The woman I saved from the pod - Shadowheart - lay mere steps from my own spot on the beach. I thought her dead - I saw her die on the ship from dragon flames. The artifact she seemed so intent on saving miraculously landed in her outstretched palm.

I thought to satiate my curiousity and reached for it. But she awoke and instantly grasped the object, hiding it amongst her person as she eyed me, suspicious of my motives. I claimed to be checking on her vitals, to see if she still took breath.

She did not know why we lived. But she also did not seem to care, only that we did manage to survive.

I did not disagree.

Even as my mind turned back to the memory of the drow, and a voice.

Shadowheart wished to stay together.

I did agree.

It was worth having a companion, even one I knew little about, in an unknown area with unknown threats. She looked weak. I doubt she could succeed at any attempted betrayal. Even so, she was a second set of eyes.

I tried to move forward. She stopped to thank me for my actions in rescuing her from the pod. Perhaps her suggestion to travel together was more sentimental than practical.

She likely thought she would be dead without my assistance. The pod would have likely proved a safer vessel to the ground than having little more than the wind as a cushion.

The wreckage of the ship was nearby, and a handful of intellect devourers scampered about. They fled into the ship as they sensed our presence. I stole into the darkness to investigate further, but Shadowheart stopped me, wrapping me in the shadows of her goddess.

Perhaps she would prove more useful than a mere second set of hands.

Corpses of both the illithid and their slaves were scattered throughout. Shadowheart's supposition may have been correct - she could have been among the dead without my intervention.

We could have all been among the dead - in hell - had she remained trapped. She was the one to force the ship to safety. Relative safety.

The intellect devourers waited in ambush.

I attempted a reversal. I failed.

One of the three attempted to bite into my flesh with its tentacles. I felt power suffuse my body. The lightning that had built up in response to the threat channeled into the creature on contact, frying the synapses of the gigantic brain.

While Shadowheart took on her own foe, I rushed forward and felt an alien power fill my body, aching for release. Lolth filled my soul with pure pain, and I unleashed it on the creature. It fell to the ground, dead.

While it felt good and proper to accept this power into my soul, something felt off.

Perhaps I am uncomfortable serving as the conduit of another. I do not like to be a mere servant. I need to be something more.

Is that what I was before? A servant?

Was I satisifed with that?

One of the illithid still lived. Its breaths were weak, and its blood pooled beneath its crumpled form. It would die soon. On its own.

I felt compassion for the creature, a need to aid it. To heal it. I noticed something, and my thoughts shifted to self-hatred of the weakened, pathetic, mortal creature I was.

It was all an attempt to distract from my own growing malice of the creature. It was in vain.

Even the suggestion my thoughts were other than my own did little more than fill me with rage. The illithid met the disgust I offered as I fought off its control with undisguised loathing of its own.

I left it, bleeding out on the floor. It should have thought it would suffer a slow, painful death. An ignoble end, perfectly suited to its life. I felt its despair well as it realized it would recieve neither help nor mercy.

Its attention unfocused as the only thing that filled its consciousness was its labored breathing. Its weakening breathing.

I smashed its skull in a single strike, opening the horrible creature's mind to the world. Both its body and mine were drenched in the juices of viscera and gore.

Sweet, delicious juices.

A perfume of perfection.

Despite how it started, today will be a good day.