Chapter Two: The Githyanki Warrior

The man hunched over the splintered deck, his insides wrenching with a violent ferocity. The acrid stench of bile burned in his throat as he expelled the remnants of his fear. His hands gripped a jagged panel, knuckles white, while his blurred vision captured only glimpses of the infernal scene swirling around him. The ship barreled through a maelstrom of clashing devils and demons, their roars and screeches an unholy cacophony. He was a mere mortal ensnared in a war of fiends, utterly out of his depth.

As he groped for stability, attempting to stand amidst the chaos, a sudden coldness pressed against his throat. The man froze, reality slicing through his disorientation. He was not alone.

Out of the shadows emerged a woman, whose presence embodied danger itself. Her fierce yellow eyes shone like polished amber, capturing his gaze as she approached.

"Abomination," she snarled, shoving the man backward and causing him to stumble into a chitinous bulkhead protruding from the ship's deck.

"This is your end," The alien woman leaned in as she spoke, her words as cold and unyielding as the sword pressed against his throat.

"Please, mercy..." his plea emerged as a ragged whisper, his voice betraying the tremor of a man staring into the abyss.

"Killing you is mercy," she replied, her tone devoid of compassion. With fluid grace, she drew the sword back, its edge glinting with a sinister promise.

The man’s heart hammered against his ribcage, each beat a drumroll to his imminent end. As the blade arced through the air, a silent prayer escaped his lips, as he braced for death.

But the sword's descent halted, quivering inches from his neck as an unseen force gripped their minds. An excruciating pain erupted within their skulls, a psychic maelstrom that wrenched forth a deluge of memories not fully their own.

Amidst the tempest of his fragmented recollections, another life surged into his consciousness. He witnessed the woman’s relentless training, the brutal elegance of her combat, and felt her unyielding resolve as if he wore it on his sleeve. The woman before him was a mighty Githyanki warrior, her soul ablaze with a fierce devotion to her queen, her blade dancing death across the stars.

She is Lae’zel of Creche K’liir.

The man’s lungs seized, his thoughts awash as his recent memories played back to him in a disjointed loop. Waking on the ship, the ring around his neck, muddled memories - and in their wake, an unsettling void where his identity should reside.

“Tsk’va you are no thrall, Vlaakith blesses me this day” Lae’zel declared. “Together we may yet survive. We must make for the helm…” Her lips moved, but her words seemed to dissolve into the ether as panic gnawed at the man’s insides. Its grip tightened until even the sounds of battle dulled into a distant hum. All that remained was the thunderous pounding of his heart—a solitary drumbeat in the void of his past.

Who am I? The thought echoed through his mind, threatening to unravel the very fabric of his being.

"V'aalance!" Lae’zel shouted, the name cutting through his tumultuous thoughts.

That ring, the engraving — Am I Valance?

“Um, yes…that’s…I’m.” Valance stammered, his eyes wide as he stared at Lae’zel, bewilderment etched across his face.

"Know this istik, I will not hesitate to leave you behind, I have no need for dead weight in a fight." she hissed, her yellow eyes flashing with impatience as she gestured behind her to a group of imps swarming the corpse of a fallen mind flayer, tearing voraciously into its flesh, their small, clawed hands stained with dark, viscous blood. "And there will be a fight," she continued her voice low.

“N-no” Valance stuttered, his eyes darting frantically across the debris-strewn deck, seeking anything that might serve as a weapon. His gaze settled on a jagged shard of chitinous plating, its edges gleaming. The fragment, once part of the ship’s living hull, now jutted out from a splintered section of decking like a crystalline dagger.

With unsteady hands, Valance reached for the makeshift weapon, his fingers curling around the jagged shard.  With a grunt of effort, he wrenched it free, the sudden release nearly sending him stumbling backward. 

"I assure you, I'm not dead weight." His voice belied the quiver in his limbs. "Very much live weight, actually." The humor was a thin veneer over his growing dread; if survival meant utility, he'd had better be fucking useful.

"Then prove your quality," Lae'zel challenged, turning on her heel to advance into the ship’s grotesque interior. “H’taka!”

The corridor before them twisted like the innards of some great beast, and as they pressed forward, imps—devilish creatures no bigger than children yet all teeth and malice—skittered into view. Lae'zel moved with otherworldly fluidity, her sword arcing through the air, severing sinewy wings from spindly bodies.

