15. Into the Tengkorak

The temple was perhaps the most startling feats of architecture that Hadrian or Albus had ever seen. It was contradictory; perfect to the eye and mind, while simultaneously straining their occlumency in ways they had yet to experience.

It was like looking at one of those muggle optical illusions, the ones that changed depending on the perspective you were viewing it from. Look at it one way and it showed an old man, wrinkles sagging. Look at it from the other side though, and a youthful, exuberant young man peered back.

But if they were being honest, even that was a poor explanation of what the two powerhouse wizards perceived. There was really no way for either of them to describe the temple. It was an oxymoron. Dark but light, deafening but silent, beautiful but hideous. The closest they could get to describing it was ordered madness; like some higher being had distilled the essence of madness into stone and then stacked one on top of the other to form the building before them.

Nothing about the temple made any sense.

The building had seemed to be imposing from a distance, and yet, the closer they got to it the less sense they could make of it. It was not made of any material that they had seen in Svartalfheimr, more akin to concrete than anything else, yet staircases seemed to bend each and every way, there were no laws of gravity, nor of sense, here.

One thing that Hadrian and Albus were sure of was that the laws of existence that governed the building were decided by something that did not think like a human, dwarf, drow or goblin. It was alien. The enemy within would certainly have the home-field advantage. Traps, ambushes, swarms of enemies, all possible risks once they stepped foot inside.

Yet surprisingly, they faced no opposition as they neared the main entrance to the temple.

They drew closer and closer, and it wasn't until they reached the temple gate that their first obstacle appeared. Their halt was not due to powerful wards, or even some powerful foe, but rather because baring their path into the Tengkorak lay something so grotesque, none of them could fathom what they were seeing.

In front of them was a wall. A wall with faces. Sixteen faces to be precise. Four Rath'gars, four Lilómëas, four Albuses, and four Hadrians.

Hadrian's eyebrows arched, and it was only after a moment passed before he mastered himself; this was clearly the doorway, but as far as he could see there was no clue provided on how to get it open.

After a moment's thought, Hadrian threw his arms wide, casting a sigil of true sight. The ring showing him and him alone the laws and nature of what lay in front of him.

'It is a test,' Hadrian said drolly through their group's magical connection.

One of the Hadrian's on the wall twitched. Hadrian focused on its face, though there was no change.

'Surely you jest,' Rath'gar replied back, sarcasm oozing from his words. This time one of Rath'gar's faces twitched.

'What did you do?' Hadrian asked urgently? 'Do it again!' Two twitches this time, a look of concentration.

'I don't know,' Rath'gar replied. The faces twitched again, confusion.

'It seems to be something related to our communication,' Albus mused. His faces twitching in response to the shared thought, taking on a pensive look.

From her place an arms-length back from Hadrian, Taurelilómëa frowned, her hand outstretched at the door as she tried to ascertain something for herself.

'It is telepathic magic. It is a test... a test that only an ulitharid level psychic could normally pass,' There was a tinge of frustration in her voice, an emotion mirrored by the four faces on the gate, each frowning in synch. Her own eyes widened as whatever magic she was using to discover what the magic behind the faces wanted was revealed. 'The only way for the gate to work, is for one ulitharid to dominate the other 12 faces, and make them like their own, through psychic powers, sadly, this is impossible for all but a truely old Ulitharid.'

A moment of silence fell over the group as they digested the knowledge.

It was Hadrian that broke the comtemplative silence, his voice ringing in their minds. 'I suspect the assumption would be that this would be a struggle for dominance, and none of the illithid would dream of simply cooperating. Luckily, we have no such qualms,' Hadrian turned to look at Albus expectantly. 'Well, what are you waiting for?'

As if mocking the group, a silly look flitted across Hadrian's four stone faces.

Albus, for his part, showed little cheer at the prospect of using legilimency against his friends and companions. A show of power and dominance may be needed to satisfy the gate, but he would take no pleasure from the act.

'You have to dominate our minds don't you?' Hadrian asked Albus through their own connection. Psychic domination was nothing to laugh at. The older man just nodded once.

Hadrian relayed this to their two companions, to which Taurelilómëa and Rath'gar looked at each other and nodded. They would allow it if it let them into the Tengkorak to successfully complete their mission.

In response, Albus nodded his acceptance and recognition of their sacrifice. To be dominated through Legilimency was no small trouble, even if it was made easier through their willingness.

When it was time to act, Albus didn't give them a warning, it would be easier that way. He didn't even say the words aloud. Instead splitting his mind into three, piercing forward simultaneously into ordinarily formidable mental fortresses of his companions.

Rath'gar's constructed mental defenses were solid like good goblin stonework. A finely cut gem, artistically crafted, as strong and sharp as any goblin weapon. It was the first to get dominated by the rolling waves of Albus' power.

The goblin's image on the stone gate morphed, becoming four more Albuses as his consciousness was pushed aside by the wizened mage.

Next to fall was Hadrian, Hadrian put up more of a struggle, as his mental defenses were far more impressive, aided as they were from his elvish-heritage. This heritage only added to an already prodigious talent for mind magics, again amplified by the countless sigils he had defending his most sacred sanctuary. Protections that Albus did not have to even fight against as he used their blood connection and the trust that existed between them to simply sneak through the metaphorical back door.

And though there was a part of Albus that wished to linger and bask in awe at the feeling of the living lightning that was Hadrian's mind, he nonetheless pushed forward.

Four more Albuses adorned the gate.

The hardest mind to control by far was Taurelilómëa, not because her shields were strong—though they certainly were—but because the elven minds was so foreign, so alien, that it threatened to consume him the second he breached the first protection. Then he passed the second, third, and fourth walls, each one threatening to twist his mind with their alien patterns, and this is while she was willing.

In the end, he was able to contort the elven maiden's mind to his wishes, but only because she chose not to put up even the most basic resistance.

Not that any of his dominated companions could see, but only Albus' face remained on the gate. As one, each of the sixteen Albuses' mouths opened, the insides dark except for the glowing mark of Ilsensine. Then, with the mighty grind of stone on stone, the gate opened, and his three glassy-eyed companions joined Albus as he stepped through the gate.

The way slammed shut behind them, echoing with a fatalistic finality.

As soon as he stepped through the door, Albus released his companions. His own mind relaxing as the strain of controlling his three companions lifted; it reminded him oddly of the relief that coursed through sore muscles after extreme exertion. .

In truth it would have been a simple task for them to break the mental control, he was used to using his legilimency as a tool for subtle understanding; his technique was like a subtle lock pick, focused on stealth to give him the upper hand. This use of legilimency in comparison was the wide powerful slash of a broadsword, a method, ironically enough considering his choice of weapon these days, well outside his own purview.

The recently mind-controlled group regained control of their own minds with a shudder, their unnatural stillness being substituted for disturbed expressions and uncomfortable body language.

So disturbed was Hadrian, that he forwent his usual mental communication for physical speech. "I hope you don't mind if I say I never want to experience something like that again Albus, trusted companion or not." Hadrian's eyes closed in unwanted remembrance. "It was like I was a passenger in my own skin, trapped, aware, but unable to act."

Albus grimaced, an unpleasant taste lingering on his tongue. "I certainly agree. That was unpleasant for me as well."

It was an unsettled group that moved deeper into the Tengkorak. They knew without a doubt that they were expected. The words "One mind flayer sees ye, and they all see. One mind. One nasty, suspicious mind," never more true then as they approached the sanctum sanctorum of the Elder Brain itself.

Hadrian and Albus felt the psychic powers of this place. Their own psychic defenses were weakened by the place it seemed, they doubted the same was true for the illithid they were sure to encounter.

The hall they were traversing seemed to end, a wall veering in front of them, blocking them from moving forward. Hadrian didn't even lift his wand before Albus' hand clamped down on his arm.

With a sharp gesture, Albus stopped Hadrian in his tracks. The older man scrutinised the area carefully before nodding, seemingly coming to a conclusion.

'This is no wall. This place seems to obey only the law of the mind, and in the mind, things like gravity are not law, they are instead only constructs established by the body.' Albus' voice was like a whisper in the wind, flitting through their minds softly.

