Chapter Text
What a fucking headache...
The heat seemed to seep into every fiber of his body, and it wasn't easy to avoid it in such a closed, small and uncomfortable capsule. And not to mention the sounds from outside, as if the migraine from yesterday's drunkenness and the lack of that sweet and penetrating liquid in his system weren't enough problems already. Well, apart from that little stowaway stuck in his brain, dancing between the frontal lobe and the left hemisphere, because the idiot Mind Flayer didn't care that his victim asked him to at least use his blind eye if he was going to infect him. He stuck it in the other one, the good one, that bastard.
Continuing with the nap before... Whatever that worm was going to do to him, it wouldn't be possible, not with the chaos outside that made the abductee growl. He thought that he wished he could send the person responsible for everything to fuck his mother and who knows, spit in his face or hit him. The problem was that it wasn't just any crazy pyromaniac who was causing his misfortunes, but the Mind Flayer ship where he was imprisoned was losing its stability, and of course, right now it was being attacked by a squad of githyanki riding red dragons, invaded by imps who took advantage of eating some corpses and other infernal beings with a little more reason. Or maybe he did know, and simply didn't care. Not until the device where he was caged finally, for some reason, was opening with a sound of steam or compressed air being released. The pod finally released its prey, who still half asleep and barely sober, fell face down on the floor.
— "Motherfuckers..."
It was the only comment coming from that tall and somewhat old drow, whose clothes had an intense mix of smells like cheap beer, sweat, blood —which surprisingly wasn't his— and even putrefaction. He stood up with difficulty, stretching a couple of bones that creaked slightly, he slightly fixed the thick white dreadlocks that fell from his head over his dark blue face, which was adorned with black lipstick and war paint, one clear blue and glassy eye and the left one, which was the useful eye, bright red. He was not a very elegant guy, quite the opposite, not only was his body type confusing, being someone strong but who at the same time had a beer belly or as some might call it, a bear body, but his clothes were even more precarious: a high-necked shirt whose sleeves were cut off by brute force, a decorative purple loincloth that served partially as a sash with golden details and that had suffered the passage of time and lack of care, evidenced by some stains and holes here and there, brown pants with a few patches partially hidden, all provoked by precarious repairs, and a pair of boots that you could find lying around in the woods, even, just like the leather fingerless gloves he also wore. He was quite the vagabond, and that's not even an exaggeration; he was one. And the name of this lad, was Lephyr.
Lephyr checked his surroundings, being able to find his beloved, rusty axe, a single small healing potion, a scroll of revival, and his old bag, but even if he felt rather lucky that his belongings weren't destroyed by those squid heads, something was missing... His eyes —or rather one eye— moved around alongside his head... Could it be near? Did that fucker who ruled the shop throw him out of a window? The sounds of flesh caught his pointy ears, it seemed something was there, luring, moving around him... Danger seemed to raise as the sound got closer and closer... Until...
— "Casamir! There you are!"
The drow seemed to finally smile at the sight of a disembodied left hand, crawling on the floor to climb his leg and torso, all the way to his right shoulder to be pet by its owner, no, companion.
— "Man, I thought they snatched you away of me forever... But seems you outsmarted those assholes, eh? Who's a good hand? Who's a good hand?"
If it was for him, Lephyr could have stayed petting his hand pal, but now it was not the right time, sadly, as he finally recognized his situation. Or, rather, he finally cared about it.
Some capsules were open, which meant that there might be some other survivors around. Others were burnt up from the insides, leaving their poor slaves roasted like chicken... At least that wasn't his fate, he still have some cards to play, and he was going to be wise about it, specially now that he was sober. With Scratchy on his shoulder and the axe in both hands, he walked out of that prison room... To go back and check the pockets and chests around, after all, if he does survive, he'll need some money to get some wine or cheap beer. Now he exited for good.
His eye darted around, scratching his butt over the fabric of his pants, noticing a bigger area that seemed to be dedicated to surgeries for the Mind Flayers to do: the amount of brains in jars, some Eldritch Runes he could recognize from some books around, an elevator to a small, second room, and the usual mysterious voices that talked in turns. Wait...
— "Over here... Here..."
