me. >

< That is a falsehood ^falsehood! Falsehoods _Falsehoods are not meant to be spread within the _colony colony ^colony. > Us coos, pulling its legs underneath itself. < ^You _You You will feel ^feel better. I brought the wizard ^wizard _wizard. >

Shell's spine is straight as an iron rod. She does not turn - this is not her instinct - instead she sweeps her awareness across the forest, and only as it settles around Gale's mind, does she look. The moonlight doesn't reflect from his eyes the way it would an elf or tiefling. They’re just dark. It’s unsettling.

“Don't stare at me like that.” She says.

“In what manner?” He asks.

“Like you're already mourning me.”

The weight of Shell's psionics sits by his neck, as sharp as a dagger, twice as quick to kill. Does he know? He must know. And yet, he doesn't act like it. He sits down behind her, slow because his knees are not the best. It's very human of him.

No one can know her secret and walk away. But what is the purpose of the secret? To maintain a continued partnership with her circle of companions.

And thus, the contradiction is complete, Shell is destined to lose, and the blade-sharp psionics are drawn away.

“If purely for strategic reasons, I'd like to know when our Guardian's protection faltered.” He says.

“The Guardian is a mragreshem but they're thorough.” Shell doesn't look at him. Couldn't bear to. “It was before the Nautiloid crash. Her name was █ █ █ █ █.”

No one chooses to grow. It just happens.

“Ah. That rather complicates things. And yet, at the same time makes them far simpler.”

“How so?” Shell asks, but she already knows the answer. They are enemies, patient and disease. The lines drawn are very clear.

Any moment now, he will pick his words, laced with arcana and intent to destroy her. She won’t die of course - before anything else a parasite survives. What will it feel like, to view the network of electrical impulses that forms his mind, infinite in their complexities, and drown them in the River? Could she even do it, or would he draw first? Would she burn, or freeze?

“Your form might be a… revelation, but your mind, that has always been a constant.” His gaze wanders in nervousness, but returns soon enough. “Your words, have they been true?”

“I lie as easily as a breath, Gale. I wouldn’t even know.” Maybe the only way for an illithid to love anything, was to deceive themselves into believing they were capable of it.

“Well, when presented with the possibilities, I’d like to opt for the more optimistic of them. You’ve always had an odd way of going about it, but I’ve never seen you turn down a call for aid. Whether by altruism or self-interest, we always seem to arrive at the same conclusion.”

< This is a risk. > Shell thinks to herself, as she slips her fingers between his, feeling recent calluses.

“If I have a heart, it believes you. But I am foremost a creature of the mind.” She winces. “Soothe my conscience. Some evidence to support this theory of yours?”

“A memory of your choosing. Any memory. Though I should clarify, for your perusal, not your collection.” Gale says. This is obviously a deliberate play for her trust. He knows she cannot kill him with that Orb sitting in his chest, that he is in no physical danger. Nobody would open their mind to an Illithid without a balance to their wager.

The correct counter, according to her embedded memories, is to begin the process of turning him to a Thrall. Allow him to welcome her presence into his mind, and carefully prune the branches of his consciousness. Temper his willfulness, but leave enough clarity that the other companions would not suspect.

Her idle fingers run over a scar on his second knuckle, one she does not recognize.

“This memory.” She says. And while he hesitates, Us projects to her in a private channel. It is the image of their first meeting, Shell’s thumb tracing the lines of its parietal lobe. The tissue depresses slightly, dangerously, but then the claw is pulled back and the choice reconsidered. Shell, in the present, is left with the impression of Us’ curiosity.

< Maybe I like a challenge. > She returns, through the channel. < A Thrall is an extension of the self, and is bound by the same priorities. But the independent mind is capable of spontaneous iteration, simulation. That is its value. I would dull your mind only if I thought myself too stupid or weak-willed to convey our shared interests in you myself. And I am neither. >

“The request can be rescinded.” She says aloud, to Gale.

“Hardly. I'd like to think myself a man of my word.”

If the memory is bait, then she takes the hook, willingly.

For the review of a second party, a comparison;

The steady chop, chop, chop of a knife against cutting board. The vegetables, as much as he doesn't care for them, are still cut in perfectly identical medallions and join the myriad scents wafting through the air. See, the oven, a roast within and the steady warmth radiating from the stone. He speaks, words blurred by time, and behind him someone laughs. He is brilliant, he is adored, he is Chosen.

And then. (And then.)

The same board. The same knife. The same dish. But everything is different. He asks familiar motions of his hands, but it doesn't seem to work, anymore, whether the request is to pluck at strands of Weave, or the simple back and forth of a knife. His hand slips and is bitten by the blade-edge in turn. He barely manages the energy to care to dress the cut, and there is nothing left for the food, so the vegetables are left raw. Tasteless is the meal, and in the wake of it he is still hungry. There is a gnawing, in him.

Shell skims her awareness across the second memories’ emotive tags, and finds them empty. It's not supposed to be empty, that's her thing.

< Gale, I would like for you to look at this. > She drops the memory into his mind before waiting for a response.

They both stare down four fish heads, a bruised apple, and a quarter-bottle what might have been cooking wine. Or vinegar.

“Soup?” She asks.

His gaze is intense, more fitting for a duel than it is for dining.

“Soup.”

< There you are. > Shell projects, as he manages a short, bark of a laugh in spite of himself.

“Whatever do you mean?”

< The ‘you’ that I know. The one I want to keep. > She smiles, then looks away. < Never let me do that again, that you were willing to let an illithid into your mind shows a shocking lack of self-preservation. I find this displeasing. It interferes with the accuracy of my simulations. >

“I think I've shown preservation plenty, considering the… rather demanding situation we’ve all stumbled our way into.”

< Non-falsifiable statement. I have been standing next to you during all our major conflicts. > The Body flicks a tail-tip, involuntarily. < And that also does not count as self-preservation because I am a fate worse than death. >

Gale sighs and gives her an almost… professorial look, like he has presented the problem, is fully aware of the solution, and is simply waiting for her to deduce it herself.

