A Land Far Away

The pair of large and colorful birds were laid out methodically on the tables in the rented room, their wings spread wide to allow ease of access to the corpses. The recently dissected Wilora had their organs and parts of interest already stored away in carefully and neatly labelled jars, aligned in alphabetical order on a small table in the corner of the room. If one was to take note, the table’s edges were exactly aligned with the wall as well, one of a few dozen other tiny details indicating some effort had gone into preparing the space.
A marble-skinned man in a red hood and cloak cast cleaning cantrips over the rented space for a second time, leaving the room far cleaner than when he had arrived twenty hours earlier. The only thing even slightly out of place was a notebook, penned in ancient Imaskari and littered with simple yet precise sketches.
“No pronounced Protomatter decay of note was found in either specimen. As anticipated; Transmutative manipulation was determined to be the source of the Wilora’s ability to change form. The ancillary ability of memory appropriation would appear to be linked to a degree of Psionic manipulation, as no evidence of Divination auras was discovered.”

The small room was filled almost to overflowing with the bulk of the beast; the body and tentacles were all neatly wound and stowed around the rooms circumference to allow some manner of pathway on the floorspace. In the center of the room, sat a small round dining table, complete with an obsessively laid out silverware set for one. The marble-skinned man stood above the platter, sharpening a carving blade on a steel, periodically examining it’s near-perfect edge in the artificial lighting of the pocket plane. With a rehearsed precision, he carved off two identical portions of the raw and odd-shaped liver and sat them on the otherwise empty dinner plate with as much presentation and panache one could expect from two thin slices of such. He sat, pulled in his chair, smoothed out the table linens under a palm and delicately used his fork to place a serving into his mouth, the intent to savor the meal clearly painted across his features.
His heart hammering in his chest and a stabbing pain above one eye gave more than a little cause for concern, but this certainly was not the first time he would willingly suffer to cavort with enlightenment. While perishing to a synaptic overload was still a distinct possibility, what was more distracting was the absurdly slimy texture of the ever-so-carefully prepared Aboleth organ, with the flavor profile being trapped somewhere between Plague Rat droppings and a burning Sewer Goblin.

The path to the unveiled knowledge of the multiverse was oft fraught with peril, and the one caught in the throws of agony was certainly no stranger to such. Onward he weaved his way through the fragmented memories of scores of sentient beings; a love found and lost in the arms of another down this route, and a murder most foul down another. Intertwined in it all was the interjection and perception of the former host and collector; the alien mind of the Aboleth. The deeper he probed; the more layers became apparent as he stepped further into the maelstrom. The formerly enigmatic motivations for expression of emotions and where they originated began to lay themselves out like… another form of mathematics, with the variables being more akin to the subtle motivations and considerations of another perspective. Then came the pain again…

Three red vertical eyes erupted through the darkness, filled with maleficence and secrets untold. All three of the orbs squinted, as if amused and a voice like a bell rang within his skull.
“Peer into the nothingness before time, and it will be us you see looking back. Leave now and take your scraps.”