As we moved through the Nautiloid’s winding corridors, the grotesque walls continued to pulsate and glisten, an eerie reminder that we were inside something living, something alien. Karlach walked beside me, her every motion confident and purposeful, despite the oppressive strangeness surrounding us. I couldn’t help but marvel at how effortlessly we communicated.

How was this possible?

The initial memory dump had left me with an absurd arsenal of languages—over a dozen tongues from Tamriel alone, including the guttural hissing of Argonian, the lilting syllables of Khajiit, and all manner of Mer dialects. On top of that, several variations of Daedric and Aedric were now second nature to me, and I could even decipher the ancient, twisting runes of the Dov with perfect clarity. Yet, none of these bore any resemblance to Faerûn’s “Common” tongue. And it was certainly not English.

Yet, here I was, understanding every word Karlach spoke as if I had been speaking it my whole life. The realization gnawed at me. Was it some sort of magic? An inherent gift from the parasite in my skull? A trait imbued by my passage into this reality? It was a question that would need answering, but not here, not now. Not while we were quite literally in Hell. I pushed the thought aside for later investigation.

Instead, I turned my attention to something more immediately relevant—Karlach’s equipment.

“Do we have time to enhance your gear?” I mused aloud, though part of me already knew the answer.

She shot me a skeptical glance. “You offering me a makeover, Soldier?”

I smirked. “Something like that.”

But as quickly as the thought had come, I dismissed it. There were too many unknowns. Unlike in the game, time was not an abstract resource to be ignored at my whim—this ship could crash at any moment, and we had no idea how much time remained. We could hardly afford to stop for a full gear swap while the threat of catastrophic mission failure loomed overhead.

More than that, I still didn’t fully understand how my best weapons translated to this world. Many of the blades in my inventory were beyond absurd—damage numbers so high they were effectively meaningless, likely capable of splitting atoms if the physics of this place followed my old world’s logic. Some, if I was being entirely honest, might be capable of cutting space itself. Handing out weapons of that caliber willy-nilly, before I had a firm grasp of their effects in this world, was reckless at best and suicidal at worst.

Still, there was a middle ground to explore. I had perfectly good base-game Skyrim weapons, relics that would have been considered formidable but not necessarily world-breaking. A perfect candidate stood out in my mind—the Drainblood Battleaxe.

A weapon of spectral nature, it had an ethereal quality that set it apart from mundane steel. In Skyrim, it had been found deep in Labyrinthian, wielded by long-dead Draugr warriors—remnants of an age long past. The axe itself was ghostly, translucent, its edges wreathed in a faint blue glow that pulsed in rhythm with an unseen, ancient force. Its wickedly curved blade was slightly longer than a standard war axe, tapering into a vicious hook that gleamed with the essence of the souls it had stolen. Even as I pictured it, my mind touched upon it within my inventory -- I could feel its cold power— while not quite alive, this was a weapon that fed, draining the life force of its victims and using it to sustain its wielder.

Perhaps Karlach might like it?

“Hey Karlach, let’s slow down a second,” I said, stopping in my tracks.

She turned, brow raised in mild amusement. “What, tired already? And here, I assumed you had better stamina!”

I chuckled. “Not quite. Just thought you might want to try out a new battleaxe.”

Well, that got her attention. She tilted her head, smirking. “You say the nicest things, you know that?” She gestured vaguely. “Not that I’d say no, but, unless I’ve gone blind after whatever the Mind Flayers did to me, we’re both walking around empty-handed. Where exactly are you gonna pull an axe from?”

I smirked.

And then, with a mere thought, the Drainblood Battleaxe materialized in my hand.

Karlach’s eyes widened as she took an involuntary step back. “What the—?!”

The weapon shimmered, its translucent blade catching the dim bioluminescent light of the Nautiloid’s grotesque halls. The faint purple-indigo glow pulsed hypnotically, as if the weapon itself was breathing. Tendrils of ethereal mist curled off its surface, dissipating into the air as I casually spun it with a practiced ease before tossing it to her.

She caught it midair, though her grip faltered slightly under the unexpected weight -- or, rather, lack thereof. As she steadied herself, she took a few experimental swings. The blade cut through the air with a whispering hum, trailing ghostly afterimages in its wake.

“Damn,” she muttered, turning it over in her hands. “This thing feels alive.”

