4 Rhonus 1120

Chain of Command

The heroes disposed of the bodies of their slain enemies and checked out the remains of the ruined village. The cluster of huts had been largely stripped of anything of significant value. There was no cache of weapons, no store of looted goods. Only the number of simple bedrolls -- about a dozen -- gave any hint to the strength of the group assembling here. They spent a long two days loitering in the camp before their patience was rewarded.

By plan Vondran, Loki and Karu had taken positions inside the nearest huts to the desecrated altar and Ash was nearby inside the siege crab, which she had named Waldo, wearing the coral circlet that gave her control of the creature. Tika alone stood out in the open, saying prayers over the altar as if bent on resanctifying it.

The enemy approached cautiously. Four half-illithids advanced at first, with one hanging back while the rest surrounded Tika. A telepathic command entered her mind: "Get out." She responded by putting on the air of a crazed priestess, non-magically castigating the mutants for disrespecting a god and demanding that they help her repair the damage. Her goal was to lure as many enemies as possible into close range for an area of effect spell, but this group showed more discipline than previous bands. One mutant charged Tika with his trident while the other two stood by at the ready.

The attack missed and Tika, figuring there would be no better grouping once the enemy discovered the party's strength, unleashed an energy vortex to damage everyone in the area, including herself. Loki sprang out and defended her by landing a psychic strike on the leader as well, and the battle was on.

Ash, inside Waldo, swam forward and tried to spray the enemy with a magic missile volley but it fizzled against their spell resistance. Vondran charged the mutant who had attacked Tika and fatally skewered him on the Arm of Telomir for the first kill before taking a defensive position above Tika. Karu used his ghost step ability to sneak up on an enemy and deliver a sudden strike as Loki charged his mindblade again.

More mutants arrived from another direction. Again one stayed back and sent three into battle. They started with a mind blast that stunned Vondran. Tika cast castigate but again the creature's spell resistance held firm and only Vondran and Karu were affected by it.

Ash aimed an empowered sonic fireball at the newcomers and blasted them to near death in one move. In doing so she made it very plain that the siege crab was under the party's control and occupied, however. One of the outliers tried to swim under Waldo and reach the hatch, but the siege crab caught him neatly in its claw and held firm. The mutant struggled but was clearly nowhere near strong enough to get free. Instead it aimed a mind blast at the crab; Waldo was immune, but Ash inside was stunned severely.

Karu found himself in dire straits as his opponent wrapped its tentacles around his head and prepared to extract the brain. Karu struggled to free himself but was held fast; it fell to Vondran to come to Karu's defense by killing the creature where it stood. Karu was free, but then a mind blast from another enemy stunned him into inaction.

The mutants, weakened by Ash's spells, began to fall quickly to blows from Vondran and Loki. One ran, and the party allowed it to flee as they dispatched all but one of its cohorts. The exception was the one Waldo held firmly in claw, obeying Ash's most recent order even as Ash struggled to recover from the mind blast.

With everyone revived, the heroes gathered around their trapped opponent. Waldo's crushing claw proved a potent persuasive force; the warrior answered the party's questions with relatively little resistance after the first squeeze.

The camp, the party learned, was run by two psychic warriors tasked with assembling -- by threat if not by reason -- as many of the marauding splinter groups as possible into a disciplined force. The party had dispatched one of those leaders, but the other had been with the incoming group and was doubtless well on his way to safety. The creature did not know who was coordinating the actions of the psychic warriors, but it did say that the leader had made reference to a command post. It did not know the location or details of the post but Waldo had been used more than once as transport to and from it.

The party released their prisoner and allowed him to flee. They then climbed inside Waldo and Ash instructed the siege crab to go to the command post. Sure enough, Waldo turned south/southeast and began to swim.

For a day and a half the crab moved tirelessly through the water. The heroes rested and healed themselves so as to be at full strength for the encounters to come.

The journey ended at a large crater in the ocean floor. As Waldo approached the far side the party saw two other siege crabs parked near the crater wall. Those crabs rose and swam forward to intercept them and, without any indication of protocol, attacked by slamming at Waldo with their huge claws.

Vondran, having been stunned when their enemy tried a similar tactic at the camp, left the safety of Waldo's compartment and tried to swim across to an attacking siege crab. The crab neatly caught him in its claw and held him in its mighty grip. Karu used ghost step to become ethereal and transfer to another crab by simply moving through the shells. He materialized inside an attacking crab and found it empty. With no apparent way to disable the thing and no sign of its controller he returned to Waldo, again ethereally.

Meanwhile, the crabs continued to beat on Waldo. Fortunately for the party the siege crab's defenses were formidable even against other siege crabs -- only about one blow in four actually landed, and the damage was minimal. It would add up, though, if not stopped. Ash cast an empowered sonic scorching ray against one of the attackers to chip away at its strength, but then the group spied an opening in the crater wall. The controllers of the other crabs had to be nearby; perhaps inside that opening?

Vondran was helplessly caught in a siege crab's claw. To get him out, Tika cast freedom of movement on herself and then Ash used baleful transposition to exchange Tika with Vondran. The darfellan appeared safe inside Waldo, and Ash instructed the crab to disengage and swim to the opening. Tika easily slipped free of the crab's claw as it pursued and joined the party as they gathered in the opening.

Ash gave Waldo orders to fight the crabs, figuring it was better than having it sit there and take blows. Still, the group estimated that even at the slow rate of damage Waldo would last less than 20 minutes before being destroyed. Unless, that is, they could find the other crabs' controllers and put a stop to the attack -- and maybe gain control of two more siege crabs in the process.

They crept through the narrow opening and down into darkness.

(continues...)