Chapter Ten – Encounter

To be fully effective, new thralls need to adjust physically to their enslavement. Thralls might be assigned tasks by the mind flayers that they had no previous training for – as miners, valets, cooks, or warriors. Some are instructed in the fine points of acting as a mind flayer's personal servant. Others learn to handle a stone drill and mallet, practice fighting with dulled weapons, or are simply taught to receive punishment without crying out.

-From Lords of Madness



Below and above and all around her the streets were lined with eldritch faerie fire. Emblems, sigils and the abundant religious icons in innumerable shades and colours, all were equally beautiful to the wide, amber eyes of Charinda Elvanisstra. From her lofty perch and in the dim light, she could see for miles, everything clamouring for her attention. The young drow girl giggled to her self, drunk with the joy of it all. She turned as a husky chuckle followed hers.

The drow woman coming up behind her, sauntering idly from one foot to the other had a grin on her face to match Charinda's,

"Dazzling isn't it?" she sat beside the younger drow, dangling her long legs over the side of the calcified webbing, "I remember having a similar reaction when I first saw the City of Shimmering Webs," from a leather pouch at her side she took a flat piece of sporebread and handed it to Charinda.

To an observer, not even the City of Shimmering Webs in all its glory could compare to the stunning example of dark elf that was Elvanisstra. The dark beauty of the Guild of Underdark Guides had flawless ebony skin, glittering emerald eyes and a mouth that seemed permanently set in an enchanting, if somewhat roguish, smile.

Even now, as a small girl, Charinda would wonder how she possibly could be related to the Underdark Guide. She was comforted by the fact they shared the same pitch-black shade of hair, even if Elvanisstra's fell down her back in curls and waves while Charinda's remained straight.

But surrounded by all the beauty of drow civilisation the young female did not care and she tugged on her mother's cloak for attention,

"Mother, why don't we just live here? Wouldn't it be safer and it's so pretty-"

Elvanisstra shook her head,

"I would rather trust myself in the wilds of the Underdark than in these cities. They are beautiful, true," she gestured to the vista before them, "but underneath the surface…" she trailed off, then leant back on her hands, staring up at the stone ceiling, far above their heads.

She was silent for a while and Charinda kept her worried eyes on her mother.

"Charinda," said the older drow, "our ancestors were gladiators and slaves and battle-captives. We were looked down upon and spat at by our kind. They have no toleration for failure," she turned towards her daughter, her face set into a serious expression, "As they abandoned us so we abandoned them. Those of our blood follow a different set of rules, past down from mother and daughter as I do now. Do you understand?"

At Charinda's nod she held up three fingers,

"Firstly, we hold no allegiance to their cities. We fight only for ourselves," one finger was put down, "Second, we hold no allegiance to their gods. We think only for ourselves," another finger curled back, "and finally, we call no one 'Master'," she leant forward, her green eyes boring into the amber ones of her daughter, "Do you understand me, Charinda?"


Charinda was jolted out of her Reverie by a cacophony of mad shrieks. She lunged to her feet, her hands closing on her githyanki bone, twisting to release the deadly blades.

The fight it seemed was already over. A band of derro were scattering away into side tunnels and warrens, screaming and gibbering madly. Charinda sighed, only the derro, a species infected with racial insanity, would be foolish enough to disrupt Maslynrensine's studies.

The ulitharid had, from the look of their small camp, had time to calmly set its book aside before climbing to its feet. Several twitching and gibbering derro, incapacitated by Maslynrensine's mind blast, lay scattered on the ground and the aberration was systemically extracting their brains, devouring them on the spot. The bard locked her two swords back together. She'd seen mind flayers feed enough times so that a few derro did not disturb her.

Her thoughts turned instead to her Reverie and the memories that had played through her mind. Her thoughts had not turned to her mother in a long while. Elvanisstra had been a brilliant and skilled Underdark guide and Charinda was proud to follow in her footsteps, proud to bear her name in place of a House name.

