Chapter Text
<Lead the way,> he said.
We floated side by side on the docks, dripping with seawater after our plunge into Grey Harbour. Exhaustion hadn’t hit me yet. Reality hadn’t hit me yet, even though my allies looked at me with such conflicted emotions, too weary to keep the uncertainty from their faces.
We’d clung to the dying netherbrain for as long as we could while it lurched and swayed towards its watery deathbed. It keened to the side and we fell. I panicked, throwing out a wide, haphazard psionic net in a blind attempt to slow our descent. I wasn’t sure if it was me or the Emperor who caught us and flung us out of harm’s way as the brain carried out my final command to destroy itself, exploding in a brilliant, excruciating burst of psionic energy that illuminated the harbour like a fallen star.
The blast rippled through the water, sending waves crashing over ships and piers. Unbearable pain split my skull and echoed through every inch of me, and for one horrifying moment I thought the brain would take me with it out of spite. I spasmed and thrashed in the sea. It was worse than when Orin stabbed me; worse, even, than ceremorphosis… but it passed, and I hauled myself onto the docks with the others. Alive. Free. In control.
My companions’ thoughts were a tangled mess, the chaos almost painful to listen to, and so loud I couldn’t tune them out as I felt I respectfully should. Sadness, relief, fear, confusion, distrust. Halsin said he looked at me not with revulsion, but with gratitude for the sacrifice I made to ensure our victory. He does not understand. None of them do.
I made no sacrifice. I became a free illithid with the unique ability to shield myself and others from hivemind communication, with my arcane mastery and enough of my memories intact to maintain a sense of self - or so I believed. A city around me who would learn to associate my name with their salvation, if not my face. The Emperor at my side, and a future of our own making just waiting to happen.
Exactly as I planned.
Yet part of me still felt a twinge of disappointment listening to my companions. Already they felt so distant, after sharing so much together. I’d grown used to being in their minds through our tadpole connection, and feeling them inside my own. In fact, I’d come to enjoy it. Now, they were oh-so pleased to be rid of it, while I just felt… alone.
A reassuring presence brushed my mind. <Look at you,> said the Emperor. <You are glorious. The greatest ally I could have wished for.>
His praise filled me with warmth.
<You know, this partnership doesn't have to end here. You and I could do wonderful things. We could rebuild the Knights of the Shield and run it together. What do you say?>
I’d thought about this a lot. While he was quick to scold me for overt displays of sentimentality, he was, ironically, the most sentimental creature I’d ever met. I knew he’d want to go straight back to the way things were, running his old organization in his old city from the safety of his old hideout. I’d pieced together enough history while scouring the city for information about Duke Stelmane to find this an unsatisfactory prospect. Unchecked power and ambition coursed through me in the wake of our victory. I wanted more. Better.
<It’s not enough,> I said. <The Knights are corrupted, and limited in their reach. We need to think bigger.>
Pride, mixed with genuine affection, swelled from the Emperor’s thoughts. He couldn’t smile, but the delicate skin around his eyes crinkled softly. <Have I ever told you how much I enjoy you? Lead the way.>
I cast invisibility over us both and guided our group through the battle-torn streets, heading for the Elfsong. All our stuff was there; chests upon chests of it piled in our upstairs rooms - the rooms I’d ‘convinced’ Alan to rent us for free, despite having plenty of gold to pay the 200 he asked. The tavern was still standing, if not looking its best. Several large chunks of roof were missing from the upper floor, and the outdoor seating was broken and bloodied.
Inside, the lounge had become a refuge for those left wounded and homeless from the fighting. They huddled together, nursing wounds and mourning their losses. The tavern staff rushed to and fro, shoving tables and chairs against the wall to make space and handing out linens and pillows to those who would sleep on the floor.
I heard it all; a server, lamenting how hard it would be to clean up the mess. A couple struggling to quiet their screaming baby, thinking of their ruined home. A man lying on the floor, moaning in pain as a woman bandaged the gaping wound in his thigh.