With a step Albus did the impossible, as he stepped onto the wall and began walking up it, erect along the vertical wall, seemingly under Hadrian's gravity spell. Conjuring a rock, Albus dropped it. To everyone's shock it fell upwards, as if caught in a strong updraft.

Hadrian shared a glance with the disgruntled Rath'gar, the Goblin Prince's face saying what he thought of the sheer absence of universal physics that this place seemingly represented.

Regardless of their disgruntlement, the group was quick to follow Albus, walking along the flat walkway and encountering no Illithid as they tread deeper into the heart of their territory.

The area around them twisted and turned, if they took their eyes off the path in front of them to look around, the curling madness of the space they walked would have driven them mad.

Nothing was what it seemed, and forward was quickly becoming the only option available.

Albus greatly suspected this was another delaying tactic of the Elder Brain. An endless tunnel in which they had no way to know if they were moving or making progress of any kind.

'I think we are being made fools of Hadrian.' Albus directed the thought solely towards the other wizard.

'I think I agree with you, this seems to be an illusion, and a powerful one at that.' Hadrian flicked Eldingr, and it blurred, morphing into a long twisted piece of metal. It was, he suspected, the only exception to his memoriastum that he would be allowed; the raw form of Eldingr, a lightning bolt captured in silvery metal. It was Eldingr's staff form, something that he had never had much of a purpose in calling forth until now.

/Arcana occulta, manifesta teipsum!/ Hadrian's staff came down on the ground with a literal thunderclap. A ripple of electric magic pulsed outward and the entire world seemed to shake and quiver as the group rippled as if pressed upon by a giant invisible hand..

/Arcana occulta, manifesta teipsum!/ Again a ripple, followed by another rumble of primordial thunder. The space itself was fighting his spell; the madness of the temple conflicting with the raw power of his incantation.

He continued forward, his magic pulsing like an oncoming avalanche. Every time he began his chant again, the ripple of arcane energies would pulse out from him, passing harmlessly through everything and everyone, but clearly doing something to the twisted reality they occupied.

/Arcane occulta, manifesta teipsum!/ It was on the seventh chant that something finally gave. Hadrian's eyes revealed his satisfaction as with a final shuddering groan, whatever false reality they were being presented with shattered, revealing a door.

Though, calling it simply a 'door' was like calling the ICW simply a 'group'. True in some regards, but missing the true meaning. This was a door the same way a Basilisk was a snake, or a Sphinx was a cat.

Standing at what he thought might be 100 feet in height, the door was made of a fleshy pink substance. Substance that on closer inspection seemed to be just that, a type of organic matter. It was to Hadrian and Albus' horror, what appeared to be an unknowable number of humanoid brains fused together into a door. Each hemisphere of the larger brain-like doors made up of thousands of smaller brains.

"It seems we have arrived," Rath'gar's rough voice broke their horror-filled silence at the monstrosity in front of them.

Terror and pain permeated the air, and a nagging doubt-filled Albus' mind. Reaching out with his telepathic abilities he felt to see if the door was a magical construct, or if it was what he hoped it wasn't.

Reaching out a tendril of his legilimency, Albus picked up that these minds were somehow still alive, some fel magic holding them in place. Searching deeper, he touched one mind and closed his mind in quite despair.

It was a child, a drow he suspected from the similarities to Taurelilómëa's mind, but a child nonetheless. He could feel her innocence, the lack of understanding of why this was happening to her; the pain, the horror, all unguarded.

The mind screamed at Albus in eternal horror as her mind was made raw, begging for release from the torturous prison she was stuck in.

This was all shared as easily as the mind had once shared her toys with her little sister.

A sob tore violently from his chest as his occlumency shields, at their maximum strength, failed to suppress the sheer horror of knowing what these gates were. Proof of the evil that the drow and the dwarves had warned him of, an evil that was far greater than even the dragon that they had faced. This was something far worse.

Albus was a teacher, his greatest joy was seeing the minds of youth change and evolve into adults he could be proud of. He cherished the innocence of youth, for while it was something he had long ago lost, it was something he strove for in every minute he lived. Yet this sight shook something deep within him, it killed a part of him he thought long dead, an innocence he had managed to protect even as his hair turned gray and the wrinkles on his face deepened.

Children. These bastards had done this to children. Innocent. Precious. CHILDREN.

Something deep inside Albus snapped, a gateway or a damn holding back power he had always kept a firm lid thing that had stopped him from ever truly using the power of The Hallows fully, the powerful self-control that had kept him from molding the wizarding world into the image he had always secretly envisioned.

The control that he had imposed on himself since the fateful day he lost his sister snapped. The precise control he was vaunted for, the walls he had built over a lifetime, came crashing down.

With a strangled roar of primal fury, Albus' eyes flickered purple, his aura exploding outwards like a purple and gold firestorm. Hadrian, Lilómëa, and Rath'gar's presence suddenly became a nonentity next to the swirling maelstrom that was Albus Dumbledore.

He was in no way shape or form subtle, no, this was not someone who wanted to hide, the sheer power he radiated screamed their presence out to those that could see the ebbs and flows of magic.

The magical titan advanced forward, fury painted across his features, but, hidden under the anger, quiet despair had taken root.

Slamming the Deathstick into the doors, a pulse of purple magic exploded from the ancient wand's tip into the mass of pink flesh making up the door.

A shuddering rattle was heard by all four members of the group; not physically, but magically. Each suffering soul was released from their miserable existence as the pulse of death magic ran over them. And though tears poured from the wizened wizards despondent eyes, he forced himself to take heart in the last combined whisper of a thousand tortured minds.

'Thank you.'

The thought came to him in dwarvish, elvish, and in other languages, he didn't know. Some came in words, others only capable of sending a slight feeling, some not even capable of that, leaving behind only a faint impression. Still, irrelevant of how the message was sent, he knew they had wanted it.

The door itself turned from the fleshy pink that it had been upon their arrival to the lifeless grey of dead flesh.

It was a testament to the anger of Albus Dumbledore's rage that he didn't even bother using the Deathstick, but rather simply thrust his hand towards the gate.

The door exploded inwards. Fleshy projectiles falling from the sky, tons and tons of grey matter raining inward as Albus Dumbledore entered the Tengkorak more like an avenging angel than the mortal he once was.

Storming forward, Albus' white cloak billowed in the broiling power of his aura, flapping in the wind created from the sheer magical might he was putting forth. Albus spun his staff, a purple blade materializing at the wider side of the spike-like staff, slicing clean though the two Ulitharid that had been waiting past the threshold of the monstrous gates.

The ethereal blade sliced through their souls with a macabrely cheerfully humm. Clenching his other hand, a sputter of purple flame flickered around his and just in time for Albus to thrust his fist into an approaching enemy's chest armor. The soulfire ignited the Ulitharid's soul, pale lavender flame erupting from the ulitharid eyes and mouth as its soul combusted at Albus' rage.

Hadrian wasted no time in charging after his master. Sinking into his magic, Eldingr became a beautiful arc of death.

From the way his hands flashed through shape after shape, one would never imagine that single-handed sigilic casting was actually an area where Hadrian struggled. His true talent in the art only truly came to the fore when wandlessly casting with two-handed sigilic magic.

Two fingers swiped to the side, beheading the Ulitharid that attempted to jump onto him from behind even as with a roar, Eldingr spat out a bolt of lightning. The now familiar smell of ozone and charred flesh assaulting Hadrian as he sought to catch up with Albus.

By the time Rath'gar, Lilómëa, and Hadrian managed to catch up with Albus, he had carved his way nearly to the bank of the perfectly circular pond at the very back of the chamber. Seeing their older companion continue forward with a single-mindedness that alarmed them more than they cared to admit, Hadrian attempted to reach out to Albus's mind.

'Albus?' Hadrian waited a second, taking a moment to bisect a brain with legs that had just tried to jump onto him. The elder wizard continued forward towards the bank of the pond without them, a swirling storm of death and magic.

'Albus!' This time he pulled Lilómëa out of the way just in time as a blast of pink psychic energy crackled through the space that she had just been in, a wave of lightning crackling from his hands into the form of a monstrous flesh golem in retaliation.

