In the Lair of the Mind Flayer
Pain from the manacles cutting into Kuhl wrists blossomed as he once again tried to break the chain securing him to the wall. His arm and shoulder muscles bunched and he held his breath for a moment, gasped, then held it again as he strained harder.
To no avail.
The strength went out of him and he sagged down towards the floor, but didn't collapse. The same resilient chain rattled and kept him upright, not even permitting him that release. With a sigh he raised his head and stared at the empty blood-spattered chair made of carved stone standing atop a wide stone slab in the center of the room - a disturbing reminder of what potentially waited should he fail to break free. The blood was enough of a warning that he never wanted to sit in that seat but the iron shackles bolted to the armrests further emphasized the point. Worse yet would be watching his companions sit there while he was chained and helpless.
"I'm sorry," he said. "I can't break it."
His gag had been removed when he and his companions were restrained in this chamber. The false Meloon and his companions had been dismissed soon after they'd arrived and the bugbear, half-orc, and others escorting the prisoners also ran off as soon as they'd secured their charges. And who could blame them with a mind flayer present at the time? The reek of the place alone - a mix of spilled blood, alchemy, and the fishy smell of the kuo-toa living in the corridor beyond the iron portcullis made it a place the half-elf desperately wanted to escape before the mind flayer returned.
"I can't slip out either," Sky whined. "I've tried, again and again."
Like Kuhl her manacles were linked to a chain bolted high on the wall, forcing her hands above her head. She'd twisted this way and that to try to pull her wrists free. Yet despite some impressive feats of agility and flexibility, she remained bound. Muffled shrieking suddenly sounded through a door to their left - bouts of it had been commonplace during their captivity so far.
"That will be us if we don't get out of here soon," Esvele hissed after the yelling died down. "Keep trying!"
Her manacles and the chain bolted to the wall above jangled as she tried to work her way free, but she found the same lack of success as the half-elf and tabaxi.
"Be assured Esvele Rosznar, you will not share the same fate as that prisoner in my larder," the mind flayer telepathically spoke as it entered through a door on the wall beyond the chair on the slab. It wore long robes of black and purple and the top part of its head was covered in a black leather cowl that left only liquidy eyes the color of burnt amber visible. "His role in the city above was as a street broadcryer. Not overly useful to me. I hoped his brain might prove suitable to grow another devourer with, but already madness sets in after witnessing my feeding on only one dwarf."
Kuhl remembered the dead body of the dwarf in the corridor, partially eaten and with a hole cracked into his skull.
"So, I will use him for my sustenance," the mind flayer, who had previously introduced himself as Nihiloor, continued telepathically. "As a noblewoman, however, you will be very useful as a host for one of my devourers. I have just checked the spawning pool and in a few days one will be mature and ready for you."
"Make me like Meloon?" Lady Rosznar asked. "Why?"
"As a spy of course," the mind flayer said. "And to exert influence over your family."
"It will never work," the noblewoman scoffed. "My family will immediately know the difference between me and one of those things."
"You are right," Nihiloor said into their minds, tentacles writhing. "They will notice the difference. The intellect devourers are imperfect in their mimicry. Thankfully those deceived always provide their own rationalizations - poor, poor Esvele. She has never been the same since Undermountain."
Lady Rosznar blanched at that and the chain above her head rattled as she pulled and yanked. Kuhl could not help but think of all of the ways he had mentally excused the warning signs given off by Meloon and his companions before their own capture.
"You should become an iounitarian," Sky said, also twisting and straining against her bonds. "Like I told you."
"Yes, this mysterious Grazilaxx you mentioned meeting in the Underdark," the mind flayer said telepathically as he sat in the blood splattered chair. "Tell me, have you found an ioun stone since we last spoke on the matter?"
"Of course not," the tabaxi said, tail lashing. "I have been chained here."
"Then it is a moot point," Nihiloor thought into their minds. "Which brings us to the question of what to do with the two of you? You found and raided a sewer hideout of the Xanathar so making you host two of my devourers would be fitting punishment. But do I need more adventurers? Would either of you be able to lure others down here better than the famed Meloon Wardragon? I think not. So then, food or use your brain to try and grow more devourers. I have had some good success with half-elf brains, and they are also delicious. Have not ever experimented with a tabaxi brain or tasted one."
