The mindflayer lifts a long-fingered hand, palm forward, and all of the adventurers hear a voice in their heads, which says calmly, “Please, do not be alarmed. I simply wish to know - who are you and why have you entered my home?” Not only do they all realize that the creature's telepathy is translating its language to one they can understand, but they realize they can hear each other telepathically too, as evidenced when everyone hears Luna’s unintentionally transmitted thought, “Aargh! Get out of my head!”
The mindflayer doesn’t respond to her thought and there is a long pause, as everyone seems to wait for someone else to reply. Gareth, while waiting, detects evil on it and is mildly surprised to pick up no such aura.
Finally, Six says aloud, “Actually, we were simply lost and happened to stumble in here and were wondering if you could show us the way out.”
Everyone hears Trillia’s mental chuckle of amusement and Nameless, similarly amused, says with a deadpan expression, “Plus we were wondering if you could fill out a survey.”
There is a telepathic sense of momentary confusion as Nameless speaks and then the creature responds directly to him, though the others can hear it, “Master?” As it transmits the query, Nameless feels a blinding headache and a momentary gabble of incomprehensible speech inside the back of his skull, as if someone were talking very quickly and indistinctly right within his cranium. Nobody else, however, picks up on that particular phenomenon, which dies down almost instantly, along with the accompanying headache.
Not that they need to. Luna’s mental “Oh - come ON!” is rendered unnecessary by her irritated growl, while Korm spins around to look at Nameless and go, “What?” Six and Trillia also look at him curiously, while Gareth, who had been about to silently detect thoughts on the mindflayer does so on Nameless instead. The alienist resists the effect and immediately realizes that something tried to use magic on him, although with the lack of any evidence from Gareth and the current situation, he thinks it was the mindflayer.
Which, after a pause, transmits the equivalent of a telepathic shrug and a “No. But as I was inquiri...”
It never gets to complete the thought, since Luna, irritated by everything that’s going on, does what she does best - drops a flame strike on the mindflayer. A column of roaring flame envelops it.
“Luna!”
With the immediate disappearance of the telepathic link, nobody can hear Luna's thoughts any more, but the bear's shrug and growl is eloquent. Even as she is responding, the flames disappear, revealing a completely unscathed mindflayer. Nameless notes the lack of any of the signs of a creature that resisted a magical attack, even one that was completely ineffectual, and realizes what’s wrong. “It’s an illusion!” he says urgently.
As soon as he speaks, the creature - or illusion - disappears. The adventurers immediately spread out, weapons drawn. Luna shuffles towards the area where the creature was and sniffs around, hoping to detect a scent, but there is no result.
Instead, she hears a soft rush of air as something flies by her, and then a creature appears in mid-air above the rest of the group. It is clearly not a mindflayer.
The creature is twelve feet long, combining aspects of worm, octopus and insect. The pallid and gray body is wormlike in shape and covered in yellow slime. Six suckered tentacles protrude from it, each tipped with a multifaceted yellow eye, like that of a giant insect. Halfway up the body is a long, muscular protuberance ending in a sharp stinger. Its “head” consists of a fleshy sheath holding its mouth, which consists of a small, forked tongue between two hooked mandibles. Two ridges circle the top half of the body, each with four thin spidery arms tipped with tiny insectoid claws that almost look like miniscule humanoid hands. Seeming strangely out of place on this already aberrant form, attached to the opposite side as the stinger, is a bugbear-sized humanoid arm, which holds a greatsword.
As it appears, the adventurers feel a wave of supernatural fear wash over them. But with a combination of will, luck and the added resistance that Gareth's aura of courage provides those near him, each of them shakes it off.
Nameless and Trillia both recognize it as an avolakia, a rare species of aberration, and yell advice to their companions about its strengths and weaknesses even as they back away and hurl spells at it. The others chop away at it, and though the slime-covered body is much better armored than it looks, it is quickly bleeding a pale green fluid. Gareth especially does substantial damage, calling upon the Silver Flame to smite it powerfully.
The avolakia, however, is not seriously hurt, and it clearly has many weapons at its disposal. As Six slashes it with his spiked chain, it gabbles the words of a spell in a surprisingly tinny voice. A tentacle of electricity leaps from the middle of its chest to shock Six even as he is leaping out of range. The spell, which neither Nameless nor Trillia have seen before, is cast in daelkyr and they note method and effect for later study.
Their enemy follows up the spell with multiple physical attacks. While the attached arm hacks away powerfully, it bites with its mandibles at one target and strikes with the stinger at another. Gareth, having inflicted the biggest wound, is its primary target and he goes down in a bleeding heap, while Luna and Korm are also wounded.
The creature then flies upwards, hovering near the ceiling, out of each of most of the attackers. Trillia hits it with an orb of ice, but it ignores the minimal effect. Korm, unable to reach it, reaches down and casts his most powerful healing spell on the unconscious paladin. A gleaming yellow-green cocoon of energy surrounds Gareth, hiding him from sight. Luna, who had been about to do the same, rears up and claws at the avolakia, a claw sliding off its carapace, and snarls her anger.
The adventurers hear a wordless telepathic chuckle of pleasure at their frustration, but the avolakia has no real idea about their capabilities. Nameless steps back and says, “You really shouldn’t celebrate that early,” and then dispels the spells on it. Which includes the fly spell keeping it aloft.
