Leaving the Mindflayer City

The trip out of the mindflayer city is horrifying. The group laboriously makes their way around an intricate labyrinth imprinted into the cavern floor. The pathway is outlined by still-conscious brains stuck upon spikes.

"These things are still thinking," says Galthia with revulsion. "I can pick up echoes from them. Their mental energy is powering the defenses." He worries that he can also sense trace thoughts of his closest friend, lost here on a rrakma several years before, but there's no way to be sure. I'll be back, he vows to himself. They will pay.

Once past the labyrinth, the group moves through several rooms filled with intricate energies that part before them. They leave by walking through an opaque stone wall that suddenly becomes solid behind them. The ever-present psionic hum cuts off abruptly, and everyone collapses to the ground. They're through.

Galthia eventually gets back to his feet. "I'll scout ahead. We need to camp, but we should know what's nearby." His voice soon whispers over the mindlink. "The way is blocked ahead by three kobold zombies. They each have uneaten rats on sticks, and they're standing in front of a thin waterfall." He pauses. "The waterfall is artificial. There's a decanter of endless water placed up at the top, and draining down into the floor. We can't get through the water in wind walk form."

Overnight, the group identifies and splits up accumulated magical treasure. One of the things that Mara claims is a vest of etheric calm, made of many kuo-toa leather straps. "It allows the calming of etheric winds," says Agar. "If you have the vest on, you shouldn't have to fear any ethereal storms."

"Like the one going on right now?" Mara reaches out her hand for the leather harness. "I have armor of etherealness. This'll be perfect!"

Nolin twitches. "Little leather cross-straps. . ." He gulps audibly and wipes some sweat from his forehead. "I'm going to go and have a little lie down."

"It's what kuo-toa wear! And it goes under the armor." She wipes off kuo-toa slime from the leather and tucks it in her pack. Nolin moans, Agar takes a deep breath, and they both go back to identifying.

Other items are split up as well. One is a kuo-toa ring of drowning, which causes minute-long bubbles of water to appear atop the target's head. "I have no open ring slots," remarks Nolin, "but I love the idea of the ring of drowning combined with the ring of incontinence."

"For maximum embarrassment?" asks Velendo.

"Exactly. But let's give it to Galthia so that he has a ranged attack." The monk looks bemused. They give troll intestine rope and a gem that seeps psychic poison to Malachite, and the Golden Torc of the Sea King to Burr-Lipp.

"I have a feeling that the kuo-toa would want that back if they knew we had it, but what the heck. What's next, Agar?"

Agar looks at the glorious jewel-encrusted sceptre in his lap. "This is a rod of kingly attire. It can dress you in clothing worth 20,000 gold pieces once a day."

The bard's eyes bulge. "Yoink!" yells Nolin.

Velendo looks disgusted. "The ghouls get the best plunder from a dozen civilizations, and we get a rod that makes you dress nicely. Lucky us."

"Be fair," says Malachite. "Dress really nicely."

"And all of this stuff is coated with slime," complains Nolin as he wipes off the sceptre on an old shirt. "Clearly we need to kill some more sophisticated people."

Velendo clears his throat. "So, how do we deal with the zombies tomorrow? Are they scout zombies or warning zombies? If we kill them, are the ghouls warned?"

Mara puts down the leather straps. "Do we know what 's between us and Nacreous?"

Malachite shakes his head doubtfully. "In theory, it's smooth sailing all the way. Somewhere out there is the cavern where the ghouls were stopped hundreds of years ago. . . the place where Aleax and Morak sacrificed their lives to drop a cavern ceiling on their heads. I don't know of anything else."

"Assuming the White Kingdom hasn't animated the bodies of the other former saint." Nolin snorts, and Malachite looks up.

"They already did that."

"You're thinking of Saint Aleax. I'm thinking of Saint Morak, the priest of Calphas who actually brought down the ceiling and killed all of them. The dwarven ghost we met in Mrid said he was greedy. Who knows what happened to him."

"Hey now!" objects Velendo. "He's probably working away in Haven for Calphas. No blasphemy, please."

