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In Blurg’s defence, he blamed his actions that day on the sleep deprivation he had been experiencing at the time. If he’d known that he would be meeting what would become his best friend, he might have at least put away his breakfast dishes from the night before or changed out of the tunic he’d been wearing for days. At the very least he wouldn’t have yelled.
This was a decade or so back. He had been staying in Neverwinter at the time; he and a couple of other researchers had rented a small abode on the outskirts of the city, just for a few months before they headed back into the Underdark. It was a nice house, quiet enough in contrast to the city proper that they weren’t bothered by anyone, and he’d always enjoyed the gardens there. For someone with an interest in botany and alchemy it made it easy to obtain almost any supplies that he needed.
If he recalled correctly, he had been studying a fungus sample that a travelling merchant had brought back from Waterdeep. It had caught his eye even amongst the bustling marketplace and he had negotiated back and forth until they agreed to part with the specimen for a tidy sum of gold, bringing the mushroom back to his room with unmatched glee. He had subsequently been so caught up in the excitement of a new research project that he had forgone sleep for several days, single-mindedly noting down observations and conducting experiments. He was not alone: Skriss had been working downstairs, only stopping by occasionally to chat between long stretches of solitude. Y was in the Underdark at the time, and… would this have been before he met Sloopidoop? It was hard to remember. Things changed so quickly in that time, in the years before they formed the Society.
Point being, neither of them were strangers to the recluse scholar lifestyle. In fact it suited them well. Being in public as a hobgoblin or a troglodyte tended to attract looks, and not the friendly kind, and so they avoided interacting with the general populace wherever possible. In all honesty they rarely left the house in those days, only venturing out when it became necessary to restock the cupboards with food lest they both wither away entirely. A simple disguise spell was useful in those cases. Blurg personally had never gotten used to the diurnal schedule of the surface, so he often just worked until he was tired and slept until he was rested, never mind the goings-on of the world outside.
And so it was in the early hours before dawn that he found himself squinting as he carefully spread a sample of blue-grey fungus onto a thin plate of glass, his dexterity limited by the shuttered windows which blocked out all light except the dim flicker of his lamp. It was delicate work and he was scarcely daring to breathe lest he damage the delicate mycelium. He just about had it and was reaching for the book beside him when without warning he knew he was not alone. This was an indescribable feeling, instinctual, like a shift in the balance of gravity. A sudden presence pushed at the corners of his awareness and the hairs on the back of his neck prickled as a voice spoke directly into his mind, calm and unhurried. ‘Blurg, is it?’
Once again, he would blame his reaction on the particular sort of temperament caused by intense focus and very little sleep. It certainly wasn’t becoming of him now, and he looked back on it with more than a little embarrassment, even though Omeluum itself seemed to hold only fond amusement for the event. But they were not the same people then as they were now, in the same way that a sprout holds only passing resemblance to the tree it will one day become, and so the Blurg of back then promptly scrambled out of his chair and flung the book he had been holding – Forgotten Toxicology: A treatise on the alchemical properties of poisonous fungi native to the Underdark, Second Edition, a very interesting read that he still had on a shelf somewhere in Baldur’s Gate years later – directly at the intruding presence with a yell.
It was a good throw. His tribe would surely celebrate to know that he still had at least some of his hobgoblin instincts left, despite his disinclination towards violence and preference for quills and parchment over blades and shields. If he was ever allowed back to visit. Unfortunately, he could not revel in that victory for long as his momentum carried him onward. He stumbled, tripping over the hem of his nightclothes and barely managing to catch himself against the dresser to regain his footing. An unlit candle toppled onto its side, and he righted it with a yelp and a curse.
Whirling to face whatever had startled him, he froze. Indignation vanished and he felt his breath catch in astonishment at the sight of what was unmistakably a mind flayer. It was tall and clad in commoner’s clothes, tentacles spilling out from the hood of its cloak and down the front, its feet hovering a few inches above the unswept floorboards. Its eyes were wide, the only sign that it had been affected by his sudden outburst. That, and the way that the book Blurg had thrown at it now hung suspended in mid-air only inches from its head. Caught in telekinetic stasis by its gaze, as if its momentum had been slowed to a crawl in the space between instants.
