The Brain's Dilemma

They spread out and enter the chthonic gates of T'Pocl. A sour breeze blows towards them, carrying the revolting odor of solidified thought.

Eve looks unnerved as they advance. Her eyes dart back and forth in her pale face, staring at every glutinous shadow that slides towards them. "I hope that we didn't get wrong information." Her tone of voice indicates that she's fairly sure they did.

Velendo sounds self-assured. "I trust in my God."

Agar nods. "We've gotten this far in large part because we've trusted his God." He glances towards Mara and flushes slightly before finishing his sentence. "As well as others." He smiles awkwardly as if to remind Mara that he hadn't really forgotten about Aeos.

Eve scowls petulantly. "I don't get it."

Velendo smiles. His face is beatific. "Stay with us long enough, and you will."

"I hope so."

The door behind them closes, and the door in front of them opens. They had navigated these rooms once before, trapped in a labyrinth of impaled brains. Now there is no psionic activity at all. The Defenders float in mist form past the warding sigils. Eve reaches out mentally and brushes her psyche along one of the hundreds of dripping brains still skewered on stalagmites. She stifles a scream.

"They're still alive. They're all still alive. The spikes keep them alive, and it's their thoughts and their life energy that powers the defenses of this place," Eve whimpers. "They're not dead! They're still thinking!"

"Are they in pain?" Velendo looks disgusted.

"They're sleeping now. But they won't stay that way."

Galthia raises his thin eyebrows. "I'll tell you now, Eve, you probably won't have to worry about having your brain eaten."

Eve's voice is weak and pleading. "I'll probably end up a brain on a stick!"

"There are worse deaths."

She turns to Galthia. "I don't look good on sticks!"

"We won't let you get eaten." Velendo gives Galthia a dirty look. The githzerai just shrugs.

They emerge in the massive cavern. When they were here before, the ceiling was covered with psi-active slime and odd lights filled the spaces between thought. There's none of that now. The space is psionicly passive, and it's an easy flight past the bizarrely angled buildings and up over the dark and bubbling brain fluid lake. They curve around towards the dome where the elder brain had been during their last visit, a few members of the group staying towards the back to guard against any sudden attack.

Standing outside of the elder brain's dome is a hideously thin githzerai, leaning oddly against the curved wall. A ropey trickle of drool descends from his slack mouth. His eyes are dead, but Eve can hear him screaming somewhere deep inside.

Galthia's face hardens. "That's Rondeth."

The githzerai's mouth gapes open and begins speaking, but the group perceives a deep mental voice in their heads at the same time that they hear Rondeth's thin reedy voice. "Not entirely. At the moment, we are inside of its brain. When we are finished, we will be true to our word and release it."*

Galthia keeps his temper. "Should we remain as we are?"

"It would be easier for us to communicate with you if you were solid."

"Why is that?"

"Your brains are fragmented. Your thoughts are vaporous. They are less. . supple. . when you are not solid."

"Ohhh-kay." Velendo sounds doubtful, but the group slowly returns from wind walk form.

The elder brain wastes no time. "We believe that we have a disease. It was you who transmitted it to us. It is you who we look to for a cure."

"We got rid of your disease." Velendo leans on his shield, knobby fingers idly tracing the patterns on the battered stone.

"Yes. The rotting part of us was removed by you. And in the process. . ."

Eve's eyes bulge. She almost screams over the mindlink. "It was WHAT?"

Malachite is brusque. "Eve, Eve? Shhh. Not now."

Although not part of the mindlink, the creature still hidden within the glassine dome clearly hears Eve's comment. It speaks through Rondeth. "We were rotting. Part of us would not be cured. They excised it."

"Oh." Eve's lack of enthusiasm is notable. "Good."

"They destroyed it. It did not regrow. When we attempted to combine the portion of ourselves that had been infected with the portion of ourselves that had been in safekeeping, they were incompatible. There was an error in the merging. We do not understand the feeling, but we wish to know why." One of Rondeth's limbs jerks slightly, perhaps reacting to the elder brain's frustration. More drool trickles from the corner of his mouth.

Velendo sounds cautious. "What feeling are you having?"

"There is. . ." It pauses. "Confusion. We wish to speak to the part of you which is not prey, the part of you which is sentient."

"What?"

Eve whispers, "I got it."

