Agar's Vision

Agar's vision:

You are Agar. You turn away from the elder brain, and another vision crashes into your mind. This is a vision of the present, and suddenly you leave your body far behind.

As you tumble through mist, you can hear it: the whistle of arrows, the dull thump as they strike flesh, the clang of blades and a grunt of exertion. Faint voices. A scream. It echoes and repeats, starting over and over as it grows louder, and you follow the sound. You burst into the cavern, and...

You know this cave. It isn't far from Akin's Throat. Your group camped here one night.

You see no undead, but you can smell them, and you can hear them – grunting, snorting, drooling. You can feel them, too, an icy cold that you last felt inside the small fortress of Mridsgate.

You can see things that are alive, though. There are huge insects here, humanoid – barely - and probably intelligent: formians, the hive-minds of Mechanus. Scores of them, all twitching antennae and waving forelegs, clacking mandibles and rustling scuttle! They are armed for battle. Scattered around and throughout them are almost a score of humans of all ages, shapes, and sizes; an old skinny man stands near a wiry middle-aged woman, and just a few feet away a scarred teen-aged boy is paired with what looks like a blacksmith. Their eyes are frighteningly blank, and they all move simultaneously, as if one organism with many different bodies. Oddly, several of Nolin's kobolds are here as well, looking terrified but resolute. This is the hivemind, psionically-linked mercenaries accidentally formed by the Defenders almost a decade ago.

Then your attention is captured by a fully human voice that you know. "You come no farther." The woman is neither young nor old. She is short-haired and gray-eyed, and she is equipped with a pair of fighting sticks that glimmer in the darkness. You've met her before; she is a friend of your friends, and a holy pilgrim of Vindus, God of Vengeance. Her name is Claris.

"No farther."
"No farther."
"No farther."
"No farther."
"No farther."
"No farther."
"No farther."

Her statement is echoed simultaneously by every other human mouth, and then clattered and scent-said by the formian hivemind. A few kobolds chime in near the end. The effect is eerie. A rotted, precise voice agrees.

"No farther." You can't see who is speaking, but the voice is high-pitched, oddly formal, and probably undead.

"You're one of us, T'Cri," says Arballine's voice from the empty air. The unseen elven archer sounds like she is smirking. "I was there when Leipcik fell. What, don't want to be on the winning side?" She pauses. "A few bugs and humans aren't going to stop us, rodent. We have more important people to kill, even more important than a traitor. So get out of the way."

Next to Claris, you hear the high-pitched voice again, sounding barely under control. "I have my soul now, elf. You have forgotten the teaching of your elders, if ever they had the wisdom. Duty takes precedence over hunger. Your prey is fulfilling an oath to me." Claris tilts her head and glances towards the unseen speaker, but says nothing.

Arballine laughs bitterly from the empty air. "So? You're undead too!"

For a few seconds the cavern becomes completely silent. "Promises are more important than death. So Skrinnix the Enlightener wrote in the Tablets of Rising, and His wisdom is complete. I fight for my own cause, not for you. I would advise you to flee."

You hear a bow twang. Claris reels back, clawing at something that you can't see, even as the insects and humans lunge forward.

And you are dragged backwards out of the cave. The vision ends. You are back in the mindflayer city, and you know that the ghoulish assassins that are stalking you have been intercepted by allies.

But you don't know who's winning.