HP:[" the Illithid Inquisition"]

Harry awoke later to the sound of screaming outside the pod that held him. His head hurt, his vision was blurry and fading in and out. He only barely managed to focus on the figure moving before him. The creature was no human, nor was it any manner of magical beast he had been taught about in his defense against the dark arts classes. It had the shape of a man, but it's skin was a pale purple and utterly hairless.

It had only three fingers and a thumb upon its hands. Four long tendrils grew from around its mouth, each seemed prehensile and dexterous. The creature floated across the ground as it approached Harry's pod.

Some screen that had sealed him in, rolled back as the creature reached him. It held a jar in one hand which it reached into and withdrew a small worm like thing that squirmed and hissed at exposure to the air. The tentacle faced monster lifted the worm towards Harry, who did his best to writhe away from it but soon the worm was on his face.

Thin hair like tentacles allowed the worm to crawl towards Harry's eye. The boy who lived did his best to thrash about and knock it off, but the long thin, clawed fingers of the monster grabbed and held his head in place. Soon the round mouth of the worm with dozens of small sharp fangs in it, filled the vision of one of Harry's eyes, his lid was pulled open by the thing as it crawled ever closer and then dived down and into the corner of Harry's eye

. The pain was excruciating and blessedly within seconds Harry had screamed himself into unconsciousness once more.

Sensation returned more slowly to Harry this time. It felt like his head was wrapped in wool. He drudged along in a line for some time following the orders of a sweetly beckoning voice. He kept telling himself over and over again that there was nothing he wanted more than to do as this voice told him to. Slowly, ever so slowly his head cleared.

The voice no longer seemed so sweet. He no longer told himself to follow its instructions and didn't listen to himself as he did so. He became more and more aware of how cold the air was on his skin, how hard his eyes had to strain to catch any light, how foul everything smelled. Yet he couldn't yet force himself to stop doing as the voice ordered and so he remained in line, occasionally walking forward.

The woman who stood before him suddenly ducked and climbed into a pod that stood open in front of her. She strapped herself in tightly to the pod's restraints and then rolled back her eyes as if preparing to fall asleep. The pod closed itself and then raised up into the air.

Purple lighting struck the pod a few times, an odd dark haze surrounded it. The air within the pod seemed to rippled and bend. The image of the woman became distorted and then she convulsed in pain as the transformation began.

Her hair all fell out and as her mouth screamed it began to round into a near perfect circle. Her skin turned various hues of purple and pink before it slowly evened out in color. Her index fingers fell off and the other three lengthened and spread out to fill out her thinning stretching hand.

Finally her skull shifted its shape, her eyes darkened to black pits and four arm length tentacles grew from her face about her mouth. She had been changed into one of the monsters that had inserted that worm into Harry's eye. Her mind pulsed with satisfaction before it passed out from exhaustion.

Her pod slid to the back of the room and out of sight. A new pod appeared and dropped down before Harry. The voice commanded him from the back of his mind but it now sounded a distant and annoying thing. Nonetheless Harry's hand reached out as if to begin climbing into the pod.

No! Shouted Harry in the confines of his head. No! Echoed another voice much like his own in equal fervor. No! Both Harry and the new voice screamed in unison.

Harry's hand stopped and just that easily he was back in control of his body. He backed swiftly away from the pod until he bumped into someone behind him. Harry spun in surprise to see a strange man with green skin, animal hides for clothes and a blank look to his eyes. But before Harry had much chance to study the man something seized him and spun him about to face it.

Another one of these tentacle faced creatures stood before him. It had one hand on his shoulder and used the other to tilt his head up to get a look at him. Pitiless eyes looked down on him in contempt which caused a small bit intense feeling of anger to begin to swell within him.

"You dare to resist my control, whelp?" the creature spoke, or perhaps it didn't. Harry knew that such words had passed between them but his ears denied ever hearing them. Yet it was not the same as hearing a voice speak within his own head, these words definitely came from outside him.

Strike him! Commanded the voice that was so like his own and in contrast to the monster these words definitely came from within him. Very likely they came from the part of him that had felt so furious at being looked down on. Harry saw no reason not to follow this suggestion.

Harry's backhand caught the monster by surprise and knocked it to the ground. This surprised Harry as well, while he was wiry and stronger than he looked, Harry was small for his age and still only a few days older than thirteen. Something had been pushing on his hand as he swung, adding a bit more oomph to the hit. The creature glared up furiously at Harry from the ground.