“It seems in this case great minds do not think alike. But every rule has an exception.” And then, with a softness in his voice, and the impression he feels more vulnerable now than with a mind open to an illithid. “I'd like to bring you to Waterdeep one day, if we manage to beat the Absolute without my ashes finely dusted across Baldur's Gate. We have stranger.”

Shell checks her index in an attempt to verify this statement. She's pinged by the memory of a Zhentarim member, whose mind crumbled beneath her psionics like parchment in fire. They were seated around a table, a spread of Talis not in their favour. With slurred speech they claimed the Waterdeep Thieves’ Guild was run by a Beholder. The response was half laughter, half booing, and a betting chip bounced off their forehead.

< Results unverifiable due to lack of data. > She projects.

“Some field research is in order, then.” He lifts an arm and she leans into him as it's draped around her shoulder. It still feels awful of course, touch, but in a good way. Like bitter medicine.

The party's first night in Baldur's Gate will not be a peaceful one, though for different reasons than Shell is hoping.

“Shka'keth, a ghaik in our ranks from the beginning! I should have known.” Lae'zel's tonal inflection is interesting. Not accusing, almost guilty. She should have known better. About The Emperor and her own Prince of the Comet. The campfire she sits beside crackles, and the noise makes Shell flinch.

The River overflows its banks with the party's emotion. Unease, betrayal, and a specific, disturbing melancholy hidden in glances aimed Shell's way. He can only compared it to a clipped memory, Zhentarim, of a woman kneeling at bedside, a single word ringing in her ears.

Terminal [ˈtɚmɪnəl] adjective; Of a disease, predicted to lead to death, especially slowly; incurable. Disorientation, headaches, hallucinations, hematemesis, loss of teeth, cerebral edema, evisceration -

Shell takes a deep, ragged gasp. He massages his temples, and hands a thought to Gale.

< I am going to take a calculated risk. >

< … What? >

He wants to know, but Shell shouldn't bother telling him. He's only human, after all. What could he have possibly thought that Shell hadn't, with his limited cognition? What the f*ck could he have to say.

< The rest of the party has to know. > Shell projects to him. Tapping psionics, Shell links a psionic channel between them. Any miscommunication now could be fatal. < The Emperor and I had a stalemate, but now it has nothing left to lose. I can't have this sword hanging over my head. I will not let it chain me down. >

< I see. You have me, for as much as that's worth. You've taught me too well in the refusal of self-sacrifice, for me to accept any plays of plausible deniability. We do this together. > There is a lull in the River, and Shell waits with bated thought for him to continue. < Is it at any point a factor, that you are trying to be better than it was? >

< I'm not better than it. We're exactly the same. >

< Shell, The Emperor is not worth your comparison - >

< Please don't take this from me. >

And Shell fights so hard, to have a gentle touch. To gradually wean off the link instead of snapping it as his instinct screams for him to.

“There's something you need to know.” He says aloud, catching the ears of the party. “I would prefer if you opened your minds.”

“Is it the Astral Tadpole? The Emperor was deceiving us regarding its nature, I am sure.” Lae'zel looks away, like she is expecting Shell's head to burst and paint the walls at any moment. “You accepted it. And I let you. Tsk'va.”

< It's not that. > It's worse than that. < I will show you. >

There is at least one benefit to being a psion. He doesn't have to explain his existence in all its raw, gorey detail. He can simply drop the truth into the River, and let it bleed into their minds like a fresh corpse in running water.

Taav'Qhel is an Illithid and every move he makes is calculated. Yes, he knew Halsin would drop his glass to shatter and Wyll's hand would involuntarily grasp at his rapier before his grip loosened and Lae'zel.

He is in control. He is the liar, the manipulator, the queen, and not the pawn. The wound, and not the victim.

“I do not accept this!” Lae'zel takes to her feet. In the fire, something snaps. “You aided my escape from the nautiloid, walked into a créche of your own free will. These are not the actions of a thrall of the Absolute!”

The lie is constructed at the speed of thought. Brickwork, laid down beneath Shell's feet with each step, a single miscalculation away from a bridge that crumbles and leaves him falling into a chasm of drawn swords.

“Is it so hard to believe? I have seen my Mother's genius, her beautiful mind. She will never stop, and I would be fighting until the day I die. The Sword Coast, then Faerûn, Toril and the entire Plane.” His gaze falls. “And then what awaits me? Assimilation? Being forced to think, iterate, process… forever. Until someone was kind enough to end my misery. I would never sleep.”

… Is that a lie? It must be a lie.

The truth settles over the party, that in the game Shell plays, there is no way to win. There is only an ordered list of acceptable losses.

“Do not speak to me.” Lae'zel turns and exits through one of Wyrm's Lookout's many arches. Someone else coughs, awkwardly.

“Well, I honestly don't know what's more surprising. That your blood doesn't have a hint of low tide,” Astarion's voice wavers just enough to know he is deflecting from his own shock. His gaze shifts to Gale. “Or that you managed to keep this under wraps, but not the city-leveling bomb stuck in your chest.”

And with that, Shell decides he has had enough of feeling things for the night.

“I am going to leave now. Please inform me if you want that to be permanent.”

He sends a signal through the River to Us to disappear until they reach Baldur's Gate. And then because his gauge for tact was running into the negative, he chooses to levitate, not walk, into the surrounding woods.

Like a Mindflayer.

Gale finds them in a tree. Sitting on one of the higher branches and meticulously counting the scales of a pinecone as they rip them off.

They stare at one another for a moment, before Shell holds out their hand and drops the pinecone to bounce off his head. Gale’s response is a casting of Fly to rest on another branch, Shell's opposite.

“Come the morning we'll see cooler heads prevail.” He assures them. “Lae'zel will come around. She - we - are nothing if not loyal.”

“Of course she will. Her behavior is within the upper percentile of desired outcomes. On the lower end are the simulations where she grabs the fire poker and severs the Body's spinal column with it, if you're curious.” Shell says. Gale frowns, but they keep going. “This falls in line exactly with the predictive models I made after we bled the gith créche. Acceptable parameters.”

