No one will believe me. The castle healers have declared that the blood and smoke of the war have left a permanent impact upon my mind. They make it sound so fragile, so easily broken, yet I doubt that they know how eerily close they are to the truth of it. While it is true that the shadows of murder, destruction and genocide have been known to drive many a good knight to the edge of his sanity, I am not one such person. Though I will admit that the war with the beasts from the North had fragmented me, I will not admit that something so trivial, when compared to the actual truth, was what led me to the predicament that I am in now. I am still quite sane, you see. More so, in fact than the idiots who have put me here to rot in the forgotten depths of the castle dungeons. Although it is fairly well known that I have committed no crime, the guards treat me no different than the murderers and common thieves down here. I received regular beatings on my first week here. I’m fortunate, perhaps that by chance a werewolf General, a prisoner of war was brought in not long after, thus diverting the attention of my captors from me. It is much easier to beat up and torture one who is known by all to be your enemy rather than an insane mage-knight who used to fight for your side.

When the war ended, one year ago now, Raloth, Kerr and I set off for our village home near the very borders of the kingdom together, bringing with us nothing but provisions for the journey, our horses which had been lucky enough to survive the war along with us, some tattered spellbooks and the miniscule amount of gold that was supposed to be our payment. The Archmage at the castle had made it perfectly clear that our leave was meant to last no more than six months, and my childhood friends and I had every intention to make the best of it. Though working on our parents’ farms wouldn’t have seemed like the ideal way to spend your time off from duties, we hadn’t been home for what seemed like forever, and spending time with the warmth, love and care of our families was more than enough for the three of us.

It was a rainy evening when we arrived at the village. Our horses weary and our clothes stained with mud from the road, we felt our hearts lift the moment our home came into sight. Beside me I noticed a slight look of unease on Kerr’s face. Although he had a wife to return to, he was not proud of what he would show to her when he turned up at her doorstep. As a plain knight with no talent whatsoever with magic, Kerr had been sent on the front lines, where he had lost not only his spirit to fight, but his right arm as well. At the end of the six months, only Raloth and I were meant to leave. Kerr was staying indefinitely, to be a burden to his wife and child.

“Elena will love you no less, Kerr, and you know that,” I said, giving Kerr a reassuring smile.

Kerr forced a smile in return, it was his eyes that betrayed the fear he still held inside. “I know that,” he said plainly, his voice raspy and dry. “I’m just afraid that my return will only mean more trouble for her. One more mouth for her to feed when I should be the one providing for the family.”

I didn’t know what to say to that. Just as I was looking for the right words to say, Raloth rode on ahead of us, smiling over his back. “Come on, you two!” he said cheerfully. “We don’t want to keep them waiting!” Regardless of how he said it, the air of command was still there somehow, or maybe it was just me. He was my superior during the war. It would take time for me to see him as nothing more than a friend again.

Not wanting to dampen Raloth’s mood, Kerr forced his smile to look more sincere as he rode on after him. I followed behind, immediately forgetting to feel sorry for Kerr because I was too busy feeling happy for myself. After months of blood, stale rations and dirt, it was finally time for some laughter, music and good food, which I would no doubt find at the local tavern. I wished silently that Mina would still be there, smiling pleasantly, waiting for my return.

When we entered the village, I found myself thinking that we had stumbled into the wrong place by mistake. The streets were silent and empty, almost devoid of life save for the few people who were still working in the fields. No one even looked at us as we passed. This was the hero’s welcome that the three of us had been expecting. The silence scared us more than any deafening lupine roar from the war ever could. Were it not for the small and almost undetectable signs of life, this place would have seemed like a dead town that had been ravaged by werewolves.

The somber blanket that seemed to drape itself on our shoulders made us push our steeds into a steady gallop. We forgot everything but the need to get home quickly so that we would find our families waiting for us, smiling, unaffected by the black spell which had fallen upon the rest of the village. Not having a family to return to (my Ma died a year after I left for the academy), I raced for the tavern, the words ‘Please let her be there!’ repeating again and again in my mind.

Judging by the lights coming from inside the tavern, I knew that it was open. Jumping off my horse, I immediately rushed inside, almost knocking the frail wooden door down.

“Orland.”

It wasn’t her voice that called my name. It was her father, Lexas, standing behind the bar counter. He looked at me as I walked in and a ghost of a smile appeared on his face as he placed one of the glasses he had been cleaning neatly onto the counter.

“I’m glad to see that you survived the war,” he said, not sounding glad at all. It was no secret that he had never approved of my feelings for his daughter. But there was no air of triumph about him, which relieved my fears of the suspicions that he would marry her off while I was gone.

“Where is Mina?” I asked urgently. And almost immediately, the smile on his face faded.

“She’s gone,” he said simply, as though it were the most obvious thing in the world.

“Gone?” I repeated, not quite sure what Lexas meant right then. I could only hope that it did not mean what I thought it meant. “Gone where?” I asked, not sure if I wanted to know the answer.

“She’s been taken into the mines,” Lexas answered, which only led to more questions, which I shouted at him over the next half hour. He didn’t seem to be affected by my anger or distress, which only fuelled my rage. More than once I found myself reaching for the knife at my belt. Perhaps it was the fact that I had grown tired of blood that stayed my hand on those occasions.

Apparently, monsters had taken up residence in the local iron mines. Lexas claimed that they were Canaraks, large, ogre-like monsters that had a taste for human flesh. After killing all the miners, they had started abducting some of the local residents. It was well known that when they abducted women, Canaraks didn’t just eat them straightaway. They used human females for sexual pleasure. Knowing this fact fully well, I stormed out of the tavern with one destination in mind- the mines. Despite my silent vow to not cause anymore bloodshed since the war ended, I was about to make an exception. I did not stop to consider the odds I was going up against. All I could think about was how I would make the monsters pay. In my rush, I realized that I hadn’t asked Lexas how long ago Mina had been abducted. If it had only been a few days, chances were that I could still save her.

