Chapter Text
I've heard it in the chillest land
and on the strangest Sea
yet never in Extremity
it asked a crumb of me
Something was stuck in her eye.
Even deep in the thralls of sleep she could feel it pushing up against the soft skin of her sclera, wriggling, twitching. It clutched the bundle of nerves in its claws, clamping down with a ferocity that begged to be answered.
An itch begging to be scratched.
All she could do was twitch in discomfort.
Her body felt as though made of lead, weighed down by gravity and forced into place by a will much stronger than her own. It reminded her of the many nights she’d spent trapped in her body while her mind wandered, paralyzed by the sensation tightening in her chest, the shortness of her own breath.
She was trapped. A prisoner in the caged bars of her mind, once a tenant now relegated to a squatter. She tried to move her arm. Pain shot through her temple. Her eye twitched yet again and she swore she could feel something wriggle into the bowels of her body.
Panic threatened to wake her.
She was no longer at the helm.
Something else had seized her muscles, seized her nerves, drawing her further and further into their embrace. Into their control.
Something hot pulsed in her veins. A familiar sensation roiled in her stomach, threatening to bubble over. Her jaw tried to clench.
Whoever was in control refused.
It wanted her pliant. Willing. Docile.
She refused to be. She struggled against its grasp, squeezing her eyes tight as she writhed and raged, the internal struggle for her own mind taking precedence.
Her first thought went to the drink she’d gotten from the bar last night. She felt woozy as she left, and the bartender who served it to her had been eyeing her the entire night, a sly smile curving across his face like the edge of a kitchen knife, ready to strike her between her ribs.
He’d given her some kind of tranquilizer, some new drug that was being used to roofie girls and women for their own sick pleasure.
Something that made them stiff and compliant while still able to feel everything being done to them.
She willed herself to break free of it once more.
Her finger twitched. Her eyes flew open. She grasped tight to the feeling welling up in her chest, sinking her fingernails into it like talons. It was a rope lowered into the pit of her mind, clawing her way to freedom as the world shook and blood pulsed.
Hope is the thing with feathers, she sang to herself, recalling the words of the poem as the light drew closer and closer.
It wasn’t the soft yellow of the sun, nor the blinding white so many claimed awaited them in the afterlife.
It was bleeding. Sanguine crimson drenching her fingertips as she clawed her way forward.
Her eyes flew open.
They stung as something pungent filled the air.
Smoke.
The world was on fire. The taste of ash on her tongue.
A hissing filled her ears and she fell forward on all fours, breathing raggedly as something fleshy pulsed beneath her. The metal floor cooled her skin, yet she could feel something else behind it, something alive.
Tressa, a voice whispered in the back of her mind. It sounded unmistakably female. A woman she didn’t recognize giving her a gift she did. Can you hear me?
She blinked and shook away the white stars dancing before her vision. Who are you?
Silence. And then–
I am the one who broke you from your cage.
She turned to see a towering structure behind her, ovular in shape with jagged edges. A gaping hole revealed a pink cushioned bed resembling a tongue. It stood on six tentacled legs. Three other pods, each identical in nature, stood on either side. They were empty as well.
Her heart jumped in her throat.
She’d seen those pods. She knew those pods.
Explored them through the comfortable barrier of a computer screen in the hopes of uncovering some secret one could only find in the tutorial section of the game, her ADHD incapable of focusing on a single objective even when it was vital to progression.
Okay, so not roofied. Something much worse.
The logical part of her mind wished to declare it a nightmare, a vision stirred up from the depths of her imagination after spending too many nights playing the game over and over again. It would make sense. She knew the scene like the back of her hand, having watched it and played it a billion times over whenever she made a new character (it was the most fun part of the process after all).
But even without the unwelcome visitor wriggling deep inside her skull, or the voice in her head disputing it, Tressa knew better.
You have been here before, the voice whispered. A soft presence tickling the back of her skull, You will never be here again.
Who are you?
A friend. That is all you need to know.
Well forgive me for not wishing to trust the strange voice inside my head. You might be the tadpole for all I know.
The warm presence evaporated, leaving Tressa alone once more.
Good.
The less crowded her head was the better.
“Alright, Tress, you can do this, just get to the helm.” She tried not to think about the implications of talking to herself, or referring to herself in the third person. It definitely wasn’t a flattering one when she considered the mind flayer infecting her head. Everyone back home already thought she was crazy, she didn’t need the people here thinking it too.
Thankfully, whatever power that brought her here deemed it a good idea to give her clothes and a weapon. The quarterstaff was strapped to her back, soft robes engulfing her figure. Comfortable, yet durable.