So much anguish. Such misery, crammed into one room. The despair, the fear - I could taste it, almost - tangy, sweet. It was almost… delectable…
<Gwen.>
The Emperor’s warning brought me back. With alarm I realized I was salivating, my tentacles moist and writhing at the thought of a meal. Gods, if he hadn’t stopped me…
<This is not the time. We need to get through the cellar. We’ll be safer in my old quarters.>
I wrestled with my instincts, forcing away the unsavory and highly inconvenient urge to devour the weak. <Upstairs first,> I managed, my more rational line of thought slippery and hard to hold on to. <I have eighty-four thousand gold up there. We might need it later.>
Still invisible, I levitated to the ceiling and flew over the chaos, finding our rented rooms on the second floor ahead of Halsin and Shadowheart. Of all my companions, they were the only two still with us. Gale had stormed off in a huff after arguing with me about the Crown. Astarion had scuttled off to Gods-know-where as his protection from the sun evaporated. Jaheira and Minsc had been anxious to check on Jaheira’s wards in the Lower City. And Karlach…
Karlach’s engine had finally given out. The moment we all dreaded, perhaps me most of all. The idea of her dying was agony, but worse was knowing I could save her, and that she would hate me for it. All she had to do was go back to Avernus, but she swore to me she would rather die than return to the hells. I knew I could force her to go, just as I’d forcibly persuaded Lae’zel and Voss to stay their hand against me for the final battle. I could even make her think it was her idea, such that she wouldn’t realize what I’d done until she was already knee-deep fighting imps and too far from the material plane to do anything about it.
Out of respect for her, and the love we once shared, I promised my former self I would never manipulate her like that. But could I really sit there and let her die? After everything we’d survived together? She was terrified. I was terrified. And I hated feeling so helpless.
In the end, I didn’t have to face that dilemma. Wyll persuaded her for me, and whisked her back to Avernus at the last minute. Whatever he may think of me, I am eternally grateful to him for taking care of her in ways I could not.
Our rooms at the Elfsong were open to the elements at one end, but otherwise intact, if rather cluttered. The cumulative spoils of our adventure occupied every chest, cupboard and bookshelf. We’d all contributed to this unnecessary and yet rather impressive display of hoarding behaviour. Food, paintings, alchemy ingredients, magical items… each of us had weak spots. Mine was literature. Books, journals, letters, stained and barely legible notes stolen from a hundred-year-old corpse. To me, all knowledge had value, and I had insisted on keeping everything we found.
I questioned the wisdom of that decision now we had to move it all elsewhere.
“There’s enough food here to feed a small army,” said Halsin, rummaging through our camp supplies. “We should distribute it amongst the people downstairs.”
Shadowheart nodded in agreement. “We desperately need to rest, but I’d like to lend my healing abilities as well. I can’t help but feel… responsible, somehow, even though we didn’t harm these people.”
<Take the rest to the cellar,> I said. <We should let Alan open these rooms to people seeking shelter.>
They both flinched at my mental intrusion, having forgotten I was there under the invisibility spell.
“Maybe… a little warning, before you do that? It’s unnerving enough when we can see you.”
<Sorry,> I said, as ‘quietly’ as I could. <I’m… not sure how well I can communicate verbally.>
<Nor should you have to,> said the Emperor. <Though, the invisibility is excessive.>
I ignored him. Shadowheart’s unease seemed to amplify my own, and I wanted nothing more than to get out of these rooms that no longer felt safe. Outside, it was raining again, and the water dripped through the damaged parts of the roof. I could still sense the cacophony of troubled minds from downstairs, muffled to a slurry of half-formed, overlapping thoughts and images. It was almost maddening. I dreaded having to pass through the common area again to reach the cellar.
It took us rather a long time to carry everything down multiple flights of stairs to the old Knights hideout. I say ‘us’, but Halsin did most of the work. I’d never had the strength for physical lifting, and I could hardly float chests of gold past the kitchen staff without drawing undesirable attention.
Downstairs, I dropped our invisibility, trying hard to ignore the instinctive flinch from Shadowheart’s parents at the sight of two illithids in their supposedly safe hiding place. She’d sent her parents down here to wait out the fighting, with instructions to flee through the sewers if things went awry.