'ALBUS! You need to get control of yourself.' Annoyed at the older man's lack of response, Hadrian made eye contact with Rath'gar.

"Go, me and the Princess shall keep the rest of them from reaching you." The prince's bloodlust was evident as he butchered any and all psychic monsters brave enough to come within striking distance of his bloody blade.

After a quick nod to Rath'gar and Lilómëa, Hadrian pushed some magic into his legs and literally jumped after Albus. The magic in his legs sending him floating above the brain golem that stood in his path.

His feet touched down on the black stone with a crunch, digging his feet into the ground he bled off his forward momentum before rolling forward into a crouch. Standing to his full height, Hadrian froze as he noted what was in front of him.

Floating like some horrible facsimile of a pink lotus above the perfectly circular pond of god knows what, was the Elder Brain.

It was, for lack of any sufficient comparison, just a gargantuan brain. Easily 17 feet across and 25 feet long, black tentacles extended downwards like some demented jellyfish. The horrific tendrils swayed in an invisible wind as they curled out of the liquid night surrounding the great brain. What looked like a brain-stem plunged down into the liquid below, only adding to the lotus imagery that Hadrian's mind could not escape.

{SO yoU hAve CoMe tO KKiLL Us?} Hadrian's head swam as the psychic voice of the Elder Brain echoed through his mind, like so many voices all speaking at the same time, a cacophony of sound that skipped the physical world and poured directly into his mind.

Gritting his teeth and reinforcing his occlumency, Hadrian looked over at Albus, the only sign of strain a slight clenching of his hand.

/We have come to end your blight/ Albus' telepathic response was saturated with the power he was leaking.

If Hadrian had expected some other response from the massive floating brain, he would have been disappointed as no sooner had Albus completed his telepathic challenge than did two tentacles burst forth from the waters seeking to coil around them with a death grip.

From up close the tentacles were more scaly then he imagined, and Hadrian was reminded bizarrely of the legend of Medusa and her hideous hair of writhing snakes. Pushing the thought from his mind, he focused on the moment.

A flash of Eldingr's silver blade and the Elder Brain had one tentacle less. He leaped back as two more slammed into where he waa standing, and chanced a glance at Albus.

The tentacle was wrapped around this elder wizard's staff, but he was not alarmed in the least, a feral smile spreading across the wizened man's face.

A wave of death magic began to leak into the offending tentacle, spreading fast, even as the Elder Brain's panic became evident. A disturbing shhhlliiiikkk of torn flesh sounded as the Elder Brain tore its own tentacle from its body to prevent the necrotic magic from reaching any further.

{NOOO} A psychic pulse flew from where the Elder Brain's main bulk floated over the center of the pond. Hadrian and Albus were blown backwards from the shockwave, their magical shield folding from the pressure.

Paralysis gripped Hadrian and Albus as their minds struggled to fend off the crippling psychic attack. If a legilimency probe was a hammer, then this assault was a battering ram.

Like a rampaging hippogriff, clarity collided with Albus' mind. The haze of rage he felt replaced by panic as he awoke to find he could not move. Focusing his magic he began to resist the paralysis, his magic eating away at the viscous spell-craft of the Elder Brain.

While still in the process of freeing himself, he distantly felt his body get scooped up by a tentacle; its slimy surface coiling around him tightly.

As he strained against the tentacle, he reached up and touched the tentacle, and sucked. Life and power trickled into him. Albus felt a sudden boost of power. It was a strange feeling that started as a tingling in his extremities before rushing through him, as if someone had injective liquid energy straight into his veins. It was unlike anything he had experienced before. One tentacle was replaced by another, and he felt himself continue to move closer to the brain.

In the span of a few breath's he was no longer straining against the psionic attack. He had broken the mental battering ram against suddenly revitalized mental walls, and as he focused on the world around him again he found he now had to contend against the physical tentacles of the Elder Brain.

In the time he was mentally indisposed they had dragged him over the pond and were threatening to crush him in their grip.

With a grunt, he wiggled a hand loose and grasped the tentacle surrounding him. From there he used his death touch to necrotize the tentacle, knowing that he would be released rather than risk any of his magic being allowed to reach the Elder Brain's main body.

He only realized the folly of his plan halfway through his fall towards the cold black liquid below.

Whatever the mysterious liquid was it was most certainly not water. It was sticky, like an odd gelatinous slime, and warm, like an oasis, left to boil in the noon heat of the desert.

Albus resisted the urge to freeze as he felt something swim by him, brushing against his feet as they tread through the liquid keeping him afloat. Panic filled him as the pulse of magic he had released outwards like a bat's echolocation returned to him.

It was not some strange breed of fish, but a tadpole. An Illithid tadpole. Closing his eyes tight, Albus raised his wand and silently cast a spell. 'Ascendare.'

The simple spell likely saved his life as he was blasted out of the fluid, landing in an uncomfortable heap on the hard stone. Standing up, Albus quickly cast a series of cleaning charms on himself to cleanse himself of the remaining mystery fluid.

He still felt unclean.

But he had no time to dwell on his feeling of uncleanliness, his head was spinning, a dull ache starting up behind his eyes. Something was wrong, his occlumency, it was failing.

Jerking in surprise, Albus felt the numerous protections surrounding his mind fail all at once, the only thing between his naked mind and the Elder Brain's psionic attack was the sigil that Hadrian had insisted he use regardless of his potent occlumency.

The sigil, Albus had argued, was redundant; he had many of his own cast after all. Still, in the end, Hadrian had worn him down and cast one for him. It was never meant to be the first line of defense, but as he felt all of his own protections fail, he made a mental note to thank Hadrian if they got out of this alive. Feeling Hadrian's Aegis of Athena flaring brightly on his forehead gave him a small measure of hope that they would indeed escape this.

A circlet of runes flickered into existence as the Elder Brain tried to force its way into Albus' mind and establish a connection he could use to dominate and control. The runes began to heat up, going from warm to scorching in an instant.

Using the last of his will, Albus cut his connection to Hadrian. If he was going down, there was no way that he was allowing Hadrian to be taken down with him, he had no doubt the Elder Brain could use their connection against his young apprentice.

Albus fled deeper and deeper into his mind as he felt his skin blister under the intense backlash that the runes inflicted on him as they were overpowered. Even through the pain, Albus knew something terrible was about to happen, even as the slimy presence of the Elder Brain slithered into his defenseless mind like a parasite, he knew that whatever was happening to him, was only just beginning.

Time stretched as Albus valiantly attempted to protect his mind from the psychic giant. But it was hopeless. He could do nothing in the face of this power, of this experience, and this cruelty.

{Did you think that you could truly resist me?} This was a far cry from the cacophony of voices he and Hadrian had heard before on the streets of Thosdagokshe. No this voice was soothing, a silken hiss. It was a voice Albus could listen to for hours and pick out a new subtle tenor every minute that passed. A voice that Albus knew with every fiber of his being would know best what he should do.

For the life of him, he couldn't understand why they had resisted so hard, why they had been arrogant enough to attempt to slay this benevolent creature; it only wanted to help. Albus now knew the truth, that the only way forward was with this great mind leading the way.

If the Elder Brain had the mouth needed to do so, it would have smiled.

Hadrian picked himself up, he had been paralyzed and blasted backwards. Shaking the effects of the attack had taken him a while even with Lilómëa's help. Mentally ripping the last of the cobwebs from his mind, Hadrian refocused just in time to see Albus plunging down into the liquid night below the Elder Brain.

A shout of horror slipped from his lips unbidden as he ran forwards, intent on ending the Elder Brain once and for all.

Before he could get close enough to bring his sword to bear though, Albus erupted from the liquid, landing some distance away.

At first, a sense of relief filled him at seeing his mentor seemingly alive and well, if likely smelly. Yet, before even a sigh of relief could escape him he was hit with a profound sense of emptiness. Deep within his gut, he knew he was missing something that he had had only a moment earlier.

A pillar he had always unknowingly relied on was removed from under him without warning. The connection between him and Albus… it… it was gone.

The backlash of the rushed severing of the bond made Hadrian's vision swim as a stream of blood leaked from his nose, spittle of bloody bubbles spilling from pursed lips.

