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18 Rhonus 1120 Food Chain
The heroes carried their captive back to the Torchwood, taking steps to ensure that he didn't regain consciousness too quickly. Tika cast a dimensional anchor on the illithid and a zone of truth in the area. Only then did they awaken the creature. The illithid was arrogant and insulting even after realizing that he couldn't simply plane shift to safety. Loki put his recent training in intimidation into practice and managed to shake some information loose. The captive was, in fact, Sarkret -- the very mind flayer that Ash had contacted through the mind link pendant. Under pressure from Loki Sarkret admitted to being in the chain of command for the half-illithid army. He declined to name his superiors; with disdain, he pointed out that the Elder Brain was ultimately in charge, obviously. He also confirmed, as the party already knew, that the elder brain was in cooperation with another powerful entity. The army's primary mission was to sow terror and destabilize the coastal nations through raiding and hostage taking. Thus far the party had heard very little that was new to them, but then Sarkret offered up another admission: the army itself had no particular use for hostages and little inclination toward their care and feeding. But to the illithids back at their underground sept these aquatic and coastal creatures were novel and interesting, a welcome change from the usual duergar and drow that made up most of the illithids' labor force and food supply. As a result several squads of the half-illithid soldiers were being used to conduct groups of captives to the mind flayers' home to become thralls and, eventually, food. Loki persuaded Sarkret to reveal the route taken by the slave parties and that the most recent such group had left 3 days before. At forced-march speed that would put them approaching the base of the mountains. Sarkret provided a detailed enough description of the site for Ash to get a good mental picture. They allowed Sarkret to escape (because they were loathe to murder a captive but had nothing else viable to do with him), rested just enough to regain spells, and then set off to intercept the slave party. Ash made use of her newest spell, greater teleport, to transport the party instantly to the site described by Sarkret. Vondran put his tracking skills to use and found signs of a large group of humanoids numbering 20-25 of various races and sizes having passed through the area in the past day. They debated heading down the tunnel in pursuit. The discussion was cut short, however, when Loki and Tika heard a high-pitched scream in the distance. It came not from the tunnel but from behind them, somewhere up river. The heroes took cover in and behind a number trees to watch and wait. Soon they spied a small group of assorted people -- merfolk, young humans, an aquatic elf or two -- being marched along the river bank by a trio of half-illithid sahuagin warriors. The group passed between the trees where the party hid and were clearly headed for the tunnel entrance. Vondran and Loki stood still and tried to remain out of sight. It didn't work. Vondran was spotted by one of the mutants, who let out a mind blast that stunned the darfellan. Tika fired a shot at the leader with her crossbow from the safety of a tree top and Ash spread a scorching ray volley between the three targets. She misjudged her aim on one, however, and missed badly. The enemy leader responded with a mind blast the took Tika and Ash out of the fight, leaving only Loki in full possession of his faculties. He made use of the new fleshgrinding ability of his mind blade, leaving the weapon in his opponent's wound to inflict automatic damage each round until the enemy fell. That left only two to go. Tika recovered her wits first and cast a holy storm over the area, making a reasonable assumption that none of the captives would be harmed by it. The water burned the mutants as they fought. Vondran recovered next and put the Arm of Telomir to good use, getting it stuck in an enemy's belly. Loki landed a fatal blow against the leader as Tika's magic and Vondran's blade put the final enemy away. The captives were exhausted, starving, and grateful to be free. As Tika conjured up food they explained that the original slave party had been hampered by the presence of a few who could not keep up with the main group. The leader had ordered the party split, with the main group going ahead and their smaller, slower group left to follow at whatever speed they could manage. That explained the signs Vondran had found of a large group entering the tunnel. However, following on foot seemed like a losing proposition as the other party had nearly a day's head start and were going at a forced march pace. If only they had a good description of the other end of the tunnel. Loki remembered the small crystal he'd picked up in the battle with Sarkret. It had walked on tiny spider-like legs, the group recalled, and been used as the focus of a psionic power -- it had to be a psicrystal, the psion's version of a familiar. The crystal would be sentient, and could therefore be questioned. He removed the crystal from his pocket and held it up. Immediately the little crystal began to babble telepathically in fear, begging the party to let it go, let it live. The thing was so craven and panicked, in fact, that Tika took it from Loki and went to great lengths to reassure the crystal that it was in no danger. She gave it a name -- Hoppy -- and the promise of a safe, comfortable home in her bag of holding. Hoppy remained twitchy but composed itself enough to answer a few simple questions about the route to the mind flayer sept. The tunnel, it explained, was just the first step. It went about 45 miles in and down and then joined up with a huge network of subterranean passages that linked all manner of underground communities and species. Hoppy did not know the exact route to the mind flayer home because Sarkret normally used teleportation to get there, but it did have a good mental image of the far end of the first tunnel. It transmitted this image to Ash and happily took refuge in Tika's bag. With the clear picture in her mind Ash teleported the party to the far end of the tunnel. Those who lacked darkvision acquired it through magical means and Vondran checked for signs of recent passage. There were none, so the heroes could feel sure they had leapfrogged the other group. They headed back up the tunnel to intercept. About three miles up they heard the slave party approaching. The tunnel offered nothing in the way of cover, so they flattened themselves against the walls and hoped for the best. Unfortunately, the guards spotted the heroes almost immediately and stopped the march. Tika attempted a mass curse of ill fortune but the creatures' spell resistance held against it. Loki leapt forward with his mind blade ready and promptly inserted it into the first enemy he found, again making good use of the fleshgrinding ability. Vondran closed on the other lead fighter to engage. Ash and Tika thought they had reasonable cover, but suddenly the two enemies from the rear of the group vanished and rematerialized directly in front of them, each striking for a hit. They scattered, with Ash trying to cover the movement with a scorching ray spell. The rays hit her enemy and wounded him gravely, but almost immediately afterward it stepped up, touched Ash with a hand, and transferred the damage to her while healing himself. Vondran ran to assist the spellcasters while Loki engaged two enemies himself. Ash escaped her pursuer with a baleful transposition that put her up near the captives and the last mutant in her former place and used an empowered false life to regain some health. She would need it, as the psychic warrior she'd scorched used another dimension hop to pursue and attack her again. She responded with another scorching ray and again saw it do severe damage, but then the creature touched her and healed itself again at her expense. Ash crumpled to the floor unconscious and near death. Meanwhile Loki traded blows with a pair of fighters while his mind blade kept grinding away at the first. Tika fought the third warrior hand to hand while Vondran and Ash engaged the psychic warriors. Vondran was stunned briefly by a mind blast but recovered to resume fighting. Tika saw Ash go down and hurried to administer a heal spell. Loki thought he had his enemies just about down. Then one opponent stepped back, using the other as cover, and touched a tattoo on his chest. The enemy instantly regained full strength and health, as if from a heal spell, and re-engaged Loki while his comrade did the same. Loki hung in and continued chipping away, realizing he'd have to effectively kill them twice to succeed and that his own hit points were wearing away in the process. Ash, now healed again, used another baleful transposition in a desperate move to get away from her pursuer. This time she switched places with one of the befuddled slaves, counting on her enemy to be unwilling to damage the captive. It worked -- from the relative safety of the crowd she was able to pepper the enemy with magic missile and a scintillating sphere to complement a scorching ray from Tika. The psychic warriors were clearly badly wounded now and would have to fall soon. Or perhaps not. Both used psionic powers to heal themselves and continue to fight. Ash, faced with dwindling options and realizing she needed to do major damage quickly, let fly with an empowered fireball. Loki managed to dodge most of the blast while two of the enemy perished including one of the psychic warriors. With the enemy now reduced to a lone psychic warrior the party closed in. The creature fought to the very end, stealing vitality from a newly-healed Loki and fighting off a slay living from Tika, but the combined efforts of the entire group were too much for it to take. Loki had the pleasure of the killing blow. The captives confirmed what the earlier group had told the party. They did not know anything helpful about the location of the mind flayers' settlement and were too exhausted to do more than fall down and thank the heroes for saving them from a grisly fate. Tika conjured more food and they began the slow process of marching back to the surface. Ash teleported ahead to assure the others that the heroes had succeeded and would be there in a day or so. On the way, the heroes discussed their next move. The underwater army was a threat, yes, but it seemed to be something better suited to opposition by other armies than to a small party of adventurers. Somewhere in the underworld, however, was an illithid sept that had taken an untold number of innocent prisoners to be used as slaves and, ultimately, food. Also in that sept was the elder brain that had bred and organized the army in the first place. That seemed like a target they could reasonably go after. But first, they would need some more muscle.
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