We shut ourselves behind the false wall and left them to it. ‘Out of sight, out of mind,’ as the saying goes. Such an ironic statement, considering how much I could still hear through the wall.
I did not feel safe. I paced the Emperor’s quarters, checking for signs of disruption since my last visit. Astarion had busted the lock on the hatch leading to the sewers, along with the double doors out of the storage room below. We hadn’t been in the habit of re-locking doors behind us while following the Bhaalists’ trail.
I threw open the hatch and dropped to the floor below, then sealed the doors with an arcane lock. Then moved a pile of empty crates and old furniture in front for good measure. I stopped to contemplate the ladder leading up to the hatch. It was a liability. We didn’t need it, since we could levitate. It served only to provide one more way for enemies to ambush us.
A simple firebolt reduced the ladder to ash. The entire city was a danger to me now. No precaution was too much, I reasoned - not when the Fists, the Harpers, and indeed any decently-armed citizen would attempt to kill me on sight.
This… was my reality from now on. The Emperor had grown complacent, before. Left a few too many pieces of evidence out there for the wrong people to find. A few too many witnesses to Stelmane’s strange behaviour. Gortash - and the Absolute - had relished his capture. I was not going to let anything like that happen again.
My expanded mind calculated the risk of innumerable threats, branching from one bad scenario to three worse ones. All of them played out before me, horrible, terrifying, and so realistic. It was too much. I’d never be safe, not unless I descended to the darkest depths and sealed myself away from the world.
A sudden vertigo sent me stumbling into a shelf. I grasped the wood, years of dust and grime sticking to my skin. I… what was I doing? I tried to orient myself, but my thoughts spiraled in an endless, nonsensical loop, and dizzying, static-like shocks disturbed my senses.
<Gwen, stop .>
<Stop… what?> Confused, I fought harder to regain coherence. I was doing something, or several somethings. Concentrating, on…
<Stop protecting us, before you damage yourself.> His presence in my mind grew stronger, more insistent. He was worried, too, only not about outside threats. The concern he felt was about… me.
<You mean psionic flareback? But I hardly used psionics to seal us in!> Gods, I was so confused. Nothing made sense. Why did nothing make sense?
<Not that,> he said, dismissing my efforts with a wave of his hand. <Orpheus’ shield. You are still shielding us, and you must stop. Your mind is collapsing from the effort. Let Go .>
The urgency in his command brought me a moment of clarity. I remembered casting the shield over us in the astral prism; first myself, then my companions. Using a separate thread of focus to envelop each of them, tying those threads together into an impenetrable weave, then compartmentalizing it, just as he taught me, leaving the rest of my consciousness available to fight.
Everything I’d done during the battle and afterwards, I’d done at half capacity. Perhaps less. The arcane spells I’d cast, the orders I’d given, even channeling the netherstones, I’d done while holding that shield rigid against the brain, no matter how relentlessly it fought to control us.
I was… exhausted.
No sooner did I reach for the shield I’d woven than it unravelled and slipped from my grasp. I fell to the floor clutching my head as pain pounded through me. Vertigo tilted the room on its axis. I was slipping, scrambling for purchase on the stone floor leering away from me, until there was no floor. There was only blackness, and I couldn’t stop falling…
I sat on the roof of the Elfsong under a cloudy night sky. Karlach’s warm hands rubbed my back and held my thinning hair out of my face as I hurled my guts into a clay pot. I felt her unease as she noticed the blood mixed in with the remnants of my evening meal.
“Uh, soldier? How worried should I be?”
We were lucky to be alive at all, after the fiasco in the Wyrmway. “Go wake the dragon sleeping beneath the city,“ Wyll had insisted. “Ansur will be our saviour - the Heart of the Gate.” As a githyanki, I really should have known better than to wake a sleeping dragon, but I led my group to investigate anyway. We needed all the allies we could get.
What we got was the toughest fight of our lives.
