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16 Rhonus 1120
Hidden Target
Upon their return to Marhaven the heroes used 10,000gp in diamonds for Tika to cast her first resurrection spell. Karu came back in full health, but declared that he had lost his appetite for adventuring. He reimbursed the party for his resurrection out of his final share of their earnings and booked passage back to the Jade Islands. Ash, meanwhile, took the crystal pendant they'd captured from the 4-armed mutant back to Tideborne Cabal, which was the best research source available since the demise of the Adventurers' Guild. Her homecoming was productive: after some discussion, the illumian scholars determined that it must be a mind link crystal, a psionic device used to maintain telepathic communication over long distances. With sufficient concentration and a little luck, it could be used to locate the wearer of the mated crystal. With the rest of the party at hand in case of mishap, Ash put on the pendant. Her eyes glowed green and to the party there was no sign of whether she was winning or losing the bid for information. Ash felt her mind link up with another and pressed immediately for the other mind's name and location. She learned that the being on the other side was an illithid named Sarkret who was located in a sahuagin village a few miles north of Corsuhn. Then the link reversed and Ash felt questions pounding at her from the far end. Unable to tell whether Ash was gaining information or giving it up, the party gave her no more than about 12 seconds before yanking the pendant off. She was able to relay what she had learned but could not say for certain what, if anything, Sarkret had learned from her. They debated trying the pendant again but opted not to -- they had a reasonable working knowledge of the area around Corsuhn already and could find the village on their own. The group provisioned and set sail immediately in the Torchwood. Rough weather made for a slow voyage, but by the end of the third day they had reached the docks at Corsuhn and arranged for moorage for a few days. Leaving the Torchwood in Corsuhn under guard, the heroes took to the sea bottom to search for a sahuagin village to the north. It didn't take more than a day to learn that there was such a village and to get directions to it from friendly sea dwellers. Loki, using his cloak of the manta ray to disguise himself, made a recon pass around the village perimeter. Everything looked reasonably normal: about 150 sahuagin in residence in a village big enough for twice that number, with sentries posted at the expected points. To get more information the party figured they'd need to capture and question one of the sentries. Vondran swam down toward a sentry point with Loki moving to flank. The idea was to lure the sentry out of position and take him quickly. The sentry, however, paid very little attention to Vondran's approach. He clearly saw the darfellan but made no move to intercept or attack and even returned a neutral greeting without hostility. Curious, Vondran swam past the sentry toward the village. Not only did the sahuagin not pursue, he didn't even raise an alarm. This behavior was so strange that it prompted Loki to return to the rest of the group and bring them to the village. Meanwhile, Vondran stood in the village square perplexed. Dozens of adult sahuagin passed him right by and continued with their daily business, as if there were nothing odd about a darfellan standing in the middle of a sahuagin village. Most of the villagers looked bored, or perhaps distracted at most. A group of immature sahuagin, play sparring with wooden tridents, caught Vondran's eye. He approached them and found that these children -- ranging in age from 10 to about 13 -- at least realized that Vondran didn't belong in the village. They talked briefly, and Vondran volunteered some advice on wielding the tridents. In return, the group's apparent leader advised Vondran to avoid the hut belonging to Leelok, an elderly assistant to the village's high priestess. People go into that hut, he said, and don't come back out. The party arrived then to join Vondran, who briefed them quickly on the conversation. The group pledged loudly to stay far away from Leelok's hut and parted company with the kids. Somehow despite their best efforts, however, they found themselves in the vicinity of the one hut in the entire village that had soldiers on guard at its door. They approached anyway and received the first unfriendly reception of their visit. The guards held out their tridents and told the party to go away; Leelok was not receiving visitors. When the party did not comply the guards attacked. It was not a particularly challenging encounter for the heroes. Even after two more sahuagin warriors swam out through windows to join them the party had little difficulty dispatching the threat. In just seconds the four guards were dead and the