More practical than the shorts and t-shirt she fell asleep in, that’s for sure.
Grasping the staff in her hands, she surged forward, trying to ignore the rising panic in her chest with each step.
Compartmentalizing was her specialty, after all. Right next to doomcasting.
The life of the party, a pleasure to have in class, always the optimist. File it under things people called her when they felt like being hilarious.
Hope was not something she allowed herself to have, not when everything seemed to be falling apart at the seams.
And sings the tune without words and never stops at all.
Her heart sank into her stomach when she caught sight of skies the color of blood and flying batlike creatures with horns attached to their skulls.
Great.
She supposed this was what she got for playing Baldur’s Gate 3 right before bed. Her mind conjured up images that felt a little too real, imagination running wild as she slept.
Except, it didn’t feel like she was sleeping.
It didn’t feel like she was dreaming.
Heat blasted her face like the inside of an oven, threatening to burn her skin if she stayed in one area too long. Towering mountains decorated the barren landscape, lava bubbling over and spilling down the obsidian cliff faces as devilish shrieks echoed across the wasteland.
Avernus somehow smelled worse than it looked. Brimstone and sulfur stung her nose and brought tears to her eyes, causing her to blink them away.
Not even in her worst nightmares could she have conjured up such a scent.
She brought her eyes down to her hands, hoping against all hope they were blurry or mismatched or somehow had more fingers than she was used to.
Disappointment panged in her chest.
All five fingers. Same palm lines and shortened nails.
She didn’t have the chance to take a closer look, however.
As soon as she reached the edge of the collapsing ship, something made her shoulders tense.
Tressa froze.
The hairs on the back of her neck stood up.
She was being watched. And if her intuition was right, she knew exactly who was doing it.
“Abomination!”
She ducked just in time to avoid the swing of the longsword, throwing her hands up on instinct. Bright light seared across the darkness of her vision and when she opened her eyes again, a blue holographic disc stood between her and the githyanki’s blade. Tressa’s eyes widened when she saw where it was coming from.
Her hand was outlined in a cyan glow, the same color as her robes, her mouth uttering words she’d previously not known.
An involuntary smile tugged on her lips.
Warmth pulsed in the chambers of her heart out into her fingertips, a pleasant buzz of power electrifying her from her head to her toes. It tickled her fingers like blades of grass, soft and gentle, yet seemed as strong as steel.
Magic. She gasped. She was wielding magic.
“This is your end!” Lae’zel snarled.
Deep brown met glittering amber.
White hot pain split her skull in two.
“Agh” Tressa winced, doubling over. Her eye itched and something pressed against her ocular nerve, sending a searing white light through her mind. It faded, giving way to a series of flashing images she didn’t recognize.
A dragon breathing flame, a silver sword cutting through the side of the ship, and finally, her own face, blissfully asleep and unaware behind the glass of the pod.
Her own mind searched for something to supply, and a separate, different series of images flooded her mind.
Staring over the edge of a waterfall, a deep rumbling echoing in the back of her skull, and finally, the githyanki’s face glaring at her as Tressa summoned magic through sheer will.
Hopelessness, fear, and elation all at once.
The gith reeled, nearly dropping her sword. Tressa stumbled back.
“You–” Lae’zel winced, her lips curling into a snarl, “What is this?”
“I could ask you the same thing.”
Lae’zel’s eyes narrowed and she sheathed her sword, “ You are no thrall, that is for certain.” She sized Tressa up as though decided whether or not she was worth the effort. Tressa resisted the urge to scoff. Instead she crossed her arms and arched her brow, waiting for the gith to cast judgement.
It was a strange sight, even stranger now that the blue disc separating them had faded into nothingness.
Magic. Githyanki. Brain-eating tadpoles.
It was all starting to feel a little too familiar for Tressa’s taste. Her mind kept grasping for a logical solution, something to hold onto and make sense of the world. She came up woefully short.
“But Vlaakith will determine whether or not you will be useful to me,” Lae’zel huffed, armor glinting in the red-hot sun. Tressa knew what the gith saw when she looked at her. A woman who’d never been forced to fight–at least not physically. And there was little in her mind which would convince the githyanki otherwise.
To the outsider, she looked to have lived a life in perfect comfort, surrounded by the warmth of her bed and the loving hand of her mother and father. A creature made of porcelain, easily breakable when placed in the wrong hands.
Disgust churned in her gut.
It didn't belong to her.
“You can’t get out of Avernus on your own,” Tressa responded, jaw clicking into place as she cocked her head at the githyanki. A shot of irritation swirled in her veins.
Lae’zel seemed to sense it, narrowing her lizard-like gaze with a sneer. “T’chk! You underestimate my skill with a blade. My people have been slaughtering ghaik for generations.”
