Make a Fortress of Your Intellect...
Jhelnae felt cool, damp, subterranean air on her skin, smelled alchemical brine, and heard the slapping of footsteps on stone - but her thoughts were muddled and slow. She couldn't remember just where she was and what she was doing. Then the power of the Demonweb flooded her senses and brought a chiding feminine voice with its icy cold presence.
"Use your magic to fortify your intellect against psychic attacks, you pathetic, little battle captive."
Focus lanced into the half-drow's awareness and she now remembered where she was and what she was doing - she was in the lair of the Xanathar Guild and fighting for her life. And presently, death hurtled towards her in the form of a mind flayer.
She swung her abyssal sword, but the creature was already inside the arc of the blade and four fingered hands latched onto the half-drow's wrists. The mind flayer's tentacles spread wide as it lunged forward and Jhelnae's vision filled with a circular, jawless orifice ringed by several rows of small, rasping teeth that her assailant tried to press against her skull. She shied away, bumping into Aleina behind her.
"Aware again so soon?" the mind flayer telepathically wondered. "How?"
The pupiless, milky eyes inset in the creature's bulbous head narrowed and its tentacles writhed with the question. The half-drow's only answer was a grunt of effort as she struggled to keep her brain from being extracted. Despite its horrific form, her assailant did not possess monstrous strength in its long spindly arms. Jhelnae was probably equally strong or stronger, despite her smaller frame.
Until you factored in its tentacles.
One latched onto each shoulder of the half-drow and pulled her inexorably forward while the remaining pair lifted in anticipation of engulfing her head in a deadly embrace. Desperate to escape, Jhelnae tried to thrash herself free and she and her opponent spun with their struggles. The half-drow caught sight of the aasimar on one of their turns and hope surged.
"Aleina!" she cried out.
But her friend showed no reaction to the half-drow's cry. The aasimar's expression remained slack, her mouth hanging slightly open and her eyes glazed.
"She patiently awaits her turn like a good little morsel," the mind flayer mentally taunted. "Know that for all the trouble you both have caused me, I will also feast on the brains of the tabaxi and half-elf you came to find, if they survive Blood and Fortune."
Sky and Kuhl were alive! The realization invigorated Jhelnae to fight harder to escape this creature's grasp and kill it. The thick, purplish skin of the mind flayer was surprisingly soft, supple and coated with a thin layer of mucus smelling faintly of onions or garlic.
She tried to twist the wrist of the hand wielding her abyssal blade free, hoping the slipperiness of the slime against the metal of the Vambraces of Whinonas she wore would work in her favor. But she couldn't get the leverage she needed with her shoulders being held in the unyielding grip of the tentacles.
And despite her efforts, the circular, razor toothed maw was closing in.
The half-drow suddenly leapt up and kicked out with both feet, using the element of surprise. At least that had been the plan. But she didn't catch the mind flayer by off-guard or kick them. Instead she was pulled deeper into its embrace and the remaining two tentacles slapped down on top of her head. In dismay she lost her grip on her abyssal sword and it misted out of existence before it even hit the stone floor.
But at least she had brought her legs into play. Her knees now pressed, somewhat painfully, into the cool metal of the creature's breastplate. She pushed with all her might and for several moments she succeeded in moving her forehead away from that strange alien mouth ringed with sharp, skull cutting teeth. Then her progress stalled and they strained against each other, tentacles versus her whole body in a struggle she sensed she would eventually lose, despite the mind flayer also bearing her weight.
"Aleina!" she cried out.
Out of the corner of her eye she could see the aasimar through a gap between the tentacles, but her friend remained unresponsive. Jhelnae calmed herself and summoned the cold power of the Demonweb into her throat and tongue. Somehow she knew she could share the magic of the intellect fortifying spell with another.
"ALEINA!" the half-drow yelled, enchanting her voice with eldritch power.
The aasimar's expression immediately sharpened with consciousness and then filled with concern, her eyes widening and lips forming into a circle as her head snapped up in alertness. She lifted her moonstone orb.
But even though his back was to Aleina, the mind flayer seemed to sense this shift in the battle. He spun both Jhelnae and himself, then moved them again and again with obvious deliberate intent.
"I can't get an angle on him!" Aleina yelled, voice panicked.
The mind flayer, it seemed, was keeping the half-drow between the aasimar and itself.
"Do something!" Jhelnae grunted, neck aching from the strain of holding her head back and ready to give out.
"No!"