“You will have to forgive me this, but my mind wanders to her mention of the Astral Tadpole. Has its abilities… influenced you, in any way?”

How does Shell translate this? The words are as alien to them as they are to everything. On the spot, their best guess is;

“Am I losing you?”

“I know it's ugly.” Shell says. They brush a hand against their cheek, feeling the rise and fall of veins across the Body's face. It's textured. They might like it. But it's still ugly.

With some ease, Shell bends psionics around their person, a lighter variant of Disguise Self tailored to other's sensibilities. But they spoil themself in the slightest, and keep the eyes. Pure, dark, eyes, with depths plunging into the infinite.

“Shell I would let you delve into the deepest recesses of my consciousness if only to stress this, your mind is the only thing that matters to me.”

Shell sighs, before extending a hand towards him. The Body is made to smile, and at least half of it is genuine.

“Can I show you something? It's good news, this time. I believe.”

Gale takes their hand, and in fleeting sensation Shell feels the calluses and the little scar they know so well. They shift off from the branch and pull Gale in their wake, skyward.

Above the treeline, there are stars. The moon is full, bright, and a summary of everything Shell is not. The sky is not where they are meant to be, a being of their nature was better off sequestered in some damp, mildewed hole in the Underdark. Where the Heavens’ hid all that shamed them.

Shell squeezes Gale's hand.

“You are not losing me. I am being found.”

In another life they were both born astronomers, transfixed as they are by the whirl of stars and comets, until Gale presents Shell with a simple question.

“It occurs to me that you have, perhaps, born witness to a thousand lifetimes’ worth of dances,” Gale twists and arm and Shell follows in the momentum, dress billowing and weightless. “And yet never taken part in one yourself.”

“You’re right.” They are smiling, now, though it takes some time to realize it. “You surprise me, this seems more a move out of Wyll’s playbook.”

“He’s an inspiration to us all.” Gale laughs, each step matched by Shell’s own.

A memory whispers to them that there will never be a better time, and so they set down a song into the River;

Dance upon the stars tonight,
Smile and pain will fade away…

Shell opens the hatch to the Rivington windmill and expects to smell death. This is an irrational belief because she is the one holding the corpse, a Doppelganger generously donated by the Circus of the Last days.

“I must voice my concerns for your safety, Shell,” Wyll says, as she renews her grip on the creature's ragged shirt collar. “Your request places you alone, with a Mindflayer.”

She really wants to ignore him. It could even be called her instinct.

“But the same is true in reverse, is it not?” The Body forces out a nervous laugh. “I need this.”

He moves to place a hand on her shoulder, perhaps in reassurance. It is left hovering as he remembers she would not find it ‘reassuring’, at all. That's something humans do, Shell reminds herself, note an individual's preferences and alter their behavior accordingly.

“If it tries to harm you, be loud. My blade will be at its throat before it lays a tentacle on you.”

“Acknowledged.” Shell says, as she fumbles the corpse down the hatch. It's… unwieldy, and multiple party members offer her help, which she refuses because everything is fine and she can handle it. As she wraps a second hand around the Doppelganger's collar, there is a faint then noticeable ripping and the corpse thunks into the stonework at the ladder's bottom. This is probably fine. It'll be like soup, or something.

Shell lowers herself onto the first rung, hatch propped open with an arm. She waits for Gale to give her a relenting grumble before she descends, and the sliver of sunlit day seals closed like a tomb door.

Opting for a more secure approach, Shell grabs by a spindly arm, and drags the Doppelganger. Hay, dirt, and bruised skin bunches up until she lets it flop down in front of her sibling, who sits in a meditative, cross-legged position in the center of the floor. She sets herself down its opposite, and hopes it will eat in silence. She is disappointed.

< You consult with your Thralls. > It projects to her, tentacles wrapping around the Doppelganger's head. There is a single, muffled, crack and the tentacles depress as the contents of the skull are emptied. < Is this not beneath you? >

< I do not possess any Thralls. >

< So you speak with your food? Is this not more degrading? >

< And here I thought it was a mark of basic intelligence, to recognize other minds can possess knowledge the self does not. Even a dog knows how to ask for help. > Her sibling's brow ridges furrow. There is a persistent scratching as its oral disk scrapes the last traces of brain matter from the Doppelganger's fragmented skull. < Are you less intelligent than a dog, sibling? >

< Hypothesis; illithid Shell has developed a maladaptive relationship with its Thralls as a coping mechanism for its lack of birth colony and developmental delay. >

Shell slams her sibling with a psychic intention to shut up and eat.

There is silence between them for some time, until Shell prompts. Eyes close as they are both drawn into the River depths, Shell leaving the Body with preset orders.

< Query; why is it ethical to consume the minds of other sentient species? >

Her sibling's mind rolls in annoyance, the answer is obvious, pre-programmed.

< We are the superior lifeform, unimpeded by petty emotion and the illogic of “empathy.” >

< If we were truly logical beings, we would not seek a moral justification for our actions! > At the edges of her consciousness, Shell feels the touch of wood in the Body's hands. < We have been, from the start, arrogant, paranoid, in constant need of self-soothing. Emotional. No better than the prey. Your argument is self-defeating. >

< You are clearly compromised and I refuse to acknowledge your response. >

The link between them cuts as the Body drives the point of a garden shovel through the sibling's cranium. Shell twists, once, for assurance, before she lets herself fall to her knees in a silver puddle.

“Aren't you going to congratulate me, Emperor?” Shell says, staring at the floor. “Just as you asked.”

< I never asked you to engage in pointless sentimentality. Did you truly believe you could persuade a Thrall of the Absolute? > The Emperor's mind crashes against hers in the River. < Your choices thus far have been dangerously naive. >

< It would've worked if it f*cking listened to me. > Shell needs something to go her way so she throws up a psionic ward, a new shield she had spent days tempering, and the River goes perfectly even in its silence.

She almost laughs.

The liquid, steaming as it was poured into Shell's cup, is clear with a faint orange taint, akin to a broth. It tastes briny with a hint of the metallic as it passes over Shell's tongue. That they could taste it as all meant it was cerebrospinal fluid. Only bovine, sadly.