"Inside of your human shells, whatever is possessing you which makes you sentient. We wish to speak to it."

"That's what you're speaking to now." Velendo's voice is confused.

"No. Your type of prey. They are not sentient. They are cattle. You have done something which none other have. It does not. . ."

"I have done something only that has opened your eyes." If it had eyes, thinks Velendo, which it doesn't. But the statement stands.

"He's not prey," says Eve. "He has a higher mind." A sly impulse strikes her. For just a second, she vaults her psyche up to the psychic plane and joins the elder brain within the mindscape. Eve has faced a few difficult psionic opponents in her time, she has crushed mindflayers without having to twitch a finger, and Soder has told her many times that she is a formidable foe. She knows that she has the strength to stand against the elder brain in mental combat if she has to, and she's determined to prove to this abhorrent creature that she does matter, that mortal creatures are more than just prey. She unveils her powerful psyche in all of its radiant glory, insistent on showing the elder brain that they are a force to be reckoned with.

She is crushed like a bug.

In the plane of silvery mist, she stands naked and alone. She is very small. It is very, very large. It takes her and pinions her with an irresistible mental strength.

"Eeeek!"

It does not kill her; she can feel it rifling through her in an attempt to understand her. Then it casually drops her, and Eve's mental avatar drops back into her body.

"That wasn't a very good idea," she whispers hoarsely.

"What happened?"

"I tried to. . ."

"Your type phenomenologically responds. You make noises and you move, and yet you do not properly cogitate or judge."

"You are mistaken in that," says Velendo patiently.

Malachite almost cuts him off. "Your insults are not exactly going to get on our good side." He stares at Rondeth's vacant eyes.

"He's not insulting you," Eve says forlornly. "He's trying to tell you what he knows."

"We do not insult you. We state facts. But you have done something to us, and we need to understand what it is." The thundering mental voice is insistent. "There is. . ."

"Good in you?" asks Eve.

"We do not understand what you mean by 'good.'"

"That's because your kind does not think right," snarls Malachite.

"There was. . pleasure. . in not devouring."

"That's a good start," says Mara hopefully.

"There was. . a tinge when we did not cause pain to thralls."

"Good for you!" Mara says.

"Why?"

Eve is the first to venture a guess. "I think you've got religion."

"What does that mean?"

Mara says, "Maybe it means that you've found hope."

Galthia nods. "You have been touched by the breath of God."

Velendo steps forward. "There are many powers in this world."

"There is only Maanzecorian and Ilsensine. All others are thrall to them."

Velendo wrinkles his forehead, trying to say something diplomatic. "I think that is also a misconception, in the greater scheme. Your sphere of experience may be limited to what you have always believed. There are other powers equal to and even greater than they."

"Again," says Malachite softly. "It does not think right." He feels the force of the elder brain's attention turned on him; it's akin to sticking his unprotected face into a blast furnace. Eve gasps, her face ashen.

"By definition we DO."

"You need to think outside of existing concepts." Malachite's tone is stubborn, insistent. He feels like he's walking into a hurricane wind.

"No, Malachite," Eve's tone is plaintive and sad. "He's going to eat your brain." Malachite glances at her.

Velendo sucks in air. "There's a realm of existence in which entities exist that are far beyond ourselves or you. These two that you have named are among them. The God I serve are also among them. There are others."

"They do not prey upon your. . God?" The elder brain sounds haughty and skeptical.

"No, they do not. They can not."

"Why?"

"I don't know."

"Are they not superior to it?"

"No. It is possible that even if they are superior to it, they choose not to." His tone turns slightly pedantic. "There is a wide realm of interaction between intelligent sentient beings that does not involve the predator and prey relationship."

"So you claim that all of you are. . sentient."

"Yes," states Malachite.

The elder brain's voice is filled with scorn. "Even the svirfneblin? They are not sentient."

"They are," starts Velendo.

"Mr. Priggle has a very interesting brain!" interrupts Eve. Almost underfoot, Priggle shoots her a grateful look before returning to his internal preparations for immediate death.

"Oh, sure. The elder brain notices me. Lucky, lucky svirfneblin."

"They are," repeats Velendo, "in a different frame of reference than you are used to. Clearly, the Gods you have named are far far above you, are they not?"

"They are."

"But you are sentient."

