Location: Underdark, The Maker's Island, The Maker's Lair Date: ??? Who: Mollin, Inniswell Inniswell remembered. It was all he could do. He was less than a ghost, trapped solely within the mind of the drow known as Mollin. Held prisoner within the blank mindscape, Inniswell tried to scream but had no voice. HE had nothing at all, no senses or sensations with which to even track the movement of time. For all Inniswell knew, this torment could last for eternity. Though he had longed for freedom, his escape from hell had only damned him so long as he was trapped in this drow's body. There would be brief flashes of time when he could make himself heard to the drow, to argue with him early on, but they were few and far between. He was too weak to take over the drow's body, and when not speaking he would instead be forced back into the void at the back of his consciousness. and so he remembered. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Inniswell remembered back when he was called Young Man Inniswell, to right before he mad ehis last fateful trip. A simple and somewhat renowned scholar with a love of the outdoors, he had known all his life that he had wanted to be an archaeologist. To explore the continent of Xen'Drik, to canvas the ancient ruins of the fallen giants, and To chronicle ancient draconic runes to translate lost languages. Only with the passage of time did Inniswell realize how alone he was in that life. An orphan, he had no relatives or family. What few friendships he had were more on the level of work colleagues, though Inniswell could always pull out an archaeologist based pun at a conference, and until the day of his trip he had never had a serious relationship. Inniswell wondered if he had been lonely then, or if he had simply not noticed it. Regardless, he certainly was quite a big nerd even, although Inniswwell did admire his younger self's rugged appearance and refusal to button the top two buttons of his shirt. Inniswell supposed that it didn't matter in the end. He had never been one for human contact Inniswell's mistake had been on an expedition to explore an ancient and advanced civilization, one which had comparetively little study done upon it, and one which proved a perfect trap. What little knowledge existed indicated that they were in possession of a possibly lost form of magic. Iin truth however, it was a death trap. The adventurers the expedition had hired were slaughtered easily by the security systems and so the expedition followed. Inniswell could not bring himself to watch as his mentor arms were ripped off by some ancient golem, and so he fled. Injured and alone, Inniswell found himself in a shrineroom, and what little remained of Inniswell remained in Mollin's mind shuddered as he remembered the voice that he had heard. Quiet, but constant, It was the type of voice that would linger in the air. Though Inniswell could swear that it never rose louder than barely audible, the impact of it left his ears ringing and disoriented. It burrowed into his mind, and it seemed as though he was being spoken by a mob in his own head. Trapped and doomed to die alone in a temple to forgotten and forsaken gods, Inniswell was made a bargain by the voice. A very simple bargain. It did not ask for his soul or for his flesh, neither treasure nor sacrifice. It asked Inniswell to give it a name. 59 years later, Inniswell woke up in a bed that was not his own, in a house he didn't recognize, and with a fatigue that could not leave him. He was old and tired, and when he looked at himself in the mirror Inniswell did not know the man that he saw. He discovered that he had been the sole survivor of the expedition, had miraculously survived until he was found and rescued by a relief party from the adventurer's guild. He had retreated from the outdoors after that and dedicated himself to academia, obviously the result of his PTSD from the expedition, where he rose to a high position before retirement. Looking throughout his house, Inniswell saw countless paintings of himself with a family, and found that he had taken a wife who he could not remember but who seemed everpresent despite her absence. His crashing through the house awakened someone, and he saw a very young woman who looked like him, but who hurt to stare at. She had his green eyes and blonde hair of his youth, but her smile seemed to wide for her face and the more he stared at her eyes the more he realized that he could not recognize her as human despite himself. When she spoke, Inniswell got almost the same sense of feeling as he did when he had spoken to the mysterious entity, even as she introduced herself as his granddaughter who came to live with him after the death of his wife and subsequent mental illness and memory loss. With her too wide smile, she tried to explain that he was a very sick man who needed to be isolated away from others. That he was a danger to himself and to his community unless he took his medication. And as she spoke, Inniswell realized that he knew this, and that she was right. and that it was silly of him to refuse the medication given to him by his granddaughter, and despite the fact that Inniswell had begun biting his tongue to try and sobbing, Inniswell took the medicine and fell asleep. Inniswell existed in that