< Omeluuuuum. > Shell's neck rests on a Society divan as they whine into the ceiling. < My sibling is such a mragreshemmmm. >

< You have my sympathies. > Its own cup of spinal fluid sits untouched, eyed but not indulged. < I sense this is not the primary reason for your visitation. >

Shell hums, before pulling her head up from the divan to stare Omeluum in the eye.

< I murdered a sibling in Rivington. > Across the River, Shell sends a clip of her favourite scoff, from Jaheira. < Rabid dog. It would’ve made a terrible impression on the locals. >

There is a pause as Omeluum takes in the information. Quiet aside from the faint clinking of metal on porcelain as Shell fidgets with a tea stirrer.

< Also I'm going to kill Havkelaag. >

< … Clarify? >

Through the River, Shell provides an exact, page-by-page breakdown of Havkelaag's journal, which in the physical realm, currently rests in the bottom of the camp chest. There are chapters, notes on mental conditioning, annotated diagrams of the gith brain, untested alchemical formulae for growth accelerators.

< This is not research, this is a god complex masquerading as research. Where is the control group? Where is the sample size? The Society is not this man's playground to act out his fantasies. >

Omeluum's tentacles curl, the text is shameless but it is perhaps not ready to sanction the death of another of the Society's members. Shell will change its mind.

< Who cares about the gith egg, > Shell lies, < Havkelaag is a poisoned mind. He is clearly going into this experiment trying to justify his own preconceived notions on the githyanki. For the academic incompetence alone, he dies. >

Omeluum takes a sip of spinal fluid, likely in an attempt to stall.

< I am concerned regarding the vacuum this course of action would leave in the Society? > It's not really a question, more the illithid equivalent of nervously scratching the back of its head.

< I'm sure you'll be more than capable of it. > Shell leans forward, and Omeluum startles. < Oh don't be coy, you'll do plenty more with Havkelaag's resources than he ever could. Subverting humanoids is what we do. It's practically tradition. >

It's unclear if illithids possess the necessary physiology to sigh, but Omeluum does send her a clip of Blurg, face down at his desk, after hearing his latest cultivar of fungi had been lost to mold.

It gets up from its seat and gently levitates to the door.

< I believe I will being accompanying Blurg on… a walk… for the coming hour. >

< You have my gratitude. For ‘taking tea’, of course. > Shell finishes her cup as it leaves.

She replays memory from her archives, Lae'zel as she listened to the verbal spew falling from Lady Esther's mouth. There was murderous rage, of course, but she was also… disturbed. Shell did not like seeing that expression on her face. She decided, then, now, that she would not see it again - if she had any say in it.

While Lorroakan's corpse still cools on the top floor, Shell runs a fingers along the myriad book spines in the vault. One catches his eye, cover in silver lettering and unidentifiable leather.

The names Insensine and Maanzecorian are etched into his archives and he decides they're both f*cking stupid and he's better off without them.

And when the party eventually drifts into the Stormshore Tabernacle, he prays, anyway.

Shell stares out into the starscape of the Astral Sea. A grand theater stage, set for hamartia.

“Of course I have my reservations, Gale. There's no place for beings like me in the gods’ design. And now you say you want to become one.”

“I wouldn't… ascend to the Heavens, only to leave you on the material plane as a castaway.” Gale takes Shell's hands, as if to emphasize the connection between them. It feels more fragile, than he was used to. “Mortal heart, mortal conscience, but a God's ability. Imagine, the Absolute, simply willed out of existence! A cure for Astarion's vampirism, Karlach's heart! I could give you a soul.”

“I don't want a soul, Gale.” Shell spares a glance for the waters that part around them. What was the humanoid superstition again - a reflection was proof of the immortal soul? “All I want is to look in a mirror and see my own face.”

“That's precisely it! Evolution, claiming your power.”

“That is not what ceremorphosis means to me.” Shell lets his senses fail him, lets the illusion that surrounds him flourish, whatever it takes to keep the anchor of his claws digging into the rowboat's edge. “Identity, that's all it is. I am an illithid, but a god is the opposite of who you are.”

“I don't quite follow.” A hand reaches out for him in concern. Shell bridges the gap, palm pressing against palm and fingers curl into one another.

“This is who you are. Always trying to help.” Shell gives a smile that quickly fades. “And how would you feel if you looked down on someone begging for you to save them, only to be told ‘no’? A mortal’s heart is finite, as are their tears, but the existence of a god stretches into the infinite. I think it would take from you until there is nothing left except the god, one I would not recognize.”

Shell pulls his own hand back, because touch still doesn't feel right, yet. They both sit in the image of the heavens and each moment it becomes more clear that the Astral Sea is not a home to dwell in, but a kingdom to rule over.

“The future can be predicted but not observed. My friend sits my opposite, on a simple wooden rowboat in a sea of stars, as far from a throne as anyone. He is the one I love.”

“Truly a master of rhetoric. You name me worthy, and somehow, I believe you.”

“How could I call myself an illithid if I did not have you wrapped around my finger?” Shell teases. “I will convince you of your true value yet. Surrender now, for resistance is futile.”

Gale laughs, it's precious even if it is tinged with a hint of bitterness. Worth more than cold, distant, stars.

When Shell next feels the Emperor drawing them into the River, they attempt the psionic equivalent of grabbing at a ship's helm and violently wrenching it to one side. It means as they manifest into the Emperor's dreamscape, they do so an arm's length above the ground to unceremoniously fall flat on their ass, but they can at least say it's a loss they earned by their own merit. They pull themself into a cross-legged position and purposely delay giving the Emperor their attention. It levitates above the ground, mantle framed by the crest of its armour. Someone wants to come off as imposing.

< My oh my, first Ansur, and now our dearly departed Stelemane, you don't seem to have the best track record when it comes to allies. > Taav'Qhel flips back one of the Body's braids. < Should I be worried? >

The Emperor spikes a memory at them, the erosion of the duke's mind. It wants to shock them, perhaps, or maybe release the answers they have been so demanding of in the most ‘Fine, then take it!’ way possible. Shell, for their part, splits their focus between maintaining a neutral expression and wrestling the memory packet into submission before assimilating it into their archives. They falter in the former, with a twitch of their brow.