The psychic yell by the creature held surprise. With her back to the Aleina, the half-drow couldn't see what was going on. She braced herself, thinking burning fire or a ray of icy cold frost would be incoming and tried to prepare herself for the pain, knowing her friend would use healing magic when she could. An odd sensation came instead - something scraped along her trousers as it traveled beneath her.
It was a spectral ram from the ring Laeral Silverhand had loaned the aasimar.
Jhelnae caught a quick glimpse of it before it slammed into the waist of the mind flayer. Then she was somersaulting through the air. During their aerial tumble the tentacled grip on her head loosened enough for her to yank herself free. They made almost a full circuit in the air before the creature struck the stone floor with a resounding clank of its metal breast plate and a fleshy thud of its head. The half-drow landed on top of her opponent, hard, with knee jarring force against the steel of the mind flayer's armor.
"Get off him!" Aleina screamed.
Jhelnae needed no further encouragement. She rolled clear as the aasimar climbed to her knees. Apparently she'd dropped to the ground before using the ring of the ram. Fire sprang from her moonstone orb and seared into the prone mind flayer. A psychic shriek of pain ripped into the half-drow's thoughts - sweet music to her mind.
But the tentacled horror would not be slain so easily. Somehow it fought through the pain of its burning flesh and scrambled to all fours. It extended a four fingered hand towards Aleina. The intellect fortifying magic protecting the aasimar had vanished when the half-drow lost concentration on the spell during her tumble and fall through the air and an all too familiar slack jawed expression settled on Aleina's features. She lowered her moonstone orb.
Jhelnae had already regained her feet and sprinted forward, summoning her abyssal sword as she ran. It coalesced fully into her grip as the mind flayer shifted its hand in her direction. Her blade descended and silvery-white blood sprayed from the newly created stump at the creature's wrist. Its tentacles writhed as a psychic scream ripped through the half-drow's senses and the flayer's pupiless eyes stared down in horror at its own severed, four fingered hand laying on the stone floor.
It did not suffer long - Jhelnae's next strike punched her summoned sword through the creature's neck and the half-drow was bathed in even more silvery-white blood as it fell back to twitch on the chamber floor. Several moments passed before it lay still and afterward Jhelnae could only stare in disbelief at the corpse while taking breaths of subterranean air in gasps. The smell of blood now mixed with the smell of the alchemical brine from the rectangular pool of green liquid.
"Is it dead?" Aleina asked from behind her.
Is it dead? While blood no longer sprayed it laid in a puddle silvery-white liquid, a puddle that grew as more of this vital, life-giving fluid leaked from the sword sized hole in its neck and its sliced through wrist. Of course it was dead!
"By all that dances!" the half-drow whispered in answer. "We did it! We killed it!"
Her voice grew in volume with the realization. She released the hilt of her sword and it misted away, leaving the gaping wound exposed in its wake. Jhelnae straightened, turned, and found the aasimar climbing to her feet.
"How could you be sure that ram would go under me and hit the mind flayer instead of hitting me?" the half-drow asked.
"Couldn't," Aleina sighed with a tired shake of her head. "I dove for the ground and activated the ring, all the remaining charges in one desperate, extra-powered, spectral ram, from as low as I could possibly get and hoped for the best."
"This close," Jhelnae said, gesturing with her thumb and forefinger. "This close to getting a magical ram right up my rear."
She laughed, but could hear and feel the hysteria just behind it. If she let herself, she would break down and cry instead. Even though the mind flayer lay dead, she could still feel lingering pain of the tentacles squeezing her head and pulling at her neck. In her mind's eye a vision of the strange, tooth filled, circular orifice formed as well. Mere inches had separated her from getting her brain extracted. That had been too close.
And then there was the voice. The one that sounded in her mind to teach her the spell of fortifying her intellect. The same voice had come to her in the battle with the night hag in the nightmare realm. Lolth? Her own subconscious? She did not know.
"Yeah," the aasimar said, bringing the half-drow from her internal thoughts. "Sorry."
Her friend smiled, but it was a bland, brittle thing which Jhelnae could relate to. The horror of events were too recent and the body on the floor was too present a reminder of them.
"Sky and Kuhl are still alive." the half-drow said, remembering.
She told Aleina of what the mind flayer said about threatening to consume the brains of their friends and they both brightened with that hope.
"Blood and Fortune," the aasimar mused. "The same as on that crumpled up posting Ancilla found with the drawing of Sophiya. We need to learn what it is and where it is held."
