A Message From the Brain

Written on vellum made from unidentifiable skin, the psi-active runes on the note drill directly into the head of anyone who tries to read them. They speak in the unforgettable voice of the elder brain, squirming and writhing as they make themselves understood.

"We wish to see you. They will try to stop you. We will welcome you. You may come and go freely, with no danger of ambush from us or anyone we control. We will return the githzerai Rondeth after we speak."

Velendo rereads the note. "No danger of ambush? What a lie!"

"Unless there's something going on," says Mara. "If it's a trap, it's an incredibly transparent and obvious one."

"That would be atypical for mind flayers," agrees Agar.

Galthia scowls. "Unless they think that making it obvious is the only way I'll fall for it. I hate out-thinking those damn things."

Velendo throws his arms up in the air. "I'm tired of this. I'm going to cast a commune."

As one, the rest of the group begins the traditional chant. "Weal or woe! Weal or woe!"

"Yeah, yeah. I have one of those, too, just in case. But this will be a commune, because they're a lot more useful."

Galthia begins to pace. "Unless you can tell me that this is absolutely a trap, Velendo, I'm still going."

"Don't worry. We'll find out." Behind him, a translucent predator-thing sweeps in to eat the unnatural creature with the note and disappears into the darkness. Velendo spins, but it's already gone.

Twenty minutes later, the cleric sits down holding a list of questions and places his shield carefully in front of himself. He starts to pray, and the cavern around him dissolves.

He is clambering up a hill, standing there looking up into the heavens, and suddenly he feels an agent of his God there by his side.

"Okay," he says. "Here goes."

And as suddenly as it began, Velendo is back in the cavern.

"Grrr!" Agar is positively growling with annoyance as Velendo reads back the answers. "Thank you for asking, Velendo, but grrrr! It'd be nice if Gods were omniscient." Proty wiggles his pseudopods in agreement.

"Well, once again, the answers confuse more than they clear up. What did he mean, 'Now it is irrelevant'? Is that 'Right this minute it doesn't matter,' or 'It no longer matters,' or. . . Arrgh!" Velendo puts his head in his hands and tugs at what little hair he has left. Cruciel manifests and places a comforting hand on his shoulder.

Malachite fixes the elderly cleric with a piercing stare. "Weal or woe, Velendo. Weal or woe."

He sighs. "And what does 'Yes, in the future' supposed to mean? That it helps us in the future? You know, church doctrine indicates that the spell is supposed to add words in order to clarify confusing points." He glances pointedly up towards heaven.

"Hmm," says Galthia, "apparently Calphas didn't read the description of the prayer."

"You just tell Him that," whispers Cruciel in Velendo's ear. She's having trouble not breaking into a grin. "I'm sure He wasn't trying to be confusing."

"Well," says Velendo, "it sounds like Galthia's friend is physically well but mentally unwell. I'm sorry." Galthia nods. "I'm surprised that this note really is from the elder brain, and he intends to honor it."

"Now I know why it said irrelevant," says Galthia. "It doesn't matter which way we come, because the brain is going to let us in."

"We have a lot of options," says Malachite. "We can parley now, leave for reinforcements, and then gate back later. The division in their ranks between the elder brain and the mindflayers means that we can divide and conquer. Destroying rogue illithids now while parleying with the elder brain means that even if we have to fight it later, we'll have reduced its strength."

"We should expect an attack," says Velendo. "It just won't be from the brain itself."

"We also need to go through this monstrous pile of loot and see what can assist us." Malachite gestures at the scattered items near an open bag of holding. "We have an awful lot of stuff that may help. for instance, one of the things we found was the heart of the Ivory King. It amplifies your force of personality no matter where it is on your body, but it's still corrupted. It needs to be cleansed."

"Err," Agar raises one finger hesitantly. "You're wrong about one thing. I'm pretty sure it only works properly if it's on your belt, or if you rip out your own heart and replace it with the emerald. That's an important distinction."

Malachite stares at him. "Are you serious?"

Agar nods. "Ohhhh, yes."

Velendo laughs. "If he's going to be lord of the Emerald Chapel, what better way to signify his ascension than by ripping out his own heart and replacing it with a powerful emerald?"

"A magical, evil, undead emerald!" crows Mara.

"It's not evil!" says Malachite. "Just tainted. I think it can be purified. . . but we'll keep it away from my chest in the mean time." He looks at the other treasure spread out around the bag. "Hey, you know what could probably stop the elder brain? A wheel of moldy cheese. If only we had a wheel of moldy cheese. . ." He keeps a straight face.

"The wheel of woe?" Mara asks.

"Exactly. Let's get started on planning. It's going to be a long night."

By the next morning Karthos has tried to convince Eve to look more attractive, Eve has found out that Velendo can talk to his God (and that not all Gods are dark and terrible), the group has split up treasure, and no one has reached any conclusions about how to defeat mind flayers. They finally decide to boost their will power as much as possible and hope for the best.

Velendo casts his seventh owl's wisdom spell on Priggle. As he does, the svirfneblin suddenly looks up with shining eyes.

"Maybe. . I've been assuming that my race is overlooked and put upon just because I'm overlooked and put upon. What if it isn't all of us, it's just my attitude that's causing a problem? I've never considered this. I've got to remember this!"

"Quick!" yells Velendo. "Someone get him a parchment and quill!"

"Mr. Agar," says Eve, "don't move for just a moment." She touches him, and huge quantities of crystalline mucous boil into existence and roll over his body. He can feel it seeping into his clothing and across his skin, clinging to him as it hardens into ectoplasmic armor. "I made extra tentacles for you!" she says. She does the same for several other people. The group then breakfasts on a Calphasian hero's feast before setting out wind walking.

They pick their way through half-remembered tunnels, fighting off foreign thoughts as they head towards T'Pocl. The last time they passed by here, they were running with their tails between their legs after being too cowardly to attack the elder bra. . .

"Auggh! How is it keeping up with us? This is driving me nuts. I don't know which thoughts are my own!" yells velendo.

"What?" asks Malachite.

"My brain is still getting poked at, even though we're flying at sixty miles an hour. It's making me think we were cowardly." There's nothing we can do to defend against it, he realizes. We might as well give up. "Damn it!"

"They must be divining us. We should activate our gem of psychic poison."

"I keep that out when we're camped, but we were inside the sovereign wall at the time. We'll have to come out of wind walk for me to get it now."

Leaving us wide open to an attack, Velendo realizes. No, wait, there's no way they could prepare an ambush at some arbitrary place. Of course not. We'll be perfectly safe. It will be perfectly safe. . . "Auggh! Get out of there!"

"Let's stop now and do it," says Galthia. He looks concerned about Velendo's erratic conversation. They leave the gem out for ten minutes, and don't notice anyone poking at their thoughts by the end of the rest period.

Eventually they pass over the stagnant water where they fought the undead hydra. Just beyond that is the opening to the mind flayer city. They spread themselves out somewhat, take deep breaths, and pass into T'Pocl.