Well, that was not something normal. Lephyr couldn't help it, he had to see who... Whom... What... Was making those voices. As he stores some stolen goods in his pockets, he took the elevator, his ears focused on the callings. And there he saw it: an elf, his skin yellowish, covered in sweat and some blood, his brain exposed to the world, his mouth open and his sight lost somewhere in time and space. Things got even more interesting as he noticed that his voice didn't matched the one he heard, specially since his face didn't moved unlike his body, giving small contractions like a fish dying by lack of water, seconds away from its end. But something else moved, at the back of it. The brain.
— "You've come to save us from this place... From this place you've come to save us... Remove us, from this body... Before they return! ... They return..."
Well, this was interesting... Lephyr new what this was: an Intellect Devourer, which served as little pets for the Mind Flayers and did their stuff. He should destroy it now that it was still unborn, smash it with his bare hands and end it all. But he couldn't. He didn't wanted to, even. He thought of the potential of not only having one as a "cute" —at least in his eyes— pet, but the terror it could cause to people, like tormenting grannies and then take their cash...
— "Well, I thought about it and, you just got the lottery, lil brain kid. Let's see what I can do..."
With some force, care, and not ruining things since he noticed an edema that could damage it, he left the aberration out of the skull, growing the rest of its body, with those never still tentacles, and specially those weird, long legs that reminded him of hawks.
— "We are free... Our freedom is ours, friend!"
The thing went silent, checking the crow's brain, scratching behind his good eye... As if it looks for some type of recognition, which was the tadpole.
— "Ya could have, yeh know... Asked first." Lephyr growled, but he couldn't be fully mad to that little horrible thing.
— "We must go to the helm. At the helm we are needed."
— "Why? What's there?"
The Intellect Devourer kept quiet for a moment, as if someone invisible was giving it some advice.
— "Do you not hear it? They will not survive here. We are needed to navigate. We are needed to leave this realm..."
— "Got ya, I guess... So, uh, brainy? Thingy?"
— "Us. We are Us."
— "... Us. Let's go to the helm then."
— "To the helm we go! ... We are going to the helm..."
This was... Certainly a day, ain't it? But it was just the beginning, as he got out of the the room with his new pet by his side. The sounds of the exterior finally went directly to his pointy, pierced ears: fire, dragons, shooting lasers, and the view, oh the view... He wasn't anywhere near Baldur's Gate, nor Neverwinter, or anywhere that seemed normal for him, at least. It was clear as day he was in another plane, another world, and by the smell of ashes that tempted his nose to sneeze, it was a clear hint. He was at the Avernus. And he wasn't necessarily all alone (from other humanoid, thinkable live beings, that is).
It was quick: metal, air against him from a body movement. Maybe if he didn't had that stupid migraine that made him more slow to react, Lephyr would had catched the hint of Scratchy tapping on his shoulder warning of the presence sooner, one that took advantage of the fact that he looked at his back, and as soon as he turned around once more, a sharp sword pointing at him, just like the yellow-ish, reptilian eyes that pierced through him with that frowny face. A githyanki.
— "Abomination." The woman talked, with a voice so rusty than his gear, he even wondered if she faked it to look cooler or had a cold... "This is your end."
— "Geez, lower your volume a little... Don't yeh see I'm having the worst headache right now?" "... And do you carry a jag of alcohol or two? I seriously need a dr— Ah, FUCK!"
His head, no, his brain started to hurt, throbbing like crazy. Every cell of his body tingled, and his eyes closed by the pressure. Visions rush past: a dragon's wing, a silver sword - and a flash of his own face through another perspective: the gith's perspective. The moment he opened his eyes, he could notice that the warrior was seemingly in the same situation. Perhaps they...?
— "Ugh! Ow... My head. What is this... ngh." It took a moment for the other to gain her composure, to stop the complains and look at the other's face, processing the moment. "Tsk'va. You are no thrall - Vlaakith blesses me this day! Together we might survive." The defensive position she took soon vanished, the frown softening. Barely. He wasn't considered a threat anymore, and that was good news. He wanted anything but that. Maybe in a bar fight at a late, Saturday night, but not now.
— "Together? Shit, you are quick to assume that I would want to tag along."
The githyanki recovered that intimidating sight, clearly mad at that so confident, idiotic statement Lephyr just threw from his black lips. And of course, he didn't really care much of it.
— "You must be an idiot to be thinking that way, specially when death surrounds us."
— "Yeah, yeah, I've heard that befo—"
— "We carry mind flayer parasites. Unless we escape - unless we are cleansed - our bodies and minds will be tainted and twisted."
— "Alright, alright, I got it! For fucks sake..."