Yet for all her skill and talent, the Underdark had taken her mother all the same. She'd just completed a routine escort task with a patrol of drow out of T'lindhet. A week out of the city she'd sent a sending to the guild as was procedure. It was the last they were to hear of her.

It was all too easy to make a fatal mistake in the Underdark – never mind the myriad beasts, hungry for drow flesh. Perhaps her guild thought the same thing had happened to her.

A sated look to its cephalopod-like countenance, the ulitharid leisurely glided back to its seat and retrieved its book, stowing it back in the potion case,

We continue to Noquervs. Come, thrall.

Charinda curtly nodded and padded towards the aberration. Something shifted inside her and she halted, raising a hand to her temple.

I do not believe that that was the correct way of answering, thrall.

The ulitharid's tone was full of smug amusement and Charinda gritted her teeth as she realised what Maslynrensine wanted. It had been watching her Reverie again. Bastard! Again the crystal moved inside her and she clenched her fist tightly,

"Yes, Master," she forced the words out through gritted teeth, snarling inwardly. The crystal relaxed and she followed the aberration out along the corridor, apologising again and again to the memory of her mother. It was her principles or her life.


Noquervs was much like the few trading stations the ulitharid had visited before. The site was merely an open space where several tunnels converged and where travelling merchants stopped to sell their wares.

There was a variety of thrall races here. A group of orog mercenaries in heavy plate armour were engaged in snarling conversation with a duergar smith. A glowing humanoid with dark, furred wings, a gloaming, was flitting through the air across the marketplace. It was of no interest to Maslynrensine, the brains of those luminescent creatures were infamously unpalatable. In no way impended by their lack of eyes, two grimlocks were making their way through the crowd. Several drow were lounging in an alcove, their eyes fixed on the aberration.

The ulitharid's eyes were drifting over the many tomes being sold by a wizened deep gnome when its intelligence, touching the surrounding minds briefly, found one focussed on itself. Turning from the gnome's display it quickly focussed. This mind was a crude one but its mission, repeatedly beaten into it, was simple. It was to stay in the tunnel entrance until it witnessed the ulitharid then it was to return to its master with the news.

Maslynrensine's eyes settled on a hunched goblin which was knuckling its way swiftly into another tunnel. Sending a quick telepathic order to its thrall, the aberration waded into the crowd. Even if most of the members of the throng could not identify the psion as an ulitharid they knew enough not to anger a mind flayer. The mob parted before the telepath and where they would or could not then they were forced out of the way with telekinesis.

Once free of the crowd Maslynrensine moved rapidly down the corridor, followed by its thrall. If the goblin's master was the one contacted by the dragon in Ched Nasad, then its vengeance would be completed that much sooner. But if it was sent by another…

Here, the tunnel widened. Colossal mushrooms grew here, many as tall as the ulitharid and as wide around as a barrel. A path had been made by traders through the centre of the mushroom field. The goblin was visible, moving deeper into the vegetation as quickly as its hunched back would allow. An annoyed gurgle escaping its throat, Maslynrensine seized its thrall by her wrist and prepared a manifestation.

They appeared directly in front of the goblin, which squawked in alarm and shuffled backwards. The aberration reached out for its mind.

"Maslynrensine?" a voice called out to them in Drow. An unremarkable dark elf male, swathed in a piwafwi stood before them on the path,"Maslynrensine of Hal'carnasas?"

The ulitharid felt its thrall's mind turned to alarm and confusion as it closed a hand on a dorje on its belt,

I did not reveal my origin to the sorcerer, the drow male only smiled in response and the psion hissed in anger, For your insolence alone, I will obliterate you.

"Foolish, naïve creature," was the cloaked male's only answer.


Charinda was trying to keep a weary eye on the other drow and try to keep the hunched goblin from escaping. She turned slightly at her master's angry hiss, confused to see it reach for a dorje on its belt. The goblinoid used this opportunity to scurry away into the mushroom field. She groaned and moved to go after it.