I was just about to get on my horse when I saw Raloth and Kerr riding my way, both with dark looks on their faces. I could immediately tell that they had just found out what was going on too.

“They took Elena,” Kerr said through gritted teeth. I could see tears welling up in his eyes and he was shaking with fury.

Raloth, always being the one able to control his emotions, looked at me and asked, “Did they take Mina?”

I nodded in response, silently climbing my saddle.

“Canaraks,” Kerr spat. “It wasn’t like they couldn’t do anything about it! Why didn’t they ask for help from the capital? The King would have sent knights to take care of the problem!”

“No he wouldn’t,” Raloth said plainly. “With all his soldiers needed on the battlefield, I highly doubt that the King would have sent anyone here. With this village furthest up the border, the King would never have seen the urgency in defending this place.”

“But these are his people!” I shouted bitterly. “It’s his responsibility!”

“We’ve disagreed on more than one of the King’s actions, Orland,” Raloth said sadly. “But as always we are not in a position to do anything about it. I say that the best thing for us to do now is do what should have been done months ago- get rid of the beasts ourselves. According to the village people, there are about thirteen of them down there. With two mage-knights, I’d say that we’re more than a match for them as long as we are careful.”

“Well, let’s ride then,” I said.

Raloth looked at me and asked, “We’ve just had a long journey. Wouldn’t it be best if we rest up and gather our strength first?”

Kerr and I said nothing. We only stared at Raloth, at that was enough to answer his question.

“I figured as much,” Raloth sighed. “Come on, then.”

And so, deprived of the rest that we had been promised of our own choice, we rode in silence to the mines at the outskirts of the village. Leaving our horses at the mouth of the caves, we journeyed into the darkness with nothing but our weapons and torches, which Raloth lit with a simple spell.

It had been years since I had set foot into those mines. As a boy I used to go in to find my father while he did his job, only to get sent away when I found him. I remember the darkness and the tunnels of stone that used to be lit all the way until the end. It used to be alive, with the sound of sledgehammers pounding on the rocks and the voices of the miners, singing to keep each other company as they worked all day. My memories of the farm my mother worked on were much more pleasant.

As we descended down into the shadows, it occurred to me that Raloth hadn’t mentioned why he was down here. Kerr and I did not have to state our reasons. And so I asked him if he had lost his parents or his sister, who were his only family left. Raloth hadn’t married yet and so far hadn’t let us know if he had any plans on doing so.

“My parents are safe,” Raloth said simply. “And my sister left a long time ago when she married the mayor’s son from the neighboring town.”

I looked at him curiously. “Then why are you here?”

He smiled the same way he used to when we were children, the same way before he led me into battle during the war. “To make sure you idiots don’t get yourselves killed, of course,” he said simply. And as angry as I was at the world then, I found the strength to smile back, and I know that Kerr did too.

It amazed me to find what twelve years could do to the mines. They ran a lot deeper now than they used to, like a throat leading deep into the belly of some unknown monster. More than once, throughout the hours we spent in darkness where our only company was the light from Raloth’s torch, I found that even my fury wavered. More than once I wanted to turn back, for there was something in the air that made the air on my back stand on end. As I said, as a child, I remember how the mines used to be alive. But that used to be in a mechanical sort of way, a life governed by the amount of people working down here. Now the place still felt alive, except that it was no longer man-made. It was living and breathing, like some ominous presence was laying in wait at the very end for us, watching our every move. At times when I felt like turning back, I reinforced my anger with thoughts of Mina, and how I had promised to come back and marry her when the war ended. Kerr reassured himself with the same way, with memories of the wife who did not run into his open arms when he entered a dark and deserted house. But Raloth, Raloth! He came as the natural born leader that he had always been, and as the kind of friend who would not allows his friends to walk into danger alone. Being the more optimistic one, he probably had already made plans for drinking down the pain Kerr and I shared at the tavern tonight.

Those plans would never come to pass.

I forget now, how long it was that we went on down the depths of the mines before we were greeted by them. As you might already suspect by now, they were definitely not mere Canaraks, hiding in the darkness with clubs and hammers. No, what awaited us was something more ancient, more close to perfection than any known living thing, carrying weapons that the three of us could not have prepared for.

We knew that we were in trouble the moment the fire on Raloth’s torch died, stranding us in total darkness. Raloth would have reignited the fire were it not for the obvious fact that we were being watched by someone who was apparently well-versed in the arts of magic. The fire spell that Raloth had used was the kind that would not have went out unless if he had undid it, or if someone, or something else had undid it for him. Raloth said nothing to Kerr and I- the three of us had been together for so long that, at times like these, we didn’t have to say anything to understand what the other was thinking. That gave us the edge, most of the time, back during the war. The three of us fought as one, not as three separate individuals.

Yet it would not help this time.

The first thing we saw was a faint, pure white glow coming from a good distance off down the tunnel. It was drawing closer and closer as the three of us stood frozen, staring at it with our hands on the hilts of our weapons. Raloth kept one hand behind his back as he always did: an act of security.

They were unlike anything we had ever seen before. As they drew close enough for us to see them, we saw that these things were definitely not Canaraks, and that went without saying. For one, they were not as huge. They stood about as tall as any fully grown human would. It was their heads, that were the distinctive feature. Though their bodies were humanoid, as far as we could see, they had pulpy, wet looking oval heads with two black orbs on each side which were apparently their eyes, and where a human mouth would have been, was a long maw with 8 or more tentacles. Their heads looked like octopuses, or like krakens that I recalled reading about in books at the castle library. They wore black robes with large, frilly collars round their necks which seemed to be made out of a material that resembled black, damp scales. And their skin was a dark, sickly shade of purple, from their heads all the way to their arms which had almost humanlike fingers saved for the fact that they were webbed like those of a frog. Whether they moved on humanlike legs or tentacles, I could not see since their robes covered their feet, if they had any. They moved as though they were floating, silently, gracefully over the rocky cavern floors like demented version of death angels coming to greet us with their leader carrying a lantern which appeared like a giant pearl.