A sharp, booming crack came through the door to the chamber - the discharge of the drow gunslinger, Fel'rekt's, weapon. The others in the hall were fighting someone or something. Jhelnae and Aleina shared a look and no words were needed to know each others thoughts.
There was no more time to be traumatized. They needed to get moving.
"Laeral Silverhand?" the aasimar asked.
Jhelnae nodded.
"You or me?" she questioned.
"She said you are more like her," Aleina called over her shoulder as she ran for the door. "So, you."
That statement reminded the half-drow of the gold commemorative coin minted with the image of the Open Lord. She fished it from her belt pouch and placed it on the body of the mind flayer. Message delivered, she summoned her abyssal blade once more and set about the grisly work of severing and collecting the head.
Laeral Silverhand had loaned them four rings to accomplish their mission. Jhelnae had yet to use either of hers. As she activated the ring of spell storing she remembered what the Open Lord had said during their planning session.
"Like most beholders, the Xanathar believes it is superior to all other entities. But also like most of its kind, it is paranoid for its own safety. It fears me. I once tried to negotiate with it directly, but it refused to show itself. Convince it that I am there, as part of the assault force, and you may drive it into hiding and then only have to deal with its minions."
The half-drow imagined Laeral Silverhand as the spell from the ring, a spell of seeming, settled over her. She pictured the way she had first seen the woman in the Blue Alley dungeon, hair whipping, eyes glowing, and limned in silver fire with clothes ripped and dirty from fighting, then she charged out of the room after the aasimar, carrying the mind flayer's head by the tentacles as she ran.
Another discharge of the drow gunslinger's weapon sounded as she passed through the room with the bloody stone chair on the dais and she could hear the others fighting as well - the flare of Aleina's fire, the whirring of the gears from Koger and Ancilla, Mirt bellowing a war cry and something else as well, the gibbering of prisoner they had rescued. She found her companions heavily engaged with a large group of rough looking men wielding scimitars and crossbows. Even as she watched a whirring bolt reflected off of Aleina's warding, the moonlight pale magic armor winking into existence to deflect the incoming missile.
"I AM LAERAL SILVERHAND!" Jhelnae bellowed from the doorway into the hall. "AND THIS IS WHAT HAPPENS TO THOSE WHO INCUR MY WRATH!"
She hefted the head of the mind flayer up for all to see, but couldn't help cringing away a little as a partially coagulated glob of silvery-white blood plopped out of the severed neck. The half-drow also knew she sounded nothing like the Open Lord. Somehow, when trying to imitate a powerful figure to be feared, she was dismayed to find herself using a voice sounding suspiciously like her mother's. But it had the desired effect, because all of the enemies in the hall looked appropriately afraid and stared above her to where Laeral's head would be located. Time to convince them further.
Jhelnae lifted the other ring and activated it. The Open Lord had called it a ring of shooting stars, but the ball of energy it emitted more resembled a crackling bundle of lightning than a star. She sent it into the biggest and most intimidating looking of the men arrayed against them, a scimitar wielding brute facing off against the silver metal and lacquered wood Ancilla. His body spasmed and danced as the ball of lightning hit, then he fell to the ground dead or unconscious. Their opponents broke and ran, retreating down the wide corridor that Fel'rekt and Mirt had been left behind to guard.
The half-drow looked to the ceiling and found the ghostly eyestalk scrying sensor there. She displayed the head again then sent another ball of lightning into it, dissipating its magic. Jhelnae had planned to use the ring against the mind flayer, but she never got the chance. Now she was glad she hadn't needed to, only one charge left.
"Well - done - Laer," Mirt puffed with a wink, hands on his knees as he recovered his breath.
"We need to get moving," Fel'rekt said, holstering his weapon. "A sighting of a dangerous enemy won't hold off a lair full of opponents forever. Even if that individual is Laeral Silverhand - Chosen of Mystra."
Without waiting for an answer, the drow gunslinger led the way back towards the area holding the transportation pillar. Jhelnae moved to follow, then waited as she realized the constructs, Koger and Ancilla, needed time to gather the rescued prisoners into their arms again. Neither showed any reaction as they were pulled free from the sticky residue coating the floor, the gibbering one kept up his steady stream of meaningless mumblings and the catatonic one remained catatonic. Together, the companions made their way through the hall, the rotten fish stench even stronger now given all the kuo-toa corpses strewn about the area. That desperate battle already seemed long ago, but really only minutes had passed since the fight here.
