The Past is a Memory

Goleil found himself on a dark plain of dying grass and darker fog once more.

Only this time, he wasn't alone. In front of him was a grey crag that jutted out from the ground and gave a commanding view of the rest of the plains.

On top of the massive rock, he could see the outline of something amorphous. Its figure was constantly shifting as if it couldn't decide whether its arms should be on its chest or its shoulders.

He heard a familiar dark chuckling, but his ears now, instead of bouncing around within his mind.

"I took a look at your memories, Goleil. It seems you don't know much about yourself, if anything at all. You better resemble a weapon than a man." The eldritch said.

Goleil made his way up the rock towards the enlargening figure.

The shifting figure chuckled once more and continued surveying its domain. "Dreary, isn't it? You've been here a couple of times, though I can't possibly fathom for what reason. This is the Inbetween, where us Elderlings go until our souls are repurposed for His machinations. Who knows, if some godly craftsman didn't destroy my consciousness and we weren't made into one being, I could've come back as an Eldritch Lord!" The Eldritch laughed heartily as if appreciating a good joke.

Goleil made it up to the top of the rock, and when he got there, he could finally see the Eldritch's proper form. It could look like a man for one second, then add an arm or two, or perhaps a leg if it felt. Its entire body was composed of thick dark blue tentacles that could expand and contract according to the shape it wanted to take.

Slowly it took the form of Goleil, but like a dark blue twin who looked far more sinister.

"I sense your disdain for me, pity, maybe even anger. I'll assume something more familiar to you, though that statement is a lie in itself. Your body is not truly your own. It was created by a power you do not understand for a purpose you do not remember."

Goleil looked around and decided to start with something simple.

"Who are you?"

The Eldritch laughed. "Who am I? My true name is not for those of mortal tongue. Though, I guess that matters little now, so may call me Ty'Bral. I find little to be of any worth, especially after being slaughtered by your kind and made into nothing more than a glorified energy drink. Do you know what they called me while we battled?! Pseudo-Eldritch!! As if such a thing exists!" The Eldritch laughed, but Goleil could see that tears were streaming from its eyes, "I was so weak that even mortals as pathetic as man did not see me as a true Eldritch. Perhaps my brethren were right about me. Trash will always be trash no matter how long one lives..."

Goleil nodded, unsure of how to proceed. He might offer some encouragement to a comrade, but it was the enemy before him. Not only that, but it was an Eldritch, an abomination that could destroy entire cities if left untouched.

He decided just to keep going in the end. "What did you mean when you said we were made into one being? You said something destroyed your consciousness, so I should still just be me."

"Be not mistaken. I am very dead. My consciousness has been wiped from existence and my soul has been turned into nothing more than fuel to stoke the fires of your rise. But what is life, really? I may be dead in the traditional sense. However, I live on in your mind. Life is nothing more than the sum of our experiences, and that is what I am. Like I have seen your memory, you have seen mine. I am merely those memories with a form in your mind."

"So, I can remember your life?"

"Perhaps one day. You must understand that what your soul has consumed was supposed to be an empty raw material, nothing more than an immaterial building block to increase your soul's strength. But once again, your physique has changed that. You see, some mad god created you. Down to your very soul, everything is crafted. I know vague pieces, like where we are. I know that your creator did not intend for our meeting, this time nor the last. That much is certain to me."

Goleil stared out across the yellowed fields.

"You called this place the Inbetween, that this is your version of the Netherworld. Why am I here?"

Ty-Bral shrugged. "That, I cannot answer. Please don't mistake me. I'm not keeping anything from you. I simply don't know. Only an Eldritch soul unanchored to any material body can come here, and even that is not by choice. To come here willingly would be madness and accidentally would be preposterous. And yet, here you are for what, the third time? The second time?"

Goleil narrowed his eyes but didn't question it. "How did you navigate my soul so well? You almost killed me."

"Navigate? Well? Ah, I forget that you have almost no knowledge of magic other than your own mana circuits. I am an Elderling and a magic-user on top of that. Any good mage should know their own soul like the back of their hand. I mean, if one can see it, they should know it. And I was guessing. A mortal's soul tendons are far simpler than even my own," He said, stretching his arms out. Suddenly, he had two more arms directly below them, then six and eight.

Goleil nodded. "Okay, that makes sense, I guess. Why can't I remember certain things? Family, friends, comrades? I only wondered before someone combined my soul with yours, but since I started talking to you, I've felt like I've forgotten something important, and I want to know what. Is that maybe an unintended side-effect?"

Ty'Bral nodded and rubbed his tentacle chin thoughtfully. "That's a solid theory. A god clearly created you, and since you have a purpose, you probably serve that god. Your patron god Vrea is the most likely candidate, who you call the Undying Flame. The Elder God of the Sun always did like their warriors. It's likely that with your body's adaptive abilities, your god's absolute influence over you has been somewhat dampened now that an Elderling is directly countering a god's power. Of course, I can't overpower a god, so you are limited to the desire to know what you can not remember. I assume as you drink more of what that crazy bastard Mord calls locraf and what I call liquid dream killer, your mind will become less clouded by your god. You'll likely go insane quicker as a side-effect, though."

"Why does it sound like I'll go insane anyway? What makes you so sure?"

"You must be joking. Look around you. You are currently in the underworld, talking to a dead eldritch's latent memories. Your mind created me to compartmentalize all the different memories into two distinct people because your mind is too fragile to hold both of our memories. You frequently feel as though your body is not your own, because it isn't and also is, your soul has been tampered with, and you have a mask on your face that won't let go of you for no apparent reason. Not only that, but we don't even know if the you I am talking to is even the real you!"

Goleil nodded. He did have a point.