They stopped just a few metres away from us- I could count about five of them as they stared at us in complete silence. Were my friends and I in a more calmer state, we probably would have approached the situation more peacefully and tried to communicate with these strange creatures, but as it was, we kept our hands on our weapons, tensing for the moment that they would start a fight.

They were the ones who communicated with us, though peace was not one of their ulterior motives.

“Outsider.” A deep, dark, emotionless voice boomed. And yet it did not come from them, to my surprise. It seemed to come from all angles, from everywhere. Nervously, I drew my sword, as though to let them know that I was prepared to fight back.

“Your weapons will do you no good,” the voice pointed out. The leader turned over his back to look at one of his comrades, and nodded in silence.

“It is best if you surrender,” another voice added.

“There is no use in negotiating, these animals will resist anyhow,” a different voice spoke up.

“How did they get down here?”

And just as that question was asked, I had a sudden feeling of nausea. There was a bright flash in front of my eyes, and I staggered back before I regained my composure. As quickly as it had come, the feeling had left.

“They used to live in the village,” the leader explained. “They came back to find their loved ones missing. They were sent down here.”

“Typical, always letting their feelings control them.”

“Apparently they used to be in the army that belongs to the human leader.”

“Power, I sense power.”

“Two out of these three are magi.”

“A valuable find indeed.”

More voices. More voices. They came at such a rapid pace that I could only wonder how they understood each other. The noise made my head hurt, and so I closed my ears, just as I saw my two friends do the same.

It was then that we realized that the voices were not coming from the mouths of the creatures, if they had any. The voices were coming from inside our own heads, somehow. It was known that magi could study the ability to transmit messages via telepathy, but not at rates like these. My attempt at learning telepathy was such that even after five years, I could only get one word across before the strain on my head would knock me unconscious.

And suddenly Raloth did something completely out of character. Normally the most calm and collected of the three of us, he suddenly started screaming as he tossed a fireball which he had conjured up behind his back towards the group of beings that were now staring at us with interest.

The fireball struck one of them, and it raised our spirits to see it ignite just like any other being would. The others backed away from it as it flailed its arms around wildly before dropping onto the cave floor, charred black.

And yet these creatures showed no fear for the three of us. They had no reaction whatsoever to the fact that we had killed one of them. And that fact sent a chill up my spine.

Raloth’s action caused them to stop ‘talking’ for a while, and that was a relief. After a few seconds of silence, however, the leader turned to face us, and he said, “A valuable find indeed.”

That was when the four of them raised their heads and their tentacles began to spread open, revealing small, sharp beaks which were possibly their mouths. And for the first time since we had encountered them, they made their very first sound.

Apparently, towards each other, the sound that they made was a kind of song. What the three of us heard, however, was nothing but a mixture of guttural growls and high pitched clicks which had us shielding our ears again, for the sound made our heads feel as though they were being pounded upon by a sledgehammer. As Kerr and I fell to our knees, it was again Raloth who was spurred into action. Drawing his sword, he charged towards the leader, screaming loudly.

He was just within a few feet away when the leader’s eyes changed to a bright, blue color. The next thing I saw was a flash of blue light shooting towards Raloth, striking him directly in the face. The light went through him, and for a while, it didn’t seem to do anything but cause Raloth to stop running. And suddenly, he fell over his back, dropping his sword. His eyes were still open as they stared lifelessly at the cave ceiling. Save for the fact that he was still breathing, he appeared dead.

It is a miracle that I had managed to focus on what had happened to Raloth, for the creatures were still singing their dark and sinister melody. By the time they had stopped, Kerr and I were still on our knees. Kerr had long since dropped his axe, but mine was still firmly in my hands. Yet I made no move to attempt what Raloth had tried to do.

“Drop your weapon,” the leader’s voice, powerful and commanding echoed in my head.

And I did so. The song had numbed my free will and chained me to theirs. I had no thoughts on resisting, no hate, no anger, nothing. There was only a blank spot for them to fill with orders, which I would blindly obey. To say that I was a prisoner in my own body would be lying, for I was aware of what was going on and still had control over my own body. I raised my hand and looked it as though trying to confirm it to myself. This was a completely different experience to what human mind-control spells did. Back at the academy, I had been used as a training subject during one of the lessons, and the feeling was not pleasant. I had been a prisoner in my own body then, screaming inside and trying my best to break free while my partner called our instructor to show him that he had succeeded. Now there was only a strange calm that I had no intention of breaking.

The creatures moved aside and I saw that there were other humans behind them, four young adult males completely naked save for some marks that were painted onto their skin. Their faces were blank, calm and placid. I knew immediately that that was how I looked then. The thought did not bother me. Two of human slaves moved over to the charred body of one of their fallen masters and began carrying it back down the cavern.

“Can we still use it?” one of the creatures asked the leader.

“The mage was powerful, but I doubt that his spell would have penetrated the shell. It will return to the Elder Brain,” the leader answered.

“Our first casualty in five hundred thousand years. Perhaps we should not underestimate the humans after all,” another spoke up.

“We will need a replacement for Ysh’karla,” the leader said. Meanwhile the two other human slaves were carrying Raloth after the other two down the tunnel. As they passed their masters, one of the creatures stepped up to the leader.

“Did you damage that one’s brain, D’harvek? Your spell-

-Was calculated precisely so that it would subdue him. He will recover,” the leader replied. And at that, he began walking back down the tunnel with the others following behind.

“Come.”

Kerr and I heard the order and we obeyed, walking silently after them, our weapons left behind in the dark.

The tunnels led into a huge chamber filled with glowing purple crystals, and beyond that was our destination. A city. A chamber large enough to fit five of the kingdom’s main capitals, probably more. The buildings were shaped like the shells of sea creatures, conical in shape with only one entrance. The streets were filled with more of these creatures, walking around as plainly as humans would in the light of day. The purple crystals illuminated the chamber, hanging overhead from the cave ceiling. Some of these creatures were escorted by human slaves that I recognized as people from my village. Some were escorted my animals, bears or wolves that had been enslaved in the same manner. So much life, and yet the city was as silent as death, seeing the fact that these creatures needed only to communicate through their minds.