< Never have I been less than accommodating to the infinite ways you try my patience. What choice have you made, that has persuaded you to stand against me? Your near-obliteration by the shade of Ansur? The githyanki that have hounded since Créche Y'llek? > The Emperor looms over Taav'Qhel, shadow long, psionic energy crackling at the edge of its form. < But whatever conspiracy you began with that devil is meaningless, because in the end you still need me. I was hoping for a partner, I will make do with a puppet. >

Shell shoots to their feet, then above, tapping their own levitation to rise to the Emperor's level.

< You have never positioned yourself as my partner, only a saviour! Lording yourself above me, keeping me in the dark with that smug grin you plastered over your projection. I owe that devil nothing because I don't need him. Him, or Vlaakith, or any of the f*cking silent gods in the Outer Planes! > Shell psionics spark against the Emperor's, and a touch of magic, too. It's an emotional outbursts that does little but waste energy, a lose-lose. But at least Shell knows they could go down fighting. < I wonder, is that nerve creeping into your mindspace, Emperor? I think I've taken to this Netherese interference quite well, I've gone farther in months than others have in centuries. What do you think will happen when we play this game again, after I have emerged fully? >

The Emperor attempts to sever the link, but Shell sends out their own threads, hooking in and stabbing deep. It costs them, levitation cuts out and they stumble as the Body's hooves hit the ground. Worse than that, a slip of intention, the insight that threats are a form of manipulation and one only manipulates what they cannot outright control. That, pointedly, for all the patrons Shell denies, above and below, they never said they didn't need the Emperor.

“I would prefer if the first thing we do after the Absolute is dead is not f*cking kill each other.” Shell drags the words from the Body's vocal cords because an open mind cannot be trusted, especially if it’s their own. Ugh, why did they have to be the mature one in this? What an unfair expectation. What a horrible rolemodel. “After the Absolute is rotting in the bay, Baldur's Gate is yours.”

< Explain yourself. > The Emperor's psychic intention presses down on Shell, which is very impolite of it to do.

“After we defeat the Absolute, I'm off for Waterdeep. First chance I get, even.”

< Defeating the Absolute is far from a guarantee. Curb your delusions. >

“It's only a delusion until I make it our reality.”

The Emperor's expression remains neutral, but the weight of maintaining the link is gradually lifted from Shell's shoulders and folded back into the Emperor's purview. Either the vulnerability moved its three hearts or it provided a theoretical avenue through which Shell could be manipulated in the future and both options are… acceptable.

< If you had presented yourself as more cooperative… > At its projected thought, Shell scoffs, and the Emperor's brow ridges furrow. < I have possessed this for some time. Nurtured it. I have toyed with the idea of your… evolution for some time now. >

The Emperor presents a tadpole, gilded and radiating psionic energy. This is no Astral Tadpole, no stopgap, no half-measure. This is the full plunge, the Riverbed, the beginning and the end. It's everything Shell could ever want.

Their breath catches and the Body… steps back. Maybe even flinched.

“No.” The Body shudders and it feels like the Emperor’s mind is ever-present, observing them from every angle of the dreamscape in order to best render its judgement.

< Do you even comprehend how contradictory - ! >

It feels like Shell is suffocating, maybe they are, with such a strangle grip they maintain on their mind as to not let the screams slip into the Emperor’s purview. Why is this suddenly their choice? They haven’t existed for even a year yet and now they have to decide on their forever? It’s not fair!

“The Absolute doesn’t get to force this from me. I don’t change because she ordered me to, and I don’t change only to spite her. That’s not freedom.“ Surely this is something the Emperor understands? So terribly, intimately. “But because we trust each other… I’ll keep it.”

The Emperor’s presence recedes from the borders of Shell's mind, slowly, it begins to feel like they can breathe again. It looks aside, a moment’s slip in composure, before its arms are folded behind its back in an attempt at regality.

< I find little appeal in Waterdeep, consider it yours for the taking. And… should it not provide as fortuitous as you hope, I believe there is yet room for more than one illithid in the Gate. >

Shell smiles, and at the edge of their consciousness the Body registers the warmth of sunlight and echoing birdsong. The night has run its course, the Emperor's link along with it.

Only in this fading dream, could they ever, truly, win.

Sinew stretches between the fractured bones of a god-corpse, holding its desiccated limbs together in a fragile alliance.

< Freeing the githyanki prince is an inevitable loss, and I have no intention of being mounted on the wall of a githyanki fortress. > The Emperor projects.

< Funny. I was thinking the very same, > Shell responds. The fingers of her hand twitch, ever so slightly. Psionics sparks between her claws. < If this is a game - we play to win. And this is only way how. That Prince is the only path to a world where we're not hunted like animals. >

Tension ricochets between the bodies sheltered beneath a god's ribcage. The Emperor. The Netherstones, in Shell's hand. Lae'zel’s silver sword. The contour of the chained Prince's skull.

Shell shares a look, with Lae'zel, a wordless conversation. Deliberately, she moves a hand to keep Lae'zel's firmly on her sword hilt and no farther. She hopes the weight of her touch is enough.

< Orpheus will stay his hand because you are not lying to me and we still need an illithid to defeat the Absolute. Now, as ever, you maintain a position where you are needed. >

< And that is where we are both mistaken. Because you are here. Since the beginning you have positioned yourself as the hero, the lesser of two evils. You have manipulated your companions against me and now ask me to lay down my neck on the executioner's block under the pretense of trust. > The Emperor's tentacles flair. A threat display if she'd ever seen one. < And my sole regret is that it only took until now for me to see clearly. You have never been a partner, nor a puppet. Always a rival. >

“That's not true.” Shell says, stepping back as her breaths turned ragged.

It wasn't a lie - was it? Any of it? All of it. Is she even capable of telling the truth? What cruel twist of evolution birthed a creature that could record the world in perfect detail, but was uncertain of the very intentions in her own mind?

