Illithid Behind the Curtain: A Salem Interlude (Patreon)

The more things changed, the more they stayed the same Salem mused to herself.

Centuries had passed and she was still in a tower, albeit of her own choice now. Her heart was cold, the sensation of humanity all but gone, in no small part due to her curse. It colored everything from her interactions to her goals, the driving hatred of humanity making her continue this farce of a war but mostly, she was just tired.

She was tired of living, tired of the rot that was humanity, tired of the broken world she surveyed from her tower and beyond. All that was left was going through the motions, and even that was bereft of any sort of emotion due to her immortality. Death? Problems? Nothing that couldn't be solved with simply retreating and letting time take its course before she acted again. Rinse, repeat, a brief moment of years where she acted and Ozma stopped her and that was that.

And then one day, she felt a shift in the air.

It was incredibly subtle, quiet and still. She had been walking about her tower when it happened and for the first time, Salem felt something else besides the oppressive state of her condition. She felt alive, for a moment intensely so as she turned her gaze outward, stared out and cocked her head. Her Grimm, responding to her were restless and her servants, likewise in the way she ignored them and then, upon a balcony she held out her fingers. Memories, rusted with the years were brushed off as she went about the gesture.

And to her shock, sparks crackled between her fingers as she gasped.

"Oh.... Oh my."

That shouldn't have been possible. Not here, not after what had transpired when the gods of Remnant cursed them and shattered the moon. The Gift had long been gone, the Elemental Plane and Feywild locked and only the Shadowfell yet existed in some form, her Grimm operating off of the rules from it in some way.

But here it was, and she did another, her fingers swirling as water began to form and roll into a ball as she froze it, expanded it into a snowflake pattern and for a moment, smiled in renewed wonder. And then a Nevermore cried out and her smile vanished, the snowflake falling to the ground as it shattered and she turned, gliding away from it.

It changed nothing. They were left with only the meanest forms of the Gift, her and Ozma. He from his little projects, herself after the Grimm pools had altered her far too much. And yet, she was curious and wondered how best to change this, use this new factor to her advantage.

And then suddenly, she glanced to the table in the room and paused. One pale finger tapped her chin in thought, looking at a tome she knew hadn't been there before.

It was the most curious thing to happen these past centuries, so she indulged it, taking it as she gave it a critical eye.

It was a tome of power, certainly. She could feel it, slowly destroying her fingers and she ignored it, looking at the cover. The leather was human skin, she'd used enough of it herself to know it by sight at this point. A golden image of a fiend's face roared in silence on the cover, and she opened it, glancing at the words written. Her eyes widened in true shock, as the enormity of what she held in hand hit her. In spidery script was an introduction, the authors words to those who would hold this tome in hand.

To those who further the Dark Cause, who rages against the heavens, to whom oblivion is sweeter than ambrosia, drink deep. Let this book of vile darkness be your guide into secrets to shatter gods and open the gates of hell itself.

Even as I have done.

-Vecna.

Salem slowly began to smile, her eyes glowing a deeper red as she closed the tome.

This...

This changed everything.