We were led to one of the buildings near the center of the city. D’harvek stopped outside the entrance and turned to face the others.

“I will keep them,” he said firmly. “Unless any of you would object.”

“There is still the matter of replacing Ysh’karla,” one of them said.

“That will be attended to later. In the meantime, that is all for today,” D’harvek replied. And at that the others dispersed, leaving only him, Kerr and I. The dead body and Raloth were nowhere to be seen.

D’harvek looked at us in silence, for a while, then turned around and walked into the structure. Kerr and I followed in silence. We were led into a great hall with a spiral staircase leading upwards, and another leading underground. The hall itself was empty, devoid of any decorations or anything of value.

That was when he let go of us. There was no physical gesture, just a sudden sensation in our minds that told us that we didn’t have to follow his orders, the sensation of freedom which was not as sweet as people often say it is. It in fact left us with a sudden hollow feeling that neither of us would ever admit.

“You won’t get anywhere if you try to run,” he said plainly. “You belong to me now.”

“What are you?” I asked, suddenly remembering my own voice, and not long after, my anger. “What did you do to us? What gives you the right-

And I was silenced again. All it took was a simple command sent right into my brain.

“We are Illithids, a race of beings far superior to your own, in power and intellect. We were put on this world long before you humans, and have a right to claim it as it is rightfully ours.”

“If you’ve been around so long, why haven’t we even heard of you?” Kerr asked, apparently more careful in choosing his tone than I was.

“Because we have been buried underground for five hundred thousand years. Our once great civilization was driven down into the depths of the earth by a great earthquake. It was the good people of your village that dug us out. Most of them are here now, by the way, serving us as your ancestors had so long ago.”

“Lexas-

“And the other few villagers you saw on the surface are our slaves too, kept there to avoid any suspicion from the outside world. From the looks of it, I shouldn’t have bothered keeping them there for the façade- your King wouldn’t realize that they’re missing even after another five hundred years pass.”

“So what do you want?” Kerr asked.

“We want our world back. We want things to be as they rightfully should,” D’harvek answered simply.

“Well things are different now,” I said, struggling to keep calm. “We have free will-

“And look at how you use it! You wage wars and cut down trees, thinking only with your greed, your emotions. A greater mind is required to govern all. It is logic, that preserves life, not feelings. And so we are doing what we must to keep our world alive.”

“You won’t be able to just march right up to our world and take it. Our people will resist,” I said.

“Not if they don’t know about our presence. We are immortal. We can take our time, claiming one individual at a time until you are all subdued. I believe that that is as much as I will entertain you both for today-

But I wouldn’t allow it. I opened my mouth to shout back when-

I just as suddenly, closed it again.

The Illithid drew closer to me. “There? Isn’t that better? Keeping silent is the most logical thing to do. Why waste energy over an outburst that would yield no benefit?”

And at that, he went up the stairs, leaving us staring ahead in silence. The next thing we did was head downstairs, sent there by an unknown command which confirmed that we did not need to be in close proximity to our master for him to transmit orders. What awaited us downstairs was a huge, dimly lit chamber with twelve other human slaves sitting down in complete silence. As we reached the bottom of the stairs, some of them got up and walked towards us, undressing us until we were naked like the rest of them. Animals in the eyes of our masters, we deserved nothing more. There was a similar painted mark on the chests of all the other slaves. The symbol was made out of a triangle with a single line underneath it. It was used to mark the owner of the slaves, and since this mark belonged to D’harvek, we were branded with it too before we sat in silence like the rest of them.

Raloth was here too, still lying silent on his back at the center of the chamber. He too had been deprived of his clothes and branded with a mark, which led me to believe that that even when he woke up, he would be just another one of us.

The silence in the chamber did not bother me as much as it should have had. I had no intention of trying to talk to the other slaves or move, as long as I did not have any orders to do so. Time passed and I did not notice it, for I did not think, so I can only guess that it was a few hours later that some of the slaves left, summoned by D’harvek. They returned carrying wooden bowls filled with a tasteless broth that was to be our dinner. We ate in silence, and cleaned up in silence before returning back to our designated spots on the floor.

Then Raloth awoke, possibly later that night if ‘night’ had any relevance to where we were. He stood up, saw the rest of us, and gasped with surprise.

“Orland, what is going on?” he asked.

And, upon the command from my master, I spoke, but it was not an answer to his question. “Come,” I said simply before I stood up and walked towards the staircase. Unconvinced, it took Kerr to get up as and come as well for Raloth to follow us up the stairs to the upper floor where D’harvek was waiting.

The upper floor was a laboratory of some sort, with bottles and chemical equipment that didn’t look too different than the ones chemists used at the castle, save for the fact that their shapes were somewhat different. Chemicals of various colors were being brewed, and it didn’t take much thinking to figure out that these were plainly made out of magic.

When Raloth saw the Illithid, he tensed as though he were to attack, then he let his hands drop calmly to his side and said nothing, he just stared at D’harvek in silence.

“You’re smarter than your friends are. I’m glad to see that you’ve realized that resistance won’t do you any good.”

“What are you? What do you want?” Raloth asked plainly.

“I believe your friends will have the liberty to explain everything to you later. For now I have called you for a different reason.”

D’harvek motioned to a stool at the center of the room. Automatically, I walked over to it and sat down. D’harvek walked over to me and stared me in the eyes.

“Now…let’s see what has been going on in the outside world…”

And I felt that rush again, and I knew that he was probing my mind again. Staying on the stool required effort, and by the time he had finished going through every last aspect of my life, I stood up and walked to the other corner of the room.

Kerr sat on the stool next, but this time, D’harvek moved over to stand behind him.

“Humans cannot survive without nutrition. That is the only reason why I provide food for you, so that you will not die so easily. That would be a waste and I do not want that. The food you ate also increases your lifespan, so that you may serve us longer. But we need nutrition too.”