As he held his breath the creature slowly shifted. A hand emerged from its robes – long and thin, strangely graceful in its movements – to pluck the book out of the air and examine it. In the darkened room its yellow eyes seemed to glow with intent. That gaze then turned to the hobgoblin, and he froze again, barely recognising that he had begun to move towards it on pure instinct.
Whatever Blurg expected it to say next, he was mistaken.
‘I apologise for startling you. Skriss suggested that I might introduce myself once I had set down my things, as she indicated you were awake.’
For a moment, he tensed again at the unfamiliar feeling of the mind-voice echoing within his skull, yet the unease faded quickly. The illithid’s tone was… calming. Placid like water trickling down over smooth rocks, and surprisingly unbothered for having just had a book thrown at its head. He found himself not as unsettled by it as he perhaps should have been – or perhaps that was due to the intelligence in those eyes, piercing and bright.
Its words caught up with him a moment later.
“Skriss— of course!” He felt his face flush with shame. It was only then he belatedly recalled that the troglodyte had mentioned meeting an Underdark scholar who seemed of the same mind as them, well suited to the strange hodgepodge of a group that had been steadily forming over the past decade (the group that, several years after this regrettable incident, would come together to form The Society of Brilliance). He’d been so lost in his work that he had completely forgotten about it. Though, she could have told him their new guest was a mind flayer, at least to avoid him making a fool of himself.
Actually. Thinking back on it, Skriss might have done that on purpose to embarrass him.
It was not as though he had never met a mind flayer before, either, though his encounters with Grazilaxx up until that point had been brief and rather stilted. He knew that while extremely uncommon, it was possible for one to slip through the clutches of the Elder Brains and operate under their own free will.
Clearing his throat, he wiped his palms on the front of his clothes and offered out a hand. “Forgive me, I was caught up in my own research and did not expect… well, regardless, welcome. I am Blurg.”
The illithid studied him for a few moments, unblinking. It did not take his hand. Its tendrils drifted gently through the air as if unhampered by gravity, and upon closer inspection its robes seemed to be moving faintly under the same power. It lent it a dignified quality, Blurg noted, when compared to the room around it. Then its voice sounded in his mind once more. ‘I am Omeluum.’
“Omeluum. A pleasure to meet you.” There was a beat of silence. He gestured towards the book, still held in the mind flayer’s grasp. “I didn’t hurt you, did I? Sorry about that, really, we don’t get many visitors here.”
Omeluum shifted its attention back to the book with a slight turn of its head, as if only just remembering it was there. ‘Not at all. I stopped it before it could make contact.’
Blurg let himself breathe out some of the tension he was holding. At the very least he hadn’t injured their guest. Perhaps its impression of him was still salvageable. “I’m glad to hear it, friend.”
With a slight wave of its free hand Omeluum opened the tome to the page Blurg had marked. It seemed to scan through the text for a moment before closing it again and examining the cover. ‘This is an interesting volume. Are you studying mycelium, then?’
Despite his lingering embarrassment, he brightened at the prospect of talking about his research. “Indeed! I received a very interesting specimen off a trader who came passing through a little under a tenday ago. It is similar in appearance to species native to the Underdark, but it was found growing out of a wall in plain daylight, over in Waterdeep of all places. I’d like to get a new perspective on it, actually— here, let me show you.”
The mind flayer inclined its head slightly and drifted over to him. It offered the book out, which Blurg took with thanks and tucked it away back on his desk, before gesturing towards the potted ceramic bowl which held the specimen. It was a cluster of mushrooms with wide, circular caps which glistened in the lamplight, a thin sheen of liquid covering them. They were a deep blue in colouration, and overlapping in such a way that they cast shadow over the thin stems beneath. A few smaller caps had been cut away to take samples of the flesh, and were laid out neatly across his workspace alongside several collected vials of yellowish fluid. It was these he indicated as he spoke.