Then Albus screamed. It was not the kind of scream that Hadrian wanted to hear from the lips of his mentor, this was the blood-curdling scream of a man in excruciating pain.

Blinking the black spots from his vision, Hadrian called the lightning, letting it crackle along his arms and legs as he leaped forward. Pushing his vertigo and pain to the side, Hadrian sunk deep into his own magic and the familiar power of Eldingr as he called upon it to help him defend the sanity of someone who had become dear to him.

Flying through the air, Hadrian raised his hands to his mouth, Eldingr floating beside him ready to be wielded. With a gesture a sigil flickered into existence as he roared, lightning erupting from his mouth looking more like a dragon's breath than any lightning bolt that Hadrian had ever summoned.

Albus, to Hadrian's relief, went blessedly silent as the bolt of charged energy roared towards the Elder Brain. A high pitch sound ringing throughout the chamber as the Great Brain used its psionic powers to deflect the torrent of lightning away from its prone form.

The lightning curled around it, errant bolts striking the water, causing a telepathic scream to echo through everyone's mind.

Rath'gar for his part noticed that the wave of Illithid he and Lilómëa were holding off scrambled and screeched as they felt the telepathic backlash that washed over them at the Elder Brain's pain.

His feet touching down on the ground again, Hadrian ran towards Albus.

Sliding to a stop near his fallen companion, Hadrian looked him over. If Hadrian felt fear creeping up his spine.

It was not a fear similar to what he had felt when he stood in front of Gorzoth, nor like when Ilsensagron had looked down at him like a snack. This was a whole new level of fear, because it wasn't just him who was at risk, it was Albus, his friend, his mentor.

Working fast, Hadrian gestured upwards with his wand, and then with a sharp slash to the side a flash of light seared into Hadrian's eyes. The effect was obvious. The circle of stone that they were on broke from the bank of the Elder Brain's pond and moved Hadrian and Albus away from the shore of the brain fluid, towards the relative safety of his companion's locations.

Albus needed help, and fast.

Rath'gar and Lilómëa were occupied with their own problem, at this point they had both dealt with their fair share of cultists. Cultists were prevalent in both the drow and goblin societies, but Illithid cultists trumped them all in their madness. It seemed a hivemind created a feedback loop that only fed their madness; in truth, their single-mindedness was almost impressive.

Lilómëa's royal garb and elegant demeanor often made many underestimate her: a mistake. She was a strong fighter, not like her sister in raw power, admittedly.

Her dark hair clung to her light grey skin, and she moved with a grace that was more dancer than predator. It was more facade than not. Her fingernails being painted a mithril silver was something that most simply took as an ostentatious status symbol, such nail polishes did exist, but it was a far more practical and perhaps far more lethal fashion choice than any suspected.

Moving in a flicker, Lilómëa's shadowy ethereal spider-like legs lashed out from her cloak, puncturing through the faces of any and all who came near her. Their mithral points slicing through armor and flesh effortlessly.

A glance at Rath'gar showed their enemies were taking the quantity over quality approach. He was surrounded by hordes of rushing Illithid's intent on killing the interlopers.

Lilómëa did what magic she did best and cast a hex.

Rath'gar was deep in his berserka'rar state, his enemies little more than moving targets for his swords. For each one that he slayed, three more stepped forward and powerful though his rage was, it was not infinite.

He focused on the primordial rage in his blood and fanned the flames. His rage roared like a fire fed oxygen. Power leaked out of him like a stream of flowing blood as his power exploded from him, his rage growing more than he had ever imagined possible. It was nearly all-consuming, but his iron control kept the rage directed.

More and more illithid fell to his whirlwind of death, their blood only adding to his swirling cloak. Suddenly Rath'gar felt something click, and unbidden Rath'gar raised one of his twin swords with a snarl, Red Dawn whispering a spell into his mind, roaring unprompted through his lips.

"Mendidih!" Rath'gar's roar was embellished by the fiery halo that ignited over his head. The berserka'rar looking more avenging angel then goblin at this point, the fire increasing in height as the surrounding Illithid began screaming.

It was similar to what Albus or Hadrian would call a blood boiler. This however was pureblood magic. Anything with even a drop of illithid blood in a 30 foot range felt their blood begin to burn as Rath'gar's artifact used its medley of fire and blood and rage to curse them.

In what was perhaps anticlimactic the Illithid wave combusted, red fire consuming their forms as their bodies became the fuel for a wall of bloodfire that plugged the main hall in a crescent around Rath'gar.

Rath'gar took a breath, and the fire surrounding him died down around him, their enemies temporarily dealt with. Every time he used the power of his artifact, it became easier for him. Nodding to Lilómëa, Rath'gar and the princess took off after their wayward companions.

Lilómëa and Rath'gar leaped down the steps leading them deeper into the Tengkorak and came to a stop in front of the dome shield that housed Hadrian and a prone Albus.

Both only had to wait for a second as without looking up at them, a hole opened up in front of them in the shimmering milky shield, closing up as they crossed the barrier.

Albus was in horrible shape, his face was burned with the runic backlash that he had suffered.

"Let me try to help him." Even as she spoke the Drow Princess gestured and a thrum sounded through the air. As the darkness grew, the luminescence of the pond faded for a second as the Drow cast a hex of psionic soothing on Albus.

Instantly, Albus' face relaxed, still tormented, but substantially less so. Another gesture of her hands and Lilómëa summoned a sigil, one that represented Albus' overall health and functionality, his mind glowing an angry red. Something that Hadrian suspected had only happened after he had touched that liquid.

"Will he be alright?" Hadrian asked worriedly, to Lilómëa.

"I am not sure. Something is going on, something that I don't quite underst-" her gasp was the only warning they had as Albus' eyes snapped open, a kindly expression on his face.

"Thank you, my dear." Standing up, Albus drew his wand and cast several charms on himself. "I am alright, no need to worry."

'Albus?' Hadrian knew the connection had been closed but the lack of response that Hadrian received sent a creeping shiver up his spine, fear blossoming as he didn't know Albus' condition

"You know I have realized something, why are we fighting? What is it that the Illithid have done that is so wrong we seek to kill them in their own homes? Are we not the villains in this story?" Albus' face was wrong, too serene, too calm.

The group took a step back, Rath'gar slowly stoking his rage, the rage he felt that kindly Albus was in this situation in the first place; the blood cloak that he still had on, slowly churning as he looked cautiously at the kind man that he had come to respect immensely with a large degree of suspicion.

Lilómëa prepared to cast a hex on the older man, to take him out before this could begin, but before she could make her move, a glowing green ring flickered into existence around Albus' kind blue eyes.

" You not understand the goodness you are resisting, I have understood, surrender to the Great Mind, or be pacified." The voice coming from Albus' mouth was still the kind gentle tone that he normally used, infinitely more unsettling than the Elder Brain's multi-tonal speech.

Hadrian for his part just gaped at Albus. This was bad, of all of the people that had to get mind-controlled it had to be Albus Fucking Dumbledore.

Hadrian only had a split second to process what had happened as the shield he had cast to give them time to breathe from the Elder Brain popped.

The backlash of the shield's destruction sending Hadrian, Rath'gar, and Lilómëa flying backward. Albus watched his kind smile completely out of place in the twisted environment.

The Elder Wand flickered into his hand, looking far more wicked than any of their party remembered it looking.

"Pacification it is," Albus said entirely too happy.

Hadrian had sparred Albus in the past, but frankly, it had not prepared him for this. Spells flew out of Albus Dumbledore's wand so fast it appeared he was firing a multi-colored beam from his wand rather than individual spells.

Hadrian shielded both Rath'gar and Lilómëa, grunting from the effort, his mage shield glowing white in every place that Albus' spells impacted. The multicolored magic ricocheted off of the domed shield and careened through the room, deep gouges and scorch marks littering the ground around Hadrian. With a gesture, Hadrian transferred the shield to his off hand and began firing his own spells at Albus, stunner, bludgeoning curse, paralysis curse, sleep curse, blindness charm, stunner. Not a single one even made it close to Albus.