“I suppose conjuring a mind blast strong enough to knock a dragon unconscious mid-flight was bound to have consequences.” I smiled faintly before retching again, all blood and bile this time. My insides squirmed in pain.
“I don’t understand. The Emperor promised to protect you from turning. Is he that bitter about us uncovering his past?” said Karlach, her tone accusatory.
He’d been uncharacteristically silent since we left the Wyrmway. I barely felt his presence at all, which was perhaps just as well, considering how angry I currently was, but I knew he’d be back.
“No,” I said. “The rest of you are fine, and he wouldn’t jeopardize the mission when we are so close. I would ruin everything if I fell to the Absolute now.” I shuddered at the thought, my head throbbing.
She scoffed. “How very logical.”
“This isn’t ceremorphosis,” I said, trying to sound convincing. “I just overtaxed myself. It’s a migraine. It’ll pass.”
In truth, I wasn’t sure. My subtle onset of symptoms had started not long after I communed with the astral tadpole. I’d adapted well, excited by how natural it felt to blend psionics and arcane spellcraft in battle. I enjoyed how sensitive I was; my heightened awareness of everything and everyone around me making me feel more alive than ever before.
Yet at night, when I was quiet, my fingers ached, my jaw ached, and my greying green hair fell out in clumps. I wouldn’t have called it pain so much as an irritation, an itch I couldn’t scratch. Frustration gnawed at me as I balanced, stranded, upon an impossible edge; not quite gith, not quite illithid. It might’ve driven me mad by now, if not for the resonance stone next to my bed, pinched from the Moonrise colony with only the vague notion it may be useful at some point.
My stomach clenched, and I leaned over the pot again. I didn’t wretch. Instead, an abrupt, chilled sensation stilled the throbbing in my head, like a cold hand gripping my brain and forcibly quelling the struggle within. With a sigh of relief, I flopped back against the pillar behind me, breathing heavily.
“I’m alright now,” I said after a few minutes.
“That was… sudden. Are you sure?”
I nodded, smiling weakly up at her worried face, beautiful even when her brow furrowed with concern. “Get some rest. I’ll be down soon. Tomorrow, we break into the foundry.”
No sooner had she left than a familiar presence slid into my mind.
<Curious. My protection against the netherbrain’s influence has not faltered, yet that very shielding appears to have left you vulnerable to other stimuli with the potential to trigger your transformation. That you would advance your own evolution is not something I anticipated.>
<That was hardly intentional.> I made no effort to conceal my displeasure.
<Wasn’t it?>
I could feel him probing the surface, seeking to understand with an eagerness more akin to scientific curiosity than actual concern. I did not reply, and I did not let him in.
A mental sigh. <This… complicates things. You will have to be more careful.>
<Me?> I huffed. <This is your fault.>
The Emperor’s presence stilled, unprepared for the confrontation brewing in me. But I only had so much patience, so much understanding, and right then I was tired and grumpy and totally unwilling to shoulder the blame for any of the day’s events.
<My entire party almost died today, and you did nothing to help. I get not wanting to fight Ansur a second time, but the whole situation could have been avoided if you’d only told me the whole story before we got there.>
<I warned you there was no wyrm. As usual, you insisted on taking a look for yourself.>
<Because, as usual, you didn’t explain your reasoning!> I seethed, barely containing the desire to pace the rooftop and shout. Only… I wasn’t on the rooftop anymore, but in a warped, nightmarish version of the astral prism, all reds and yellows with asteroids swirling in a dizzying vortex.
<You jump straight to your concluding statement without filling in the blanks, then expect us to just go along with whatever you say. Do you think it’s beneath you to explain your logic? Is that it? We lesser beings couldn’t possibly understand your line of thought?>
I wished the stars would stop flashing like that, the cosmic kaleidoscope feeding my agitation.
<Wyll had The Legend of Ansur in his hands and heroism in his heart. If I had told you the truth, he would not have believed a word.> Still calm; infuriatingly so, though I detected a lingering undercurrent of sadness.
<But I would have.> I clenched my teeth. <And the others trust me. That’s all that matters.>
Silence. Perhaps a hint of uncertainty.