Light suddenly flooded the path. The bard flung her arms up, her sensitive eyes already watering from even that brief exposure. Maslynrensine had hissed in pain and no doubt was in a similar situation, trying to protect its own eyes from this harsh intruder. There came the sound of movement from the direction of the mushroom fields, the sound of heavy creatures charging. Instinctively the bard moved, dropping a globe of darkness down onto herself.

The loud clash of metal on stone almost deafened her. Quickly she moved to one side, exiting the darkness and fetching up behind one of the colossal mushrooms. When her sharp ears picked up further metallic noises she carefully peered around the fungi.

All the bard could see was an immense arc of silvery metal – until it retreated from the magical darkness, revealing its previously hidden form.

Her attacker was a golem; the silvery arc she had seen at first was the creature's curving spine. It stood somewhere between Maslynrensine's height and her own and in its four arms it held two, wickedly sharp scythes. The blinding light came in bright shafts from its 'eyes'. Out of the direct glare of that white radiance and in the surrounding dimmer area she could see well enough to spot the four circles of glass that shone so brightly.

Charinda cursed silently. Golems had no sentience to speak of; her master's psionics would have no effect. The guide didn't even know how well the ulitharid coped with light, but she was willing to bet that, like many inhabitants of the Underdark, it was badly. She couldn't even see the aberration anymore, but the sounds of battle were coming from deeper within the mushroom forest.

A noise from the golem drew her attention. It held its weapons in its upper-most pair of hands, leaving its lower pair free. It stretched one arm over the magical darkness and made a small adjustment to its wrist with the other hand.

A glowing green substance began to drip from that spot, falling down in the shadowy area below. Abruptly her globe of darkness flickered and winked out. The golem scanned the area, repeated the motion at its wrist and took up its weapons once more, the flow of the emerald radiance halted.

Charinda drew further and further away from the road. She had to get to the ulitharid – the sounds of battle had been joined by the roar of flames. Her amber eyes were fixed on the golem, ready to dart away should it come in her direction. That is why she was taken completely by surprise when a hand planted itself on her back.

A great chill spread through her body and limbs, the warmth leaving her muscles, stiffing and slowing her limbs. She turned, lashing out at her attacker with the githyanki bone. The piwafwi-clad drow easily dodged the clumsy blow and began another chant. Behind her came the sound of something huge and heavy pushing its way through the immense vegetation.

Knowing that the spell had made swordplay all but impossible, she tore the lightning wand from her belt. She spoke the command word and lightning leapt towards the male drow. The golem pushed past the last of the giant fungi and she turned, an agonizingly slow motion, and pointed the wand towards the metal creature.

The lightning struck the construct directly, blue sparks spreading out over its silvery skin. It was forced back a step but that brief moment was the only visible effect that the magic had on it and it continued towards her. Behind her came a dark chuckle and the mage stepped into her line of sight, shaking sparks out his piwafwi.

The golem lashed out with a bare hand, and Charinda was powerless to dodge the blow. It caught the bard a painful blow under the ribs and she was sent flying backwards into the stalk of a mushroom. Something snapped and for one heart-stopping moment the drow thought it was a bone. When she glanced down all she saw was the lightning wand broken almost completely in half. Light was bubbling up from the gash and she hurriedly threw the thing away, huddling close to the floor, covering her eyes.

She barely heard the scream amid the explosion and the roar of the flames that followed but it brought a smile to her lips all the same. She got to her feet, as fast as her spell-locked muscles would allow. Several of the immense fungi had burst into flames. The golem was on the ground, its limbs useless. Clutching his face in his hands, the drow mage was staggering past Charinda.

The bard seized the hem of his piwafwi (mostly undamaged by the explosion and flames) in one hand and reached for her githyanki bone with the other. The male snarled and tore at the clasp at his throat, staggering free of the cloak. His hands fell from his face and he turned towards Charinda, hatred in his eyes.

The bard bit back a gasp as she saw his countenance in full. The individual features were as malleable as clay and were reconfiguring themselves as the female looked on. As she watched in fascinated horror, his face settled into a familiar configuration and red lines crept up his cheek to form an elaborate, abstract design.