With a flourish, Hadrian used one of Albus' own tricks, a blast pushing a cloud of dust in the air even as he turned the dust into paralysis spores and sent them back at Albus with a short gust of wind. Knowing that Albus would have to spend a few seconds overcoming his transfiguration, he turned towards Rath'gar and Lilómëa. Both were looking at him expectantly from where they had joined him in crouching behind one of the many pillars dotting the chamber.

"We need to take Albus out as cleanly and fast as we can, we likely can't win a prolonged battle against him!" Rath'gar nodded sharply at his statement while Lilómëa gave a focused nod. "We move on three then. One, two, THREE."

The three split apart, each moving in a different direction using a different pattern. Lilómëa climbed straight up the backside of the pillar, Hadrian moved left and Rath'gar ducked right.

Albus for his part fired spells at all three with barely a second in-between. Daggers flew at rath'gar, ice at Hadrian, and snakes curled around the pillar after Lilómëa.

Hadrian blasted the ice spikes out of the air even as Rath'gar let go of his carefully corralled rage.

"Uk grat'ma gaar berserka'gh! GaAAaaR UThAaaar!" Instantly Albus' eyes and entire visage turned to the raging Goblin and then the world around them exploded in fire. Exploding into existence around Albus was the largest firestorm Hadrian had ever seen. Golden flames churned into existence around the wizard, his beard, once white, no longer flapped in the displaced air.

Rath'gar simply grinned ferally, his sword angled towards Albus, the fire rushed towards him, consuming him in an instant. So bright and hot was the flame that Hadrian was forced to shield himself, and Lilómëa used magic to surround herself in a magically reinforced cocoon of spider webs. Both weathering the unending and seemingly infinite golden flames Albus had summoned to destroy them all.

Rath'gar for his part felt only rage. Not towards Albus but at the damnable brain for making him fight the wizard in the first place. Still, Rath'gar snarled aloud, the brain would learn why berserka'rar were the doom of all magic users.

With a deep breath, Rath'gar charged forward powerfully thrusting Red Dawn forward, a pulse rocketing through the Tengkorak as the Goblin's nullification and his Artifact worked together and unwrote Albus' flames from existence.

The backlash was colossal, perhaps even more deadly than the firestorm in some ways, but the real difference was the firestorm had been controlled. It burned only whom it was directed to burn, this was something else entirely.

Hadrian watched with wide eyes as Rath'gar, a powerful fighter no doubt, charged Albus Dumbledore head-on, the nimble goblin warrior leaping over the spikes Albus caused to erupt from the ground. He burned through the vines that burst towards him in an attempt to bind and crush him. Every spell and trick Albus fired at him was undone by either nullification, fire, or pure goblin rage.

The distance quickly closed despite Albus' best attempts, Red Dawn and the full-size Death stick, clashing together with an ear-shattering discharge of magical energy.

Eyes wide Hadrian dismissed his shield, turning to Lilómëa who dropped down next to the young Arcanist.

"We need to help him!" Hadrian said quietly, though it seemed that Rath'gar was holding his own, the magic nullification and his fire sword being enough to prevent Albus' rather prodigious abilities in magic from overwhelming him for now.

Lilómëa shook her head. "Do not forget this doesn't end without the defeat of the Elder Brain, I will help Rath'gar you go and deal with why we are here in the first place."

Hadrian's eyes became flinty and his jaw clenched in displeasure, but he knew she spoke the truth.

Deciding to trust his companions, Hadrian approached the brain, knowing that no matter what he tried, there was no sneaking up on this thing.

{DO yOU nOt CaRE foR AlbUS?} The voices of the giant brain were amused, {HE wilL DIe wiTH ME!} The amusement changed to anger when Hadrian launched the mother of all lightning bolts from Eldingr, the bolt clearing the distance between Hadrian and the pink monstrosity in an instant.

The angry jagged bolt seemed to freeze mere feet away from the massive brain before veering back towards Harry at twice the speed.

All at once dozens of tentacles exploded towards him, each one squid-like with long leaf-shaped tips glinting in the darkness.

Hadrian's own dark sight allowed him to see as they moved towards him. Trusting his precognition, Hadrian ducked under the first strike and sliced through the tip of another and finally stabbed a third into the ground even as he fired off two more lightning bolts from his left hand.

A pulse went through the air as Hadrian's precognition screamed at him to get out of the way. A psionic pulse rippled out from the brain.

Realizing that it was expanding in a dome, Hadrian sprinted up the bank and turned around. The field dispersed at the edge of the bank.

It appeared that the bank was created by the limits of the psionic range of the brain's pulse.

Hadrian ran forward again, launching bolt after bolt only for each to be directed away. On his journey forward he was forced to weave around the tentacles that came after him like a bloodhound who had caught a scent.

Hadrian made a beeline towards what he had identified as the Elder Brain's largest weakness against someone like him, the pool of liquid that it was partially submerged in.

He neared the bank with Eldingr fully in its sword form. Skidding to a halt, Hadrian thrust down into the pool even as he launched another bolt for the brain.

The brain realized too late what Hadrian's plan was. As tentacles moved towards him faster than he had yet seen, Hadrian acted.

He needed no incantation for what he planned, simply pouring power into the sword and letting it do what it did best: summon lightning.

The entire pool lit up like a phosphorus flare. Crackling lightning creeping its way up the stalk and to the brain proper.

Hadrian heard the Elder Brain scream in his mind, the brain visibly bubbling as the tender flesh acted as a conduit to far more electricity than its delicate form was able to handle. A popping noise sounded as something in the massive brain burst. The tentacles slackened, the stalk that held the massive brain drooped like a wilting flower and the whole thing collapsed inwards.

Silence reigned. Hadrian was the only being in the room that didn't hesitate.

He fired the largest bolt he could summon directly at the brain, the bolt spearing through grey matter and exiting the other side, splashing against the stone wall some way behind the Elder Brain.

The flesh rapidly shriveled and rotted around the charred mark.

Taking that as sufficient notice of the Elder Brain's demise, Hadrian turned in his place and sprinted back to where he had seen Albus and Rath'gar fighting. He noticed no Illithid around, the barrier of Rath'gar's bloodfire still blocking the only entrance he had seen.

Seeing Rath'gar and Lilómëa both crouching down made Hadrian's heart jump into his chest.

He knew that with magic such as possession or any psionics, the backlash of severing the connection could be as damaging as a lobotomy.

Sliding to a halt, Hadrian took one look at Lilómëa's abnormally ashen face and Rath'gar's grave look and nearly threw up. Bending down, he made eye contact with his master, searching for a sign of his mentor, a broken man drooled back at him. A chasm of delirium threatened to consume Hadrian.

A choked sob sprung from his throat, even as tears leaked unbidden from his eyes at the overwhelming guilt that rose up inside of him. Then came the feeling of helplessness as the realization that he had no one to turn to set in.

A pulse went through the room. Hadrian looked up, feeling nothing, except despair. Turning to Lilómëa and Rath'gar both of whom were looking worriedly at him from their positions next to Albus, Hadrian reached out like a drunken man, the desperate eyes of someone who had lost too much reaching out to them for support as he looked up at the ceiling from his place on the ground, and saw tentacles reaching down from them. Unfurling in the shadows.

Madness, it was all madness.

Eyes wide with fright at what he expected the tentacles to mean, Hadrian took a deep breath, drowning himself in light and fire, in his magic, in himself. Using his Occlumency to force his mind to obey him, to smother his overwhelming emotions as Hadrian dragged himself to his feet.

Taking a deep breath in, he stabilized himself, his eyes no longer wide as he gripped the shoulder of Rath'gar. He looked straight into the Goblin's eyes. "Take Albus and run," it was no request, it was an order, "get him to the spiderling, make haste, I will buy you the time you need.

A charm later and Albus was light as a feather and as small as one. Human transfiguration was difficult even for him, so it would only last maybe an hour, no more but perhaps less.

Neither Rath'gar nor Lilómëa argued, though Hadrian greatly suspected he would be receiving a riot act if he survived this.

Both were quick to exit the room through Rath'gar's fire barrier. As the flame parted for them harmlessly, Lilómëa looked back with sadness and worry as Hadrian turned back to the body of the Elder Brain, another shaky breath leaving his body.