If D’harvek had a mouth, he would have been grinning as he grabbed Kerr’s shoulders. In that instant, Kerr’s eyes flashed and he had his free will back. The moment he did, he started screaming.

“Shh…no need for that.”

And just as abruptly, he stopped.

“Open your mouth.”

He obeyed.

From behind, two of D’harvek’s tentacles coiled round Kerr’s neck, two moved into his open mouth while another two coiled around his eyes as his head drew closer to the back of Kerr’s skull.

I could see tears running down Kerr’s cheeks- my master had allowed him just enough free will to cry.

“Shh…fear not for your life will not be wasted. It is only logical that your mind should be consumed, for in your current physical state, you cannot possibly of much service to me, or anyone else for that matter. This way, I ensure that your memories will be spared, kept with mine for an eternity.”

And what happened next, I cannot describe. I cannot even describe the sound of what happened. All I can say is that by the time D’harvek was done, he cast Kerr’s lifeless body aside like a ragdoll. It landed in front of me, and I saw the empty red hole at the back of his skull. I did not recoil. What reason was there to? Nor did I feel horrified or saddened by what had just happened in front of me. Simply because I had not been ordered to feel anything.

Raloth, on the other hand had the liberty to scream, which he did. He wasn’t screaming for long though. He eventually found the strength to conjure another fireball which he hurled at D’harvek.

And at that instant, I knew what had to be done. I jumped towards the Illithid and pushed him out of the way, the fireball just grazing my skin above my left foot as I fell. Raloth’s eyes widened with surprise when he saw this, but he quickly recollected himself and conjured up another fireball.

I stood up quickly and stood between him and my master.

“Orland, get out of the way!” Raloth shouted.

I maddening fact then, was that it wasn’t because I couldn’t, but it was because I didn’t want to.

Behind me, D’harvek laughed as he got up on his feet. “It’s not about the commands I put into your pathetic human brains,” he said. He stepped up behind me and I felt his tentacles coil around my neck and eyes, the same way he did with Kerr.

“It’s the imprint I leave there, that can never be removed without my knowledge. Your minds are like clay in my hands. I can make you illiterate gibbering fools, or I can make you brave warriors. The mind controls the emotions that you so foolishly follow, and I now command your minds, and thus I command you. It’s a simple chain, really. I can make you hate me so much that you would commit suicide just to be free of me, and in direct opposite…”

D’harvek let go of me, shoving me forward so he could face Raloth again.

“I can make you as fiercely loyal as a dog. I could create love out of your feeble minds if I wanted to. That is how much I own you.”

Raloth stared at D’harvek in bitter silence for a while. Then, again, he found the courage to speak, “You sick-

“I think I have heard enough for you for one day,” D’harvek cut in, and Raloth fell silent. I picked myself up from the floor as he walked past and we both found ourselves walking back downstairs to where the slaves were kept. We sat in complete silence for the next few hours.

The next thing that happened surprised me completely. Regardless of the fact that barely a day had passed since I had been brought here, the numbness make everything feel like forever, and when that numbness suddenly lifted without warning, I felt a tear roll down my left cheek.

“Kerr,” was the first word I managed to say out of my own accord, and when I did, I realized that I was, for the first time since the encounter with the Illithids, free. And I noticed that the other slaves in the chamber were stirring too, as though waking from a nightmare. None of them said anything, however, they just sat and wept. Raloth and I got up on our feet and looked at each other.

“It’s you, isn’t it?” Raloth asked.

I nodded, fighting back the voice in my head that told the truth of the matter that it was me all along. My decision back in the experiment room had been of my own accord, triggered only by an emotion, not an order, from D’harvek. The thought that the monster could get inside me and bend me any way he wanted had me more scared than I had ever felt in my entire life.

“What happened? Are we free?” Raloth asked. Not waiting for an answer, he quickly added, “Quick, let’s get out of here.”

Not needing to be told twice, I ran behind Raloth towards the stairs-

Only to see him thrown back by an invisible force.

“You can’t escape.”

I looked around to see one of the slaves looking at me from where he sat with a grim look on his face. It was then that I realized that he was one of the villagers.

“Every night, for an hour, even Illithids need to sleep. That’s when the protective barrier comes up and we’re locked in,” the man said.

Raloth got up slowly and walked towards the man. “So we have our free will for an hour every day?”

The man nodded slowly. “I’m not sure if they hand it to us as a matter of choice or whether it’s because they need their rest. I believe that they do it to us as a method of torture, of making fun of us. Every night at the end of every day we get to sit and remember all the things we had been made to do, and how we gladly did them without question.” The man gestured towards some of the other slaves, who were huddled down together in a corner. “Those people were here since before we made the mistake of releasing those monstrosities.”

“Meaning that they were buried here for five hundred thousand years along with the Illithids?” I gasped.

The man shook his head, an odd smile appearing on his face. “Though it’s possible that they’ve survived that long and forgotten how to speak, I doubt that that’s where most of them come from.”

Raloth’s eyes narrowed. “I’m not sure what you’re trying to imply here,” he said. And neither did I.

The man managed a cynical smile. “You’ll see.”

Raloth and I spent what remained of that hour talking about everything that had happened. We would have started planning our escape if it weren’t for the fact that it seemed downright impossible. Who knew what kind of spell was keeping us from leaving? And we had no tools whatsoever, not even clothes. By the end of the hour, even before I could feel D’harvek’s tendrils creeping into my mind, I had already convinced myself that things were hopeless.

The rest of the hours that passed afterwards were spent in complete silence again. Once in a while, D’harvek would summon some servants out of the chamber, and they’d leave and return in silence, assuming that they would return at all. One didn’t return the next day, presumably becoming food for the master. I left at one point to clean up the laboratory, where I had more than one opportunity to pick up one of the spellbooks which could have possibly kept the secret to escaping- I didn’t. Because I wasn’t ordered to.

