Chapter Text
Ryn’s dreams didn’t make sense. Nevermind that she should not be having them anyway (she is an elf; elves don’t dream.) At first, she thought that they must mean something, but she can’t figure out what.
Dreams tend to be a bad sign when it comes to her. Always when she dreamed instead of trancing, they have been from a part of herself she kept buried down - but these were not like that. Those were clear - but these were fragmented; broken. As if she were seeing snippers out of someone else's eyes; yet it was her face she saw in reflections, her hands that took lives; her voice as she spoke prayer in her Fathers name.
When they first started, Ryn had brushed them aside. It had been not long after the Second Sundering and Bhaal’s resurrection. She knew he could send his children dreams; she had assumed it was that and just like any petulant child - he would get bored if she showed no reaction.
Still; she had taken precautions - spending more time on Sigil where her father could not directly reach her (that was not a family reunion she was keen on experiencing.)
But the dreams had continued for decades: growing stranger and stranger. It was recently that they had grown entirely bizarre and if these were messages from Bhaal, she could not fathom what he was trying to say to her.
She saw flashes of a human man she did not know; papers and planning; a heavily armoured elf; the halls of a house in the hells. Flashes of conversation but never enough to understand. Then, a title:
The Absolute.
But that was not the end of the dreams; each time they grew more and more complicated, more and more concerning. Until tonight; she saw flashes of red; oozing walls, and a dagger aimed for her skull. She had no time to react; the pale blonde woman's laugh echoed in Ryn’s ears as she awoke with a scream, hands clutching the back of her head as if she could stop the blade, her heart pounding and her head throbbing.
She took her hands away from her head and looked. There was no blood; she had not been stabbed - it was just a dream. But it wasn’t. She knew it wasn’t - just like she knew she wasn’t alone in the room.
Ryn looked up and she saw a woman standing in the middle of the room; drenched in blood. It was… Ryn? She blinked, hand pressed against the side of her head as if the pressure could ease the riots inside her skull. The more she looked at the other her though; the more Ryn realised - she was someone else.
She was nearly identical. Her face was exactly the same; the same pointed ears, the same glistening golden scales that adorned her face. Her eyes reflected Ryn’s own blue and purple ones but there was something different about them.
Ryn climbed out of her bed. The woman’s mouth moved; an attempt to say something - but no noise left her. At least, no noise Ryn could hear. Then; as if she had never been there; she disappeared.
After that, the dreams stopped.
In the last one hundred years, Sigil had become something like a home to Ryn. There was something about a city full of outcasts, runaways, and bizarre kinds of people that appealed to her. No one would look twice at a young elf like herself covered in golden scales and covered even more in horrific scars.
But she did not call it home: call her superstitious but she has been driven out of every other place she once called home and she did not want to risk that happening here.
Sigil was, after all, one of the few places where Gods were not allowed to enter.
And Ryn had enough of gods to last her an elven lifetime.
So she tried to put the dreams to the back of her mind, and continued about her life as normal. She managed fairly well, but as over a tenday passed with no new dream she found herself starting to feel… concerned. Maybe it should be a relief that these dreams that had plagued her for the last few decades had stopped but… why?
There was the temptation to investigate, but it's not as if she would know where to start. So she tried to ignore it even more. And like anyone trying to ignore their problems, she found herself in a tavern gambling on a card game.
It was here when things started to fall into place.
She looked at her cards and couldn’t help the grin, quickly trying to stifle it as she looked up at her opponents. A genasi, a tiefling, and a human. The human scowled at his cards before tossing them in the middle, while the tiefling pushed in a huge stack of gold.
“Feeling bold today, Kiron?” Ryn asked with a laugh as she played with a piece of gold between her fingers. How much should she put in? Hmm.
‘ Aelasar. A word? ’
Despite the words being broadcast into her mind, Ryn knew to glance behind her at the tall cloaked figure that stood ominously in the middle of the tavern.
“I'll be right with you, Uli.” she said, turning back to the card game. “I'm just about to wipe Kiron out of all his life savings.” she said with a grin.
The tiefling sneered at her.