<I readily admit I have charged head first into dangerous situations in the past with little regard for the risk,> I continued, <but I will NOT let you pin this on me. Today, it was you who jeopardized the mission, and all because you failed to trust me when I needed you to…>
I woke lying on the cold cellar floor, trembling and disoriented. My head throbbed as it had in the dream, only now it was real, and made worse by the tender sensation of my brain pulsing insistently, as though what remained of my bony skull was too small for its contents.
<You were right,> said the Emperor.
I forced one eye open to find him sitting beside me, then shut it again as the vertigo returned. I struggled to separate dream from memory. The sickness had been real. I had sat on the roof with Karlach that evening, barely a tenday ago, but…
<That conversation never happened,> I said. <I never confronted you.>
<Perhaps you should have.>
He spoke with a softness I heard from him so rarely that I almost sat up in surprise. Doing so took far more effort than it should have, and I immediately flopped back down again.
<Do not forget, I have felt your resentment ever since. Your determination to seize control and steer the intricate vessel that was our mission alone , while admirable, was… upsetting for me, after all we shared.>
That, I could understand, but I’d had my reasons. No matter how much I trusted that our bond was genuine, to my companions it was just one more manipulation tactic to ensure my loyalty.
“ Of course he’s manipulative,” I’d said to Wyll one night. “He’s an illithid; it’s what they do. Complaining that the Emperor is manipulative is like complaining that a cat meows.” I’d glanced at each of them with a look of utter exasperation. “If our goals are already aligned, what does it matter? I can work with this.”
And I had. Brilliantly. Nevertheless, in the hour of greatest need, it was me who held rapport with our newfound allies throughout the city, me who held the fragile trust of those in my group, despite our vast differences. It was always going to be me.
So when the Emperor told me only an illithid mind could dominate the netherbrain, and asked me to hand over the stones, I said I would do it myself.
<You prepared for me to undergo full ceremorphosis at some point, yet it unsettled you when I volunteered. Why?> I asked.
<Indeed, I hoped you would.> He retreated into himself then, and I sensed uncertainty, along with something more tender that I couldn’t quite place. <This is not how I meant for it to happen.>
I wanted to probe deeper, yearning to understand where all this was coming from, but I was so tired. My mental strength failed me just as my physical strength had moments earlier. <What’s wrong with me?> I asked instead.
He struggled to answer, which only worried me more. <Channeling Orpheus’ power so soon interrupted the final stages of your transformation. Refinements to your psychic capabilities and appearance, which would normally occur after the obvious physical changes, were blocked by this untimely - but necessary - interference.>
A deep sadness washed over me. I shuddered at the intensity of the emotion; not mine, yet I felt it with my entire body.
<Everything you did to wrest control of the brain, you did with underdeveloped mental capacity. The strain nearly killed you.> A long, regret-filled sigh. <It is too soon to tell if you will recover enough to reach mature illithid potential.>
<Oh.> No such possibility had occurred to me before. Many separate threads of my mind sluggishly attempted to work through the implications, but they fizzled out half way, or reached nonsensical conclusions. I knew only that I was disappointed. It would have been nice, I thought, to curl up in a ball and go back to sleep, perhaps indefinitely…
The Emperor’s hand brushed my forehead. I flinched for no specific reason other than the excessive sensitivity of my skin.
<Don’t give up.> His voice was soft, yet layered with such deep, complex emotion I probably would’ve cried if I’d still been capable. <Allow me to take care of you. Please. >
I struggled to let go, even then. It wasn’t for lack of trust on my part. Unlike my companions, I had never found it particularly difficult to trust him after revealing his true nature. I approached the situation with the same logic and meticulous analysis I brought to everything, which involved scouring the city for every shred of information I could find about the Knights of the Shield - and Duke Stelmane especially. Every source was unreliable in its own way, coloured by the author’s own prejudices and personal agenda.
I came to understand his motivations and his end goal, which was the same as mine, so… that was that, really. It didn’t seem worth overcomplicating things when we all had far bigger battles to fight.