Tressa said nothing, simply arched a brow in response.
“Still, only a fool turns down a blessing from our queen,” Lae’zel huffed, grasping tight to the hilt of her sword and gesturing towards the rest of the ship, “Come, we must make our way to the helm. And kill any imps along the way.”
Tressa sighed and followed after the creature, letting her feet guide her as the warmth from earlier swirled deep inside of her stomach. It wasn’t knotted or pitted like the anxiety that usually accompanied it, illuminating her from the inside.
The Weave, the voice returned, tickling the edge of her brain. It calls to you. Answer it.
How?
Grow the seed inside of you. Bind yourself to its will, and it will do yours in return.
Tressa resisted the urge to roll her eyes at the voice’s advice.
Like everything else around her, it was frustratingly vague. If she didn’t know half of the stuff she knew already, she probably would have driven herself mad from her constant questioning.
“Imps!” Lae’zel’s voice pulled her from her thoughts, the singing of her sword echoing through the air. Tressa froze as one of the creatures dived directly at her.
Instinct took over and she smacked the damned thing with her quarterstaff.
The imp shook its head and waggled its forked tongue, red skin gleaming in the harsh sunlight. It looked unscathed. In fact, it almost looked more eager for blood.
Beside her, Lae’zel cut through one of them with ease.
Fear surged in her gut.
She wanted nothing more than to run as far away as she could. Maybe take refuge in one of the empty pods until it was done. Something else tugged at her insides, however; a fierce determination she’d felt a million times before.
It was fight or die.
There was no choice.
Lightning crackled along the edges of her fingertips. She didn’t even have to think. She simply willed it and there it was. Like the shield with Lae’zel.
It calls to you. Answer it.
Sharp claws lunged at her.
She intercepted it with a grasp of the wrist and screamed.
Electricity surged through her, pulled from the skies themselves and frying the creature from the inside out.
A shriek pierced through the chaos and the imp crumpled before her very eyes. Another set of claws dug themselves into her shoulder, tearing through the cloth beneath the metal pauldrons.
Her right side erupted into blinding pain, letting out a feral yell as she moved to try and throw the second imp off.
It held tight to her like a cowboy to a bucking bronco, cackling with each attempt.
“Son of a bitch,” Tressa cursed, slamming her shoulder against the fleshy sides of the ship. Pain shuddered through her. “Get off me!”
An arrow cut its laughter short, piercing the inside of its skull.
Tressa stared down the githyanki from the barrel of her crossbow. “Thanks,” she panted, prying the imp’s claws from her shoulder with a groan.
Lae’zel looked unmoved. “You proved surprisingly adequate in battle. I am surprised someone of your station can hold themselves with such…vigor.”
Almost mockingly, Tressa descended into a fit of coughs. Her lungs did not like the Avernus air it seemed. “That’s one way to put it.”
“Come, we must hurry.”
“Wait.” Tressa paused at the expansive room before her, the muffled sounds of screams coming from a pod much like the one she’d erupted from. Shadowheart.
“We don’t have time for strays,” Lae’zel snarled.
Tressa turned on her, anger pulsating deep in her chest. A familiar sensation throbbed in the back of her mind, “Then you go on ahead, but I’m not leaving anybody behind.”
“T’chk!” Lae’zel cursed, pointing the tip of her sword until it hovered beneath Tressa’s chin. Fear tinged the very pit of her stomach, but she clenched her jaw and forced steel into her spine. If this was a dream then she would be fine. If it wasn’t….
“Very well,” The githyanki sneered, “But do not expect me to wait. I will find a way off this godsforsaken ship, with or without you.”
God, it was like pulling teeth with her.
“Fine,” She spoke through gritted teeth, fists clenched in a ball at her side. “I’ll meet you at the helm.”
Lae’zel shot one last look at the person trapped inside the pod before rushing off towards the next gate, sword at the ready.
Tressa turned to see Shadowheart gritting her teeth, hand curled into a fist against the glass. “Githyanki scum,” She muttered under her breath before turning to face Tressa. “Thank the gods someone has common decency to set me free.”
“I wouldn’t thank your gods just yet,” Tressa chuckled nervously, “I still have to figure out how to free you.”
“Oh well take your time, we clearly have plenty to spare.” Shadowheart replied dryly, causing Tressa to smirk.
She examined the giant console before her with a curious eye. It looked out of place among the medieval gauntlet of swords and sorcery. Grey and fleshy, the main button resembled an exposed brain held within tentacled clutches, pulsating slowly. Something wriggled happily behind her eye.
A shiver erupted down her back.