The circular pool had a border of smokey green tentacles swaying like a massive monstrous sea anemone. The walls, the ceilings, even the pillars were covered with crawling eldritch tentacles.

Hadrian began casting.

He and Albus had readied a plethora of spells for this very moment. A summoning charm later and Hadrian held out a scroll containing a spell called Dome of Rationality. Another scroll, Greater Helm of Logic, followed the first in short order. None of these would have helped them against the powers of the Elder Brain, these spells were exclusively used to prevent madness, not the preventable psionic backlash of a severed psychic link that Albus had experienced. No this was for the likes of Gorzoth, the likes of Ilsensine.

A greek hoplite helm formed of shimmering golden magic flickered into existence over Hadrian's face. Sigilic bands of their prepared greater magics winding around Hadrian's arms, bands meant for them both, but that Hadrian had no doubt he would need all of if he was to survive what was to come with his mind unshattered.

Even from the grip of insanity, Albus was helping Hadrian. The older wizards magic preserved in the scroll not needing Albus' presence to save Hadrian, the feeling of his mentor's magic calming Hadrian immensely.

Hadrian sank into his magic, any moment now and his time could be up.

The swirling tentacles around the Elder Brain began spinning, impossibly, closing like the many-petaled bud of a massive and horrifying flower. Power suffused the air as true madness descended to Svartalfheimr.

The buds petals curled and then opened, an action mirrored by every single of the hundred other tentacle clusters covering the Tengkorak. And out of them all stepped an avatar of the god of madness Ilsensine.

Ilsensine was a surprisingly normal height, barely breaking the six-foot barrier. A dark green cloak flowing and ethereal, golden armor, making him glow, every single scale of his armor the shape of a miniature golden brain. The armor's golden brain-scales accented with green leather visibly forming tentacle accents along the edges.

If Hadrian had been thinking about it, Ilsensine looked more human than Illithid, but Hadrian was not thinking of it, Hadrian was struggling to think of much of anything as the presence of Ilsensine knocked all thought from his mind surely as it sucked the air from his lungs.

The golden mask of Ilsensine drew his mind, protected as it was by the Helm of Rationality, to the brink of madness.

The god wore a helm of solid gold, the eye holes voids of shadows, the curling tentacles, illithid-like, the dorsels on the top of his cephalopod-like head arranged in the cruel perversion of a crown.

{Did you really think you could slay my children with no consequence? Hadrian of Midgard} Ilsensines voice was a whisper, frayed nightmares, and reality. Horror combined into a new and hellish experience.

Hadrian had nothing to say. No response he could give, the presence of Ilsensine was far greater than any god he had yet experienced. Thoth was a cinder in comparison to the Lord of Madness, his presence greater than even Osiris.

Even Joradin had not been so pow—

Hadrian nearly lurched backward in realization, only managing to prevent the reaction at the last moment.

The staring contest between him and the mask of Ilsensine continued in silence.

{The question was far from rhetorical.} Ilsensine's cool and logical voice belaying the insanity that he embodied.

{Your creations are a blight! Parasites, what did you expect?} The swirling field of tentacles writhed at their lord's rage. Hadrian needed to keep the god talking, he needed time to complete his prayer. 'Oh Joradin, chief of Svartalfheimr, I ask for your aid.'

{A blight? The irony that you, a midgardian, would call an Illithid a parasite must be lost on your inferior intellect. Your kind multiplies like vermin, no more useful than livestock.} Ilsensine gestured at Hadrian,{Tell me oh mighty slayer of my progeny, how did you kill my dear Ilsensagron?} Ilsensine seemed genuinely distraught at the death of his monstrous dragon-illithid child.

{I blew his head off after he was arrogant enough to think me simple prey.} Hadrian responded in the true tongue, even as he recited the prayer for a second time 'Oh Joradin, chief of Svartalfheimr, twice-bound, I ask for your aid.'

{But do you not realize yet? You are prey.} Ilsensine's posture showed the god's rage, and Hadrian knew he had to do something to keep him talking, so he said something he knew he would regret.

{If I am the prey, why am I wearing your demigod son for boots?} 'Oh Joradin, chief of Svartalfheimr, thrice bound, aid me.'

Illsensine reared back as if struck, a molten rage clear in his eldritch gaze, and right before Hadrian though he went too far and that he was about to be smited, everything froze.

Hadrian was standing in a forge. The Dwarven god looked at him curiously, a pair of tongs holding a glowing pauldron absently. Hadrian looked back.

{It has been a while since a mortal has dared to be so, how shall we say, demanding in how they beseech my favor, even my own niece is never so direct.} The god quenched the pauldron, setting down the tongs once the steam stopped billowing. {Still, I did tell you that I owed you, so what was so urgent it requires my immediate attention?}

{My lord, I am currently in the Tengkorak, Ilsensine has manifested an avatar after I slayed the Elder Brain.} The forge's fire roared and Hadrian was taken aback by the normally calm and friendly god's rage.

{The Tentacled one is here? In Svartalfheim? He dared to send his spawn here, but this is the first time he has dared come himself.} Joradin's form flickered. No longer the regal-looking Dwarf. Instead, Joradin was a viciously armored dwarf with a massive Battlehammer. The sheer amount of power radiating from it told Hadrian that it was the god's symbol of power.

{What is it that you will ask of me Hadrian Potter?} This Hadrian suspected was another non-rhetorical question.

{I wish your aid in driving Ilsensine from this place.} Hadrian beseeched, the god's expression turning dark.

{Then you shall have it.} The god splayed one hand, and in it a bottle appeared.

{You are little use to me in the fight as you are. Consider this my repayment for the debt owed.} The god handled the bottle carefully, almost reverently. {The last spark of the last Thunderer of Svartalfheimr. He faded long ago, this single spark all that remains of him. May it serve you well thunderling. Call for me and I will come. Realize that without you summoning me, and without your participation in the battle it will be impossible for me alone to banish an avatar of an interloping god. You must strike Ilsensine for me, do not hesitate when the opportunity arises.}

The god didn't wait for an answer, slamming the hand with the spark bottle into Hadrian's chest, the bottle shattering, sending his consciousness careening back into his body.

Hadrian found himself in the exact moment that he had been pulled from to meet with Joradin. Ilsensine reeling back as he looked at Hadrian' in what was clearly incredulous rage.

{You are far from the master of wit you clearly believe yourself to be, perhaps that shall change once you welcome madness.} Even in the true tongue, Ilsensines words conveyed his utter disgust and malificance.

The god splayed his hand and Hadrian felt the Helm of Logic crumple into nothingness. As fast as he could, Hadrian cast the Dome of Rationality, it blossomed to life in a split second, bathing Hadrian in its white pearlescent glow.

Suddenly, Hadrian felt his connection with Albus flicker back to life. Hope welled up inside of him, fragile and tentative, but there. Reaching out to Albus he hesitantly opened the connection between them.

The wizened mind he felt at the other end was one he knew almost as well as his own.

The damn he had built to hold back the small swelling of hope he had felt shattered and from it spilled more than hope. An aching relief so bone deep it felt intrinsic to his being was also present, along with a pure joy Hadrian could only remember feeling in the vague memories of more innocent childhood days.

Albus was back! And with his presence he banished the dark thoughts that Hadrian hadn't even noticed until they were gone.

Meanwhile, Ilsensine, his own eyes sharp and hateful, seemed content to watch and see what the puny mortal's move would be.

'Hadrian are you alright?' Albus' voice was strained and urgent.

'Albus? How is this possible?' Hadrian felt foolish for questioning the good fortune, but against a being that played with the minds of mortals he knew he had to be cautious.

'The spiderling she helped heal my mind.' Albus responded, weariness still present in his voice.

'Albus. Ilselsine is here.' Hadrian said it bluntly, knowing there was no time to beat around the bush.

Albus' shock rebounded down their connection.

'Hadrian, what are you-' Suddenly there was a flicker, and appearing in front of Ilsensine with nary a sound stood a shocked Albus.

{Well, well well, it looks like you brought a friend, let's welcome him into madness.} Ilsensine hissed both mentally and physically with a sibilant voice.