‘Its important.' there was a pause. ‘Its about Toril.’
That made Ryn frown, then look down at her cards. She sighed and tossed them down. “I fold. It's your lucky day, Kiron.” she said, getting up from her seat.
She'd been bluffing anyway.
She walked over to Uli. She couldn't see under the cloak but she knew who it was. There was only one person who would address her as Aelasar and do it in her mind.
The Mindflayer led her over to the far corner of the Inn. it wasn't quiet by any means - the Inns on Sigil never were, and really, who needed privacy when your conversation partner was broadcasting its words right into your mind.
“Whats up, Uli?” Ryn asked, sipping her drink.
‘I just returned from Toril and there is something… strange happening.’
“There's always something strange happening there.” she said with a sigh. “But nothing that's got you concerned before.”
‘There is heightened Illithid activity. Far more than what could be considered normal. It would not be safe for me nor any free illithid to return there for some time.’
Ryn frowned even more. That was... concerning. There weren't a huge amount of Illithids outside a colony hive mind but the ones that were on Sigil often made the trip to Faerun and back for whatever reason.
“What kind of Illithid activity?” she asked.
‘Nautiloids are gathering. Incubation tanks are being prepared. It feels like preparation for an invasion. ’ Uli explained, and Ryns frown grew deeper. That wasn't good.‘ There have been mentions of something called ' the Absolute' . ’
Ryns breath caught in her throat. That title from her dreams; her dreams that don’t make any sense.
“Right.” she said, trying not to sound rattled. “Thanks for the heads up Uli.”
Uli tilted its head. ‘I know you have connections there. I must go warn my fellow Illithids of Sigil now. Stay well, Aelasar.’
“You too, Uli.” Ryn said, watching as Uli moved off, gracefully hovering out of the Inn. She sat down in the chair, and downed the rest of her drink.
A potential Illithid invasion of Toril somehow being connected to her weird dreams? Well - she’s had crazier things happen to her.
She tried to ignore the unease that swirled in her gut.
When she lays her head on her pillow to trance, she instead dreams. This dream is even more fragmented than the previous ones. There are glimpses of red; as if the ceiling is made of that colour only. She catches the sight of a woman looking down at her, tutting and taking notes. She coos, but the noise falls on deaf ears. The only noise she can hear is the rushing of her own blood and the screams from her own lungs.
She pushes the dream away, opening her eyes to press her hands against her heart - and was only mildly surprised when her hands did not enter her own body. Before she had a chance to wonder why that was a surprise, a glowing orb appeared in front of her.
She stared at it, blinking away her pounding heart and then slowly- she reached out and touched the Sending Spell. The message was jumbled up, nearly indecipherable - the risk of Sending Spells travelling across the Planes. Yet a handful of words made it through, Jaheira’s voice cutting through the static.
“-gate… Cult… Absolute…………-”
Well.
Fuck.
She started packing her belongings straight away. Thankfully, she doesn’t own many things so most of her stuff she throws into her bag of holding, wears her travelling gear, hooks her glaive onto her back, and pulls her cloak up over her head and opens the door out of her room.
Then without walking through, slams it shut again.
“Really?” she asks no one in particular.
She slowly opened the door again and peered through. The other side wasn’t the hallway out of the tavern room, but instead what Ryn could only describe as a fleshy nightmare known as a Mindflayer Colony. She huffed, and shut the door again.
“Okay, I get the picture - you want me to investigate.” She spoke out loud, her hands landing on her hips. “But depositing me right in a Mindflayer colony is really… well… come on, Lady. I’ve walked into a Mindflayer Colony before and I learned they really don’t like intruders. Can’t you at least put me… outside the colony?”
The Lady of Pain did not respond to her. Ryn wasn’t expecting a response, though perhaps one would be nice for once! (Thinking about it, considering people tend to suffer sudden wounds when laying eyes upon the Lady of Pain - maybe she didn’t want a response.) She opened the door again a crack and peeked out. Still the colony. She shut the door. “I’m not against climbing out the window.”
