test post - fic excerpt
Apr. 12th, 2025 07:33 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
oryndollThe thing is to stay in disguise. It’s been a little over a month, and though usually (by now) it would be sated and ready to soldier forth, there’s been no meal yet. The frequency of patrols and raids has proved to complicate the normal rhythm of the Emperor’s life. Where in times of feast it can easily maintain an illusion for nearly a day, it finds its powers waning. This brings on a feeling of helplessness, a feeling the Emperor grits its mind against.
Meanwhile–because of hunger, caution, hyper-awareness–time is collapsing into incoherence: not measured by the tendays or the days but down to the hours, the minutes. The Emperor keeps time closely, the Emperor cycles from one exhaustion to the next.
Now it has been too long since eating. Tonight the Emperor goes in search of food–disguised, with about one hour until the illusion will begin to dissipate. The whole affair is unhappy. Normally, this is a longer process for the Emperor–during which it hunts, but also sleuths, and judges, determining the state of its quarry, weighing its crimes, how deserving its punishment); normally the process is–pleasurable, as much as it can be, and normally the Emperor would not be pressed to make a decision against another’s life in haste. But the night is at its deepest, and he knows (at least) that few honest folk keep such hours.
The Emperor passes the Splurging Sturgeon. It can no longer smell the waft of frying oil or the oil and brine of fish for cooking; nor is it attracted, really, by the warm promise of a lively night crowd; but it brushes against the dense chemical clusters of thought and feeling of the patrons inside as one brushes against the itch of weeds and tall grass in a field, or against the droplets in thick mist. They’re like magic. They affect him: the miasma of them holds potential and whets his appetite.
It’s in this frame of mind–sharpened and focused on how near his next meal–that he comes upon a night patrol that he had not anticipated. The sudden awareness of them draws its attention out of the fog of hunger; but otherwise, no worry–he must not worry–the spell of disguise has only just started, and he has ample time until he must retreat. The thing, in disguise, is to treat it as a second skin.
They’re passing each other out of patches of midnight mist and black shadow. The Emperor sees well in the dark. It can make out two Flaming Fist soldiers with shortswords and shields. Alongside them are two unfamiliar figures, dressed in silk robes (the Emperor can make out a rich purple, and registers two dark shades, blue and black). Wizards, it seems. The one closest him has a bycocket that obscures his face, and he turns his head as he speaks with the Fists, and the Emperor does not meet his eyes.
The other is a human woman. It is strange, how much information a single pivotal moment can contain, spilling over the confines of the seconds, changing the very essence of the world. The Emperor’s eyes meet hers. The light in her dark eyes seems to change; it’s a white, pearly flash; they widen. The Emperor doesn’t need to read her thoughts, but quickly plunges itself into her mind, perhaps out of a sense of anxious readiness. She thinks–Mind Flayer–she is about to alert her companions–
The Emperor acts; he cannot waste another moment. Just as her voice begins to rise he gathers all of what little is still left in his will, in the power of his mind–like scraping down the sides of a pot–gathers it tightly to himself, and then releases it, sending it forward in a psionic blast of desperate potency.
And then it wastes no time to turn and run. It directs every nerve in its body, in coordination, to keep to the shadows; using the last of his reserves has surely dispelled his disguise. Now naked, now hungry, now burning all over his body, now full of fear. The itching burn of a fresh slap like pins and needles in all of his awareness.
When the Emperor finally gets the chance it mows down its quarry like a cur, like it’s a wet alley creature and he is the hard end of the kitchen broom, like it’s the tender struggling calf and he’s the quelling blade: he is pitiless and efficient. Human, elf, thief, murderer, rogue–or father, or daughter, or lamplighter or worker on the nighttime docks–it is of little importance right now, for sacrifices must sometimes be made.
The Emperor drags the corpse down through the Elfsong kitchen and into his quarters, electing to decide what to do with it once he feels more settled (he is still on edge). There’s something lowly about the physical dragging and hauling; it settles soft in the Emperor’s body–somewhere in its torso–the gentle humility of the thing.
The familiar, shady, damp quiet feels familiar and peaceful. This familiarity clears and settles its senses; and now the Emperor can feel satiety unfurling, blooming, pacifying the shaken nerves throughout its body.
Now, at full capacity, it can begin to think, deeply; in a way this is the hunt it truly loves. Last month, plucking up the Baldur’s Mouth Gazette off the body of its last meal, the Emperor had read that part of the Ravengard’s strategy for security was to work with the city of Waterdeep, to contract apprentices from Blackstaff Academy to aid the Flaming Fist. A good move, of course, but a seemingly very general one. Well, now he understands why: True Sight.