“Well, you're half right.” I folded my arms, watching as she adjusted to the weapon. “It steals the life force of anything you cut with it. Keeps you on your feet longer.”

Karlach’s expression shifted into something resembling childlike wonder. She swung again, harder this time, and the air itself seemed to bend around the blade.

“Oh,” she grinned. “I like this.”

As we continued forward, the Nautiloid's corridors stretched in an ever-twisting maze of unnatural geometry, where walls and floors seemed to shift subtly, the very architecture of the ship pulsing and rearranging itself as if alive. Organic filaments lined the passageways, throbbing softly with a sickly purple luminescence, giving the impression that we were walking through the veins of some colossal, otherworldly entity. The air was thick, damp, filled with the acrid scent of alien mucus and something metallic—perhaps blood, perhaps something far worse.

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We passed dark alcoves where fleshy pods like the ones we had emerged from lined the walls, some cracked open and emptied, their previous occupants nowhere to be seen, others still sealed with dimly glowing veins of psionic energy coursing through them. I could see faint, twisted shadows of figures trapped inside, their distorted faces frozen in a silent agony, their consciousness hanging by a thread under the Mind Flayers' dominion. These people were too far along in their Mind Flayer transformations and -- perhaps I was being selfish -- but I had no desire to experiment in seeing whether I could help them with our current time crunch.

Occasionally, all manner of curiosities littered the space between—Illithid tablets etched with cryptic, pulsating glyphs, which -- at least in the game -- transmitted knowledge directly into the reader's mind. I also saw occasional strange mechanical devices fused with organic matter, their true function unknowable at a glance. Rather than step forward to investigate every time such an object drew my attention, I simply lifted a hand and willed them toward me. The familiar pulse of Telekinesis surged through my mind, and the items lifted from their resting places, hovering for a moment before gliding smoothly into my outstretched palm -- where, with a simple thought, they promptly disappeared into my arbitrarily large inventory.

Ever curious, Karlach's sharp eyes followed the process with wonder, but she remained silent, her only reaction a slight widening of her gaze, and her lips curving in quiet amusement. She could tell this was something beyond ordinary magic, even around these parts, but she seemed content to let me explain it in my own time.

One by one, I collected anything that seemed remotely useful, the small thrill of acquisition tingling the awakening Gamer instincts in the back of my mind. As a true hoarder, kleptomaniac (ahem...completionist), and undisputed leader of the Skyrim Thieves Guild, I would definitely grab anything not nailed down... and, for that matter, probably a few things that were.

At last, we reached the open air—or what passed for it in the hellscape of Avernus. The burning sky stretched overhead, painted in sickly hues of ember and ash, the heavy scent of brimstone clinging to every breath. The deck of the Nautiloid was a battlefield, littered with corpses both alien and humanoid, viscera steaming in the oppressive heat.

And then, as expected, she appeared.

Lae'zel.

Her form was rigid with discipline, every movement calculated as she strode toward me, silver greatsword in hand, her eyes burning with zealotry. "Abomination—this is your end."

Karlach stiffened beside me, the battleaxe still humming with spectral energy in her grip, ready to lunge to my defense. But I lifted a hand, halting her. My gaze shifted back to Lae'zel, and the emotions I felt were... not fear. Not caution. But exasperation.

Her stance was all wrong; her weight poorly distributed. This was... insulting!

I sighed, resisting the urge to rub my temple. "Your stance is much too rigid, and you place way too much weight on your right leg. All your enemy has to do is enter your guard and—"

With an enraged snarl, she swung.

Predictable.

I moved smoothly, almost lazily. With a flick of my wrist, I brushed the flat of her blade aside and glided into her guard. My foot hooked her overburdened right leg, sweeping her balance, while my palm delivered an exceedingly gentle tap against her breastplate.

She fell, but before she could hit the deck, I caught her by the forearm—the one gripping the sword, of course—keeping her from collapsing completely while simultaneously ensuring she had no leverage to counterattack. All of this had taken, perhaps, a second, something that felt agonizingly slow to me, but then, I was very careful in holding back to avoid injuring the poor girl.

For the briefest of moments, I considered just how absurd my skillset had become. What was once dictated by game mechanics and dice rolls now flowed through me by instinct, more natural than even breathing. This was no mere combat training, but something on another level entirely.

Lae'zel's eyes widened in stunned disbelief. But before she could react further—before she could even fully comprehend what had just happened—our parasites connected, forcing an unbidden link between our minds.

