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You awake to glittering stars in a shimmering lavender sky. Astral debris drifts across your view like barrels floating in the sea after a shipwreck. A crisp, full calmness amid a muffled chaos. You blink, and your gaze falls from the ethereal sky to the form next to you as it begins to speak.
"They say that home is where a person can be their truest selves, without guile, without pretense."
The Emperor sits beside you in a casual manner, leaning back on its arms, its clawed hands rooted in the dark rock beneath you. Its bare torso gleams in the cool starlight, and you allow yourself a moment to trail your eyes down its exposed body until you reach the hem of its armored pants.
"You did well to see off the githyanki who had invaded mine," it continues. Your eyes snap up from its stomach to meet its own dark ones, the electric purple irises absorbing the aura of the plane around you.
"And now that you have seen where I come from, you know all there is to know about me," the Emperor says. "At least all that matters."
You briefly wonder what else there could be to know about the illithid beside you, this impossible creature, but it speaks up again before you can entertain any guesses.
"We spoke of my relationship with Duke Belynnne Stelmane-a story I have told no one else." It glances at you out of the corner of its eye, and you sense a bashfulness from its expression. The feeling tugs at you loosely, and you find yourself wanting to be closer to the Emperor, to offer comfort.
"I have no more secrets from you," the Emperor states, a firmness in its internal voice. "No need to resort to subterfuge."
That word lingers in your head: subterfuge. You were lied to, coaxed into this quest that has become larger and larger by the day, by this mind flayer posing as an unassuming, caring dream visitor with humanoid features that closer reflected your own, inviting in your vulnerability, your trust. You should be angry, you suppose. And for a time, you were. With the Emperor's disguise, you could at least read emotions like joy, fear, and empathy. You felt aligned; the sense of security was torn away from you like the toenails of a treasonous Fist.
The illithid beside you, despite the false pretenses, has protected you from the control of the Absolute, has given you the chance to return to a life without a parasite, or several, now, living in your brain, nibbling away at the tissue until you no longer recognize yourself. You trusted the Emperor enough to allow it to partially turn you, and that reality you cannot forget. Every time you look in a dusty mirror or shallow stream, you rediscover the warped self reflected back at you. Black veins like cracks of horror in your skin, a beast incubated in deep tar, awaiting your signal to emerge.
"We are true allies now, working towards a common goal." the Emperor says, its voice resounding inside your head so deeply you can almost feel the vibrations on the rock beneath you. It clears your head of the image of yourself, of your gruesome appearance, and you wonder if it bothers to tune into your thoughts even here, even now.
"Why did you resort to subterfuge at all?" you ask. From every interaction you've had with the Emperor since it revealed its truth to you, you have found no reason not to trust it, at least, not enough to trust it less than the githyanki, Lord Gortash, and Orin. The partial transformation has granted you immense power and allowed you to traverse Baldur's Gate with ease despite the target on your back.
"The only way we were ever going to get close enough to the brain to destroy it was by working together. But few would trust a mind flayer, so I did what I had to do to convince you."
You wonder how it chose the form it did when it first visited you, and why it (rightly) believed that form to be most effective when enticing you to join its cause.
"I studied you," it answers, and your question about its presence in your thoughts gets answered with that. "Your motivations, your actions, your desire. I deduced the best way to align your goals with my own."
"You make it sound like I was some sort of experiment," you say, letting out an awkward chuckle. You look to it, your gaze exploring its bare chest and side once more before you catch yourself.
"Perhaps, at first, I did consider that you were just a problem to be solved. And not an easy one at that. I needed your absolute dedication to the cause. I anticipated the challenge, and I anticipated your resistance. What I didn't anticipate was how reasonable you would be."
From anyone other than the illithid in front of you, that compliment would feel pathetic and unremarkable. But when your eyes meet the glow of its own again, you blush under the heat of its stare, the reverence in its words.
"You don't like to be coddled, cajoled," it continues. "But you responded well to logic, to rational arguments, to cold, hard facts. You saw straight to the core of what really mattered."