Beside her, Valance faltered. An imp lunged, its barbed tail whipping dangerously close as he swung his makeshift weapon with unpracticed desperation. He struck, but the blow lacked conviction. Overpowered, he stumbled backward, the imp's gnashing jaws a breath away from his face, but he refused to succumb, shoving the side of his weapon against the creature's mouth, drool splattering across his cheek.

"Get off!" Valance's voice was a half-choked gasp as he jammed his thumb into the imp's eye. It shrieked, beating its wings in a frantic attempt to retreat, but Valance held his ground. Survival instincts, feral and relentless, surged through him, and he found himself atop the writhing fiend, smashing its skull with brutal blows. 

The chitinous shard bit deep into the imp's skull, each impact sending shockwaves up Valance's arm. Dark ichor splattered across his face, its acrid scent mingling with the nauseating stench of fear and adrenaline that clung to his skin. The imp's struggles weakened, its unholy shrieks devolving into guttural gurgles as Valance's makeshift weapon found purchase in its twisted form.

With a final, wet crunch, the imp's skull gave way beneath Valance's frenzied assault. Its body twitched and spasmed, wings beating  franticly before falling still. Valance stumbled backward, panting as he stared at the creature's mangled corpse, a cocktail of revulsion and savage satisfaction churning in his stomach.

Valance turned, his chest still heaving from the exertion, just in time to witness another imp, its wings beating furiously, as it flanked Lae’zel from behind. With a roar that surprised even himself, Valance lunged forward into the creature. The imp snarled vile spittle flew from its twisted maw as Valance's arm snaked around its neck. The creature bucked and clawed at him, desperate talons seeking flesh. But Valance, fueled by necessity's cruel fire, wrenched with all his might until a sickening snap silenced the imp's vile chittering.

Lae’zel, now freed from the onslaught of the flanking imp, swung her silver sword in a brutal ballet, slicing the last of the hellish creatures in two, leaving nothing but carnage in her wake. She pivoted to face him, her gaze appraising. Blood spattered her green skin, lending a wild glint to her yellow eyes. "Impressive," she admitted, wiping ichor from her blade. "You cling to life with tenacity."

"Thanks…I think" he breathed in response. 

"Come, we cannot linger." Lae'zel snapped, ignoring him as she made her way quickly towards a ravaged section of the ship, where sinewy strands dangled beside twisted metal supports. "The helm awaits us one level higher."

Valance's gaze followed Lae'zel's outstretched arm, his eyes widening as he took in the daunting ascent before them. The ship’s ruptured innards stretched upward in a nightmarish obstacle course of organic and inorganic matter. Tendrils of neural tissue hung like macabre vines, swaying gently in an unfelt breeze, their tips occasionally sparking with residual energy.

“Of fucking course it is.” Valance groaned before taking off after her up the fleshy ladder.

The climb was torturous. Valance's limbs shook as he clambered over the grotesque landscape, his breaths labored within the stifling air. Each movement was a battle against the exhaustion that threatened to drag him to the deck below. 

"Keep moving," he whispered to himself, each word a mantra against surrender. With Lae'zel ahead, her lithe form navigating the ascent with grim determination, Valance found the will to follow.

At last, they crested the summit of their hellish climb. Chest heaving, Valance looked to Lae'zel, who stood resolute amidst the chaos. They had reached the next level, a small victory, yet the weight of their task remained undiminished.

Valance trailed Lae'zel through the dimly lit corridors of the ship, their boots squelching on the slick, organic floor. The walls throbbed with a life of their own, pulpy veins coursing beneath translucent membranes. A sense of foreboding hung heavy in the air, wrapping around him like a suffocating shroud.

At the end of their path was another grotesque barrier, a circular door that pulsed rhythmically, as if it were breathing. Its surface glistened with a mucilaginous sheen, and Valance fought the urge to retch as the stench of it filled his nostrils.

"Stand back," Lae'zel commanded, her voice a hardened edge of authority. With an expert slash, she carved into the quivering mass, and a viscous fluid oozed forth, the door peeling open with a wet, sucking sound.

"Close now," she said, stepping through without hesitation, her form disappearing into the shadow beyond.

Valance lingered on the threshold, his insides churning, his hand gripping the make-shift hilt of his weapon as he steeled himself to follow.