#at this rate rakha is a shoe-in for an advil sponsorship

[blackjackkent]

All right. Time to go kill Ketheric Thorm.

Narrator: No longer a background murmur, the presence in your mind builds to a roar.

"We've found it," whispers the guardian in Rakha's mind. "The Absolute is behind this door."

Rakha can barely hear her. The voice of the Absolute has been rumbling ever louder in her head as they have descended through the illithid colony, and now it is so loud it almost blocks out everything else.

The tadpole writhes and squirms eagerly in her temple, harmonizing with that overwhelming voice. And in dissonant counterpoint, the beast urge in the back of her mind growls - with equal eagerness but more malice, wanting to push forward, find Thorm, find the brain, find all of it and rip and tear and destroy. Beneath all of it is the new knowledge of some forgotten betrayal here, the knife in her back that destroyed her and broke her mind - the need for answers and the fear of what they might be when found.

Rakha's head aches with these opposing forces, so badly that it feels like her skull might split apart.

Enter.

She lays a hand against the undulating flesh of the final door and feels it give way for her.

-----

Another fleshy corridor. More ooze sticking to the soles of her boots.

This one, though, opens to an enormous cavern beyond, glowing with the sickly green light of the brining pool that covers the ground. A raised, ringed platform stands at the center, on which three figures are gathered and speaking in sharp voices. Another figure kneels with his head bowed nearby, unmoving.

"You said it was under control." The figure at the center is the first voice Rakha catches. A human with a shaggy mop of dark hair, an elaborate, long black coat, and golden bracers that stretch down over the knuckles of both hands.

"It isn't you I answer to, Gortash." That voice Rakha already knows. Ketheric. The General has healed some of the wounds she and her companions gave him, but not all - he looks battered and worn, veins standing out sharply in the lines of his face.

The human - Gortash - laughs mockingly. "Oh, the *General* voice," he sneers. "Is this where we salute?"

"Salute, yes--" the third figure speaks up. "With cleavers through his blood-starved flesh. how it crawls with failure like flies on lick-wet carrion..."

Rakha goes still and her eyes go wide. That voice... she knows that voice. She doesn't know why.

The woman is of no race Rakha can identify. Her skin is a pale, sickly grey, and even at this distance Rakha can see that it is moving, with constantly shifting patterns like ink on the surface of water. The armor she wears has the sheen of fresh meat rather than metal. Her eyes are blank white orbs and her smile is wide with madness.

"You forget yourself, Orin," Ketheric snarls at her. "I have played my part.

Gortash rolls his eyes, unimpressed. "You've built an army for our masters, true enough. But what of the Astral Prism? A rogue True Soul, flaunting it under your nose all this time. And you ran from her!"

"Sure that they would follow and deliver it into my hands here," Ketheric snaps. "If you would cease these distractions--"

"The distractions have been *yours*, Ketheric!" exclaims Gortash with a dismissive shake of his head. His lip curls. "Perhaps we should never have dug your daughter up..."

Ketheric boils forward like lightning, one gauntleted fist lifting, ready to smash into Gortash's face-- and just as quick, the strange woman in red is moving to meet him, a long curved dagger settling with its point at his throat.

Gortash smiles, having not moved a muscle. "So you haven't lost your edge... but you're still not as sharp as Orin is, I wager..." He laughs - a high, cold sound. "The slayer against the undying one. That would be fun to see."

"His cryptbreath sings to my sinews..." the woman purrs, that mad smile splitting her face like a blade wound. "Again. Again. Againagainagain--" She draws back, drops the knife to her side. "But he must lead the murdermarch to Baldur's Grave..."

Rakha struggles to breathe. The pain in her head has been redoubling on itself, so intense that she can barely see. She desperately needs to think, to parse this situation as she always does, see the facts of it, determine how to strike, what to do--

But every syllable of that woman's voice makes her head throb like that jagged knife has been sunk into it.

"Orin and I can wait for you no longer," Gortash says curtly. "The plan proceeds. We're going to the city, and we expect you to follow - army and the weapon in tow."

Without waiting for a response, he turns away and walks to the far end of the platform, looking out at the roiling water of the brining pool. He raises one fist, and the gemstone lodged in one of his bracers glows with a sudden violet light.

"The edict of Bane!" he bellows.

"The lash of Bhaal!" cries Orin, lifting her dagger; the gem set into it glows as well, blood-red.

Again Rakha's head spasms with pain. Deep in the water, something begins to move, the rolling movement turning to a boil. And through the slits of her eyes squeezed almost shut, Rakha can see the lines of magical energy snaking through the Weave, down into the green liquid, calling something... up...

The thing bursts from the water on the heels of the thought. An enormous ridged pink mass crowned in a ring of spiked metal embedded into its very flesh. Tentacles like those Rakha saw in the walls thrash around it, sending splashes of water across the platform. It writhes and strains against the tendrils of magic coming from Gortash and Orin; whatever they are doing, it is dragging this thing along the path of their choosing by force.

For a moment, Ketheric watches as they struggle with it. Then he steps between them and spreads his arms as a last burst of light - this time pale pink - erupts from the gem embedded in his armor.

"The testament of Myrkul!" he shouts.

A third tendril of magic surges through the Weave and sinks into the enormous creature's flesh, binding it like rope. It goes still and calm, hanging quiescent just above the surface of the water.

"An elder brain..." says the guardian in Rakha's head. Her presence, normally a balm against Rakha's internal turmoil, does nothing to ease the pain throbbing in her temples. "One of the cruelest and most powerful creatures in existence, enslaved by mere mortals..."

"There we are," Gortash says, sounding satisfied. "It wouldn't do to fight in front of our guest." He turns and takes a few quick steps across the platform, back towards the last figure kneeling there. "Behold, Duke Ravengard - the Absolute!"

Rakha's blood runs cold as a realization punctures through the haze of pain. The kneeling man is Ravengard. Wyll's father.

"Helm preserve us..." the Duke rasps, almost too low to hear.

Orin crouches at his side, grabbing him by the shoulders, holding him still. "You wag your wordflap in vain, Ulderling," she croons. "Once the worm holds the whip, your shredded flesh will serve us."

"Shit - no! Father!" Wyll hisses at Rakha's side... but it's too late. They watch, horrified, as the worm slides down one of the brain's tentacles and into Ravengard's eye. His scream pierces the air around the platform.

Wyll's anguish joins the other terrible wrenching pains in Rakha's head.

"Now," Gortash says briskly to Ketheric as Ravengard slumps forward. "It's really time we were going. We will empty this place and begin the march. You may catch up with the army once you've retrieved the weapon."

He moves next to Orin, standing behind Ravengard's trembling form. "And Ketheric," he adds, with a note of something like playfulness in his voice. "Do try not to sulk. You're supposed to be the fearsome general, come to conquer the city." His lips curl in a wide, self-satisfied smirk. "And I am the hero who will save it."

They vanish - Gortash, Orin, Ravengard, and the brain itself - in the burst of black smoke that Rakha has seen before. Illithid teleportation. Ketheric remains on the platform, his head bowed and his expression grim.

Rakha lets out a soft, involuntary whimper of relief. The brain is gone, and the presence of the Absolute weakens with the sudden distance. But instead of its pulsing roar in her head, she can feel its words resonating down with greater clarity, somewhere far above them where the cult's army waits.

"IT IS TIME, FAITHFUL ONES. MARCH ON BALDUR'S GATE. WE GO TO PREPARE THE WAY."