"We are."

"And you, in some sense, are far far above me. But I am sentient."

"This is not just a concept of sentience which you believe in, which is false?" The brain sounds undecided.

"No. I speak the truth." Behind him, Velendo feels Cruciel briefly grasp his hand.

There is a long pause. "So we are infected with your spiritual virus." It sounds nonplussed. "What can be done?"

"I don't know that anything should be done. It is improving you." Velendo sounds slightly smug.

"We wish it could change us, and that is incorrect."

"With the new data you've been given," Eve says, "you may have to rely on one portion of the brain until you can integrate the other."

"I'm not sure we would know how to remove this epiphany," says Malachite. "These are issues known as morality. They are debated considerably among our kind."

Galthia is more blunt. "You are going to have to make a choice."

"And that choice is?"

"Which side of the brain to allow to take over."

"We have heard of morality. We have never found it much use."

"It will be now."

Eve smiles. "You can have that little thrill again, and again, and again."

"It improves your interactions with other sentient beings," Velendo says, "just as much if not more than it hinders them."

Mara laughs, her voice slightly wistful. "And it makes you happy."

"What do you call it when you do not wish to kill something?" Its mental voice is full of both distaste and wonder. "When you wish to. . improve it, instead?"

"Compassion."
"Kindness."
"Love."

"This body we speak through. We delved for mental recordings. Its brain had long since been subsumed. We wanted to restore it."

"Can you?" asks Mara. "It would be proper."

"We can't. But doing so would. . give us pleasure. It should not give us pleasure. Devouring it should give us pleasure. But that no longer does." It sounds angry and bewildered.

Eve grimaces. "I was always taught that you should do what gives you pleasure." Malachite and Agar look at her. "Well, I was," she says defensively.

"You are improving yourself," says Velendo.

"My minions feel that we have been infected by you, that we should be destroyed."

"Maybe you should infect your minions," says Eve.

Malachite says, "Your minions are half right. They fear what they don't understand, which is the mark of a weak mind. You have been infected, but you shouldn't be destroyed. That is the nature of mercy and compassion, but it's knowledge that your minions have not experienced."

"No. Not unless they were hurt and healed."

Galthia starts to chuckle as the group exchanges glances. "Oh man," says Malachite, "that's tempting."

"But to hurt them for the sake of hurting is. . bad?"

"That's correct," says Agar. "It's the opposite of the compassion you are learning to feel."

The elder brain turns its force of personality back on Mara and Malachite. "Do you help us because you wish to, or because you feel that you are forced to? We have examined and devoured paladins before. They feel that if they do not follow a vow, they will lose their power. Is this a mental compulsion that causes you to act this way?"

Mara's cheer sounds sincere, if slightly forced. "I wish to help you."

"I will be truthful," says Malachite slowly, "and say that the answer for me is both. There are some I do not wish to help, but recognize that I should."

"And you help them regardless?"

"If they are deserving, then. . ."

"You destroyed the undead. I felt the ripples."

"They were not deserving."

"If they had asked for help?"

Malachite's voice is much quieter. "They were not deserving."

"Had they repented of their evil. . ." begins Mara, but Eve interrupts.

"That's not wrong. He helps me!"

"He helps you." The elder brain's voice is flat, disapproving. "You are taken with their stink as well."

"But they're helping me, because I asked." Eve hangs her head.

"I regret that we can not give simple answers to your questions," says Malachite. "As we say, creatures of our type debate morality endlessly, and come to many complex and contradictory conclusions."

"No," says Mara, "I think it's pretty straightforward." Several members of the group look at her with unbounded affection. "Well, I serve Aeos. He's the God of goodness and light, and I made a vow to do what's right all my life, and I do that, and it makes me happy. And if I took another path it wouldn't sit right with me, and it wouldn't be me."

"And yet," says Malachite, "I serve Aeos in a very different light, and often times choose a path different than hers."

"And your path is flawed while hers is correct?"

"No."

"They are both correct," says Velendo. "It's fascinating."

"You just kind of feel what's right," says Mara, "and you know when it's right, and you do that."

The elder brain sounds decisive. "We wish to take this sort of vow."

Everyone exchanges glances and clear their throats. Feet are shuffled.

"How do we proceed?"

"Ohhhh. . ." says Galthia. "Brain paladin?"