There was no point arguing with the Lady - or the door, really. So with a heavy sigh, Ryn reached into her bag of holding until she pulled out two potions,one elixir, and a scroll. She tucked one invisibility potion in her belt for easy reach, tucked the scroll in another section of her belt, and then downed the psychic resistance elixir and then the second invisibility potion.
Once certain she was invisible, Ryn opened the door into the Mindflayer Colony and walked through. She tried not to grimace at the floor squelching beneath her feet, and the sudden waves of psionic energy directed towards her. She could feel it investigating her, but the elixir was doing its job. She let out a small sigh and quickly, and quietly, started walking down the hall.
One of the gross doorways opened and an intellect devourer scuttled through. Ryn froze where she stood, watching as it walked right past her. Gods, psychic resistance potions were worth their high price when dealing with illithids.
She wasn’t telling her potion seller that though, she’d likely raise the price again and Ryn could hardly afford them as it was.
Ryn waited for the next intellect devourer to scuttle past, opening the fleshy door and she followed it through. It looked like your average Mindflayer Colony so far: thing of nightmares and made of flesh. Gods, Ryn had hoped to never see the inside of one of these ever again. She was so lucky to get out of the last one-
She needed to stop thinking about that. She needed to look for… well, she wasn’t even sure what she was supposed to look for. Something to do with an Absolute? Or a Mindflayer invasion? Gee, it sure would have been nice if she could have found out more information before going into this colony!
The next room was looked familiar to one she’d seen over a hundred years ago, the last time she was in one of these hells. Brine pools. There were a few tadpoles swimming around in it but… far less than Ryn would have expected for a colony of this size. She carefully reached into her bag of holding and pulled out the empty vial that her invisibility potion used to be in and held it down in the pool to collect up some of the brine. She corked it shut, and put it back in her bag of holding.
There were the sounds of voices coming from down one of the fleshy hallways making Ryn pause. Voices. Things that Mindflayers didn’t typically have. Not verbal ones anyway. Quietly she started to head towards those voices, following an Intellect Devourer as it opened the doors for her. She’d thank it if there wasn’t the chance it’d turn around and try to eat her brain. She’d rather her brain remain uneaten.
The room that she had entered was… different to the rest of the colony. It was still very much a mindflayer colony, but there were workbenches and decor of the non-illithid kind. There was a banner hung on the wall with a symbol that seemed… somewhat familiar to Ryn. From a book, she was sure. There were a few people in this room, wearing odd clothing and odder hats. The one that caught her attention the most was a woman standing by some kind of table.
She was speaking to someone, or something, in a cooing voice, as if she was talking to a pet or a baby. Ryn really hoped that there was no baby down here. Or a pet.
There was a wave of psionic energy, bouncing harmlessly off of Ryn’s mental barrier - but the woman raised her head. With a lamenting sigh, she turned around from her workspace and called out to the others. “Come on, you lot! Balthazar has new toys for us!”
Ryn waited with a frown as the group of weirdos left the large room before her curiosity got the best of her and she made her way over to the potential baby-pet and she gasped.
It wasn’t a baby. It was a woman. A blood soaked woman who was actively cut open - Ryn could see more internal organs than she’d ever want to see (especially still inside of a person.) (Especially still inside of a living person.
“Y-ou-” the woman rasped the words out, as if it was hard to talk. Which it must have been. Her insides were outside. And she was alive.
“Holy shit.” Ryn gasped, not caring that her invisibility potion must have worn off. “Holy shit.”
The woman tried to move, but she could only manage to jolt her arm slightly. Ryn shook her head. She couldn’t heal this - not all the healing potions in the world could heal this. What had happened to this poor woman-
“Y-” the woman couldn’t speak but there was pure rage in her eyes - her blue and purple eyes. “K-ill-”
Ryn blinked.
She hadn’t realised it to start with; hard to see through all the blood and gore that covered this woman. But now, the closer she got, the more she looked, she could see it. Her eyes, her nose, her cheekbones - it was her. It was Ryn. The Not-Ryn Ryn. The one Ryn had seen in her bedroom, the one she had been having dreams of for the last couple decades.
Ryn took three steps backwards.
