⌈🇧‌🇦‌🇱‌🇩‌🇺‌🇷‌'🇸‌ 🇬‌🇦‌🇹‌🇪‌ 3⌋ 𝔞 𝖇𝔞𝔩𝔩𝔞𝔡 𝔬𝔣 𝖙𝔞𝔡𝔭𝔬𝔩𝔢𝔰, 𝖘𝔬𝔲𝔩𝔰, 𝔞𝔫𝔡 𝖑𝔬𝔬𝔭𝔥𝔬𝔩𝔢𝔰 || ƒᴇʀᴀʟ x ᴘʀᴇᴛᴛʏsᴏғᴛ

[ƒeral]

 

[ƒeral]

Hsssssss…

The airlocked pod released with a hissing groan, a groan mirrored by its once captive inhabitant as she came to with a start. Wyll Ravengard braced one hand against her forehead, brows furrowed with the beginning of a wicked headache. The other pushed against the side of the pod, propping herself up. Blinking the double vision out of her piercing eyes, the renowned monster hunter surveyed her surroundings warily. The grotesque chamber - an understatement, what with the walls akin to stomach lining and strange viscera ligaments connecting structures with jagged, ominous edges - was severely damaged on one side. Flame lapped away at the onyx-hued ground made of some indeterminate material; Wyll grimaced with disgust as she took a step forward, and said ground squished beneath her boots. In her years of pursuing deadly foes all along the Sword Coast, she certainly has had no shortage of experience braving the elements and encountering all sorts of unpleasant situations, but this was extra gross even by her standards.

Trapped as she was, she had little knowledge of what transpired in or around the nautiloid vessel, but regardless of the why, the what was imminently clear. She was free, or, will be, just as soon as she could find her way out of this godforsaken vessel. As much as I could ever be free without breaking that thrice-damned infernal pact… Forcibly biting back the untimely streak of cynicism, she forced herself to focus on the here and now. She was still clad in her gear from before the abduction - good - and in the dim light, the ebony of her figure-hugging jerkin melded ever so well into the shadows. Her well-worn outfit hinted at her proclivities. A silken shirt peaked out from treated leather, stitched in gold and alluding to a taste for finer things, a notion further compounded by the sheer number of silvery jewelry she wore. A heavy belt sheathed around her waist, strapped with pouches for essential supplies and potions, practical. Bracers around her forearms, tightened with small buckles and straps, seemingly entirely ordinary. Except, to a discerning eye, they were clearly enchanted. Curiously enough however, she carried no weapons.

Wyll investigated the two cracked open pods in her immediate vicinity, but they were as empty as the one that once held her. Whatever or whoever these accursed cells once held prisoner were long gone, or worse. With no other survivors in sight, she made haste out of the chamber, crossing through an absolutely vile “door” - if an opening that wrinkled and contracted like a donkey’s sphincter could be called a door. Not the only vile thing, if her memories of the parasite and the mindflayer were in fact memories and not a particularly vivid nightmare, but she had no time to dwell on that.

The next room proved less empty as not one, but two pods held prisoners, side by side like lambs to the slaughter. She approached the closer one. It was hard to see clearly through the gunky lid, but whatever was within appeared humanoid. And, despite the urgency of the situation, the Blade of the Frontiers did not earn that name by leaving innocents behind. “Hey! Can you hear me?” Her knuckles rapped against the lid, hoping to wake its inhabitant.​

 

[prettysoft]

Floating through time and space without a destination in mind, except for ‘any place that isn’t comparable to a donkey’s sphincter. As foggy as those last moments were before being hauled through the tunnels; the distinct scraping and slithering beneath her eyelid and behind her eyeball was one for the books. They put that creature inside her, and what they had done to her afterwards…she remembered it all, as clearly as hearing her favorite chords played by her preferred bard. A meeting took place and they chanted over her, before she passed out cold. There was no record of how long her captors imprisoned her here, or when they planned for release. Peculiar ideas raced through her head; thoughts unlike her own, evil thoughts that churned up a storm of fear and uncertainty. Her sense of identity shifted and her reality grew more unstable with each passing moment. Perhaps it was best she remained in this pod. She had almost reconciled her fate to imprisonment when a rap on the door pulled her from the flow of unconsciousness, and the pod depressurized as it opened vertically. Her vision blurred for one or two blinks, as she was unable to focus on one thing through the fuzz. Hearing another voice in front of her, to which she owed her gratitude, but the idea of sticking around in this forsaken place did not settle with her, and she pushed herself to tread over the mystery fluids and squelching, pink ground that absorbed her steps.

“How do I get out of here?” A question for the deities, or… The one who freed her in the first place, but glancing over her shoulder they appeared preoccupied.