Nope. Not even in dreams will she let that unwelcome fucker win. Her eyes searched desperately for any other way to open the pod, and suddenly, just out of the corner of her eye, she saw it.
A flickering mirage of silver, a single thread in a delicate tapestry waiting to be unraveled. It shimmered, revealing etchings in the brain in runic shapes her mind somehow knew and didn’t know.
Warmth buzzed in a knot at the base of her spine, spreading through her body until she swore she was going to combust, sweat threatening to fall.
The tips of her fingers seemed to glow golden as she followed that warmth to what looked like a pressure point within the tapestry, the same power dancing in her chest pulsing happily as she brushed against it.
Grow the seed within you. Bind yourself to its will.
She followed it to another pressure point, softer this time, like blades of grass tickling her skin. It chimed and hummed like the peals of bells, and somehow she knew instinctively where to place her hands.
Tressa’s eyes widened as she traced the faint lines left behind from the last person who used the console. Silver strands wove themselves around her fingertips, bending to her every whim and command with little more than a whisper, rearranging themselves to fit her desires.
The Weave was a literal weave.
Power coursed through her, electrifying her veins and burning her insides. The strands turned gold at her touch, delicately following her design.
Her breath hitched, and the console flickered to life.
Shadowheart came tumbling down with a groan. “Thank you,” She muttered as she pulled herself up, “Glad to see you don’t share the same callousness as your gith friend.”
“I wouldn’t really call us friends.”
“No? You seemed rather cozy from where I stood.”
Tressa stared her down with a sigh, “I don’t do cozy. We were the only ones awake after the crash. She’s good to have in a fight.”
Shadowheart’s expression was unscrutable, as if debating how closely to take her at her words. “I suppose I can’t argue with that. Although I must confess, I find myself relieved to be free of her presence.”
Tressa frowned. She knew exactly why Shadowheart was so distrustful of Lae’zel, especially with a certain artifact hidden in her cloak, but it didn’t exactly feel right to talk so openly of her disgust when Lae’zel couldn’t even defend herself. The cleric dug around in the pod for a moment before pocketing a familiar looking icosahedron. It glowed an angry red, the same color as the ship, as the light from her hopeful crawl to the surface, cutting a sharp edge against the obsidian shape.
“What’s that?” Tressa asked, the question rhetorical only in her mind. Shadowheart balked and pulled the artifact close to her chest, hiding it in the folds of her clothing.
“Nothing you need to worry about,” the cleric spoke shrewdly, deftly dancing around the question with all the grace of a ballet dancer. Tressa arched her brow. So it seemed even in dreams Shadowheart did not dare part with all her secrets.
She didn’t blame her.
There was plenty she was keeping to herself, after all.
“Alright then,” Tressa smiled to herself, “keep your secrets. If you don’t want to tell me I won’t pry.”
The dream would end with the ship crashing anyway.
Nothing would matter in the long run. The nihilism was strangely comforting.
This is no dream, the voice hissed. You cannot let your guard down.
Tressa ignored it.
Shadowheart blinked, “That’s it? No follow up questions? No gruesome interrogation?”
“If you’re not gonna tell me I can’t make you,” Tressa shrugged, “And besides, we kind of have more important things to deal with.” She made a circular gesture with her hand near her temple, a shadow of a smile crossing the cleric’s face as she nodded in agreement.
“Quite right.”
Without so much as another word, the two women made their way towards the helm. She stared at the looming fleshy sphincter before her in disgust, hoping the moment she walked through it she would be back, snug in her bed, alarm ready to alert her to the mundanity of her life once more.
Her shoulder still throbbed.
“Here,” Shadowheart’s touch was gentler than she expected, the cleric laying a pair of calloused hands on the exposed wound, the skin magically sewing itself shut. Warmth flooded her bones. A dream, she reminded herself, it’s all a dream.
It had to be.
Wounds didn’t just close on their own, no matter how hard one prayed.
She knew better than anyone the fickle nature of the divine, how little they listened even to their most devout of subjects.
If it wasn’t a dream then she was well and truly fucked.
So her brain clung to that reality as hard as she could, even when she could feel the heat of hell on her skin and smell the singed ends of her hair.
It wouldn’t be the first time she’d dreamt of Baldur’s Gate.
“Thanks,” Tressa smiled, the pain faded into a dull ache before disappearing completely. The same sensation of power coursed through her, although it wasn’t as potent as before. It was softer, colder; tinged with a shadowy darkness that threatened to consume her soul.
Like a gust of wind after stepping out of the shower or a particularly scorching day at the beach. It clashed with the warm buzzing in the depths of her insides.
Shar.