Then, as the man had promised, eventually I came to learn where all the slaves came from. Raloth and I were both summoned up to the main hall, where D’harvek and a group of other Illithids were waiting. They led us out back into the city where we walked until we reached a large structure at the edge of the city. The building itself looked alive from the outside, with a hole at its top where hundreds of moving, transparent tendrils hung out, moving as though governed by a living brain. Inside was a huge chamber where the ceiling seemed to be coated by a strange, gel-like substance.

“Today isn’t breeding day,” one of the Illithids told my master.

“These slaves are unlike the others, in case you have forgotten. Apparently the gift of magic runs through the bloodline. We need to start breeding them as soon as possible, so that we may reap the fruits of our success earlier,” D’harvek replied. And as he said that, the ceiling above us began to move, and a large tendril like the one I had seen from the outside came down and coiled around me before I was hoisted up to the next floor. I was left in a smaller chamber with the walls, floor and ceiling all covered by the same living gel. I realized then that the whole structure itself definitely a living creature. The movements seemed too lifelike to be generated by magic or machinery.

Suddenly, the gel-like floor began to move and something began to come out of it. Lying in a sleeping state in front of me then, was a woman. She showed no sign of consciousness, and I realized that she wasn’t supposed to.

I knew what I had to do.

What happened next is something I shall probably never speak about, but I knew for myself then where the supply of human slaves and food came from- they were being bred like cattle. And since females didn’t seem to provide as much use as male slaves, they were kept inside the body of this monstrosity, linked to its brain. It would keep them alive for as long as possible, for breeding purposes only. When I had finished doing what I had been ordered to do, a tendril emerged from the floor and wrapped around the woman before absorbing her back into the mass of the structure.

We were later returned to the chamber beneath D’harvek’s residence where later that night, again we were allowed free will. And with that free will, came a realization that D’harvek had possibly decided to keep out of my mind until it was time for me to recall it.

“It was Elena,” I told Raloth, suddenly feeling dirty. “They made me…”

If only there were a way to end my life then, blinded by my emotions I would have gladly taken it.

When the hour ended, I was summoned, alone to meet D’harvek in the laboratory. This time I was made to lie down on a platform where my arms and legs were bound by metal chains. Once I was secure, D’harvek released his hold over me and said, “I am perfectly aware that you knew that woman. Your friend’s memories told me as much.”

“What do you want from me now?” I asked.

The response was a sudden, violent projection of images into my brain. They came at such a rapid pace, with such horrifying images that all I could do was scream. And scream I did, to a point where I think I lost my sanity, to a point where I forgot who I was and what I was doing. That exact moment was bliss.

And it didn’t take a second for it to be yanked away as visions of what I had been made to do where shoved back into my mind as a dark reminder of the thing I had become. I cried openly, and when I did, D’harvek stopped for a while.

“Your guilt for mating with that woman is unreasonable. You believe in such laws and values that would bind you to only one woman, because of an emotion called love. That is illogical, for you are only an animal, meant only to breed, serve, and when we call for it, feed us.”

“It is our emotions that make us human,” I argued, not thinking of what such an act would cost me.

I was subjected to another round of torture, this time with much more violent images and a deeper assault on my brain so much that I sobbed like a child this time.

“You are an animal, and I am your master,” D’harvek said emotionlessly, and I knew what it was he wanted. Admission that did not come as a result of his psychic commands.

As long as I had my free will, I decided that I would not give him such a victory over me.

How foolish I was, then.

“Where is your logic in doing all of this to me?” I asked, allowing myself a slight smile. “Injuring your slaves will obviously not benefit you in the long run, and I’m sure you can make me say what you want to hear…”

D’harvek stared at me in silence for a while, then he drew closer. “Animals need to be…educated. It is out of my generosity that I have chosen to have these sessions with you so that you can learn with that free will you treasure so much.”

I spat on his face, hoping to arouse some anger in him that would lead him to ending my life.

“I know what you are attempting, and again I must remind you that I am not so much a slave to my emotions as you are, human. My patience runs eternal. Now, as I was saying, it is out of my generosity that I am attempting to educate you. The least you could do was show some sign of appreciation, don’t you think?”

Indeed, my master was generous. I just did not see it at the time. As I insisted on remaining stubborn, he invaded my mind again. As he did, I smiled, looked up at him, and said, “Thank you.”

“That’s much better. Now in answer to your question, indeed there is some logic in what I am doing to you now. I promise you that someday, you will understand. But I would also have you know that there is no harm in following your emotions once in a while. I take a small bit of pleasure in inducing mental torment on you.”

And he attacked my mind again. I spent what felt like an eternity screaming until my master decided he had had enough.

“Your emotions are no longer of relevance as they belong to me. And so it is that when I receive pleasure from these sessions, you will feel pleasure as well.”

Another slave unchained me, and I feel to my knees at the hem of my master’s robes.

“I hope you found that session as pleasurable as I did,” D’harvek told me as I got on my feet.

“I did,” I replied blankly. Though whether I said it out of a forced order or emotion, I couldn’t tell.

I quickly learned over the following week that ensued, that Illithids mentally torture their slaves for pleasure, to see how far off the brink they can push their puppets before healing them so they could come back for more later. I remember for there were a number of occasions where I was made to watch while others screamed. Raloth was never put through such torture, however, nor was he put to work as often as the rest of us. I never found it unfair. It never was my place to question. But after a week of living under D’harvek’s leash, I soon found out why.

Again, Raloth and I were summoned out by D’harvek, on that day. This time, as we left his residence, I noticed that there were a huge number of Illithids crowding outside the building, with their slaves alongside them. They followed us as D’harvek led the way. As crowded as the streets were, they were still eerily quiet as they communicated amongst themselves using their minds, letting me hear only if they intended to.

The silent procession took us all the way to the very heart of the city.

And that was the first time I saw it.

I had heard D’harvek mention the Elder Brain only once before, and the thought had never bothered me anytime after that for I was seldom allowed time to think for myself, and that precious hour I was allowed everyday was always used to make futile plans to escape with Raloth.