He bent over the paralyzed Albus, the golden tentacles moved, swirling as Ilsensine latched onto Albus' head. Hadrian urged his body to move but he was trapped in place, only able to twitch his fingers and toes as he strained with all his might.

Hadrian screamed as his mentor—his friend—who had just recently been healed, had his brain devoured by a fel god in front of him, all because Hadrian had reached out to him, it was all his fault.

Albus' eyes snapped open, staring right at Hadrian, accusing. 'You caused this,' they seemed to say.

Albus' mental accusation filtered into Hadrian's mind even as his connection with the man withered as he passed on, consumed by the dripping maw of Ilsensine, but his blue eyes full of accusation, they kept staring at Hadrian.

Ilsensine lifted his head, blood smeared across the mask, and screamed. He screamed and sound lost its meaning. An echoing void of nothingness blasted outwards where there should be noise.

Hadrian screamed, and screamed, but he couldn't hear his own voice, it was swallowed by the nothingness of a mad god.

Hadrian kept screaming until lightning began to flicker in his eyes. It started as a low hum, but within seconds it was a roar, overpowering even the unnatural silence Ilsensine had imposed on the world.

With a crack, reality splintered.

As Hadrian came to, he was again standing across from Ilsensine, the god looking at him, surprise visible in even his horrible, unnatural body language.

For the first time in a very, very long time, Hadrian felt tears burn against his lids, ready to fall. Instead, he shoved the trauma to the back of his mind, using high-level mind arts to compartmentalize his feelings.

Hadrian cast Dome of Rationality, this time he knew it worked.

{How unexpected.} The dry voice of the Many-Tentacled god of Madness cut through the air like a knife. {It seems you are more than just mortal then, perhaps you are worth more attention than I originally thought you were.}

Now that Hadrian was somewhat defended, he took the time to let the reality of the situation bleed back.

Looking around he saw no blood on the mask of Ilsensine, nor was Albus' body lying at his feet staring accusatory at him. Hadrian took a deep breath, his Occlumency working overtime to patch to match the simple passive pressure of the being in front of him.

Centering himself, Hadrian looked up, avoiding looking into Ilsensine's hollow never-ending eyes as he did so.{It seems my spellwork was not fast enough after all, that was playing dirty.}

{I am the god of madness, what made you think I would play fair? All things aside, I am going to enjoy flaying your mind for eternity, you really are the most irritating little creten.} Ilsensine seemed amused, drawing his sword as he spoke.

It was twisted and gnarled, but Hadrian knew from just a glance that a single scratch would make him wish that he had taken his own life.

With a gesture, the cavern fragmented. Pieces of gravel becoming boulders as they twist through the air, the tentacles swirling, their previously arm-like length stretching, each one reaching out to him as if in a deadly embrace. Their very presence stretching his mental barriers beyond what he knew his mind could have handled without the sigils that literally held his mind together.

The tentacles yawned in front of him, inescapable. Their crushing yet paradoxical gentle touch as they wound around his leg and chest was unbearable.

Breathing became impossible as he felt the darkness creep into his vision, the image of Ilsensine in the center of his vision no matter how he flailed. His mage armor glowed angrily in warning as the tentacles applied inhuman pressure on him.

In the end it was pain that saved him, the sizzling of his own flesh giving him the clarity he needed to act.

With a silent snarl, Hadrian felt for the spark that Jordan had gifted him.

He found it easily enough. The issue was that it was rather pathetic. In time, Hadrian had no doubt he could absorb it like he had the elvish magic he had received in his adolescence. For now though it was just a spark.

Taking a deep breath, Hadrian channeled his own magic into the spark, his magic instantly copying the feel and shape of the divine spark, and exploded the power outwards from his body in a wave of destructive force.

The tentacles dissolved under his touch and he dropped from its grip. As he fell he had the queer though that up and down had long since lost meaning in this twisted place.

He fell and kept on falling. Picking up speed, yet getting no closer to the ground, nor further from Ilsensine. As he twisted and fell through space, Ilsensines stoic mask looked at him impassively from all angles.

Panic, a deep animalistic fear, welled up in Hadrian. Was there no end to this?

Hadrian shook his head to snap himself out of the all-consuming terror creeping up on him with panther-like stealth; it was unnatural. Instead he summoned a sigil under his feet, the same sigil he had used so long ago over the quidditch pitch. Slamming his hands together, his fingers curled and with a crackle, one of the rings of runes around his upper left arm vanished as he used one of his prepared Domes of Rationality, canceling out Ilsensines madness reality distortion.

The world stopped spinning. Hadrian looked at Ilsensine angrily, releasing a bolt of lightning directly at the monster.

The might bolt sputtered out before it even came close to the god of madness.

He could hear the voices echoing in his mind now. 'You are weak.' 'You are pathetic.' 'You have no power here.' The voices were insidious, he knew he shouldn't listen, but it was harder than it should be to shut them out.

Refusing to allow the voices any more purchase, Hadrian again slammed his hands together, Eldingr floating into place from where it had fallen earlier. Another pearly Dome of Rationality appeared to free his mind of the madness-inducing voices.

Summoning Eldingr back to his hand, Hadrian felt the spark of Joradin's gift like a miniature sun inside of him, no longer small and weak, but now empowered by a spark of the divine.

Instead of small sparks flickering off him as he sunk deeply into his magic, Hadrian lit up like a flare in the night. Lightning crackling all around him, brighter and more powerful than anything Hadrian had achieved before.

No longer satisfied with letting the god dictate the environment, Hadrian thrust Eldingr towards the gods impassive figure and fired a stream of lightning at the God of Madness.

The god flickered, appearing inches away from his target, his arm smashing into a stunned Hadrian with the force of a dragon. Hadrian felt something in his mind break at the touch of the god.

{I remember when Ilsensagron was a child. He was so precious. Breaking minds and furthering my goals, just seeking my favor. You killed him!} The god's previously logical and stoic demeanor shattered. The true brokenness of the being before him showing itself.

The blows rained down on him faster than anything Hadrian had seen before.

Eldingr intercepted the first strike, but the second sliced a line across his chest. His mage armor flaring white as a scream bubbled unwillingly from Hadrian's throat. He'd live, but the mage armor had been pushed to prodigious limits with a single scratch of Ilsensine's blade.

Fighting a god was truly idiocy.

{Joradin!} Hadrian's cry was answered by an earth-shattering crack, as Joradin teleported into the room with no warning. The butt of his war hammer splitting the ground upon impact. Appearing like a statue of the god he was, the armored dwarf god looked at Ilsensine with anger beyond mortal comprehension.

{How dare you trespass in this realm Ilsensine! Your spawn was not welcome here, and you are even less welcome than they, Lord of Madness!} Joradin's proclamation was followed by the god slamming the butt of his hammer into the ground, a ring of fire igniting around the edge of the Tengkorak.

The power of Joradin, Chief amongst the Divinities of Svartalfheim, and Ilsensine, present in a temple dedicated to him, warred with each other. The flames trying to overwhelm the tentacles and the tentacles trying to smother the flames.

{Joradin, I will enjoy devouring this entire dimension after I banish you from it.}

The two gods struck in mighty clashes that shook more than the room, reality itself trembled at their terrible might.

Hadrian for his part was unwilling to be forgotten and quickly leaped into the fray. Joradin's battle hammer and Hadrian's sword each became a weapon and shield shared between two bodies as they blocked and struck each other in turn, seeking to push their enemy back.

Hadrian found it peculiar that with such power at their hands, both of the gods resorted to what was simply a melee.

A glance at the edge of the room proved that false as the flames and the tentacles remained locked in battle with one another in the most peculiar manner.

Hadrian suspected that had they been out of the grounds of the Tengkorak, Joradin would have won rather quickly, but being as they were in the sacred space of Ilsensine, the Many Tentacled One clearly had an advantage that he would not normally have.

Hadrian saw Joradin get pushed back by Ilsensine, and without pause, Hadrian leaped forward taking Joradin's place, lightning roaring.

Hadrian suspected that his normal lightning could have roared all it wanted and still not even tickled the vengeful god.

Even with the spark of the Cavern Thunderer, Hadrian was little challenge for a true god. It was only Joradin's quick actions that saved him from getting gutted like a pig set for slaughter.