 

[ƒeral]

“Hang on,” Wyll called out reassuringly when the humanoid figure stirred, panning her gaze over the smooth lid and the sides of the pod for some kind of release mechanism. Finding none, she briefly contemplated smashing through it, before her eyes fell on the console in between the two pods. Surely the mindflayers had to use something to open and close these goddamn caskets. And this…thing (for what else do you call something that looked like a morbidly obese deep-sea anemone situated upon a platform of grayish-purple gunk?) looked mindflayer-y enough to be it. It glowed ominously, and she recalled that from the little she glimpsed from her captors that they often interacted with their machines by touch. Grimacing, she placed a hand onto the creepy console. A wince tore through her slender frame as pain jolted through her head, as though the parasite squirmed and compressed upon her brain. The discomfort faded quickly, and another sensation washed over her. Connection. Authority. She willed the console to open and, with a now familiar hssss of compressed air, it did.

Still reeling from the incredibly alien sensations, Wyll braced both hands on the console as the world slowly refocused. Before she could acknowledge the woman she freed, however, squelching noises emerged from the other pod. Like slimy tendrils sliding against itself. Like beached fish flopping against sand. Like death. She glanced over, noticing just now that her action has opened not one, but both pods. Before she could investigate further, the occupant of the secondary pod emerged. More precisely, the pink-gray amorphous form of a newborn mindflayer practically ejected from the pod. Right. At. Her.

“Adaestuo!” She shouted, and pure energy crackled from her outstretched hand, striking the mindflayer in the chest before it barreled into her. Surprised but not cowed, the ravenous newborn hatchling simply turned its attention on the other occupant of the room. Beard-like tentacles bellowed out in rage, revealing rows and rows of sharp sharp teeth, before it flung itself straight at the unlucky bard.​

 

[prettysoft]

Ekaterina palmed her forehead like she had a dozen drinks too many in her system. Nursing a hangover in the back of a gypsy’s caravan, coin purse missing and all, was preferable to the slimy tendrils inching its way toward her ankle in the dark. In her drowsy stupor, she improvised by banging her fists on the gate. Failing to focus, forgetting to listen, she didn’t even turn around when the prisoner called an incantation out. It was the raging, inhuman screech that alarmed Ekaterina enough to half-circle in place; a shocking revelation of sharp, gnashing teeth flying at her like a bat out of hell, or worse. Definitely something worse, though Ekaterina didn’t have the time or resources for thorough analysis. She flung herself out of the way, like a sack of potatoes she landed and rolled several feet out of harm's way and into a puddle of slime.

What Ekaterina could perceive about the situation, is that there was an experienced arcane user arguably willing to help her escape from the treacherous lair of tentacles and mind-flayers. Seconds before, she didn’t know what to call the floppy, noodly, and horrifying creatures. Wearing astonishment the whole time, Ekaterina dragged herself up out of the silver and slippery substance. Though that fall woke her up, she wasn’t coherent enough to question what coated her garments. As she pulled herself up, an echoing clang and a worrying boom caused her to sink low to the ground, and she and the others swayed to the side uncontrollably. The room tilted on its axis, and the lack of friction from her garments created an ideal surface to slip around on. As she was sliding down the way, she realized they were on a moving vessel - a ship, of some sort.

 

[ƒeral]

Accursed Avernus. The ship shook - the ground trembled beneath her heeled boots and everything not bolted down lurched across the room. Wyll would have been included on that list had she not had the reflexes to latch onto the nearest support beam. Or that was what she assumed the blackened metal running across the length of the room to be anyhow. “Grab onto something, the ship is crashing!” Despite the dire circumstances, it was within her nature to try and help her fellow abductee. She flung out another spell, staggering the foul creature as it attempted to lunge at Ekaterina once more.

Fortunately, the newborn mindflayer was too infantile to have anything beyond a limited grasp of its psionic abilities. Unfortunately, it instinctively knew enough to levitate, stopping itself from being flung into the nearest wall. And now, having been struck by Wyll twice, it fixated its hateful beady eyes straight upon her and screeched. Or something like a screech, for the discord was felt rather than heard. The harshness of metal scraping against metal rebounded inside of her head, forcing Wyll to wince. The mindflayer took that opportunity to launch its counterattack, beelining straight at her like an angry mutant squid. In response, she braced her right forearm horizontally in front of her chest, fist clenched as though upon the hilt of a blade. Only there was no blade. At least, not until the mindflayer was less than a foot away, its outstretched arms nearly within striking range when the air shimmered and her pact weapon materialized into being. It, like her, was incredibly versatile. And right now, it took the form of a shortsword, a deadly glint the only warning before the mindflayer’s momentum impaled itself upon her sword.

Silver-white blood gushed from the inhuman creature as it convulsed with pain. Its horrible eyes burned with malice as it sought to take her down along with itself. Before those horrendous claws could connect with her, Wyll released her hold from the support beam as the ship lurched again, allowing the both of them to be thrown. The wall that formerly denoted eastwards was blasted open, and cold air gushed as the ship entered free fall. Gravity cleaved her sword clean through the creature’s torso, and it, along with containers of unidentifiable liquids, was practically sucked out of the ruptured vessel into the cold night sky. Wyll, on the other hand, collided hard against the ground, or whichever wall currently served as the ground given the ship’s spiraled descent. And then, the world was black.