<You believed I owed you open, upfront honesty in exchange for that trust, and felt betrayed when I didn’t give it to you in the Wyrmway,> he said, having overheard all my interior monologue.
<It felt like no matter what I did, you would never trust me on the same level.>
He said nothing, his reaction withheld on a level too deep for me to see in my current state.
<But… that may have been short-sighted. You’ve been in hiding all your illithid life. First, your partialism. Next, the instincts Ansur found distasteful. Then, your nature, your true form - everything, while in Baldur’s Gate. One doesn’t break a lifetime of mental conditioning overnight. We both saw Astarion face similar challenges.>
I closed my eyes, fighting the clawing ache of exhaustion within me.
<I want to live,> I said, echoing Karlach’s strongest desire throughout our journey. Life was potential, and every life was worth living. I looked up at him, his iridescent purple eyes guarded, but brimming with concern, and… and hope. <Fix me, if you can? So that someday, I can show you what it is to be the protected one.>
It was enough to break the tension. Relief filtered through our connection despite his guarded prognosis. <I’ll try,> he said. <I need to, ah… inspect you, to assess your transformation. Will that be alright?>
<Of course.>
He took my hand and examined each digit, rubbing the base of my index finger. <No pain here, no numbness?>
He’d transitioned so quickly to objective, clinical analysis, I wasn’t sure what he was getting at. Then he linked our senses and peeled back the veneer on his surface thoughts, so I could comprehend without expending energy I didn’t have. I saw my hand through his eyes; tiny, pale pink, and quite human-looking apart from the flimsy black nails that seemed unable to decide if they wanted to thicken or just fall off.
<No,> I said.
<You’re keeping your extra digit, then. A colony would surgically remove it, but I see no reason to do so. Your skin lacks proper pigmentation, which is common in cases like yours. Blotchy, though, so that will likely correct itself.>
He’d moved further up my arm, peeling back the tight fabric of my sleeve to study the irregular greyish-purple patches appearing there.
<This… incompleteness - is that why I’m so small?> I didn’t think I’d ever been tall, exactly, but now I was barely five foot, and scrawny.
<Perhaps. You were also malnourished at the time, which tends to impact newborn illithid growth as much as it would humanoid children.>
I winced mentally, thinking of how difficult it had been to keep food down in those last few days while battling constant nausea from a digestive tract that was quite literally disintegrating. Taking in nothing but fluids must’ve left me weak indeed, but I supposed I had been too focused on the task at hand to notice.
<Everything about you is tiny, but in proportion,> he said, continuing his examination. <Don’t worry about your tentacles; they will grow for certain.>
That was a relief, since I’d had trouble feeding without losing my grip and making an unnecessary mess of things. I didn’t begrudge my companions’ horror at the sight. True, they probably would’ve been horrified regardless, but I could certainly have been more… graceful, as the Emperor put it.
<Come closer.>
He levitated me onto his lap; still sprawled on the floor, since we had no furniture apart from his old desk, and more wine racks than two beings with no olfactory sense could ever need. My head pounded anew at being held upright. Even the slightest pressure was near unbearable, as though skin and bone were too tight and chafing like ill-fitted clothes.
This wasn’t far from the truth. The Emperor’s concern heightened as he felt - as gently as he could - along the ridges of my elongated skull.
<Your skull is still partially fused - here, at the sides. The bone should soften and detach, allowing space for your brain to expand and contract.>
<No wonder I feel awful. That seems.. dangerous?>
<Indeed. If it doesn’t resolve itself, we may have to operate to relieve the pressure. I would prefer it didn’t come to that, as I have never observed such surgery myself, let alone performed it.>
<So would I, but… the pain … what do I do?>
His mind opened to me with a subtle invitation, like a waiting embrace. <Rest. Heal. Grow. Give your body time to adapt unimpeded by magic, or stress.>
I sat there for a moment, uncertain, before fatigue won. I leant gingerly against his chest, and his tentacles draped over my shoulders, stroking my back. Soothing waves of reassurance washed over me, and I sank into the feeling. Pain melted away as I relaxed, perhaps for the first time in a long while.
At last, I was safe.