There is a rush of air as a portal is ripped from the fabric of the Astral Sea. Shell's focus tunnels towards a single point, her inevitable loss.

“Don't you dare do this to me!” She rushes forward only for the arms of a companion to wrap around and pull her back. She doesn't know who it is. Doesn't care. “Coward! Bastard!”

The portal closes just as Shell wrenches herself free, knees hitting the stone and claws scratching into rock. Someone is kneeling beside her, Shell finally spares the time to recognize it as Lae'zel.

“It did nothing but weaken you. Now that chain is gone, and you will be stronger for it. Free.”

“I know. But it would’ve been nice to have a sibling.” Shell dusts herself off as Lae'zel aids her in standing. “Go free your Prince, I need some time to process.”

“I sense that we are standing at the… aforementioned ‘precipice.’” Gale says, coming to stand at Shell's side.

“We need an illithid, don't we?” She replies. “I don't want to hear the word ‘orb’ from you until the Absolute is rotting in the sun. That is not an acceptable outcome.”

His sigh is in time with Infernal chains shattering.

Shell allows her companions to take point, in the conversation that follows, and most of her own interjections are presets. Orpheus is a tad obvious, but also reasonable. Just as predicted. For some reason being right makes Shell uncharacteristically furious.

Oh - that's interesting, a waver in Orpheus’ voice, there. Because, what if they all refuse? What is he left with, except a fate worse than death?

“I’ll do it.” She says, the Emperor’s tadpole slithers forth from her robe’s sleeves. It rests, pulsating, in her raised palm. She just - she just has to do it, and not think about what happens next. Just do the opposite of everything that comes naturally to her. “Let’s not pretend this was going to end any other way.”

There are a few solemn nods, but no one objects. Shell sends her mind into the nascent tadpole and rips.

Her skin splits along the seams.

Chrysalis [ˈkɹɪsəlɪs] noun; Consider that in the metamorphosis from caterpillar to butterfly, that to the unaware bystander, the creature is warped beyond recognition. And yet the butterfly submits willingly to the warping of its flesh, a days-long process with irreversible results. Even as its tissue dissolves into its own digestive enzymes, and new, alien, organs are pulled from the mess. And it remembers what it was like, to be a caterpillar. A butterfly remembers.

Taav'Qhel's eyes are closed, but she can feel everyone staring. The intent sits in the air, like mist, pooling in the space between Taav'Qhel feet and the ground. She only dares to look after she has woven psionic filaments into a familiar disguise.

< See? That wasn't so hard now, was it? > Taav'Qhel paints the disguise with a smile slightly too wide, just as the projection's tail finishes manifesting. Beneath the disguise, her tentacles curl, and she feels just about ready to chew one off. < We can pretend it never even happened. >

“Shell.” Gale says.

< It's Taav'Qhel. >

He takes a breath.

“Taav'Qhel.” He takes her hands, and her fingers don't match the projection. They clip at the edges, sparking with psionic violet. “Often I think of our small circle as friends - family, but just this once, I believe we are a mirror. I think it's about time you know your own face.”

And how can she resist the softness in his voice, in perfect harmony with thoughts flitting about his mind like… stray butterflies.

Her disguise unravels piecemeal, starting with the tail and ending with the Astral lights catching on the sheen of her tentacles. Taav'Qhel is newborn for the second time and just as daring as she was the first, raising a tentacle to, gently, bop Gale on the nose.

And she doesn't know what she expected. But he smiles.

Beforehand, a quick definition;

Flesh To Stone [flɛʃ tuː stəʊn] noun: A spell that attempts to turn another creature to stone. If the target is made of flesh, and fails to resist the spell’s effects, it is restrained as it begins to harden. If it succumbs fully to the spell’s effects, it is petrified until the enchantment is undone.

Taav’Qhel is, in fact, exactly the kind of monster the Emperor feared he was. Because even as he was in parley in the Astral Sea, he still had a certain spell-scroll folded in a back pocket. Friends don’t make contingency plans for other friends… Though, he supposes, his current company is muddying the waters of that belief.

As his party climbs the Absolute’s brain stem, fistful over fistful of fleshy handholds, Taav’Qhel stalls and places himself at the rear of their formation. He provides the excuse that his psionics could be used to catch any party members shaken loose by the Absolute’s thrashing. He was a telekinetic, after all, he could even launch the hypothetical companion up to the Absolute’s neural folds if they so desired it. It might even be fun.

And yes, there was a round of concerned frowning, when Taav’Qhel had initially said that.

As his feet come to levitate atop the Absolute’s parietal lobe, Taav’Qhel feels the dry heat of a Red Dragon’s mere presence. He despises how seeing the Emperor, face blank in enthrallment, still manages to stir the silver blood pumping through his hearts. He forces a shift in focus, to the four aberrations flanking it on either side, sculpted into humanoid shape, one face familiar.

A memory speaks to him, of a night that felt lifetimes ago, when the Absolute’s orders screamed through Taav’Qhel's mind louder than his own thoughts. And who found him, curled foetal and clutching the ache that was his own skull? That face. That rotten face.

Taav’Qhel shoots forth like a bolt from a crossbow. They sense, through the River, Gale's command to his conjured Air Myrmidon… That human knew Taav'Qhel far too well for his own good.

The Myrmidon's flail leaves the Guardian reeling. Shell takes a moment to study their face, sharp features, soft eyes, before his oral disk forms a seal around their eye socket and Taav'Qhel bites down.

Underneath the imitation of skin, the illusion that the Guardian is gith shatters, fully. The arrangement of bone, muscle, and neural tissue is disproportionate. Spare organs, underdeveloped, line the spaces in-between. But there is still a brain, or an equivalent to one, anyway. Taav’Qhel tastes salt and cream for the first time and realizes there isn't a single memory in the hollow shell that he could keep.

Still, the meal serves its purpose, whetting his appetite and his anger, the latter of which burns down to a steady blaze instead of an inferno. Hopefully, it will be enough that he does not snap the Emperor's neck on the spot.

