My name is Damien.

I know a dark elf, a woman, from my dreams.

Everything else is blank. Emptiness.

I thought, perhaps, freeing myself from the illithid would knock loose whatever was blocking my mind. I was mistaken. I fear, given the visions of holes piercing my brain, that what is lost will not return. Perhaps it is merely the influence of the worm within.

Keeping a journal might help maintain something of who I am. Who I was. Or at least keep me from getting worse.

I awoke aboard a ship, flying through the sky. Damage had wrecked much of the area, likely breaking some mechanism in the pod that kept me in stasis. I easily ripped through the flesh of the container, took stock of my surroundings.

I grasped at my memories. I spoke already of everything I could remember.

But I did not speak of a... belief I had. Something that wasn't solid enough to be knowledge, not quite. But a... feeling I knew to be true. A... faith? In what, I do not know. I have decided now - given this dark elf, I would later learn was called drow. I have given myself to Lolth. I am not confident this is correct, but there is little use in second-guessing now. I will follow her and take from her what I can.

To survive. To thrive.

To get vengeance on whatever did this to me.

My surroundings were oddly organic. It felt wrong. Bodies were scattered throughout the room. All dead. I was the only one to survive. This felt right.

My mind attempted to wander. To reach out to... something familiar. Would the flesh of the room, of the equipment - both broken and whole - yield to a blade? Would it bleed?

Perhaps I would have sated my curiosity. I had but a glorified club.

Bruises are boring. Blood is... intoxicating.

I suppose it is fortunate I did not have a blade. I had no desire to ponder my circumstances. Not then.

The next room held a trove of knowledge, centuries of history of the planes and gods and Abeir-Toril. Approaching these... brains(?) implanted everything in my own. I have yet to internalize everything, and I trust that I won't need to.

It is how I learned of the drow, and of Lolth. At least now I can have a name to give to this abstract concept of... faith.

A voice pled for help.

It was a brain, somehow living, within the skull of a dead human. It claimed to be a new life, a servant of my captors. I crushed the skull, releasing it from its prison. I imagined carving my fingers into its fleshy body, creating holes from which its blood could pool.

I forced my hands to lower the creature, denying my instincts. For now. We needed to get to the helm, to escape the hells. Its name was "Us."

The worm in my brain reacted. The larva of an illithid, attempting to make me its host, its pupa, its egg. It is only a matter of time, days at most, before I succumb. Before I become something I am not. Or was not. It must be responsible for my lack of memories.

Thinking on such matters would do nothing. First to the helm, then to safety, and then I could deal with the worm.

As I left the room, the extent of the damage was clear. What should have been a corridor was demolished. The tentacles of the living ship attempted to fend dragons from destroying what remained of its crew. Below armies of devils marched to war.

A gith attempted to slaughter me, coming from behind. The worm in my brain stopped her, speaking with the worm in hers. As I recognized she was in my situation, she recognized that I was in hers. She, like Us, required my assistance in getting to the helm.

We ran into both invaders - devilspawn - and illithid defenses - thralls. Someone from another pod, undestroyed, called out for help. The gith was in favor of ignoring the captive, that there was no sense in dying for a stranger.

I saw no harm in spending a few moments to release a captive, especially one who could prove useful. At least as a distraction. I sought out a switch or panel and, despite her complaints, the gith did not leave us behind.

There was a socket on her pod. Attempting to smash it did nothing.

Further in the ship was another pod with a rune powering it. An unconscious woman slept within. A liability. The rune was simple to remove and fit the socket of the other woman's pod. The illithid within my mind reached out, forcing the pod open. The woman fell to the floor of the ship.

She was wary, not of me nor of the brain following us, but of the gith. I felt the parasite within her head. She saw it in her best interest - and ours - to help each other escape. She introduced herself as Shadowheart, grabbed some... device(?) that she claimed was nothing important, and prepared herself to fight to freedom.

The four of us approached the helm and the gith attempted to take control. Shadowheart fought back against her commands. We entered the helm, which was similarly damaged as the corridors behind. An illithid fought a devil, much larger than the imps we'd seen before, and assumed us thralls. We were ordered to connect the nerves of the ship, allowing our escape.

Shadowheart ran forward to the controls as the other three fought off the waves of devilspawn pouring from outside the ship. As she connected the synapses together, a dragon flew into the damaged gap in the ship and spewed forth a gout of flame. Her corpse flew from the ship as we... vanished.

I woke, outside of hell, falling to the ground. Headfirst. I should have died.

A force halted my fall, inches from impact. It gently lowered me to the beach.

My memories are still a void. There are numerous corpses around. Not captives from the ship. Something within me, something that feels alien, delights in the death. Feels comfortable. It must be the parasite making a home of my mind.

The part of myself that I know is me shouts for vengeance. For payback to be dealt to those who left me to death. Or slavery.

Onwards.