Alien, liquidy, eyes the color of amber studied first Sky, then Kuhl for a time. The half-elf felt himself moved to a calm lassitude under that stare.
"I do not need to decide immediately with the tabaxi," Nihiloor thought, standing. "But given my larder is stocked it seems best to use the half-elf to attempt to grow another devourer."
Kuhl's feeling of calm, quite unnatural given his situation, continued even as the tentacled horror approached him, unlocked the chain attaching his manacles to the wall with a key, and guided him towards the blood-spattered chair. A vague part of his awareness told him Sky and Esvele yelled at him, but he couldn't quite make out the words. Their voices seemed to come from a great distance and through water. Full consciousness flooded back into his mind once he sat shackled in the stone seat on the dias.
"Kuhl!" his tabaxi companion screamed. "Fight! Kick! Punch! Something!"
The chained noblewoman yelled much of the same. The half-elf tried to surge up to attack, but the iron manacles in the armrests sent him back down into the hard embrace of the blood spattered chair.
"The paralysis of the drugs my devourer's fed you on capture fades quickly," Nihoolor thought to himself, but also sent telepathically. "But the susceptibility to psionic suggestion lingers. An advantageous side effect."
The creature moved behind the stone chair and the half-elf heard the creak of the chest on a ledge there opening. Clinks sounded as Nihiloor rummaged and Kuhl tensed as the cold edge of a blade touched the back of his scalp.
"Stay calm," the mind flayer spoke into his thoughts. "I will numb the pain as much as possible during the extraction. Can't have you thrashing about in such delicate work."
"Kuhl!" Sky yowled.
For a brief moment the half-elf felt incredible tranquility, then it abruptly faded and he yearned for it. With returning full consciousness came awareness of a commotion from beyond the iron portcullis.
"Ooop! Ooop! Ooop!"
The same gargling chant from the kuo-toa in the corridor as when Kuhl and his companions arrived.
"Someone comes?" Nihiloor thought.
"This place is really disgusting," a feminine voice called out. "The least you could do is clean up the place every once in a while, Nihiloor."
"Sial thinks it is disgusting," a male voice clarified. "Not me. I myself feel there is a slimy charm to it."
"Sial and Quid?" the mind flayer's mental voice growled in obvious frustration. "What could they want?"
Moments passed as the tentacled creature apparently contemplated this thought.
"I say, can you let us in?" the male voice, Quid, came again.
The half-elf could see him now through the bars of the portcullis, a golden haired sun-elf wearing a leather jerkin dyed bright red with a yellow tunic and hose underneath. Armlets and leglets dyed the same hue of red completed his ensemble along with crimson boots.
"There is a partly eaten dwarf corpse out here," the golden-haired visitor said with a sidelong glance to his left and right. "And the way your kuo-toa guards are looking at me makes me feel they'd like an elf as a second course."
Kuhl breathed a sigh of relief as the touch of the blade receded from the back of his skull and a metallic clatter sounded from behind him. Then Nihiloor strode across the room and pulled down on a lever against the wall. The iron portcullis adjacent to it rose to allow the sun-elf entry. A lithe, physically fit female half-elf wearing form fitting leather armor entered in behind the elf. She was followed by three thug like humans.
"Nadia has a good eye for talent," the female half-elf said as she studied Kuhl with cerulean colored eyes. Her long brown hair was gathered in a tight ponytail. "He'll work."
"Work for what?" Nihiloor asked, tentacles writhing. But he answered his own question, probably through telepathy. "Blood and Fortune? No, Sial. You cannot poach from my prisoners for that ridiculous game."
"As you know, the Xanathar obsesses over that ridiculous game," Sial said, shrugging. "And it generates revenue - wealthy clients from above pay to be escorted down to watch and gamble. Also, the rabble of Skullport love it. There are more elegant ways of controlling a population than this bloody mess. We're three challengers short and running out of time."