party was opening the door to Leelok's hut. Inside they found the elderly cleric lying on a moss bed. She complained loudly about being tired and sick and responded to all of the party's questions by telling them to go away and leave her alone. She was annoying but clearly not a physical threat, so eventually the heroes picked her up and moved her to search under the bed. Sure enough, the moss had been concealing a hatch that, when opened, revealed a perfectly round tunnel leading straight down and then curving off to the east. The heroes left a whining Leelok behind and descended into the tunnel. The perfect roundness of it gave way after a few hundred feet to more normal-looking hewn stone. The passage also rose ever so gently until, after another mile or so, it passed above the water line. Beyond the tunnel lay an anteroom where a pair of half-illithid sahuagin waited to engage the party. These were psychic warriors, clearly a higher class of warrior than the thugs at Leelok's, but even still the party overpowered them easily. The real challenge lay just ahead. Beyond the anteroom was a large, dark chamber. A hulking figure could just be seen in the gloom a few feet beyond the opening. Loki charged forward and was knocked back at the entrance by an unseen force. Vondran charged in after, made it through, and found himself facing two mind flayers and a pair of hulking astral constructs. Ash sent a fireball through the doorway to start things off and the party ran to Vondran's aid as Tika cast a recitation to bolster their abilities. Vondran went after a mind flayer and was instantly wracked with pain throughout his body by a psychic power. He fought through it and charged at the mind flayer only to be knocked back by the same invisible creature that had been guarding the doorway earlier. Tika and Loki engaged the constructs, with Tika using righteous might to match the enemy's size and strength and Loki making liberal use of his xeph speed. Ash, having protected herself with stone body, flung fireballs at one of the constructs until it was destroyed and tried means of detecting the invisible enemy. Vondran lost his ability to perceive the first illithid by succumbing to a cloud mind power; when he charged the second with his manacles at the ready the illithid rose into the air and used a telekinetic disarm to relieve Vondran of the manacles. With the illithids safely levitated or veiled by trickery the party spent most of their energy engaging the astral constructs. The creatures were sickeningly strong and showed differing abilities. One could dimension door at will, and of course one was invisible, making them difficult to engage. Loki had to fall back for healing quickly and Vondran also took a lot of hits, forcing Tika to spend time healing instead of fighting. As the first of the constructs fell to Ash's fireball attack Vondran was assaulted with an ultrablast from, of all things, a tiny crystal with spider-like legs. He recovered and continued trying to attack the levitating mind flayer but found it maddeningly hard to hit and had to retreat to Tika for healing after the invisible construct wounded him gravely. Loki spotted the crystal, grabbed it, and stuck it in his pocket. Tika, meanwhile, engaged the first mind flayer alone because Loki and Vondran had both fallen prey to cloud mind and were unable to perceive it. She backed the creature against the wall and bashed at it with her mace, then discovered that every time she damaged the mind flayer she took damage as well. Still, if it was to be a battle of attrition Tika figured she could take more punishment than the illithid likely could. As tried to harm the invisible creature with another fireball and drew the attention of the levitating mind flayer. It shot a purple ray at her and encased her in an ectoplasmic cocoon, rendering Ash unable to move, speak, or use her spells. It then sent a massive energy wave at the rest of the party. The first illithid then made a tacital mistake by using another ultrablast against Tika and Vondran. The attack made Vondran aware of the illithid's presence again and more than a little angry over the trick. He charged the mind flayer with the Arm of Telomir and struck a telling and deliberately non-lethal blow. The mind flayer crumpled to the floor unconscious -- and so, from taking reciprocal damage, did Vondran. With one of the mind flayers out of commission, the tide turned. Tika healed herself and then Vondran, who then took a moment to cut Ash free of the binding cocoon. Faced with four angry adventurers and only one construct left, the mind flayer plane shifted away to safety. Searching the cave turned up a decent quantity of valuables but no obvious clue as to the next link in the chain. The party bound their captive and made for the Torchwood, figuring that the sahuagin would regain their natural belligerance soon.
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