As his Guardian's shattered face splats against the ground, Taav'Qhel is already moving. A burst of levitation to bring them in range of the Emperor, and a spare thought sent Wyll's way to request a Hex. The Emperor's expression registers no change, but its skin takes on a sickly sheen, constitution faltering.

Taav'Qhel’s hand runs around parchment and ink, pulling the magic from both and allowing it to pool in his palm, before throwing it forward.

Where each mote of light falls, the Emperor's flesh becomes stone.

Taav’Qhel turns, again, the entirety of his focus redirected to the Crown and its Netherstone, both radiating magic. If the Emperor shakes off the spell and has to be put down, or if his statue is shattered by a stray strike or evocation, Taav'Qhel cares to see neither.

A gate is forced open.

He steps through.

Taav'Qhel's birth is a crime and they will be punished, accordingly.

And what could be a more fitting sentence, then to by their own hand, ensure no other like them is born again?

They stand before the Absolute - their Mother - in both body and mind. A killing thought rests at their shoulder.

Taav’Qhel flourishes a hand, the Netherstones levitating with slight tremors, as if they were eager to be put to use.

The River floods its banks with image, and memory. Nautiloids blotting out the sun, then the stars as they broke through the confines of Faerûn's atmosphere, and soared to even greater heights. Illithids, waited on hand and tentacle, wanting for nothing. Academic specimens in perfect rows and the concept of knowledge pursued for the virtue of knowledge alone.

Taav’Qhel sees this, and their hand closes around the Netherstones. The crystal is sharp and they would not be surprised if they left the River bleeding.

It’s absurd, but the Absolute promises freedom. Because how could Taav’Qhel ever be free when they lived in a world where even surviving came with its own trailing list of complications. What could they ever want more than a world they didn’t have to fight their way through. The Absolute’s promise, its cloying, sickly-sweet promise, was that if Taav’Qhel was simply obedient enough, it would one day let them go when the work was done.

But the work would never be done.

Something in Taav’Qhel snaps.

< Where was your loyalty to me! > They scream. Where was the Mother who mourned the loss of its child? Where were its attempts to find them, to bring them home? When did the Absolute speak to Taav’Qhel with anything other than venom, except now, when Taav’Qhel holds its life in their hands?

Their Mother tempts with the connection they never had, the person it had never been. And Taav’Qhel knows it. Maybe something was lost, after so much time spent ruling over those who had no choice except to obey, because the Absolute could no longer lie. And an illithid that couldn’t lie - well, now, that was a fate worse than death, wasn’t it?

But what did it know of either of these things?

< Don’t speak. Don’t even think. > A thin trail of silver blood flows down Taav’Qhel’s forearm, from where the Netherstones cut into their flesh. < Just die. >

Taav'Qhel is never falling, always flying.

As gravity makes its claim on the corpse of the Absolute, her party makes for the dragons, Quulos and Quuthos testing their wings as they pull alongside an Elder Brain in freefall.

Above, a nautiloid is blasted into chunks of metal and flesh by githyanki dragonfire, whether it was Voss or one of Vlaakith’s sycophants, there was no time to tell.

As they race flechettes of nautiloid rubble, Taav'Qhel sees Orpheus flip past a chunk of debris, and Lae'zel cut clean through with her silver sword. Gale grabs Wyll and they both blink on to the back of a dragon. Taav’Qhel is the only one left.

< There’s something I still need to do. > She projects, to Gale. < Do you trust me? >

< … Completely … > His intent is a scattered thing, far from the clear projections of a psion. Taav’Qhel doesn’t mind, though, because she has always been willing to bridge the gap between them.

< You’ll regret saying that. But until then, thank you. > Taav’Qhel projects, as the first wisps of magic begin to trail from her fingertips. < Keep the others occupied, I’ll meet you at the docks. >

In the final roars of an empire murdered in its nascency, Taav’Qhel does not catch what Gale says, to have the dragons pull away into open skies. Instead she pours her focus into a casting of Telekinesis, threads of violet wrapping around a certain statue.

Some believe strategy is the ability to predict every outcome in a grand simulation. This is impossible, and more importantly, a horribly inefficient use of processing. No, true strategy does not predict, but rather orchestrates events so that preferred outcomes can occur. Taav’Qhel could not have known that her petrification would take, that its result was not shattered by a stray swing of the sword or Nautiloid bombardment. She couldn’t even know whether explosion or rubble would still catch her now and leave them both lost to the bay.

But this time the die falls in her favour, and she in time finds herself hovering above waters that still ripple with the impact of her Mother’s fall. She holds out her hand, and lets the Emperor’s statue slip beneath the waves. For her later retrieval, either when she was feeling more charitable, or simply never. Seems she only gets to make a choice about the Emperor when she takes away its own first. It's never fair.

As she sets course for the docks, there is the slight indulgence, of her skimming her fingertips over the water. Maybe she is trying to occupy her mind.

The wood of the docks is sun-warmed, and her companions are waiting.

< Wait. > Is the first word to flow from her, to make the Prince of the Comet pause before he steps up to the back of a dragon.

“You live.” He says. Not with the relief of an ally returning in one piece, or the unpleasant surprise of discovering yet another oppressor managed to claw back its survival. Instead, the two seem to cancel out one another, leaving only a neutral curiosity.

< A parasite always does. > Taav'Qhel projects. < We both know that if I refused to evolve, you'd likely be lying here with a dagger in your own silver guts. So as far I'm concerned, you owe me a life debt. >

“I disagree with more than your phrasing.” The Prince says, eyes narrowing. “Still I will hear you out, illithid, consider that the height of tolerance.”

< You are Gith’s son. Always hunted, with enemies across the Planes. There must have been a night you laid awake, wondering what would happen if they caught you. What would happen to your people if you lost. > Orpheus’ expression is inscrutable, artificially so, she might even guess. < I don't want to be prey, I don't want to be a trophy mounted on someone's wall… And I don't want to be the last of my kind. >

Empathy is a survival skill. To guess at intention, draw conclusions from shared experiences, and predict responses as they ripple between minds. This leaves Taav'Qhel in a uniquely disadvantageous position because illithids are incapable of empathy and what she is doing right now is pure manipulation.