The Elder Brain looked like a giant octopus, with the same sickly purple color as the Illithids. It had no humanoid body, however, and its enormous bulky head was half submerged in a pool of glowing white liquid.

D’harvek led us to the bank of the white lake, where two other slaves grabbed hold of Raloth from both sides before he was turned to face the crowd of Illithids behind him. He was then allowed his free will. I watched on emotionlessly from the side, denied of mine.

“This is the human that killed Ysh’karla,” D’harvek announced. His statement was replied with a series of mixed responses from the crowd.

“Is such a thing possible?”

“Ysh’karla needs to be replaced.”

“Is he really a mage?”

“What difference does it make?”

“His memories will make a fine addition to the Elder Brain.”

“It isn’t just about the memories, but the power.”

This went on for a long while. Despite being allowed to hear, I could not understand what it was they had discussed since they did it at such a speed that I could not catch every single sentence. They somehow managed to come up with some kind of conclusion, however, and when they did, D’harvek turned to face Raloth.

“You will be the host for Ysh’karla’s replacement.”

“What?” Raloth gasped, clearly not understanding what was happening.

“Our spawn lie in wait inside that lake. One will find its way to you and bury itself deep inside your brain, feeding on it until it kills you, growing up into a full-grown Illithid.”

As the color drained from Raloth’s face, D’harvek leaned closer towards Raloth.

“Shh…no need for screaming. I could have them throw you in, but it would be more pleasant if you walk in of your own accord, don’t you think?”

As the slaves released Raloth, I watched as my friend turned around and walked into the lake, arms outstretched in a forced gesture of self-offering.

I did not see him come out.

I was brought back to the D’harvek’s residence later, where I spent my one hour of free will sobbing alone in the corner. But that was when Raloth came back, walking through the force field before he ran up to me. He didn’t look any different from when he had been sent into the lake.

“Orland, it’s me!” he said as I stared up at him with disbelief, almost sure that he was a ghost.

“You’re supposed to be dead,” I said. And as I said that, a grim look appeared on his face as he sat down beside me.

“Soon I will be. That thing is inside of my head right now. But it seems to have a side-effect. D’harvek can’t force anything into my mind, and neither can any of the other Illithids. I’m allowed to roam free around the city until the thing forces its way out of my body,” he explained.

“There’s got to be a way to save you,” I muttered stubbornly. I had already lost Kerr and I wasn’t sure if I was prepared to lose Raloth as well.

“There isn’t,” Raloth said firmly. “But while I have my free will, I might be able to find a way to get you out of here, and then you can escape and warn the King. These monsters have got to be stopped!”

“Why don’t you escape now?” I suggested. “Getting me out is not going to be easy…”

Raloth shook his head. “I don’t think I’ll make it to the castle in time before I die. It’s got to be you.”

At the end of the hour, as I felt my will pulled away again, I watched as Raloth walked away, promising to come back tomorrow with a proper plan.

He did return the next day. I didn’t. As it turned out, the villager was right when he said that D’harvek only let us have back the one hour of free will so we could suffer and grieve. He must’ve known of Raloth’s plans through me, somehow, listening in through our conversations from day one through the link he had burrowed inside my head. And so it was, that when Raloth came back, I wasn’t allowed to reply or respond to him in any way. I watched as he talked, and I kept silent as he shook me angrily, trying to get me to respond. Honestly I could not see the point. He should have realized by then that he would never be able to resist the master’s plans. And so I watched as he returned every day, trying in vain to reach me. Each time he returned, he seemed weaker, as he fell victim to the monster placed inside his head by our masters. I watched emotionlessly as he came and went. The only moments of free will I was allowed were the moments I got during D’harvek’s torture sessions.

Then one day, he stopped coming. I was allowed to have my free will back during those one hours at night, but at that point, it was something I didn’t want anymore. I had to come to terms with the fact that my friend was dead, and he was never coming back. Soon I would either meet the same fate or die as food for my master. I had no one to talk to anymore. The villager who had talked to us during our first day had been robbed completely of his ability to speak, yet another one of D’harvek’s attempts to make sure that I suffered.

I lost track of the passing days, months, possibly years that followed. Every day the same cycle repeated itself. I would wait until summoned, I would perform what was demanded of me, then return to sit in the slave chambers in silence. Once in a while trips to the breeding center were made. Each time I mated with a different woman, though I never got the chance to see Mina. It was probably one of the many things D’harvek had arranged. And on certain days, I would be tortured, each time no less agonizing than the last. Those, perhaps were the time when I truly lived, for during my one hours of free will, I never used it for anything other crying and talking to myself. So many times was the cycle repeated that my sense of time numbed over the passing years.

Then, one day, I found myself summoned to the hall where D’harvek led me outside to a familiar scene. A crowd was waiting for me, and we walked in silence towards the Elder Brain, where I stood facing them all with my free will awarded back to me. By then any thoughts of fighting back had died inside of me, and so I watched as D’harvek walked up to me.

“Are you aware of how much time has passed since you came here?” he asked. I didn’t reply, showing the fact that I did not know or care.

“You and your friend have proven to be useful to our cause. And we think that it is about time that you should be rewarded.”

There wasn’t any argument or discussion this time. I was simply ordered to walk into the lake as Raloth had, and I did, my last act of subservience to D’harvek before I would die.

I can’t say that I saw the thing coming for me. As I submerged, I felt it rush at me from behind before coiling itself tightly around my neck. At first, I thought that it would strangle me to death, but then I felt it reach into my mouth and upwards, moving inside my head looking for its goal. I felt no pain. In fact, I felt oddly calm. It was probably because the thing already had the capability to numb my thoughts even though it was only in its larval stage.

Well I was going to be the thing that would bring it into adulthood.