“It seems to be able to protect itself from the sunlight by means of a fluid coating it produces from pores in the surface of its caps. I theorise that if I could find the source of this resistance and replicate it, it might be useful as a salve for the more sunlight-averse peoples of the surface.”
‘That would certainly be of use to a large population.’ The mind flayer’s tendrils rippled slightly as it spoke. Blurg found his eyes drawn towards them. He wondered briefly how much musculature was within a limb like that, whether they were controlled individually in much the same way as arms or if they operated as an automatic function of the body, like breathing. He bit back the questions he wanted to ask, not wanting to discomfort it with his curiosity, and simply nodded in response.
“Absolutely. Only… my research has hit a bit of a dead end.” He sighed. “It’s fascinating, really— I cannot find any record of this fungus having been observed on the surface before, and my attempts to propagate it by mimicking the conditions described to me by the trader have resulted in a separate variation with a coating that lacks the defensive property.” Without looking he gestured behind himself to the far corner of the room, where several pots and bowls held sprouting mushrooms. Omeluum’s gaze followed his arm. “That is why I am working in these dim conditions, anything brighter than this lamp and the unprotected fungus starts to shrivel up almost immediately.”
Omeluum blinked. It turned back to the specimen on the desk, lifting one of the samples into the air with a wave of its hand. It held it there and studied it closely, as if contemplating it. ‘Perhaps there is something you are missing. What other plants were growing in the area in which you found these?’
“Nothing out of the ordinary, apparently. Grass and shrubbery. Though that’s second hand from the trader who I bought it from, and they admitted they hadn’t paid much attention. I’d like to get out there myself to take a look, but it is a long trek and I’m hesitant to pack up for a trip in the middle of my research.”
‘Has it continued to produce this coating even after being transported here?’
“Yes, but something seems to be hampering its effectiveness.” He dragged over the notebook where he had been recording his observations of the plant, flipping back a couple of pages to a small table of dates. “I took a sample of the coating when I first obtained the fungus, and successfully used it to prevent a patch of glowcaps from withering in the sunlight. The specimen produced more of that same fluid within only a few hours so I tested it again, and it again showed no ill effects under sunlight. Since then, I have taken samples at dawn and dusk each day, and recorded my observations here.” He tapped his finger against the next page, and Omeluum drifted over to it as he continued to speak. “Two days ago, I noticed that the fluid’s colour was beginning to change– you can see the difference when you compare the lower caps, here, to the one I have been taking the samples from. It’s notably more translucent now.”
It was as if the mushroom was taunting him. He was so close to a discovery, he knew it, but now the remarkable properties that had drawn him in were slipping away. “When I held it to the light this morning, that particular cap began to wilt within a matter of minutes. The others weren’t far behind. Something is clearly causing it to lose its protective quality – whether the soil here lacks the nutrients it needs, or the temperature is wrong, I haven’t figured it out yet.”
The mind flayer blinked, slowly, and Blurg thought he heard it hum faintly in the back of his mind. It reached out, gesturing towards the mushroom with one hand. ‘What if it is not that the environment here is lacking, but instead that it is returning to a baseline state?’
“What do you mean?” He looked up at Omeluum, who folded its hands together and turned its gaze back to him.
‘I propose that the substance you first observed was not its natural coating, but instead had been altered by outside influence. If it subsumed something from the soil around it in Waterdeep which affected its mucus production…’
Blurg’s eyes widened as he continued the line of thought. He turned his gaze back to the mushroom. “Then it would take time for that substance to be fully excreted as part of the natural coating. A few days or a week wouldn’t be unthinkable, depending on how frequently it needed to produce more and how much it originally absorbed.”