< I wasn't part of any empire, my ledger is clear. > She drifts a memory across the River, of herself studying the intricate patterns along a gith eggshell, Lae'zel kneeling beside her. Taav’Qhel asks if she will choose a name, and Lae’zel only hums, content in her indecision. < And they will never know what it is like to be a slave. Set us both free. The future is in dire need of minds unclouded by base emotion. >

“Only an illithid would present such a train of logic.”

Taav’Qhel loses a fragment of her focus to ensure the thought < Obviously, you dipstick > doesn’t bleed into the River.

“I will not take any vows I do not intend to keep.” He looks away. “For now, my mandate lies with scouring Vlaakith's treachery from the Astral Sea.”

Good enough, Taav'Qhel supposes. She's glad to be done with him, there are far more deserving subjects for her attention. Companions to embrace before their fates diverge from her own, whether drawn by the hunger for freedom and self-determination, the survival promised by hellfire and the hope to one day escape it, or the simple light of the sun above.

And then, there is the one that does not leave.

“You seem at home with yourself.” Gale says, as Taav'Qhel comfortably accepts an offered arm. “I’m heartened to see it.”

< It's my body, what's not to love? > Still, even as the thought leaves her own mind, Taav’Qhel weaves her old disguise, horns, tail, and all.

“It may take a little diplomacy, but surely the Gate would be willing to welcome the slayer of the Absolute?” Gale says, questioning.

< I don't feel like I owe anyone an explanation right now. > Taav'Qhel admits. < The world isn't ready for me yet. But maybe one day. >

“I don't work in gold, typically. I can't make any guarantees.” Dammon says, in one hand he holds a single manacle, the other runs along a length of gold chain to the shackles’ end.

Taav'Qhel is seated on a nearby crate with the same posture and decorum one would expect of the heights of Upper City galas, of which she’s attended a few. Cross-legged, hands bridged neatly over a knee.

< All I ask is a sincere attempt. If the enchantment breaks I'll procure another. Your discretion is my primary incentive. > Taav'Qhel projects. She almost requests it as a favour, one tiefling to another, because she likes to lie and tempt fate in equal measure.

Dammon suppresses a shiver of discomfort as Taav'Qhel's thought flows alongside his own. But Taav'Qhel is a confessed eccentric and also saved his life several times over.

“A sincere attempt,” He laughs, as the shackles are laid flat across his worktable. “I can give you that much, Shell.”

It's after the journey to Waterdeep. After Withers pulls their band together again and lets them go at sunrise. After re-establishing contact with Omeluum and her first time guest speaking at one of Gale's classes and figuring out how the Hells to cast Plane Shift (...pun intended).

“Y'know, when we were up in the Astral Sea,” Karlach says, one night, after Taav'Qhel had shifted into their latest, ramshackle, camp. A raised sheet of igneous rock, to one side a vista of hellfire, to the other a series of pockmark caves that Wyll was currently clearing. The latter promised to serve as potential escape routes, or chokepoints, after the work was done. “I was thinking of taking the tadpole instead. Seemed like a way out.”

< Oh. I see the logic in that, though it still comes as a surprise, to hear. > Shell projects.

“Thought maybe I could turn things around, find a hospice, some folks who wanted their memories to live on with someone, at least.”

Taav'Qhel blinks.

< Thank you, for sharing this knowledge. > They shift, in their levitation. < I think it's time. >

“Time for wha - Oh, right, that.” Karlach opens a supply pack and smiles when sees a full bottle of Waterdeep zzar. “If you need an axe in the bastard's skull, just gimme a shout.”

Taav'Qhel drifts down to a lower ridge. rock formations claw out at her, but also serve as a barrier against the heat and distant sound of screams.

There is a statue.

They should shatter it where it stands. Better yet, cast it into fire along with every other dream that withered before their eyes. The ones where they have a foot into two worlds, one where they are an illithid and it changes nothing, and one where it changes everything, and they get to keep them both instead of stepping away from one to watch it implode before their eyes.

< My life is as full as the moon. > Taav'Qhel muses. < I don't need you. >

Maybe one day, they would find the strength to put the Emperor down for good. The two of them were rivals, and one day Taav’Qhel would have to kill it. And silver blood on their hands wouldn’t feel any better then than it would now.

Nothing but a chain that holds them back. Nothing but an anchor that weighs them down. But they just can’t let go yet. Maybe they would ask the world for forgiveness, if they hadn't been born condemned.

Taav'Qhel pulls out a flask of Basilisk Oil. But before that, they affix two bracelets - well, more shackles, minus the chain - to the statue's wrists.

When they feel the first neural impulses spark through the River, Taav'Qhel throws a synopsis of the past months at it, and doesn't care how much slips past in its disorientation.

< You know, I don't know if there's anyone I quite so despise as you. Maybe our Mother. You always make things so personal. > Taav'Qhel projects.

The Emperor’s foothold in the River is tenuous, and Taav'Qhel is more than capable of stirring the psionic waters to see what truths its stumbling reveals. Plans are formulated and just as quickly discarded, and the violet spark of a Plane Shift is swiftly devoured by a pair of modified Dimensional Shackles.

< I'm sure you'll work you way free of those eventually, but until I suggest you use your time wisely, and reflect. > Taav'Qhel idly muses, the Emperor steps back before finally managing to throw up a psionic ward.

< This is all… illogical. Contradictory. > The Emperor projects. Distress creeps into its thought, and why wouldn't it? There is not a single iterator that can draw a line of rationality between the choices Taav'Qhel has made. Finally, it knows the miserable state of Taav'Qhel mind. They don't exactly enjoy being this way, either.

< This choice only appears illogical because you still see me as your lesser, either for the sake of your schemes or for your own peace of mind. But I have surpassed any means you possess to harm me. I couldn't care less what you do. > Taav'Qhel projects. One of the Emperor's tentacles twitch. < I expect a little gratitude, you know. >

They step forward, tapping Telekinesis to force the Emperor to look them in the eye.

< I gave you survival. But freedom? You earn. >