doubt for months as his granddaughter began to reinforce his doubts, to make him believe that he truly was just a crazy old man. He found that when he went to sleep the house would often be rearranged, and that he could not trust his senses anymore. That he would forget more things than he could remember. Yet, he also found that he could call on strange powers. Concerned over the voices in his head, Inniswell learned he could read the minds of the men that delivered the medicine. That he could communicate with them mentally, and though this ability could not apply to his granddaughter, it gave him hope. It took him several months for him o learn how to give a suggestion , just a simple one on one of his granddaughter's visitors. To take an old man for a walk. When the young man came to, Inniswell was long gone. Inniswell recalled the next few years as a homeless vagabond, learning of his actions and picking up on the mental thoughts of random strangers. He he found that he abused his position to give information and several artifacts to some mysterious Order and that he lived a long life piloted by something else. Yet, before he could investigate further, he broke. His Patron's influence began to eat and eat and eat away at his brain until he was barely coherent. Memories began to mix and flow together. His journey came to an end as he struggled somedays just to remember his own name. Others he would consistently forget that he had not eaten, until his body collapsed. He would act irrational and easily misled by others as his brain damage began to hamper his functions. and then he met the horizon company, and his story came to an end. Yet as his memories began to fade, Inniswell sensed that he could observe other memories, and with all the motivation of a manwith no other soruces of entertainment, he pulled at the thread until he saw the face of the man he was imprisoned in. Mollin. Through their connection, Inniswell realized that he also had access to the drow's memories. Reluctant and hateful towards his warden and murderer, he nevertheless watched his memories, and as he did so, he was surprised to find himself feeling empathy. Working through his memories sequentially, Inniswell found himself reliving Mollin's life from his perspective. EAch and every horrific detail of his upbringing, the internalized racism, sexism, and violence of drow life. Inniswell came to find himself pitying his opponent, and ultimately empathizing for the direction his life had taken and the uneventful end it had come to in his first incarnation. As the times when he could speak to Mollin lessened and lessened, Inniswell began to encourage the drow instead, to provide him some level of comfort and advice when possible. Trapped in this cycle between encouragement and enver ending nostalgia, Inniswell found himself genuineloy warming to Mollin. Even when his allies lambasted him for the deep internal conflict within him, focusing only on his combat ability instead of working to encourage him, Inniswell sought to bolster his spirits. As Mollin and his allies entered the Lich's chamber, Inniswell found himself unsurprised when Mollin once again got knocked unconscious, but then he sensed a new visitor within Mollin's mind. As the lich began to suck away Mollin's souls, Inniswell thought it over. If Mollin was taken, then he would be the sole occupant of the body The body would stay young and fit for centuries if he took care of it. All Inniswell would have to do would be to allow Mollin to die for the last time and he could go on and live the full life he never got a chance to. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- As Mollin's astral eyes looked to the DemiLich looming form and his form began to bleed into the dark energy that threatened to swallow the drow's ghostly form whole, a full hearted laugh resounded through the shared astral space as Inniswell called upon whatever mental powers he still possesed from his warlock bond to substitute himself instead and push Mollin back into his body. He would still need to be revived, but with a cleric and possibly the dumb handsome one it would be very doable. Turning, for as good as turning is in an abstracted ideologue space, Inniswell gives his last piece of advice to Mollin as he says, "Mollin, Live a life worth remembering" before watching the drow go. As he sees Mollin leave, Inniswell feels oddly serene as every part of him is ripped apart and consumed to fuel a powerful Lich's ascension ritual. He had led a nothing existence. In his youth, he had devoted himself to work at the exclusion of everything else, then, he had been the puppet of something he would never come to understand, and he had ended his days as a babbling brain damaged old man who had been taken advantage of by adventurers. he had no family who he felt would mourn him, no friends who had stuck by him, and no connections. All he had were memories. As the last vestige of his soul and mind were entirely erased from existence withouth the possibility of resurrection, Inniswell wondered if Mollin would remember him or if in the haze of his long life he would be forgotten. In his last moment, Inniswell decided he didn't really care as long as Molllin lived. And so Inniswell became nothing more than memory in the end.
