Tollysalmon
Part of a Series on the Barmies who reside in the Gatehouse of the Bleak Cabal
(Planar githyanki knight [she/her] / Bleak Cabal / CE)
Now this ain’t common knowledge berk, so don’t go telling anyone I told you, right? True enough, it’s well known that Bleakers themselves are prone to fits of melancholia and barminess, and the chant also says that the reason we Bleakers change our factol as often as a Xaositect changes his mind is ’cause they start to lose the plot after a year on the job. What the streets don’t know is that most of the ex-factols of the Bleak Cabal are holed up in the Criminally and Irretrievably Insane wing of the Gatehouse.
Darker still (and I doubt even most of the other Bleakers know this) is that one of ’em escaped last week. Tollysalmon, also known as the “Mind Leech” is one of the more barmy ex-factols, and sure enough, she ain’t in her cell no more. Least, if she is, then she’s discovered a whole new meaning to the word “invisible”, berk.
Her brief few years as our illustrious factol (ha!) shattered her mind beyond recognition. Now, she never used to be a barrel of laughs (who is, these days?), but she certainly weren’t the emotional black hole that she’s become. See, Tollysalmon got so obsessed with the futility of existence that she started drawing others into her torpor. Not just ’cause they sympathised with her, mind; she actually sucked all purpose for their existence out of ’em.
I don’t know whether she started doing it on purpose, but it seems she soon began to feed off the essence of other sods’ reason for being. She stopped eating the food we put out for her, and one-by-one the barmies in the cells around her became mute and apathetic, unable to scream, howl or cry out to Abyssal powers like they usually do. Well, for a few days it was blissful on the ‘Wing, I tell you.
Then the barmy ex-factol began to experiment with her powers a little. She started draining the staff, so as they wouldn’t mind letting her roam around a bit. That’s when we realised just how frightening she’d become. Anyone she psychically attacked lost all sense of purpose, identity, emotion and motive for existing. Worse, it wasn’t just temporary; we’ve not found any way, magical or otherwise, to put back what she stole from their psyches.
Before we could do anything to stop her (or before her guards could be raised from their apathy enough to react) she’d gone. I don’t know where, but it’s a cert she’s hanging around the Cage somewhere. Why’d she up and leave? Well, get it straight berk, she was hardly living in the lap of luxury on the ‘Wing, now was she? I also reckon that most berks’ve got a lot more vitality and purpose than the average Bleaker. She’s probably gone somewhere to find sods who think more of themselves than we do. Maybe she’ll pay those Mind’s Eye berks a visit.
Come to think of it, I’ll call off that search party ’till tomorrow. After all, it’s getting dark now ain’t it? Besides, it’s about time we got our revenge on those berks for what they did to Factol Nobey.
Source: Jon Winter-Holt, mimir.net