Not-Ryn tried to lunge at her, this time managing enough movement to fling herself off of the operating table. She landed on the floor in a broken jumble, somehow managing to raise her head to stare at Ryn. Her eyes were hate-filled and empty. Whoever this woman was, she had died when that blade went into her skull and whatever remained -
“Ki-ll-” the woman hissed, one hand trying to reach out to Ryn. “Me.”
Ryn stared down at her and for a brief moment there was the barest moment of humanity in Not-Ryns eyes. Eyes filled with pain and suffering and hate and anger. Whatever was happening here, whoever this woman with Ryn’s face was - this was torture. This was brutal torture and no one deserved that.
“I’m so sorry.” Ryn whispered as she carefully knelt down. “I don’t know who you are. I don’t know what happened to you. But I am so sorry.”
“N-r-m-er-” Not-Ryn tried to say.
It took Ryn a moment to decipher the noises. Necromancer. Ah, that explained the weird fashion. But did that mean this woman was being killed and brought back by Necromancers for… what? Ryn shook her head - she needed to put this woman out of her misery in a way that stopped a Necromancer from bringing her back. And she needed to move fast - they might come back any second now… but she owed it to this woman to try and make it as painless as possible.
“I’m so sorry.” She whispered again before she took in a deep breath and started casting, pulling at the death energy already heavy in the air as she laced the magic through the word on the tip of her tongue. She made sure she kept eye contact with the writhing woman as she spoke the power word: “Die.”
In an instant, the woman was dead.
In an instant, it was as if someone had hit Ryn hard over the head. She was laying on the ground as the world spun around her, head throbbing. She grit her teeth together and forced herself onto her hands and knees. She needed to finish the job.
She pulled at her magic, swirling and volatile. “Mordenkainen’s Sword.” She summoned the magic blade of black energy out of thin air, and with a swing, she brought the magic blade down against the woman's neck. It cleaved through with ease, and trying not to think about it any more than she had to - Ryn grabbed the woman's head with one hand and used the magic sword in the other one to help her to her feet.
She swayed a bit, blinking rapidly as her vision blurred and head pounded. This was - peculiar. But she didn’t have time to think about it - she managed to walk over to a large archway with a platform that looked out over - Ryn blinked. Nautiloids.
Gods, she was really hoping it was a bottomless pit she could throw the head down. She looked down at her bag of holding and sighed. It wouldn’t be the first time she stored a decapitated head in a bag of holding but it wasn’t exactly ideal.
The sound of voices approaching made her mind up. She shoved the head into the bag without a second thought and grabbed the invisibility potion still on her belt and downed it all as she un-summoned her magic sword.
She leaned against the fleshy-wall and shut her eyes as she felt the painful throbbing in her skull. She’s used Power Word Kill several times before and its never left her feeling like this. But then again, she’s never used it on a woman that looked like her and who she’s been sharing dreams with.
A loud scream from the room didn’t make her open her eyes.
“Who did this?” a woman screeched. “Who desecrated my pet? Who took its head? When I find who did it, I will make them suffer over and over again-”
After a moment, Ryn opened her eyes and pushed the throbbing in her head aside. There was a pathway down to where the Nautiloids were, and she could see movement down there. People loading things onto the large ships. People. She glanced back into the necromancers room where that woman was raging over the decapitated body of the woman.
They were not thralls.
What the fuck was going on here?
She frowned, and carefully started to make her way down the long winding path. Once she got to the bottom, she saw people and Mindflayers loading large pods onto the Nautiloids. She kept her distance from the Mindflayers as much as she could, but she noted the blank looks on these peoples faces. These ones were thralls.
So there were Mindflayers, thralls, and non-thrall humans all working in the same colony? That was… odd. She followed some of the thralls onto the Nautiloid, following as they took the pod into a large room. It was floor to wall pods and she blinked as the thralls connected the pod onto the wall.
They left the room and the door swirled shut. A wave of psionic energy passed through the air, and the ship itself returned that psionic energy, Communication. The Nautiloid was taking off. Well, Ryn wasn’t disappointed about getting out of that hell of a colony.