As they moved at a quick walk, boot soles sticking to the floor with every step, the half-drow retrieved the portable hole the Open Lord had loaned her from her belt pouch and deposited the mind flayer's head inside, glad to be rid of the disgusting trophy. The magic dark cloth was then refolded and stowed away once more.
"Does anyone know what Blood and Fortune is?" Aleina asked.
"A game of the Xanathar held in an arena in Skullport," Mirt wheezed. "Being held as we speak. That was one of the reasons Laer chose this time for the assault. The other Laer, mind, not the one of present company."
The fish-stench receded as they left the hall before the mind flayer's lair and closed in on the stone chamber holding the transportation pillar.
"They're back," Ront's gruff voice called out as he peered down the corridor, body mostly hidden by the wall. "I don't see the half-elf? Or the tabaxi? Where is the half-drow?"
There was actually worry and concern in the orc's tone, Jhelnae noted, and was touched.
"I'm here," she said. "Disguised as the Open Lord. We didn't find Sky and Kuhl, but we think we know where they are."
Ront nodded and came into the open and beckoned them forward. Dawnbringer blazed in his hand. A little bit of relief showed in his jawline and the half-drow was further touched.
"Trickster's Toes," Fargas said. "I didn't know you could disguise yourself like that! But I know that voice."
"It's a spell from a ring," the half-drow began. "You know what, nevermind. Not important."
"Love the torn clothing and mussed hair look, by the way," the halfling said. "Although not sure if you were going for 'coming from harrowing fight' or 'aftermath of ravishing night of passion'."
"Fargas…" Aleina breathed, shaking her head and sighing.
"Both work, sir halfling," Mirt laughed.
"You didn't find Sophiya either?" the half-dragon with the crystal scales, Embrie asked as they entered the chamber with the transportation pillar.
He held a wand and stood guard to the corridor opposite from where they had entered, but he left the watching for threats to the other drow gunslinger, Krebbyg, and stared at Koger in question. Sophiya's other brothers - Vorskar, the half-cloud giant and Jassin, the pale brother of sun-elf ancestry - also looked on with interest from where they guarded the stairway down. Since Jhelnae had last been in the area the spectral eyestalk, the scrying sensor set to watch the teleportation pillar, had been destroyed or dispelled.
"Our sister's location is still unknown," the golden construct answered in his metallic voice. "But a possible location of high probability was found. Blood and Fortune - a game of the Xanathar, now being played in an arena in Skullport."
"What?" Vorskar said. "None of what you said makes any sense."
"See the folded parchment in my belt pouch," Koger advised.
As he still carried the gibbering prisoner, he could not retrieve the posting himself.
"I heard gunfire," Fel'rekt said.
His compatriot answered the implied question as the half-giant moved to get the parchment from his brother.
"They came at us in force," Krebbyg said. "Then the alchemist ambushed them with his flaming oil trap, which made them wary."
He paused in his narrative to give a nod to Surash, who nodded back in acknowledgement.
"But once the fire died down," the gunslinger continued. "They returned. But they were reserved, focused on keeping us busy, and the spellcasters were able to hold them off. I think they waited for another group to flank us."
"We encountered them," Fel'rekt said.
"The beholder itself then came," the sun-elf brother said. "And we almost exhausted all our magic holding it off. But then it just stopped its assault for some reason. It must be gathering its forces for a final push."
The Open Lord's instincts had proven correct. The Xanathar feared facing her directly and their ruse had managed to convince the beholder she was present.
"That is Sophiya," Vorskar said, holding up the parchment for others to see and pointing at the drawing of the woman who resembled Ancilla. "No doubt. We need to get to this Blood and Fortune."
"We think Kuhl and Sky are participating as well," the aasimar said.
"The mind flayer is dead," Fel'rekt said. "Jarlaxle's agreement with the Open Lord is fulfilled. Our part is…"
He trailed off, staring at the parchment.
"Our part here is done," Krebbyg finished for his compatriot as he gave the other gunslinger a questioning look. "Activate the pillar and we'll be on our way."
"The drow is probably right," Mirt said, his wheezing voice sympathetic. "Blood and Fortune is going on right now. But to get there, we'd have to fight our way up to Skullport through a lair that has become as hostile and alert as an angry bee's nest to an arena where half the spectators are probably now being funneled right down here to kill us. We'd never make it."