‘Hence it only beginning to wear off now, after you removed samples and prompted it to use the remaining stores of the catalyst to replace them.’
“Yes...” He trailed off, resigned acceptance slumping his shoulders and his ears. Suddenly the exhaustion of the past tenday was catching up to him. “Which would mean it is not a property of the mushroom at all, but instead simply a temporary effect. A fluke, to put it in simple terms.”
Omeluum was quiet for a moment, watching him. Then it turned away, examining the array of alchemical equipment which lined the shelves in the small room. ‘Not necessarily. A fungus which is capable of consuming outside catalysts and exuding them in liquid form without harm to itself is in itself an interesting discovery. If it is possible to reproduce the effect and identify what causes it, I imagine it could be utilised in alchemical practice.’
He considered the idea, drumming his fingertips against the tabletop. It wasn’t what he had originally planned, but already the ideas were jumping out to him as he thought it over. “Perhaps it could provide a new method of dissolving alchemical components into a fluid suspension… we could put together an array of catalysts and document the outcome of each when absorbed by the fungus.” Depending on how well it worked, he could see it having many potential uses, particularly with chemicals that would not bond with other substances without processing or which needed to be heavily diluted for proper effect but would not dissolve in water. “Simple tinctures would be best to start with, they can soak into the mycelium for controlled absorption and we can measure the concentration of the output – yes, that is perfect!” He smacked his hands together, twisting in his chair to face the mind flayer, who had also turned back to him. “You are brilliant, Omeluum.”
It shifted backward ever so slightly, tentacles swaying outward and then in. Then it blinked. ‘Thank you. It is evident you have the mind of a scholar yourself. Skriss did not misguide me, I believe my time here will be worthwhile.’
Blurg felt his ears warm. He ducked his head to examine his notebook again before closing it. “You are too kind. There are quite a few of us now, you know. Skriss, myself, Grazilaxx – have you met Grazilaxx?” He looked back up at it, curious.
‘I have not, though I find myself interested in doing so. I have not met another mind flayer such as myself. It would be… useful to discuss their experiences being separated from the colony.’
As it spoke, Blurg noted that its tentacles moved a little more vibrantly than before. Was it an expression of excitement, perhaps? It was hard to tell. It did not seem to exhibit any strong emotion on its face, if it was indeed capable of doing so – he would admit that he had assumed mind flayers did not feel emotion in the same way other races did, a regrettable oversight when he compared it to his own goals. After all, did he not stand against such assumptions of nature when it came to Skriss, or himself, or derro such as Y?
It was an odd feeling, to be abruptly faced with one’s own hypocrisies. Moreso with very little sleep. He shelved that particular conundrum for later.
“I am certain you will meet them before long, along with the rest of our… well, we don’t quite have a name for it yet. Group of waylaid Underdark scholars, mostly. I’m sure Skriss could provide more colourful terms. We’re an eclectic bunch, but to tell you the truth, it feels to me as though we’re on our way to creating something important.”
It was something he’d spent a lot of time thinking about as of late. Not that that was unusual: he did a lot of thinking, perhaps too much as he had often been told growing up. Yet an amount of reflection felt warranted here.
Illithids, kuo-toa, derro, hobgoblins, all working together. A motley group of researchers and academics, each incredibly different in both perspective and focus but united by the shared experience of hailing from the Underdark. It sounded unlikely to his own ears, almost like the beginning of a poor joke… and yet, here they were, and though they had yet to all discuss it he had the feeling that the others felt the same. These were perspectives that had never before had the chance to shine in a scholarly setting. By pooling their knowledge and resources, their collaboration could bring attention to their home and the people within it in a way that they never could individually. “I know we are,” he concluded. “After all, with so many bright minds collected into one place, who knows what we could accomplish!”
He only realised that he had gotten louder in his excitement, flashing his teeth in a grin, when he saw Omeluum’s eyes squint slightly. Was there a tone of amusement to its voice when it replied, or was that his imagination? ‘I gather that you have an objective in mind.’