"I enjoyed our conversations," you admit, the Emperor's presence like a truth serum. Despite its ability to already know everything you want to say, you find yourself eager to say it anyways, to hear the way your voice mingles with the air around the two of you.
"As did I."
The Emperor pushes itself to its feet, a humble, human gesture, and you wonder if you'd ever seen it exist without its slight levitation act. You scramble to your feet to remain at its side, and you look down at its stance, admiring the subtle shift in its body language. It feels vulnerable to witness the Emperor like this: half-nude, candid, and level, as though it believes you to be an equal. It turns to face you fully, and for the first time you hear the sound of its weight shifting on the ground beneath you, further solidifying the illithid's humility. It looks into your eyes, and the gaze of the most dangerous species you've ever encountered isn't harsh and cold, uncaring, the way you've grown to know it. Rather, the Emperor's gaze is soft as it meets yours, and you're not sure how that's possible, how you can tell the difference at all, but you're convicted in your interpretation.
"Sometimes I felt almost like we were dancing our way towards something deeper..." the Emperor says. Though its voice is never altered by the cadence of its breath, you felt a shallowness to its words, a hesitance. You glance between its eyes, searching for the meaning in the words it just spoke, for confirmation that they're anything other than the way you heard them: an invitation.
"You're trying to flirt with me now?" you joke, but you know the Emperor is used to your strategic deescalation through humor, so it takes your words at nothing less than face value.
"Would you like that?" it asks, its eyes shining with spontaneity. Your breath hitches at the question. Would you like that? You never considered it possible. Why would you? Perhaps traveling with a party comprised of what must be the most diversely attractive adventurers in Faerun has spoiled you to the possibilities beyond.
"This feels quite... unexpected." The lightness that usually carries your tone dissipates in favor of a shocked sobriety. You look again at its body, exposed for you, shining in the magical light of the Astral Plane. It can't be serious, and even if it is, you couldn't follow through with it, could you? How would this affect your relationship to the mission? To each other?
"Consider this an opportunity for further mutual exploration."
The Emperor stands still, betraying nothing with its expression, but you are struck with sincerity. You aren't even sure what could follow; you stumbled across a book on mind flayer anatomy that seemed to belong to Duke Stelmane, and it claimed that all attempts to study mind flayer genitalia proved deadly, therefore there's no documented knowledge of what may be beneath its pants. Exploration, it said. That's all this had to be, right? And you can go home after and publish your findings. If you live that long.
"Do you wish it?" the Emperor nudges, and you realize you said nothing for far too long.
"Perhaps." The word leaves your lips on impulse, your breath hitching behind it. You look up at the Emperor, whose dark, royal gaze is trained on you, its focus unbreakable.
As it maintains this eye contact, an intense feeling ripples down from your mind to your body; a firey heat, igniting every cell, followed by a tender warmth intimately traversing your insides with insider knowledge, and lastly a wave of arousal: powerful, nearly overbearing, washing you away. Your heart pounds against your chest as you receive each of the Emperor's signals in quick succession, almost all at once, and your eyelids flutter, settling half-open as your own desire stirs.
The Emperor curls the hand at its side as if commanding the very air around you. Your feet lose contact with the ground, and you find yourself levitating. It's such a soft, light sensation, so impossibly different from when you cast fly on yourself, and different even from the way you levitate while using your own illithid abilities. This is trained, skilled, cultivated over time. A delicate grip you guess is reserved for very few, if any. You should be afraid. If anyone else were in this situation, so vulnerably off-guard mere inches from one of the most terrifying creatures in the Forgotten Realms, you would believe them to be dead already.
But here you are, floating blissfully with the illithid who saved you over and over, protecting you from its post inside the Astral Prism. It beckons you closer to it with a clawed hand, and a gentle force pushes you in its direction until you are a breath's distance from its tentacled face. The moment feels endless as you breathe together, radiating raw desire, kept apart by a tension that it seems to hesitate breaking. You hum with acknowledgement, and on impulse you take one of its tentacles in your hand.