In that suspended heartbeat between action and reaction, our parasites intertwined, forging an unbidden psychic bridge between our minds. The world around us—the burning skies of Avernus, the cacophony of battle—faded into a muted backdrop as our consciousnesses collided.

Lae'zel's thoughts surged into me, a torrent of raw emotion and fragmented memories. I glimpsed the austere corridors of a githyanki creche, where she had been molded into a consummate warrior, her every step shadowed by the relentless expectations of her kin. Her life had been a crucible of discipline and combat, each victory a testament to her unyielding will, each failure a scar etched deep into her psyche.

I felt her visceral fear and revulsion toward the mind flayers, the monsters she had been trained to despise and destroy. The irony of her current predicament—a potential transformation into the very abomination she loathed—gnawed at her core, fueling a desperate need to prove herself, to reclaim her honor. This mission was not just a matter of survival; it was a crucible to reaffirm her identity and worthiness among her people.

Through her eyes, I saw myself not as an ally but as an enigma, a potential threat. Her initial aggression stemmed from a place of deep-seated mistrust, a defense mechanism honed by years of navigating the treacherous hierarchies of githyanki society. Yet, beneath that hardened exterior, there was a flicker of uncertainty, a questioning of the rigid doctrines she had been fed since birth.

As our minds melded, I reached out, trying to convey a sense of trust, a reassurance that we were allies, not adversaries. Yet, I failed to take into account an important detail: all Gith had a measure of psychic ability -- and, unfortunately for Lae'zel, this time, her increased sensitivity did not prove to be a benefit. The connection did not remain narrow as was the case with Karlach. The moment it widened, Lae'zel, for lack of a better term, began falling into me—her consciousness a mere raindrop getting lost in the vast, endless ocean of my own.

I felt her struggle -- not physically, of course, but mentally -- as she clawed for purchase against the overwhelming tide of my being. Her psionic training, formidable by mortal standards, was nothing compared to the sheer weight of presence and power that now defined me. Completely unbidden, echoes of a thousand battles surged forth—fire and frost, claw and wing, the deafening roar of dragons, the thrill of felling beasts whose very names had been lost to time. The reverberations of an eternity’s worth of skills swelled up from the depths of my mind... it was all a maelstrom of power and memory she could not hope to withstand. Lae'zel's mind reeled within mine, caught between defiance and awe, her thoughts -- and very sense of self -- threatening to scatter like Sakura petals in a storm.

To my great embarrassment, for the briefest of moments, I considered letting her see more anyway—to let her glimpse the full context of the situation we found ourselves in... But no, that would be entirely too much. I cared for her mental well-being just as much as the physical -- probably more so, in fact, as restoring a body was easy enough with magic. Acting with lightning speed, I decisively severed the link, pulling myself back, allowing Lae'zel to regain her footing in her own mind.

She staggered away, breath coming in shallow bursts, her golden eyes locked onto mine in something between shock and—was that a flicker of fear? Or... was that a blush of arousal? The air between us had shifted, irrevocably altered. She knew now, on a level beyond words, that I was neither her enemy nor something she could ever hope to simply strike down. I saw her warring with herself, with the instincts drilled into her since childhood. This was beyond her training, beyond anything she had ever conceived possible. And yet, beneath it all, something deeper lingered. A tension. A question unspoken. The barest hint of fascination laced with apprehension, Lae'zel's warrior’s instincts now tempered with an uncertainty she did not yet know how to name.

I exhaled, adjusting my stance to something deliberately casual. If Lae’zel was reeling from what had just happened, I needed to at least act like everything was normal—hoping she would adopt the same demeanor, at least until we escaped from Hell.

“It’s okay,” I said, keeping my voice calm, measured. “If you want, I’d be happy to give you some pointers on fighting later. But for now, you’ve been infected by the Mind Flayers just like us. You’re more than welcome to come with us to the Helm of this ship and tag along back to the Material Plane.”

I glanced toward Karlach. “By the way, this is Karlach.”

Karlach gave a lopsided grin and lifted the spectral axe in greeting. “Hey there, muscly. Gotta say, you put on one hell of a show just now.”

Lae’zel remained still, processing everything. I had no doubt she would have a lot to say later, but for now, she simply nodded stiffly. The air between us remained charged with something undefined, but at least she wasn’t trying to kill me anymore.

That was a start.