In the Emperor’s city, the main concern is commerce. Magical talent goes toward enchanting lamplights to line the streets of the Upper City; toward the sending spell service, toward the invention of spells for a good catch. Or towards a bastion of trade like Sorcerous Sundries. Perhaps this tendency was the fruit of Balduran’s legacy; in its past life, perhaps the Emperor had blessed the people of Baldur’s Gate with such a character.
Waterdeep, the City of Splendors, breeds a different sort of wizard: one concerned with boring into one’s deepest self to truly master the Weave. The Ravengards are clever, in a way; they know the city very well, and they have an honest love of it, so that they’re able to see it clearly and identify the chinks in its armor. Like Gortash before them, they have their ideas about how to keep the Gate safe. It might be amusing, in an ironic way, if it wasn’t so very annoying–if it didn’t keep the Emperor from his work.
Either way, it is an impressive strike. The Emperor takes a few days to ponder its next move. With all options, possibilities, and outcomes properly weighed, he decides that his next move should be retreat. The Emperor’s pride doesn’t suffer such a move; his pride is a bigger thing than that, one that hungers languidly and swallows whole–it’s a patient sort of thing. The Gate will always be here for him; whatever the occasional turmoil that has stolen the Emperor away, it always remains standing.
The Emperor prepares to take to the Underdark: the natural home of the mind flayers. It knows that this will not be easy; not only because the Underdark is infamous for its peril, but because it knows that, indeed, whatever remnants there may be of the Netherbrain’s colony have been driven underground as well.
The Emperor remembers a rune slate aboard the Nautiloid he piloted; in Qualith, it read:
An anomaly. One like ourselves, unconnected from the whole. Caution.
The Emperor is, by a strange stroke of fate, somehow less at home among its kind than among the daywalkers of Faerun. From its time beneath Moonrise towers–to its time as a Nautiloid pilot–to his time facing his kind atop the Netherbrain–he has heard the chorus of their many voices as one: Caution–an adversary–an anomaly–an abomination–one of our own, who jeopardizes the Grand Design. The Emperor understands well the many punishments for partialism.
Hunted and reviled wherever it may go, the Emperor is nonetheless undaunted, cool, almost cheerful in the face of the challenge. It’s focus, or will, or perhaps self-belief (if a mind flayer can be described as having such).
To undertake any great endeavor, one must be resilient in the face of adversity. Besides–reasons the Emperor, packing up healing potions, a few important documents, tools to navigate–there is one safe haven in the Underdark. The Emperor is sure of it–so long as it can get there, and so long as the destination remains unchanged.
Meanwhile–because of hunger, caution, hyper-awareness–time is collapsing into incoherence: not measured by the tendays or the days but down to the hours, the minutes. The Emperor keeps time closely, the Emperor cycles from one exhaustion to the next.
Now it has been too long since eating. Tonight the Emperor goes in search of food–disguised, with about one hour until the illusion will begin to dissipate. The whole affair is unhappy. Normally, this is a longer process for the Emperor–during which it hunts, but also sleuths, and judges, determining the state of its quarry, weighing its crimes, how deserving its punishment); normally the process is–pleasurable, as much as it can be, and normally the Emperor would not be pressed to make a decision against another’s life in haste. But the night is at its deepest, and he knows (at least) that few honest folk keep such hours.
The Emperor passes the Splurging Sturgeon. It can no longer smell the waft of frying oil or the oil and brine of fish for cooking; nor is it attracted, really, by the warm promise of a lively night crowd; but it brushes against the dense chemical clusters of thought and feeling of the patrons inside as one brushes against the itch of weeds and tall grass in a field, or against the droplets in thick mist. They’re like magic. They affect him: the miasma of them holds potential and whets his appetite.
It’s in this frame of mind–sharpened and focused on how near his next meal–that he comes upon a night patrol that he had not anticipated. The sudden awareness of them draws its attention out of the fog of hunger; but otherwise, no worry–he must not worry–the spell of disguise has only just started, and he has ample time until he must retreat. The thing, in disguise, is to treat it as a second skin.
They’re passing each other out of patches of midnight mist and black shadow. The Emperor sees well in the dark. It can make out two Flaming Fist soldiers with shortswords and shields. Alongside them are two unfamiliar figures, dressed in silk robes (the Emperor can make out a rich purple, and registers two dark shades, blue and black). Wizards, it seems. The one closest him has a bycocket that obscures his face, and he turns his head as he speaks with the Fists, and the Emperor does not meet his eyes.