She glanced with distaste around the room, then pointed at each of the prisoners, counting them out - one, two, three - eyes widening when her outstretched fingers reached Esvele.
"Yes, elegant," Quid said, glancing around with a look of distaste. "I imagine that is precisely how the kobold workers who have to free the bodies from the spike pits would describe Blood and Fortune. Elegant."
"The Xanathar himself ordered you to come here?" the mind flayer asked, but once again his telepathy must have answered his question. "I see. You may take the half-elf and I have two other prisoners in my larder. As I have just fed, you may have them."
One of the prisoners in question, though he couldn't have possibly heard through the sturdy iron banded wood door, chose this moment for another bout of incoherent, nonsensical screaming.
"So, one is insane and the other?" Quid asked.
"The locksmith is quite calm… catatonic even."
"I don't think that will work," the sun-elf said.
"I have plans for the noblewoman," Nihiloor mentally sent. "She will make a very useful spy and influencer."
"Lady Rosznar?" Sial seemed to ask herself. She lowered the hand still pointing from counting off the prisoners earlier. "I was going to blackmail you. Blackmail you and your alter ego the Black Viper into our spy network. What are you doing down here?"
The noblewoman stiffened at the name 'Black Viper' and her eyes widened. But she recovered quickly.
"Lady Hawkdragon of Ravens Bluff," she said, staring back at the female half-elf.
Now it was Sial's turn to stiffen.
"You recognize me?" she asked, a hint of wounded pride in her voice. "How?"
"Your earrings were supposedly recently stolen by the Black Viper," Esvele said, chains rattling as she stood straighter. "According to the broadsheets. But I never stole from Amcathra. I do, however, remember a visiting noblewoman from Ravens Bluff at one of her parties taking a keen interest in both her jewelry and the layout of her house."
"Given away by sapphires," Sial sighed, absently touching the earrings in question. "Never could resist them. Impressive. I suspected you were more than a talented amateur. That party was almost a year ago. Pity to waste a potential asset on Blood and Fortune, but we're three bodies short and the Xanathar's game must proceed as scheduled. Orders are orders."
"Especially when the one giving those orders can disintegrate you or turn you to stone," the sun-elf said.
"Especially then," the female half-elf agreed.
Whether through lingering psionic confusion, or the rapid pace of unfolding events, Kuhl was having trouble keeping up. Lady Rosznar was the infamous Black Viper? They were being taken by these two from the mind flayer to participate in a game called Blood and Fortune? Whatever happened, if it got him out of this chair and away from Nihiloor, he was for it.
"Which reminds me," Quid said, turning towards the mind flayer. "In compensation for giving up these three, the Xanathar promises any three who survive."
"Any three?" Nihiloor asked. "Including the female drow and genasi?"
"Should they survive again, yes," the sun-elf assured.
"The drow would be a valuable spy and influencer," the mind flayer mused. "More useful than the noblewoman as House Auvryndar is an immediate threat. And I have never fed on or experimented on a genasi. A suitable replacement for the tabaxi. Then again, both might survive Blood and Fortune, giving me two rare opportunities instead of one."
The creature thought for moments more while his visitors waited.
"This is acceptable," Nihiloor telepathically said, tentacles writhing.
The mind flayer kept the prisoners docile and complacent through psionics as they were each unlocked and secured in the same way they'd been delivered - manacled and chained in a line. Under the care of their new jailers, they marched out under the open portcullis and through the corridor with the kuo-toa and dead dwarf. The stench of the place still lingered and the chanting voices of the fishermen still echoed slightly when Quid spoke.
"Feel like I need a change of clothes and a bath after being in there," he said.
Murmurs of a similar sentiment came from the three humans escorting the prisoners and a verbal agreement from Sial.
"I always take a bath after visiting Nihiloor's lair," she said. "Takes a lot of scrubbing to feel even close to clean again though."
"Maybe I could help with that," the sun-elf said.
His counterpart snorted out a laugh.
"Get muscles like this half-elf here," she said with a wave at Kuhl. "And I'll think about it."
"Tomorrow I'll start an early morning workout regimen," Quid sighed.
"You? Wake up early?" Sial asked. "And then workout? Really?"