He scratched at the back of his neck, bringing his volume back down. “I suppose I do have one- a personal goal, of sorts. We still know very little about the Underdark. Much of the danger of traversing it comes from the unknown, and well, I don’t suppose you would be surprised to hear that I have always had a particular interest in mushroom cultivation.” He gestured between the samples strewn across his desk, to the mushrooms held in pots on the shelves of his bookcase alongside alchemical equipment and numerous texts on the subject. “I want to develop the first comprehensive study of plant and mycelial life within the upper and lower Dark, and compile the knowledge to help all those travelling and living within it.”
Another mental hum. ‘A noble goal. I presume you will be returning to the Underdark in order to pursue it?’
“Yes. In truth, I have only been in Neverwinter this long because I stumbled upon this fungus and could not abandon it. Once I have fully studied the absorption process and catalogued its response to different catalysts, as you so intelligently suggested, I will be glad to return below and continue my work.” For all the benefits of the surface – easy access to supplies, communication with other scholars, a warm bed – he had missed the adventure of fieldwork and the bioluminescent glow above his head. “What about you, do you have a field of study? For you to have reached out to Skriss, you must have an intention in mind. I cannot imagine it was easy to make it here.”
Omeluum was silent for a moment. Two of its tendrils had wrapped around each other as he spoke, and Blurg noted that it seemed to have drawn back into itself very slightly. Perhaps he should not have pried. It seemed a private creature, and he had no desire to make it uncomfortable. He was about to vocalise this, that Omeluum had no need to share if it did not wish to, when it spoke again. ‘I have my own independent studies as well. Yet I suppose… the simplest method of explaining it is that I wish to improve the lives of people, particularly illithids like myself who desire freedom.’
It met Blurg’s gaze steadily, and he knew right then that Skriss had made the right decision inviting Omeluum to join them. Already he felt a sense of… approbation and camaraderie for the other, a quiet respect for the sharpness and confidence in those eyes. “Well, if you require any assistance with your studies, let me know. I am always eager to expand my knowledge even if it may be outside my particular area of expertise.”
‘I would also be interested in assisting with your research. Both in relation to this specimen, and your wider work, if you would accept aid. I am willing to compare notes, perhaps I have encountered species that you have not yet seen.’
Excitement piqued, Blurg stood a little straighter. That was an offer he could not resist. “I would greatly enjoy that. We can begin immediately, if you wish to.” He glanced down at his own clothes, pausing. He had originally been intending to go to bed hours earlier, before he’d become caught up in work again, and it was with some embarrassment that he became aware he’d conducted that entire conversation while wearing only a tunic and loose sleeping trousers. “Actually, perhaps if you would let me change, first. I realise that I am not exactly dressed for company.”
Before he could move to do so, Omeluum lifted a hand to stop him. ‘It has been a long journey, and I would like to set down my things and spend some time reflecting. I gather that it has been time since you have slept as well. Take the morning to rest and we can convene later.’
Reluctantly he had to admit there was wisdom in that. Though part of him was eager to pick the other’s brain, for lack of a better term, as soon as possible, he could feel the sluggishness in his own movements and was certain the other must be similarly exhausted after its long trip. There would be time once they woke, surely. “Of course, I forgot that you had only just arrived. I will see you later,” he conceded, reaching to put away the notebook and following behind Omeluum as it drifted to the door. He briefly considered staying up to continue his examination of the samples, but with the new perspective Omeluum had granted him on the project he would need time to plan the next steps. If he continued it now, he likely would not sleep all day, and then he would miss the chance to discuss its findings.
‘Rest well, Blurg.’ It blinked as it looked at him, meeting his gaze for a moment before leaving. He closed the door with a sense of contentment buzzing in the back of his mind.
With that he was alone in his room once again. Blurg cast one glance at his workspace before moving to dim the lamp, casting the room into warm shadow. He had the distinct sense that this would be the start of a fruitful partnership.