The other is a human woman. It is strange, how much information a single pivotal moment can contain, spilling over the confines of the seconds, changing the very essence of the world. The Emperor’s eyes meet hers. The light in her dark eyes seems to change; it’s a white, pearly flash; they widen. The Emperor doesn’t need to read her thoughts, but quickly plunges itself into her mind, perhaps out of a sense of anxious readiness. She thinks–Mind Flayer–she is about to alert her companions–
The Emperor acts; he cannot waste another moment. Just as her voice begins to rise he gathers all of what little is still left in his will, in the power of his mind–like scraping down the sides of a pot–gathers it tightly to himself, and then releases it, sending it forward in a psionic blast of desperate potency.
And then it wastes no time to turn and run. It directs every nerve in its body, in coordination, to keep to the shadows; using the last of his reserves has surely dispelled his disguise. Now naked, now hungry, now burning all over his body, now full of fear. The itching burn of a fresh slap like pins and needles in all of his awareness.
When the Emperor finally gets the chance it mows down its quarry like a cur, like it’s a wet alley creature and he is the hard end of the kitchen broom, like it’s the tender struggling calf and he’s the quelling blade: he is pitiless and efficient. Human, elf, thief, murderer, rogue–or father, or daughter, or lamplighter or worker on the nighttime docks–it is of little importance right now, for sacrifices must sometimes be made.
The Emperor drags the corpse down through the Elfsong kitchen and into his quarters, electing to decide what to do with it once he feels more settled (he is still on edge). There’s something lowly about the physical dragging and hauling; it settles soft in the Emperor’s body–somewhere in its torso–the gentle humility of the thing.
The familiar, shady, damp quiet feels familiar and peaceful. This familiarity clears and settles its senses; and now the Emperor can feel satiety unfurling, blooming, pacifying the shaken nerves throughout its body.
Now, at full capacity, it can begin to think, deeply; in a way this is the hunt it truly loves. Last month, plucking up the Baldur’s Mouth Gazette off the body of its last meal, the Emperor had read that part of the Ravengard’s strategy for security was to work with the city of Waterdeep, to contract apprentices from Blackstaff Academy to aid the Flaming Fist. A good move, of course, but a seemingly very general one. Well, now he understands why: True Sight.
In the Emperor’s city, the main concern is commerce. Magical talent goes toward enchanting lamplights to line the streets of the Upper City; toward the sending spell service, toward the invention of spells for a good catch. Or towards a bastion of trade like Sorcerous Sundries. Perhaps this tendency was the fruit of Balduran’s legacy; in its past life, perhaps the Emperor had blessed the people of Baldur’s Gate with such a character.
Waterdeep, the City of Splendors, breeds a different sort of wizard: one concerned with boring into one’s deepest self to truly master the Weave. The Ravengards are clever, in a way; they know the city very well, and they have an honest love of it, so that they’re able to see it clearly and identify the chinks in its armor. Like Gortash before them, they have their ideas about how to keep the Gate safe. It might be amusing, in an ironic way, if it wasn’t so very annoying–if it didn’t keep the Emperor from his work.
Either way, it is an impressive strike. The Emperor takes a few days to ponder its next move. With all options, possibilities, and outcomes properly weighed, he decides that his next move should be retreat. The Emperor’s pride doesn’t suffer such a move; his pride is a bigger thing than that, one that hungers languidly and swallows whole–it’s a patient sort of thing. The Gate will always be here for him; whatever the occasional turmoil that has stolen the Emperor away, it always remains standing.
The Emperor prepares to take to the Underdark: the natural home of the mind flayers. It knows that this will not be easy; not only because the Underdark is infamous for its peril, but because it knows that, indeed, whatever remnants there may be of the Netherbrain’s colony have been driven underground as well.
The Emperor remembers a rune slate aboard the Nautiloid he piloted; in Qualith, it read:
An anomaly. One like ourselves, unconnected from the whole. Caution.
The Emperor is, by a strange stroke of fate, somehow less at home among its kind than among the daywalkers of Faerun. From its time beneath Moonrise towers–to its time as a Nautiloid pilot–to his time facing his kind atop the Netherbrain–he has heard the chorus of their many voices as one: Caution–an adversary–an anomaly–an abomination–one of our own, who jeopardizes the Grand Design. The Emperor understands well the many punishments for partialism.
Hunted and reviled wherever it may go, the Emperor is nonetheless undaunted, cool, almost cheerful in the face of the challenge. It’s focus, or will, or perhaps self-belief (if a mind flayer can be described as having such).
To undertake any great endeavor, one must be resilient in the face of adversity. Besides–reasons the Emperor, packing up healing potions, a few important documents, tools to navigate–there is one safe haven in the Underdark. The Emperor is sure of it–so long as it can get there, and so long as the destination remains unchanged.