Episode 23: The Squid Hunt Report

General Summary

Preparing for Mind Flaying

The crew prepares to hunt illithids, Spark augurs the head of the colony and discovers his devastating array of mind spells and that there is a planar rift near them connected to some chaotic realm and the far realms.

Nia sweet talks a Magister into supplying a scroll of Bigby's Hand.

Lance reports to Lola Carly and gets a babingka that would help fortify the minds of the eater. She also was glad Lance has chosen a destiny, but lamented that he chose two.

Spark informed the neophytes they would be staying on the ship to protect Way with the ship crew while the officers did the dirty work and set up Atho's Eye to watch the action, though that would only work while the officers were on the same plane.

Nia tried to leave Jenny in a safe place as well, but hedrons just don't stay away.

Nels also argued for coming along and Nia respected his bravery.

Gaining Entry to the Psychic Cyst

They fly out to the Kirinal Wastes and come upon a strange earthen mound cave thing. Lance tossed some daylight inside and a smattering of dwarven curses spilled out. Spark blindly tossed out a fireball and a large duergar materialized from the flames.

Several more materialized and made a pincushion out of Spark with javelins, but some telekinetic shielding and biokinetic mending kept the pain to a minimum. Nia, El and Lance unleashed a rainbow variety of magical beams putting the duergar down quickly. Their commander was still invisible somewhere nearby, and Nels knocked em out with sleep spell.

It revealed a duergar in grag clothing. However, just then a mind blast came from an invisible illithid assailant, but the crew had already taken their bibingkas and were huddling within El's protective aura so the damage was minimal. It was enough that Nels decided to bow out of the conflict. El then flew to the newly revealed mind flayer and slew him on the spot.

The duergar grag turned into a regular grag. His presence was supsicious but the crew didn't have time to interrogate him or listen to his generational tale of mushroom farmers.

Entering Pandemonium

Inside the cave they discovered a portal into Pandemonium which was dark and loud. The entrance also featured a brainless mind flayer corpse.

Exploration was slow in starting, and the officers first found a strange chamber stinking of chlorine with strange bits laying about. Abandoning this room they went down the hall to a lit room with a human woman wearing plate mail standing before a red pool. She turned when as the crew drew near and offered to help them.

She had heard about the mindflayers, came down and was investigating the same area. She asked us to ally, and the officers were considering accepting until Lance's shadow swam to her and indicated she was a wiggly monster! Lance quickly blasted her with divine light. The light lingered over the woman and lit up a tendril of the red pool attached to her legs, and the light spread to cover the entire pool to reveal a gelatinous abomination filled with the body of former victims. It produced tentacles and advanced on Spark, but his new pal Mekkamutt got in the way. The jelly also tried to use its mind tongue slurp up Spark's mind, but El's protective aura kept him safe.

They moved down another hallway and found a strange cauldron of wax in a room with bowls and hooks.

"Do you eat the wax?"

"I think it's a sex thing..."

"Let's not find out."

They moved on and found a strange room of white marble variegated with red streaks. in the center was a huge statue holding the ceiling embedded with humongous black gem eyes and along the wall was humanoid statues in the shape of being tortured. There was a hallway to the side and the officers saw no mindflayers and started to move on.

One of the statues got down and cried about interrupting some ritual. The officers apologized, showed disinterest in moved on. The humongous statue began to move, but the crew continued with a 'No Thanks' and scooted to a closet where they found a Pearl of Power.