The chair had stopped moving now and I was able to make out the dim outlines of the thing before us. Its sides appeared to be a deep, slick red that resembled a brightly-colored slug. I had no way of knowing how large it was, because its undulating length went back into the darkness without end. My eyes kept wanting to avoid looking at what I assumed was its head, a mass of hard, deeper crimson flesh and squid-like arms that were run through with jagged calcifications of black stone that endlessly dripped a thick, white fluid from the wounds the rocks had produced. As the first drop of that hit my bare skin, I felt my leg begin to go numb.

“This place, these wonderful beings, no one knows for sure if they were always here and just awoke during the eruption, or if their arrival actually caused Skaftareldar. What we do know is that soon after the eruptions died down, the first of us discovered newly opened caves that led us to this blessed place. Ever since, we have helped them with their work and reaped the bounty of their wisdom.”

I felt the first tendrils of the thing climbing my body, touching my legs and groin almost gingerly as it made its way toward my head. I felt like I was going insane, but then I suddenly spoke, my voice calm as it uttered words not my own. “What is their work?”

My head turned toward Aller, who was looking down at me with a smirk. “Glad you asked. Why it’s the study of the human soul.” I felt the tentacles of the creature coiling around my neck and head, holding me fast toward Aller as he went on.

“They want to see what it takes to shape a soul. To refine it or break it. Are they immutable, or can they be changed through experiences? Ideas? Different beliefs?” Aller looked over at the thing above me with some mixture of love and admiration. “In past centuries, these studies have taken many forms, but lately there has been a focus on the effect of convincing someone of a false past. Can you make a person better or worse by giving them memories that they had a better or worse life than they actually had? Can you make a person more virtuous or depraved simply by making them believe they have been so in the past?”