The tentacle is slick with a thin layer of mucus, so your hand slides along the appendage with ease as you caress it experimentally, your curiosity superseding the arousal growing in your core. With a firm grasp, you pull the Emperor even closer to you using the tentacle, and it obeys without resistance. You can smell its breath, a faint mixture of garlic and vanilla, and somewhere in the back of your mind thank the gods that you are not a vampire. You find this combination intoxicating.
You kiss the tentacle in your hand, hoping its an erogenous appendage since you have no knowledge to work from, and the illithid's use of the word exploration implies there will be no guidance, no instruction. A guttural sound fills your mind, one of pleasure, of relief.
"Was that a good sound?" you ask, your nerves flaring up your spine briefly. You know its power, even just in the way it holds you against gravity, the way your feet dangle so gently off the ground. If you misstep or gods forbid hurt it, there's no guarantee that the trust you've built up until this point could save you.
It nods, its eyes closed, perhaps the first time you've ever witnessed it communicate with its body rather than its mind. You caress the tentacle, nuzzling your face against it. It mimics the motions of humanoids who throw back their heads to moan as another growl rips through your mind, vibrating your body inside and out. It embraces you, tentacles curling around your neck, your arms. Each tentacle operates like its own entity, and you feel like you're at the mercy of five separate creatures rather than just the one.
You trail your hand down its chest, the anatomy so familiar, yet so foreign. The way a mind flayer is comprised of the same base structure as the humanoids it erupts from is an underrated aspect of these terrifying creatures, in your opinion. You trace over the veins on its sides, each thick protrusion cascading down its torso towards its pelvis. Your curiosity is palpable, and it reacts with a similar awe at your own body, cupping one of your ass cheeks with its large, clawed hand. The feel of its cold skin through the fabric of your pants quickly gives way to the warmth beneath it as it maintains a loose grip.
Despite your hand wanting to travel downward, you elect to move it up towards its face. You stroke its cheek with your knuckles, and another quiet moan slips into your brain.
"When was the last time you were touched like this?" you ask, unable to completely sate your curious nature.
The voice that responds is heavy, deep with arousal. "Longer than I'd like."
The tentacles that hold the back of your neck pull you closer, guiding your head to its mouth beneath the base of its tendrils. Sharp, exposed teeth welcome you, a sight that would frighten you in any other moment, but now, in a haze of lust and uninhibited desire, you push your face into the space and kiss gently at a corner of its mouth, one of its teeth receiving an edge of the affection. It moans again, quiet in your mind, tender, and the tentacles around your neck stiffen, keeping you in place, urging you to continue.
Tentatively, you open your mouth and drag your tongue along the opening of its own mouth, licking along the base of the first row of teeth there, noticing how dull they are compared to how they appear. But you're not a complete fool, despite the position you find yourself in. You know that dull weapons hurt more, extend the suffering of those unfortunate enough to receive their aim. And here you are, your tongue gliding along these tiny daggers that have likely opened more skulls than you can count. The next row of teeth falls further inward, and you chase it, licking along the flesh there, and the tentacles around your neck hold you tighter, the hand on your ass clenches.
As your tongue travels deeper into its mouth, the Emperor apparently regains its composure enough to reciprocate. The tentacles that aren't keeping you in place slide across your sides, worming their way under your tunic to map your stomach. Each swipe of a tentacle across your skin makes you shudder, the flesh there tingling in its wake. Your tongue flattens, experimenting with long, broad strokes from the bottom of its mouth to the top. The Emperor groans, and the tentacles around your neck begin to push your head against its mouth in a rhythm. You follow it easily, thrusting your tongue as deep as it can go in time to its movements, losing yourself in the darkness under its tentacle base.
The hand that holds your ass retreats, and you feel as though you are floating freely, untethered, despite its grip on your head. You feel claws at your back and tense until your tunic falls away, cut by its sharp nail. Now you are as naked as the Emperor, but for you it feels so much more vulnerable, considering you can't even see your own body as it becomes exposed to the illithid.