Shadowheart was calling upon her power to heal her. “Don’t mention it.”
“I won’t, don’t worry.”
Tressa turned back towards the sphincter. It quivered open as if compelled, disgust shivering through her body as a squelching sound filled her ears. She didn’t want to think about it. She refused to think about it. None of it was real anyway.
Something twisted inside her stomach.
She shoved it away and pressed forward, quarterstaff in hand. Not her personal choice of weapon (fists and feet made for much more satisfying hits) but one she was grateful for when she saw the scene unfolding before her.
A bat-winged devil facing off against a smooth-headed creature, the barest hint of tentacles moving of their own accord around the edges of the mind flayer. Outside, the world raged.
Her heart jumped into her throat.
Foregoing the fight entirely, she sprinted down the deck of the shop, dodging expertly out of the way as beasts and imps reached out to sink their claws into them once more. They swiped at her clothes, her skin, and a few even dazed themselves as they tried to ram into her. Shadowheart smashed a few with her spiked mace. Tressa held lightning in her fingertips in case any of them wished to try their hand at getting barbequed like their friends from earlier.
“There you are!” Lae’zel snarled, drenched in blood and surrounded by piles of dead hellbeasts and imps. Her eyes narrowed when she caught sight of Shadowheart, “We must hurry. The ship will crash any second.”
“The transponder,” Tressa doubled over, pain splitting up her side and wriggling behind her eye. The tadpole. If she didn’t know any better she’d almost think it was excited. “I can reach it.”
“And then what?” Shadowheart’s hand lit up in a glow of golden energy. An imp shrieked as it burned under its watchful gaze. “We crash somewhere else?”
A vengeful roar erupted from the mouth of a horned beast with armored skin. Tressa's shoulders tensed and lightning crackled.
It charged right at her.
Blinding light forked from her fingertips, incinerating the beast in a single strike.
The scent of burned flesh made her stomach churn.
Tressa swallowed the bile threatening to rise.
Her veins crackled with the same energy.
Two other hellbeasts howled, drawing several more imps to their attention.
The power faded, and a wave of exhaustion washed over her. She blinked slowly and her shoulders slumped, as if a piece of her had been stolen.
She turned towards her companions with a clenched jaw and furrowed brow, “you two have any better ideas?”
The cleric and the gith regarded each other with the same level of distrust, neither wishing to rely on the other. Tressa rolled her eyes, “Yeah I thought so. Now cover me.”
She sprinted, sides splitting and legs throbbing, using as much of her strength as she could to carry her forward. Golden light rained down alongside the flash of a silver blade, the beasts and fiends crying out with each blow.
Blood pounded in her ears, lactic acid ripping through her thighs as she surged past the hellbeast, jumped over a crumpling imp and landed near the console.
The ship's groans spoke of achy joints and and aged lifespan, and seemed to creak in tandem with her own knees as she collapsed, gasping tightly to one of the stray tentacles to stabilize herself. Her legs went flying behind her.
The tentacle shrieked in the back of her mind, begging to be released.
Let us go! Let us go! A chorus of voices not unlike children all singing together in harmony.
In a minute! Tressa yelled back, silencing them for a brief moment. She was getting really tired of having all these voices inside her head. The ship righted itself, and she faceplanted into the metal, head and body erupting into a wave of pain as the tendril flew free from her hand.
“Hurry!” Another voice, deeper than the one she’d grown used to, commanded from the main deck of the ship. The parasite behind her eye burrowed further into the pathways of her skull. Pain split in her temples.
At once, her body wasn’t her own, muscles and nerve endings forced into a position against her will. Her arms and hands balked against the command, shaking with each struggle as her mind urged her to take control once more. She was outside her body once more, watching through eyes that were not her own, struggling to obtain what little control she had left.
It was slipping away, mind disappearing down the same hole she’d crawled out of.
Her hands were not truly her hands, grabbing two random tendrils and locking them together as if commanded by a will of their own. Her body shook, pressing against the seams of her mind as she tried to stitch herself back together. The teeth of the tendrils reached out towards one another of their own accord, wriggling and struggling against her will. The effort of keeping her arms separated made them burn.
Pressure built in the cavities between her skull and brain, a blinding ache searing just behind her eyes. It was the piercing pain of an ice pick lodged behind her right eye, stabbing and prickling as the tadpole shrieked.
“Come on,” She muttered to herself, somehow able to regain the ability to speak. She searched for something, anything to break free of this curse. It fueled the fire at the base of her spine until she could feel white-hot power coursing through her like electricity through a live wire. “COME ON!!!”
The transponder hummed as the tendrils connected.
Radiance split across her vision and spilled through her fingertips.
The world burst into flames.