Joradin and Ilsensine fought blow for blow, Joradin's mighty Warhammer should have been heavier and harder to swing, but Hadrian suspected it was as much a part of the Forge Lord as Eldingr was him, and being the case, Jordin's fluid motions and Hadrian's short distracting thrusts slowly pushed Ilsensine back.

Lightning erupted from Eldingr in violent bursts of deadly potential. These were far from the thin chains of lightning he had summoned while fighting the Elder Brain. These were crackling streaks of death as thick around as the trunk of a young oak tree.

The battlefield smelt of ozone and burning flesh. Yet, for every tentacle that was smote to ash, another took its place.

Even in the midst of battle, Hadrian kept awareness of the greater situation around him. He saw the god try to summon madness to the plane of Svartalheimr and reacted instinctively, countering the spell with one of his prepared domes of rationality. The two waves of power canceling each other as they blossomed outwards.

Ilsensine's snarl was audible to Hadrian even from the other side of the chamber where he had retreated to after a particularly nasty combo from the God of Madness.

The two gods were forces of nature, colliding in a way that Hadrian had never imagined, they looked more concept than reality as they blurred and fought, single-minded in their goals.

Hadrian saw an opportunity when Joradin slammed his Warhammer into Ilsensines' guard, forcing the god's blade away from his center. The act created the opening Hadrian needed to blast the god with one of his new supercharged bolts of lightning.

The electricity coursed through the god's avatar, making him freeze just long enough for the ancient smith to strike the side of their enemy's head with a sickening crack.

For a moment Ilsensine's presence grew. Expanding outwards like water overflowing from a glass. The power he had tightly compacted into an avatar was shaken loose from the mighty blow.

The god struggled to maintain the grip he possessed on the mortal form he had assumed, but the damage was too great.

In truth the blow meant little, both gods were little more than divine power wrapped in a mortal shell at the moment. The true issue was that Joradin's blow had blown a hole in that shell, and like a balloon poked with a needle the inside was trying to escape.

If it had been Hadrian alone who had landed the blow it would mean little. The God of Madness would just patch the hole with a small application of his power, but it was not Hadrian who had struck the blow, it was Joradin, a fellow god.

In the moment where Ilsensine was exposed, Joradin had broken the stalemate the two beings had been in since the fight started.

The thick essence of the forge god pierced forward into the breached shell of his fellow god. The rift ruptured, growing bigger, spilling more and more divine essence into the world. An act which subsequently made the avatar of Ilsensines grow weaker as his power was diffused like a drop of liquid dye in a container of water.

Hadrian watched in awe as the gods stood still, straining against each other as their weapons remained locked together in the physical world, all the while battling fiercely in the metaphysical space surrounding them.

The brief relative to mortal time, -who knows how much time passed in the realm of space the gods battled in—struggle ended abruptly when Joradin was finally able to tear the hole in the avatar into a gaping wound.

The fel god's presence flared for a final time before wisps of power flowed and oozed from the masked form, the body of Ilsensine's avatar collapsing to the ground, dead. His power banished from this realm.

The tentacles around the room vanished into wisps of dark magic not visible to the eye while Joradin's flames climbed high in victory. The forge god bellowed his victory; a wave of powerful magic buffeting Hadrian as Joradin's roar echoed through the magics of the realm the same as the physical world.

For a moment Hadrian stood stunned, gazing around the room in awe. His mind trying to understand the fight he had just witnessed.

Eventually, Hadrian cautiously approached Joradin who was directing his flames to the pool of tadpoles, killing tens of thousands of the future parasitic monstrosities before they could grow.

{Thank you Lord Joradin.} Hadrian was genuinely grateful for the gods' interference. He had stood no chance on his own against any god, let alone one like Ilsensine.

{Now now, none of that! You have proved very helpful young thunderer, simply ridding us of Ilsensine's constant meddling on this plane alone is worthy of praise. Ignoring the defense of my children, and my niece's family, it was my pleasure.}

Hadrian bowed in respect. Lifting his hand, Hadrian summoned a spark to his finger.

{I suppose you will want this back?}

Joradin waved his hand negligently. { No, it has been tainted by mortal magic, it is yours, now I must go, I suspect we shall not meet again.}

Without waiting for a response from Hadrian, Joradin dissolved into smoke, leaving him the sole living being left in the empty Tengkorak.

Looking at the body of Ilsensine's avatar, Hadrian's body moved on its own accord. Stepping forward, the young thunderer made a gesture and tried to summon the fragments of armor into a bag.

To his immense surprise, it worked. Each piece flowing into the bag at his gesture.

He would deal with them later.

Taking one last look at the chamber, Hadrian turned and strode from the Tengkorak.

If there was one thing that Hadrian knew, in the moment, it was this: he wanted nothing to do with the Illithid any longer.

Rath'gar's blood fire had burned out when Joradin's flames had begun purging the building of any and all traces of Ilsensines power.

Even the long winding hallway of mind-altering architecture was no more, its magic broken. Instead, a simple stone hallway lay revealed to Hadrian as he made his way out of the temple.

He suspected the temple had been unsanctified when Joradin defeated the god of madness.

Hadrian slowly hobbled back through the city, moving like he was ten times his age because of the damage done by the tentacles when they had wound around him. The only reason he had made it was he used Eldingr in its staff form as a crutch.

He was fortunate that the mage armor had done its part or he doubted that he would have been able to leave the Tengkorak alive, or, more likely, with a free mind.

The city burned around him as Illithid ran to-and-fro unconcerned with his presence. He couldn't blame them, their world was ending.

The madness of their ruler and perhaps their god's death and departure from the plane crippling the hive minds' ability to govern the individuals.

Hadrian watched numbly as one of them jumped from the top of a nearby house crunching into the ground in front of Hadrian.

All at once, it hit him. What he'd seen over the past few days, what he'd done.

Hadrian's stomach bubbled and he emptied his stomach on the side of the street, too much had happened.

The irony that madness had been brought to Thosdagokshe after the god of madness had been banished from the dimension was not lost on Hadrian.

Still, such thoughts would have to wait, all he cared about was getting back to Albus.

A/N:

*Sorry we had technical difficultied, ffn deletes all of the grammar to signify the gods talking, I have tried fixing this, hope it is more readable...*

Hello! I want to start by apologizing for the long wait, this was an especially hard chapter, and I actually had to split what I wanted to be one chapter (Tengkorak and the journey to Alfheimr) into two separate chapters so I could avoid a 20k word monstrosity.

I know I have been getting complaints about a regular updating schedule, and I would just like to take a moment to address them, I do my best to get a chapter out a month, IF I can do more, I am happy to, but frankly, these are not regular Harry runs around Hogwarts chapters, they take research, and imagination, something that being trapped in your own house for six months does not facilitate.

To those who think this is not Harry Potter anymore, you are right the Arcanist is AU fanfiction. but I will be exploring a lot more of the Harry Potter side of the stories after the Alfheimr arc, so if you are patient I think you will like how the world transitions into the world we all know and love.

If you do not feel the updates are regular enough for you, I am sorry, I however am doing my best. I have a job, and a life and do my best to enjoy both of those things and also my writing. I hope you understand.

After I get to Alfheimr, expect a short break from the regular storyline so that I can go edit the issues out of chapters 1-4.

You can expect the next few chapters to be heavy on the character development side, this is really the "boss battle" of Svartalheimr, so it needed to be done. Still, expect the consequences of this to have far more reaching effects than you expect.

Lilomëa will be more fleshed out don't worry, you will get to see more of her and Rath'gar then ever before, you will also get plenty of time to get to enjoy Hadrian and Lilomea having to learn about each other.

I hope the fight between Joradin, Hadrian, and the much teased Ilsensine didn't disappoint. It was my first attempt to write that kind of divine fighting, don't expect a lot of it. I am not going to try to let the story sink more into that then I need to.

To those who are worried that Albus and Hadrian are outgrowing what the Wizarding World can deal with, you are right, but I have something planned that will hopefully stir things up a bit.

A fic recommendation for this month is "Son of the Western Sea"

My beta's are amazing and I love them, both. Thanks for all of your help guys!

Mr. Omega