"Let me see you," the Emperor orders, and the tentacles around your neck jerk you backward, ripping you away from its mouth and into the brightness of the astral sky.
You squint up at the Emperor, who removes one tentacle from your neck to focus on exploring your new locations, and its eyes soften under your gaze. As one tentacle remains on your stomach, coating it with its mucus, two others go to your breasts, which are just large enough for them to curl around exactly once and still reach your nipples with their softly pointed tips. The hand returns to your ass, but this time it slips in the space between your pants and skin, opting to grope you without barrier now that it has had a taste of it.
Held in midair as four tentacles and a hand feel up your body, you groan, the sound more desperate than you thought you could be, as you maintain eye contact with the Emperor. The tentacle at your stomach dips into your bellybutton shallowly due to its size compared to your innie, but the simulated penetration sends pleasure throughout your body anyway, and through the fog of your arousal, you realize that with four tentacles, the Emperor is capable of introducing you to pleasures you'd never considered possible. The thought overwhelms you, and for the first time, you hear the Emperor laugh. It's a short, low, devious sound, and it pushes all thoughts out of your mind, replacing them with images of what it could do with you, what it will do with you.
"Surrender yourself completely," it commands.
"But-" you protest weakly, the tentacles flicking at your nipples taking your breath away. "I thought this was mutual exploration. I want to-want to pleasure you too."
"All in due time."
With another wave of its hand, the plane turns around you as it positions you upside-down, its tentacles retreating from you completely. The blood rushing to your head only intensifies the clouded, fuzzy feeling in your mind that bloomed alongside your arousal. It removes its hand from your ass to unbutton your pants and rid of them and your underwear. You are naked in front of the Emperor, and it holds you there for a moment, on display for its own purposes.
As it returns you upright, the Emperor's tentacles find your skin again, and one teases upward towards your ear as another curls around your neck and the other two travel downward. You reach out to stroke whichever one you can grab, and you notice how swollen it feels in your hand. It's erect.
"Oh, gods," you moan. Four erections seeking release, whatever that means for mind flayers, and you are their cure.
The Emperor moans with you as you continue to stroke one of its tentacles, and you feel it nudge up against your mons pubis, smoothing your pubic hair, before slipping between the lips of your cunt.
"Fuck!" you cry out as it slides against your clitoris with attuned pressure. It is as though the Emperor already knows your body inside and out, finding a consistent rhythm to drive you insane.
"Was that a good sound?" it teases, which you didn't think it could do, and you lose yourself in its voice.
The tentacle near your ear takes the plunge, filling your ear canal as far as it can go, which is father than you'd ever had anything in your ear, other than a tadpole, you suppose. The tentacle around your neck squeezes, constricting your breathing, and the tip of it dances around your parted lips. Your tongue seeks it haphazardly, rubbing against the tip once it finds purchase.
"You are one of the few I've ever met who were of more use to me with their minds intact," the Emperor admits, the tentacle against your clit sliding further in order to tease at your opening. "Watching the way you fall slave to the pleasure I administer is one of the few vices I am afforded in this prism."
The last tentacle you feel rubbing your ass crack, fully engulfed by your ass cheeks. It's all too much; one penetrating your ear, one curling around your tongue, one rubbing against your clit and threatening to penetrate your pussy, and one gliding against your asshole.
"Pleathe," you beg around the tip in you mouth. "Thop, ith too much."
The tentacle wrapped around your throat tightens, a calculated grasp that truly keeps you from inhaling any more than a morsel of air. The tips of the two tentacles at your cunt and asshole find each opening, one lubed with your slick arousal, the other with the mucus of the mind flayer.
"No-"
Simultaneously, both tentacles enter your lower holes, pushing past the tight, unprepared muscles of your asshole while entering your throbbing pussy with ease. The tentacle around your neck unravels, opting to focus on thrusting itself down your throat. You gag around it, unnerved by the way you feel it twisting around at the beginning of your esophagus. Unable to breathe, you thrash against the Emperor's hold on you, but it doesn't even flinch.