There was a wave of planar energy and the ship shuddered under Ryns feet. Damn, she really wished there was a window on this ship so she could see where they were going. Actually, maybe she should try to find an exit point in case she needed to make a hasty escape. She started to make her way over to the door but there was another burst of planar energy - and then in just the few moments afterwards… people started appearing.
Ryn stood, staring in dumbfounded horror as the pods slowly started filling up with people. Some were unconscious, others were awake and screaming and banging on the doors of the pods. There were so many empty pods that were quickly filling up and this was just one room.
What did the Illithids need this many people for?
The doors slid open and a Mindflayer hovered in. It went to the pool in the middle of the room and plucked something out. Small, writhing, and it filled Ryn with dread. Tadpole. She watched, silently as the Mindflayer hovered over to a pod and opened the lid. The person inside flinched back, tried to pull away as the Mindflayer held the tadpole up to his eye and-
Ryn was going to be sick.
Were all these people planned to be infected with tadpoles? She knew that was how Mindflayers reproduced but this many? This amount? Uli was right - this was some kind of Illithid invasion. The Mindflayer closed the pod and moved onto the next one. She couldn’t just stand here and watch - but she also couldn’t take on an entire nautiloid of Mindflayers.
Think, think, think. What could she do? Crash the nautiloid? Somehow? They had plenty more back at that colony but it could stop more people from being taken. How would she crash one?
A wave of psionic energy pulsed out, and the Mindflayer turned and hovered out of the room. She waited several moments after it left before she let out a slow breath and walked over to the middle of the room where the pool was.
Inside were a lot of writhing tadpoles. She grimaced and reached into her bag of holding, shuffling around until her hand touched a bottle and- SOMETHING CRAWLED ON HER ARM.
She yanked her arm out as a tadpole flung off and landed on the floor in front of her. Oh gods why was that in her bag of holding - the decapitated head - had she been infected? She didn’t seem infected! The tadpole started to crawl towards Ryn and she didn’t think as she stomped hard on the creature.
The tadpoles in the pool screamed.
Fuck.
A split second later the door pushed open and an angry Illithid hovered in, eyes and psionics scanning the room. The wave of psionic energy hit her just as its eyes landed on her. She was still invisible but that didn’t matter - not with a psionic creature. She grabbed the scroll from the pouch on her belt and pushed her magic into it. It broke her invisibility, but Chaotic Commands washed over her.
The Mindflayer flew at her and she felt its psionics try to blast at her. Thankfully she was protected as much as she could be as she pulled her glaive off of her back and swung it at the mindflayer. It hit the creature across the stomach, making it shriek. She felt its psionics try to reach out to her again, but the elixir and the chaotic commands were keeping it at bay.
The door opened and three more mindflayers hovered in. She scowled and quickly threw a large fireball at the group of them, barely dodging a tentacle whip from the first mind flayer. She spun her glaive in the air, slamming the butt of it into the ground as fire burst out from around her. The first mindflayer was caught in the blast, as it hurried to extinguish itself.
She threw six magic missiles at the three mindflayers that had recovered slightly from the fireball before spinning her glaive to decapitate the first flayer. Its silver blood splattered over Ryn as it fell to the ground, and she grinned as she turned her attention to the other three.
The three mindflayers all hit her at once with their psionic blast. She stumbled, her defences holding for now but - it did put her off balance slightly as one Mindflayer rushed in. It grabbed her arms and pushed her against one of the bods, its tentacles parting to reveal its toothy mouth beneath.
Ryn took in a large breath of air and then exhaled a large cone of fire. The Mindflayers head caught all the breath weapon and it dropped her as it fell to the ground. She stomped on its skull as she picked up her glaive, throwing another fireball at the two remaining Mindflayers. One managed to dodge it, flying to the other side of the room, then directly at her. She held her glaive up, swinging it with the right timing as it stuck in the mindflayers arm.
The other mindflayer, charred but still alive, threw a mind blast at her. Her defenses cracked, and for a second she was dazed, stumbling. It was only a second, but a second was all the mind flayer needed knock the glaive from her hand and wrap its arms around her, one around her waist holding down her arms and the other over her mouth.