They consider different plans, including true seeing, prying eyes, and scouting ethereally. Then with a squeak, Agar's eyes roll back in his head. He comes back to consciousness seconds later, but refuses to discuss his vision.

Later than night, when Priggle has gone to bed ("I know there aren't enough beds. I'll just sleep on the floor. It's not like a svirfneblin is used to anything better, anyways."), Agar talks about what he saw. "I saw Priggle in a city of bone," he gulps, "and he was a ghoul."

"Oh, that's not good," worries Mara. "We better not tell him."

"I agree," says Agar. "It would just distract him." The group finally goes to bed, and their sleep is torn with nightmares. Perhaps it's the nearness of the mindflayer city, or perhaps its what they've gone through, but only Priggle looks well-rested in the morning.

"Why's everyone looking at me?" he asks suspiciously, but no one tells him of Agar's vision. His natural paranoia makes him suspicious, though, and his craggy face is twisted by a frown as the group prepares for combat against the three kobold zombies.

Agar casts true seeing, and sneaks in with Galthia. Invisible and flying, he's hard to detect.

"We're four hundred yards up. The zombies have evocation magic on them, and there is a low-level illusion magic on the rats." He checks the ethereal plane. "Yeek! There are indistinct spirits all over."

Back near where the group camped, Mara leans against a wall whose carven tentacle design has changed shape overnight. "I don't think the rats are inherently magical. They're just rats impaled on a stick. Magic rats don't exist."

Velendo frowns as he tries to remember. "Didn't the Torazian deathgranter Droomak have a magic rat of throwing? It was dead, and if you flung it at someone it would animate and burrow in to them. Dylrath got it, and carried it around for a long time."

Malachite's face twists. "And you say Dylrath had this item?"

"Yes."

"Shocked. I'm shocked by this." His voice is phlegmatic, not surprised in the least.

Nolin smirks. "That rat was of enchantable quality. You don't often see a masterwork rat."

Agar reports in again. "They're just standing there."

"Well, I'm bored," announces Mara. "I'm going ethereal to scout."

"Mara, no!" shouts Velendo, but the beautiful paladin is already gone. "Damn it." Resignedly he waves good luck to her, and turns to the rest of the group. "Every time we make a plan, we know that we have to come up with something in ten minutes. Any longer than that, and Mara goes and does something rash."

Mara finds herself standing in a bank of clouds. She feels like she's in the eye of a maelstrom. Moving through the clouds are the faint shapes of flitting ghosts, and she can hear moaning and crying from the spirits around her. If she squints, Mara can just barely see the shapes of her friends nearby. She takes a deep breath and moves down the tunnel.

Once she passes Agar and Galthia she drifts forward more slowly, sinking into the floor so that only her head is visible. The faint feel of the stone brushing past her almost tickles.

"Well, that's not something you see every day," comments Agar over the mindlink.

"What?" asks the others.

"Mara's disembodied head just drifted by. It was emerging from the cavern floor." He sounds fascinated.

Meanwhile Mara moves into the cavern and watches the zombies, who seem to ignore her completely. There is stacked rubble around this cavern in addition to the zombies and the waterfall. She drifts through the rubble in a corner and is shocked to discover a zombie underneath the stacked rocks. She withdraws carefully, and with her heart thudding she swoops through the wall and past the falling water.

"Well, this is a let-down." Behind the wall of water she discovers a completely empty room with a flat stone floor. The stone is slightly shinier and smoother than the walls, as is the back wall (probably blocking off a door.) They look newer than the natural stone of the cavern walls. There is 2 or 3" of water on the floor. She heads back, rematerializes, and reports on what she's seen.

This mystifies the group. "If the zombies raise an alarm, where do they go if the room behind them is sealed off? This makes no sense. We have to get past those zombies one way or another."

"The evocation on the zombies is probably some spell to make them explode when killed," concludes Agar. "It seems to be linked to their animating force. Kill 'em, and they'll go boom. That's my guess, anyways."

"What about the spell on the undead rats?" Velendo makes a face.

"No idea. Maybe something like magic mouth, but there's no way to be sure. I say we go get them."

"It's us against three kobold zombies," says Nolin sarcastically. "How tough could this be?"