"You are nothing without me," the Emperor growls, its tentacles alternating their intrusions at a menacing pace, only allowing you to breathe when your other holes are filled to the brim with its hot, slimy appendages.
Despite its violations of your consent and its brutal assault on nearly all of your orifices, the Emperor brings nothing but mind-blowing pleasure. Its eyes remain trained on yours, inspecting your expression for signs it needs to shift the angle or intensity of its ministrations. You see the way its control over you coupled with the primal pleasure of your tight holes is bringing it to an ecstasy that rivals your own. It fills you with a perverse pride knowing that you truly are making it feel good, making it want you, to claim you as its property.
You moan around the tentacle in your throat, your lips struggling to form a word. The Emperor notices, and it removes the tentacle from your mouth just long enough for you to gasp out, "Master!"
The Emperor throws its head back and roars, shoving its tentacle back inside your throat. With a hand, it takes you by the neck, squeezing again while its tentacle thrusts inside you, and you realize its grip is making your throat tighter and more pleasurable for it. The tentacle in your ear retreats, crawling down your back to join the other in your asshole. You scream at the way it stretches you alongside the original. The tentacle buried in your cunt pulls out in order to direct all of its attention to your needy clit.
"I know you're the kind that will only orgasm once for me," the Emperor says as its tentacle at your clit tickles it like a tongue would. "I want you to come for your Master so gloriously that you lose consciousness."
It removes the tentacle from your mouth once more and your chest heaves as you inhale desperately needed breaths. You're interrupted by a smack! as the Emperor slaps you across the face with the tentacle that now smells like the acidic undertones of your mouth.
"Beg," it commands, forcing you to look up at it using the hand around your throat. "Beg for Master to bring you to orgasm."
"Please," you reply instantly, mindlessly obedient, your brain as good as one that had been consumed by an illithid. "Please Master, please let me come for you, you own me, I'm nothing without you, please!"
You are shameless, corrupted by the Emperor's hedonism, your asshole ruined by two thick tentacles thrusting interchangeably, your clit tricked by the tongue-like swirl of another tentacle, and the last slapping against your pathetic cheeks lightly just to enforce the notion that you are nothing more than a slave to the Emperor's whims, his desires, and his plans.
The tentacles in your ass spread apart, stretching your hole as wide as it can go, and the hand that was levitating the two of you now creeps a claw into your cunt while mainting the hovering. Your pussy clenches around the claw, its sharpness alarming but not painful. Its other hand remains around your throat, those claws digging lightly into your skin.
"Go on, then, slave," the Emperor orders. "Prove to me you deserve all the pleasure I have given you."
You whimper as the tentacle slapping your cheeks creeps towards your untouched ear and fucks itself inside.
"Come for your Master."
Its clawed finger curls in your cunt, grazing your sensitive spot as the tentacle around your clit swirls with deliberate intention, and you scream, the sound echoing into astral oblivion. You entire body tenses, your teeth clenching, as orgasm tears through you, a crashing wave that tightens every muscle, making the Emperor's tentacles feel even bigger inside you as you come, shuddering and thrashing.
The way your body tightens sends the Emperor over the edge, its tentacles flexing as it moans, sending a burst of psionic energy from its body in all directions, a volatile sphere of red and purple light erupting from its brain outward. You are caught in the crossfire of it, and it knocks you backward, its tentacles expunged from your body at lightning speed, and you fall to the ground, unconscious.
The Emperor collects itself, shaking its tentacles to rid them of the extra fluids they accumulated, and stands over your limp body. Without moving a muscle, the illithid flips your body to expose your backside. Right above your buttocks, a series of scars glimmer in the lavender skylight. The Emperor bends down to inspect them, and with a sharp nail, it digs into your flesh, splitting the skin downward to create a deep, bloodied cut. A fresh line. With a pointed look, the illithid heals the cut into a scar. Another tally mark, number thirty-seven.
It raises a hand and waves it across the back of your head. You had the single best night of your life, and once again you remember none of it.