Submit.
The command hit her, and Ryn gritted her teeth. Chaos Commands pushed it back, but she needed to get - out -
Submit!
‘GO FUCK YOURSELF’ Ryn shouted in her mind as she bit down hard on the Mindflayers hand. It clearly hadn’t been expecting that and its grip loosened enough that - after she spat out the mindflayer finger - she wailed.
The banshee-like scream erupted from her, the mindflayer that held her falling dead from the spell. The other one staggered, but before it could regain its footing - or… floating? Either way, before it could regain that, Ryn sent four magical arrows of fire at its head. It fell to the ground in a heap.
Ryn slowly took in a breath, then picked her glaive up from the ground and looked around. Several dead Mindflayers, pods of people - some unconscious, some looking at her with huge eyes, and others slumped forward dead. Ryn stopped herself from grimacing; they were likely killed by her Wail of the Banshee. She tried not to feel too bad; several of them had already been tadpoled. At least this was a quicker death.
She reached into her bag of holding and pulled out a healing potion. She popped the top and chugged the whole thing.
Okay.
Now what?
She needed to get the hells off of this ship.
Suddenly the ship jolted sharply under her feet, first in one direction and then sharply in the other. There was a wave of psionic energy chittering through the ship. She focused on blocking it out, but she could make out words.
Attack.
Gith.
Gith were attacking the ship? Well, Ryn wasn’t going to look a gift Githyanki in the mouth. If they could distract the illithids long enough for her to get off - well, maybe her luck is turning around. Her magic reserves were starting to get low; not dangerously low yet but enough that she’d need to be careful about using too many high-powered spells.
The ship rocked once more, this time the door opening and three intellect devourers skittering through. They saw her and screeched but she was running before they could fire their psionic blasts. She ran at them, blasting a fireball at the ground the same time she launched herself in the air. The walking-brains burned and she got the boost out the door before it could slide shut.
The new room did not lack its own horrors: two intellect devourers, and three mindflayers - including one putting a tadpole into the eye of a very unfortunate human man. They all turned to look at her for a comical second before she moved. Throwing a fireball at the two intellect devourers, she twisted her metamagic to simultaneously cast Flame Arrows at the closest mindflayer.
One of them sent a mindblast at her, but she kept moving - the blast just missing her. In a breath she cast Ashardalon’s Scorcher, now with enhance speed as fire trailed in her footsteps. She stabbed her glaive into the fleshy ground of the nautiloid, holding it in both hands she jumped, used it to spin in the air and kicking one of the mindflayers in the head with fire, then used the face of the second to launch herself backwards, grabbing her glaive and pulling it out of the ground as she landed.
Without a second to let them think, she sped forward again and pushed the blade of her glaive into the heart of one of the mindflayers. With one hand she started to yank it back out as it dropped to the ground, and with her other hand she threw magic missiles at the other one as it started to approach her.
Wait, where was the third one?
She spun on her heel as the Mindflayer, now directly in front of her face hit her directly with a mind blast.
Her vision went white and her knees crumpled.
No!
Long fingers wrapped around her throat.
Her head was shoved under water.
Water?
What water?
FOCUS!
She has to focus. She’s fighting mindflayers.
Water.
Pool.
Tadpoles.
That thought was enough to kick her brain back in gear, eyes shooting open to see - well, a lot of nothing. Darkness, liquid, then something swimming right towards her face. She started to struggle, tried to pull back but the long fingers wrapped around her throat tightened. She could feel hands around her arms, on the back of her head, holding her down.
SUBMIT.
The Command hit her like a punch to the stomach and she could feel a fuzziness coat her thoughts. Keep fighting, she told herself. Never stop fighting.
SUBMIT!
Her body slumped, the fight pulled out of it. But why? Why must she always fight? What if she just wanted to stop? She was so tired. Why couldn’t she just rest? Why couldn’t she just submit? ?
A voice that was not her own answered: Because it is in your blood.
A tadpole swam into her eye.
She screamed, and fire erupted.