My name is Damien.

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

Everything else is blank. Emptiness. Void.

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 something piercing my brain full of holes, that what is lost will not return. I can only hope it is the influence of the worm within.

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

I awoke aboard a ship, flying through the sky. Some blast 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 my prison. Took stock of my surroundings.

I grasped at the memories that were no longer there.

All that remained was a... belief. Something that wasn't solid enough to be knowledge, not quite, but a feeling that I knew to be true. A... faith?

In what I do not know. I have decided - given the visage of the dark elf who offered some comfort - that Lolth shall by my matron. I'm not confident this is correct, but I have no use in second-guessing.

I will follow her. I will take from where what I can. What she offers will be mine.

To survive.

To thrive.

To give vengeance to whatever did this to me, left me for dead.

My surroundings were odd. Organic. It felt wrong, as if it were a creature of its own. Mindless. A slave to those within, following their orders. The same masters that died as their ship took damage.

Corpses lay about the room. They were scattered by the same event that woke me. They were less lucky. I was the only one to survive. This felt right. Proper.

That only I live.

My mind attempted to wander, reaching for something comfortable. Something familiar. It fantasized of a blade parting the flesh of the ship. Curious to see if there were blood coursing below the fleshy floors and walls.

Would it yield to a blade? Would it bleed?

Perhaps I would have sated its curiosity had I an edge at my disposal. I could find no more than a glorified club.

Bruises are boring.

Blood is intoxicating.

It is fortunate, though. I had no desire to ponder my circumstances, not then. I needed to find escape, not to waste the chance the gods had given me.

The adjoining room held a trove of knowledge, locked in shards the illithid used. Centuries of history of the planes, gods, Abeir-Toril. Everything I could have wanted to know in broad terms, but nothing of my own personal circumstances. This was implanted into my mind as I touched them.

I have yet to internalize everything. I'm not sure I care to.

But this is how I learned the term "drow." And their goddess Lolth. The one I have decided to give this abstract concept of faith I hold dear. For now.

A voice pled for help.

A brain, somehow living within the skull of a dead human, was stuck fast. It claimed to be a new life and a servant of my captors. I crushed the skull, releasing it from its prison.

My mind thought of carving my claws into its fleshy body, forcing it to carry the same holes I imagine in my own brain. Watching as blood I could claim pooled beneath me.

I pushed against the thoughts and forced my hands to lower the creature. I could deny these instincts, for now. A newborn would not be a threat. It could lead me to the helm so that we could escape the hells.

Its name was "Us."

The worm in my brain reacted. I felt the larva of an illithid, not yet mature. Attempting to make me its host. Its pupa. Its egg.

It would only be a matter of time, days at most, before I succumbed to the parasite. Before I become something I am not.

...or was not.

It must be the source of my lack of memories.

But dwelling would do nothing.

First, to the helm. Then, to safety. Only then would I deal with the worm.

The extent of the damage was clear once I left the room. What should have been a closed corridor was demolished. A wrong step would send me careening to the hell below. Tentacles of the mindless ship fended dragons from destroying what remained of its living crew.

Below, armies of devils marched to battle.

A gith appeared. She had watched my approach, readied an ambush, and prepared a slaughter. The worm in my brain stopped her short, speaking with the worm in hers. As I recognized she was in my situation, she recognized I was in hers. She, like Us, was insistent we get to the helm.

We ran into invaders - devilspawn - and illthid defenses - thralls. We made short work of them both.

Someone from another pod - still locked right - yelled for aid. The gith was in favor of ignoring the captive. Wasting more time would jeopardize our escape. There was no sense in dying for a stranger.

I saw no harm in spending just a few moments to release a captive. Especially one that could prove useful. At least as a distraction.

I sought out a switch or panel and, despite her complaints, the gith didn't leave.

I found a socket on her pod. Attempting to smash it did nothing.

There was another pod with a rune slightly further in. An unconscious woman slept within. A liability. It was simple to remove and it fit the socket of the conscious woman's pod.

The illithid within my mind reached out, spoke to the panel, and forced 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 felt it in her best interest - and ours - to escape. She introduced herself as Shadowheart, grabbed some device that she claimed was nothing important, and readied herself for battle.

The four of us reached the helm. The gith attempted to take control, but Shadowheart fought back against her commands.

We passed the final gate and were greeted with similar damage as the corridors behind. And illithid fought a devil, much larger than the imps we'd battled so far, and assumed us thralls. It ordered us to connect the nerves, teleporting us back to the world we knew.

Shadowheart ran to the controls as the rest of us fought waves of devilspawn pouring from the holes in the walls. As she connected the synapses of the helm, a dragon dlew into the damaged gap.

She was engulfed in flame. Her corpse flew from the ship.

But Shadowheart completed her mission. We vanished from the hells. And began to fall from the sky.

I awoke, falling to the ground. Headfirst. I should have died.

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

My mind is still a void where my memories should be. Corpses surround my body. Few were captives of the illithids.

The thing within me, this alien mind, delights in the death. Feels comfortable. Wishes for more.

It must be this parasite making my brain its home.

The part of myself that I know is me screams for vengeance. To deal with those who left me for dead. Or to live as a slave.

Onwards.