I woke up lying on the banks dripping wet after what felt like an eternity of sleeping in the lukewarm lake. As it had been with Raloth, I was allowed my free will for what would have been the last few days or weeks of my life. The Illithids that walked past paid no heed to me, and even when I returned to D’harvek’s residence, he pretended that I wasn’t there. He couldn’t communicate with me anymore. I would have committed various acts of revenge, then, but I didn’t. There was no logic in it that I could see. No permanent benefit for anyone. My years of slavery had taught me that following my emotions would lead me nowhere.

But seeing that my last few acts alive would be for myself to decide, I decided to make sure that I would be able to make a difference.

I left. They weren’t able to stop me as I walked out the exit, the way they wouldn’t have been able to stop Raloth if he had attempted this. The Illithids apparently could only attack the minds of their victims, and right now, while their offspring lived off my brain, they could not do anything to harm me.

It took a while for me to recall my spells, and when I did I manage to conjure up a flame which I used to light my way through the caverns. I was going to the castle to warn the King, and if I died along the way, then at least I would have tried something. In that sense, at least, I could be considered braver than Raloth.

I found my way back to the surface world, taking quite some time to getting used to having the sun shining on my face again. The horses were long gone, so I made my way back to the village, careful not to run into any of the villagers. Just because the Illithids couldn’t do anything to me did not mean that they couldn’t get their slaves to do anything to me. I stole a horse from the tavern, silently wishing that it belonged to Lexas if the man was still alive, and rode for the capital.

It surprised me that I remembered the way even after living underground for so long. But I got to the capital eventually, after about one week on the road. As every day passed, I would feel a fragment of me disappear; certain memories of certain parts of my life fade. And my head would hurt like hell every night before I lay down to sleep. Each time it would feel like dying, but then, as I said earlier, I wouldn’t have minded dying as long as I had attempted something.

I reported to the Archmage upon arrival, who barely recognized me. I had been gone for about 15 years apparently. Servants who had been sent to my village had been told that I had not returned from the war, a fact for which I wasn’t too surprised. I explained everything that happened, warned them about the monsters that were breeding beneath the earth and what they were capable of.

And for that I was sent here.

It doesn’t matter now, really. As every day passed, more and more was made clear to me as the thing inside me grew. And now it is ready, and I understand what I have to do. You see, Raloth isn’t dead, and I am not about to die either. The larva wasn’t consuming my brain, it was fusing with it, thus becoming one with me. And with it comes the understanding of all that has happened.

Apparently when an Illithid breeds, it combines with its host, joining an eternity’s worth of knowledge from the Elder Brain with the knowledge collected by its host. It also adopts certain traits from its host.

The fireball I have conjured in my left hand is a testament to this. Raloth and I were experiments, if you will. Since the beginning of time, humans have been the prime breeding hosts for the Illithids. Raloth was used as a subject to see if fusing an Illithid to a mage host would succeed in the Illithid inheriting the mage’s mastery over magic, or human magic to be more specific. Raloth had undergone a perfect metamorphosis, and so they had continued using me to breed more magi, more hosts for their young. I had done my job, and had been appropriately rewarded by having the opportunity to be a part of the grand design which would eventually lead to the Illithids, us, reclaiming what was once ours. Over the past days that the guards had stop their ‘friendly’ visits to pay more attention to my new lupine neighbor, my skin has taken on a sickly, purple shade, and I have been feeling something growing inside my mouth. And I find my powers growing. Only a week ago I had managed to make a prison warden fall asleep on the job. Now I have grown strong enough to do much, much more. My metamorphosis is complete, now that my human mouth is gone, replaced by a set of tentacles surrounding a sharp beak. I shall not miss it.

It’s all a matter of logic, in the end. My escape was calculated as such that I would reach here, for I have a job to do. I will be returning to my home tonight, but I will be bringing some guests with me. The Archmage who deemed me insane will be able to provide valuable information, and the werewolf will either be used as an experiment, or as a source of information on how their kingdom stands at the moment. Already I am inside the minds of the two guards returning from a session with the werewolf. As D’harvek had said, exactly like clay.

And so I get up on my feet while one of them fits the key to my cell into the door. As they come in, I select the older of the two to kneel at my feet. I reach down and take off his helmet before running my fingers over his scalp. Although he probably would not be as satisfying as a mage or a person of higher rank, I must feed and being the older one of the two, he will probably contain more information. Wrapping my newly grown tentacles around his neck, and his eyes, I draw him closer. Detecting the slightest urge to scream, I suppress it before whispering in his mind what I had heard from my master so long ago.

“There, isn’t that better? Keeping silent is the most logical thing to do. Why waste energy over an outburst that would yield no benefit?”

And so I feed. Regardless of my presumptions of how less satisfying he would have been, it brings me pure ecstasy nonetheless. A lifetime, his lifetime’s worth of experience pouring into me as simply as water pouring into a cup. A long time ago, I would have felt pity for this man, especially now that I know of his wife and child waiting for him at home. But I am perfect now, above pity. In all considerations, I have done him a favor, allowing him to contribute to perfection that lasts forever.

I leave his corpse as I walk towards the door, his friend following behind me with blind, baseless trust. Already I have motioned the werewolf in the neighboring room to get to his feet. He is tired and weary from all the torture he has been put through, and his spirit is broken, a side effect from losing the war. He shall serve a greater cause now, a side that shall not lose. Either as an experiment to see the susceptibility of what traits an Illithid may develop from breeding with a werewolf host, to be bred for an army, or to have his mind welcomed into the collective pool. The next few years for this one will definitely not be dull.

I shall keep the Archmage as my own for a while, showing him the same generosity that D’harvek, my master, my brother had shown me all those years ago. I shall not be so generous as to allow him the honor of becoming one of us, however. His mind is full of powerful spells that I am only too eager to learn for myself, that the rest of my newly-bred mage-born hybrids will benefit from.

Breeding an army will take time, but I don’t mind. I have an eternity. I will meet Raloth again when I return home, though I daresay that he would not go by that name anymore. And for that matter, perhaps it is best that my name be changed as well, for something less human, less fragile.

Although there wouldn’t be much logic in that act, what harm could there be from following your emotions once in a while?