"Laeral gave us another seeming spell," Aleina said, looking at Mirt and brandishing a ring on her finger. "In case of something just like this. It can disguise all of us at once. The Xanathar Guild still doesn't know the Open Lord took Harko Swornhold prisoner to get his keystone for the pillar. She said she was sending someone with us who could impersonate him and maybe bluff our way out of the lair if we couldn't make it back here."
"Impersonate Harko?" the fat man questioned. "Bluff our way out of here? Possible, but to use the words of our golden friend, not probable."
"Not probable for anyone else," the aasimar said. "But you're Mirt the Merciless. I read all about your adventures in my family's library as a girl."
"My darling Asper wrote those tall tales," Mirt said. "Embellishing some of them and making others up on her whim. But now you've made me think of her, fool girl, and I can hear her voice in my head, soft spoken, but sharp tongued and commanding to the ear of her man when she wills it. 'Give it a try, Old Wolf,' she says. 'Flip Tymora's coin in thanks to a reader of my writings in remembrance of me.' What is a doddering fat fool to do but give a 'yes dear' to that?"
"Problem," Koger said in his hollow, metallic voice. "We bear rescued prisoners. The probability of bluffing and deception working is already low. The probability while carrying this one, nil."
As if in support, the gibberer the golden construct bore increased the volume of his ravings.
"Some of us will have to leave by the portal," Jassin said. "And take these two out with them. But all of us are staying to find our sister."
Nods from his brothers showed they were all in agreement.
"Well I'm staying to find Kuhl and Sky," Aleina said. "Also, I'm the one with the spell in this ring."
She held up her hand for emphasis.
"I'm staying as well," Jhelnae said.
"The brothers have the right by blood and clan," Ront grunted. "That is the way of it among my kind. I will take one of these prisoners through the portal."
He extinguished Dawnbringer, handed her to the aasimar, and took the gibbering prisoner from Koger.
"Surash and I can take the other, I suppose," Fargas said.
The transfer of the catatonic rescued prisoner did not go as smoothly with the alchemist and the halfling having a difficult time even carrying him let alone moving with him.
"Hard to carry dead weight," Fargas said, apologetically. "Harder than I thought anyway."
"Fel'rekt and I can help," Krebbyg said, holstering his weapon and coming over to take over the halfling's burden. "Until the hand to the Watch members the Open Lord has stationed. Then we are on our way. Now, activate the pillar."
Mirt inserted the circular keystone shaped like a stone eye into the socket on the pillar and a dark portal shimmered into existence, similar to the one that had brought them here.
Without wasting any words of farewell, Ront carried his burden through and was transported away. Jhelnae didn't blame him, she'd want to be free of carrying someone as soon as possible as well. Fargas gave a little wave as he went through, but Fel'rekt held up a hand to stop Krebbyg and Surash before they could follow.
"I'll be staying as well," the drow gunslinger said in his high voice.
"Recognized someone drawn in the parchment?" his counterpart asked, eyebrow quirking.
Fel'rekt nodded.
"You escaped that life once," Krebbyg said. "Don't let them drag you back in."
Together with the alchemist, he carried his catatonic burden through the portal. Mirt pulled the stone eye free and the dark magic doorway vanished.
"The chaos and confusion might allow us to pull this off," the fat man said. "We'll run back to the kuo-toa corpses and pretend we're just discovering them. Act like we've been summoned repel the invaders just like everyone else. She'll magick me to be Harko, you've seen Harko, right?"
"Laeral had us visit him in his cell for just this eventuality," Jhelnae answered for her friend.
"The rest of you will need a disguise as well," Mirt said, lips pursed in thoughts. "I think kenku would work best."
I know what you are thinking: "These two just took out a CR 7 creature when they are only Level 7 themselves? Do you not understand that a CR 7 creature means that it is supposed to be a tough fight for FOUR Level 7 characters? Can they get any more Mary Sueish? Can they?"
Yeah, they can, and they might. Sorry. I had planned to have the Mind Flayer die in the fight along with his kuo-toa in the hall. But as I wrote he ended up fighting just the two of them in the Spawning Pool chamber. I was going to have others run in to help them, but as I wrote it, my mind was like, "Okay, I'm done with this stupid Mind Flayer. Let's just end it. You two kill him please..."
As you now know I had Laeral loan out magic items to help them accomplish their mission. I kept this close to the vest because I had an idea of how I planned to use them and thought you'd all figure it out if you knew the spells, etc. beforehand. Getting Aleina and Jhelnae and the others from the lair of the Xanathar up to Skullport was an issue I struggled with. Hopefully I gave them something plausible enough to allow your suspension of disbelief. Let me know.