"No," the sun-elf said, to chuckles from the three men guarding the prisoners.
"No?" his counterpart bantered back. "At least pretend maybe I'm worth it. Haven't you boys heard that flattery knows no excess?"
"I only apply that to the Xanathar," Quid said.
"Me as well," Sial agreed, voice sobering. She looked at Esvele. "Which is why I can influence him, given time. Survive one bout of Blood and Fortune Lady Rosznar. That will give me a month to find a replacement for you and perhaps get you back to the surface."
"So you can blackmail me," the noblewoman scoffed.
"Do you know the time and effort it took me to learn the identity of the Black Viper?" the female half-elf asked, frustration in her tone hinting at the answer. "I was just getting ready to act on that information."
"You honestly think I'll just roll over and let you use me?" Esvele said. "Me, the scion of one of the noble families of Waterdeep to you, likely gutter born trash."
"You taint far off tha marks your haughtiness," Sial said, mannerisms and speech changing. "I were nothing but a bricky ill begotten little lass, goods for nothing but as a pocket skimmer who was expected to looks for what I can sees, and listens for what I can hears. But proper clothes, proper speech, and most importantly the right proper manners, a proper name as the Lady Hawkdragon of Ravens Bluff, and the flower of the city begged for my attendance at every gala. All so they could have a go at pawning off one of their brats to suckle on my implied wealth through marriage."
"None of which changes who and what you really are," Lady Rosznar said, voice cutting.
"Maybe not," the female half-elf said, shrugging. "What I am, by the way, is mostly a good burglar. Same as you. But I'm an honest one. I steal for the money. Not for some quest for revenge for perceived wrongs against my family. And since we're sharing our personal histories, why was it again that your oh so noble family was exiled from Waterdeep for a time?"
Lady Rosznar's face flushed with anger, her eyes hardened, and her jaw clenched. But she did not respond.
"Don't think you are special, by the way," Sial said. "If you survive, and I am able to get you back to the surface, you won't be the first noble in my stable. The rich and powerful have the furthest to fall, which makes them the most vulnerable in many ways. Find the right leverage, drive them to the cliff's edge with it, threaten the final push, and they're under your thumb."
"Which is why," Quid said, with an easy laugh. "I try to wake up hungover in a gutter with a bit of regularity. Can't be threatened to fall lower than the gutter."
If he meant to cut through the growing tension, he was only partially successful. The escorting thugs laughed, but the female half-elf and noblewoman continued to glare at each other. Kuhl himself, now that no one was immediately trying to saw apart his skull and extract his brain, found himself wondering about what was Blood and Fortune. Apparently, for once, Sky's thoughts followed a similar path.
"What is Blood and Fortune?" the tabaxi asked. "Some sort of game?"
The corridors they followed back tracked the way they had come when led to the mind flayer's lair and they entered the promenade of stone pillars with carved eyes, which still unnervingly seemed to watch them.
"A game," Quid agreed. "And more. A spectacle. Something the residents of Skullport now anticipate."
"Something the Xanathar himself anticipates," Sial said. "Which is why, when the Skulker team gets overzealous and nine of eleven of the visiting team dies, we are stuck finding replacements to fill the roster."
One of the thug guards jogged ahead to pull open a circular stone door. Again his group had come this way before, and they descended the curving stairwell. At the bottom, on the landing neocortex the stairway ascended, they finally deviated from their previous path, turning left down a corridor. Another heavy stone door was pulled open to reveal a room full of iron barred cells with a variety of prisoners.
A drow female, an occupant of the closest cell, jumped up from sitting in the cross legged position many elves used in reverie and rushed the bars at the entry of the group. She gave Quid and Sial a hard stare with her red hued eyes.
"I played your stupid game," she growled, hands on bars. "Now ransom me back to my House."
"So you can, how did you phrase it," Quid said, "Return with troops and carve us all into pieces?"
"I was angry," the drow said. "Humiliated at my capture and wanting revenge. Not thinking when I spoke."
"And you are no longer angry?" the sun-elf asked.
"No," the drow said, gritted teeth belying the word. "No longer angry."
"Very doubtful about the sincerity of that," Quid said.