"Impossible!" Charinda released her swords, staggering forward.

The male drow, the mage she and Maslynrensine fought in Hal'carnasas, hissed. Something flew from his open mouth and there was a stab of pain in Charinda's left shoulder. Shakily, the female dark elf reached up to the metal dart embedded in her flesh. The mage must have completed a spell. She tugged the weapon from her flesh and tried to move forward but she fell to her knees as a feverish sensation began to spread from the wound. Poison! The bard snarled at the mage, whose only reply was a smirk.

Another golem flew through the air between the two drow. This was followed by Maslynrensine appearing out of thin air. Seeing the ulitharid, the male drow made a gesture and vanished. Charinda had more immediate problems to attend to.

Two more golems, light still streaming from their eyes and still fully functional despite wide rends in their silvery skin, were pushing their way through flaming vegetation. Maslynrensine's eyes were closed – evidently its vision was even poorer than Charinda's in the strong light. Soot coated its mauve skin in wide streaks, though the aberration seemed unharmed.

The ulitharid abruptly turned, pointing a dorje at one of the advancing golems. Fire washed over its metal flesh. The head of a scythe was cleanly sheared off with a thought. More gaping holes appeared in the attacking creatures.

The bard realised that the ulitharid was using her eyes. It seemed like the golems had been ordered to keep their light trained on the telepath, to try and subdue it. But though they could follow orders they didn't have enough intelligence to guess the ulitharid's strategy.

As Charinda fought against the poison and her half-useless muscles, the first golem came from nowhere, scythes ready to carve the ulitharid's flesh from its bones. The aberration turned to meet the threat, though surely it was too late.

A line of green energy sprang from the darkness and hit the charging golem. The construct was briefly outlined in emerald light before it suddenly crumbled into dust. A bright pebble of flame floated past the guide to explode amid the final pair of golems.

Squinting against the bright flames, Charinda only caught a brief glimpse of a gaunt figure emerging from the shadows before the mushroom field, the fire and the harsh light vanished.


Charinda made a face at the foul taste of the antidote but refrained from further complaints. Once it became apparent that the poison was not deadly, merely excruciating and debilitating, her master could have easily left her to suffer as the poison left her system.

Currently the ulitharid sat cross-legged with a healing potion, carefully applying the solution to its eyes. Maslynrensine had suffered more in that regard – its silvery orbs were still painfully ringed with red, even after Charinda's healing song. On more than one occasion the bard had felt the slight pressure that meant the telepath was looking out through her eyes – perhaps its sight had not yet returned to normal.

Not that there was much to see. They had found themselves in a circular room, made of plain stone and with no entrances or exits. Whoever had been throwing magic around in their battle had evidently teleported them here.

Charinda inspected each of her blades carefully, touched her protective items and the piwafwi that she had folded in half and wrapped loosely around her neck. She kept her body ready and waiting, but she still jumped slightly when a nearby part of the floor vanished and a large bat flew out of the resulting hole. The creature hovered for a brief second before plunging back down.

The bard and the telepath followed it, moving down a spiralling flight of stairs. The creature waited for them periodically, its tiny eyes watching them with much more than an animal's intelligence. Finally, all three of them emerged into another circular room, this one dominated, not only with various wizardly paraphernalia, but with the fallen body of one of their metal attackers.

Charinda was so distracted by the construct's presence that she did not notice the room's other occupant until the bat flew towards it. Her amber eyes widened and her hands went to her swords.

Had she been someone less versed in the ways of mind flayers she might have thought it an ordinary illithid. But the bard had lived among the aberrations for twelve years and to her, the differences were staggering.

It lacked the normal mucus-covering to its skin, so its flesh had dried and cracked and turned white with age. Its eyes had sunk deep into their sockets and turned grey about their edges. It was an undead mind flayer, but of a different class entirely to the illithid vampire she'd encountered before.

The creature before them was an illithilich.