"I wonder why," said a seated figure wrapped in a ratty blanket in the same cell.
"Shut up genasi," the drow said, not taking her eyes off those who had entered.
"Sophiya," the genasi said, her djinn ancestry apparent from the light blue skin of her face. But her hair was mostly dyed red, with only newer growth at the roots being white. "And you're Raelyn. We've been over this. Friends, cellmates, comrades in arms, should use each other's names."
"We're none of those," the drow, Raelyn apparently, said. "We've been over that before. Countless times."
"Of course," the seated genasi said in a mumbling aside that reminded Kuhl of Fargas. "Why would we be friends? We only survived an insane death game together and spent almost a month together confined in a cramped cell. Why oh why would I assume that could possibly lead to a friendship?"
"Think I'd have been far more likely to kill my cellmate after a couple of days," Sial said. "Let alone a month."
"Me too," Esvele said.
The noblewoman and female half-elf gave each other a glance, as if surprised to find themselves agreeing on something.
"I've been tempted," the drow said. "Each and every moment of my imprisonment. If you won't ransom me, swap my cellmate with any of the newcomers. Any of them."
The genasi gave a roll of her blue eyes.
"Sophiya," Sky said, tail lashing. "We found you. Your brothers hired us to look for you and we're here to rescue you."
That brought the dark elf's cellmate to her feet, though she still kept her blanket wrapped around her.
"My brothers?" she asked, coming to the bars of her prison, a slight breeze suddenly stirred her hair even though they were underground. "Do they know where I am? They took my rings. My ring of warmth and the… other one."
That would be the ring of tracking the brothers had found for sale in a trinket shop, Kuhl realized
"We didn't know where you were," Sky said, shaking her head. "And they don't even know we went down into Undermountain."
The hopeful expression blossoming on Sophiya's fell away and her gaze dropped to the manacled condition of her supposed rescuers. Quid started laughing.
"The two of you," he said, shaking his head. "Were hired to find her? And you have. But as fellow prisoners?"
The tabaxi gave a nod, but was focused on the genasi and Kuhl, for his part, decided to remain silent. That apparently was answer enough, and led to more chuckling from their captors. Sophiya closed her eyes and slumped forward against the bars. The slight breeze stirring around her dissipated and her hair fell limp.
To the half-elf's surprise her drow cellmate, after a long moment of hesitation and obvious internal conflict, put a consoling hand on the genasi's shoulder.
As usual, apologies for this being rough. I've got some things I need to get done (again as usual) and I just got to get this out of my head so I can move on...
Not sure if this all works. Quid and Sial Sapphire are from Derek Myer's Dungeon #206 article about the Xanathar where he created a bunch of lieutenants for the crime lord. I noticed that none of them were used in Waterdeep Dragonheist, which makes me wonder if Wizards doesn't fully own stuff from Dungeon or if designers consider it bad taste to build upon the lore of a previous designer. If it is the latter, sorry for borrowing them Derek (doubtful he'd ever read this fan work anyway). Which brings me to a thought. We who create fan works are blessed to pick and choose bits of lore with no repercussions. But it must be really frustrating to those actually working professionally. It would be a series of, "Dang it. I don't like it, but that is canon..." followed by, "What you wrote on X is really good...but we don't own the rights to X..." That would be so hard!
I know the characters went off into tangents. Sial, for example, will likely never show up again. Yet for some reason, the moment she saw Esvele she was in my head saying, "Oh, I knew her secret. I was going to blackmail her into my spy network." And Esvele immediately was, "Nine Hells you were!"
Blood and Fortune is in the module and my party did participate. However it is just a bracketed fighting tournament the party can get invited to in the lair. While I was playing in it, I remember wishing it had been something a bit more exotic than 'just another combat encounter'. So this is my attempt...
Oh, I almost forgot. Aleina's hair is going to be changed to white from now on (and eventually I'll go back and rewrite). This is because Lumen del Mari sent me some renders of the character with Aleina with white hair and they were just amazing. So I was like, screw it, this is the way she looks now. I can't un-see it. Ha ha. (I will share renderings eventually, might refine some)