The avolakia crashes to the ground*, a telepathic ejaculation of shock barely registering on those around it as they swarm it envelop it with a hail of blows and spells. Critically wounded, the avolakia rears upright, trying to activate one of its many abilities and flee. A split second before it successfully does so, Korm brings down his sword. Specifically enchanted against aberrations, it strikes right between the mandibles and splits its “head” in two.
As the creature thrashes in its death throes, everyone hears a confused, “What the heck happened to me?!” from Gareth inside the cocoon. A second later, the cocoon falls apart and disappears, leaving him completely healed. Korm says, “Relax! I just healed you - and killed this thing.”
* I house-ruled away the “float down if dispelled”
Handled over email:
Once they are sure the avolakia is dead (and Gareth emerges from Korm’s rejuvenation cocoon), Trillia casts a detect magic. She says that the only magical thing is the faintly magical greatsword that was being wielded by the arm grafted to the creature’s chest, its hand still locked around the hilt. Now that they have time to examine it, the adventurers note that the sword is of a purple metal, probably byeshk, which overcomes the damage reduction of many aberrations. It’s clearly of antique Dhakaani manufacture and worth more than normal to a collector.
At this point, the top of the avolakia’s tongue detaches, crawls out of its mouth and begins to slither along the ground. It’s about four inches long, red and the front half is forked.
Luna quickly puts a huge paw down on the slithering tongue, pinning it to the ground, where it wriggles futilely.
“Don't damage it,” says Trillia, kneeling quickly to extract it from beneath her paw. The tongue stops writhing around when she picks it up and she casts another detect magic.
After concentrating for a while, she says, “It detects of faint evocation. Must be a symbiont. They’re a unique kind of creature created by the daelkyr, which attaches to another creature and provides it certain abilities. They work a little like magical items, so I might be able to identify it later with a spell. Nice catch, Luna.”
She concludes, "One of you want to grab that sword?"
Luna picks the sword up in her mouth, only to discover that the hand remains clasped tightly around the hilt. A little shaking and pulling does nothing to loosen it. It’s almost as if it was glued on. Trillia, having put the ambulatory tongue in a small glass bottle, looks across and chuckles. “Maybe one of you guys with hands right now should help her?”
Examination reveals that the hand is firmly attached and can’t be pried off. It does look like the fingers were actually glued shut around the hilt, or the equivalent thereof. It doesn’t, however, take much effort to sever the hand at the wrist, giving the group a greatsword with an attached hand.
As the sword is being stowed away, Trillia says, “Speaking of returning to town, how are the rest of you resource-wise? I'd like to check where the avolakia came from.” She points down the tunnel where the mindflayer-illusion had appeared, "Before we leave this place."
After a little discussion, the group decides to continue. With Luna having picked up the rancid, oily scent of the avolakia coming from the tunnel that the mindflayer appeared at, they proceed down it. The tunnel runs thirty feet before turning a corner to the left, and then another thirty feet before ending at another sphincter. The group finds nothing untoward along the way and when Six walks up to it, the sphincter slides open, revealing a chamber beyond.
The rancid, oily scent is much stronger here. From the entrance, the chamber seems to be made up of two parts, the wall to the left bulging out in a rounded protuberance to provide a partial divider. The walls are rounded, with no straight lines. The room is lit by a ceiling crystal like the ones they’ve seen, but smaller, giving off a diffuse yellow light. It seems like there’s one in the further half of the room too.
The left wall, including the protruding section, is decorated with numerous objects, some hanging on the wall and some placed along it. Those that they can see are probably of Dhakaani manufacture. The right wall, which makes a long curve, has no such decorations on or before it, but stands totally bare and has a translucent sheen that the rest of the room lacks. There is some large structure in the further half of the room, part of which can be seen around the dividing curve. One can’t say what it is from the doorway, other than that it seems to be of the same pinkish material as the walls and ceiling.
When they enter, they see that there are more decorations like the ones seen from the doorway. Seeming out of place among them is what looks like the head of another avolakia, which hangs on the wall near the entrance.
The smell is strongest in the further half of the room. Walking in there, they see more of the structure that they partly saw from the doorway. It is about ten feet long, consisting of oddly shaped lumps and protuberances, with spikes and bladelike surfaces. Right in the middle is a large sucker like ‘mouth,’ similar to the ones saw in the alcoves (which Trillia theorized were some way of sustaining the modified goblins and bugbears). The smell is strongest on the structure.
Leaning against the structure is what looks like a petrified humanoid arm with curved fingers. Near that, in a small holder, is a foot long ebony rod, topped with a bird skull and artificial feathers.
But what really draws the group’s attention is on the wall next to the structure. A naked hobgoblin is spread-eagled on the wall, held five feet off the ground by large strips of the pink wall material that have grown over its arms or legs. Or as much of its arms and legs as are left, since they have been amputated at elbow and knee. As has whatever genitalia it had, since there is only a pale patch of skin there. Its body is unusually pale and completely hairless. Besides the pink material holding it there, it is also connected to the wall by two similarly pink tubes that emanate from the wall, one leading to the back of its neck and one leading behind its buttocks.
Red lines of horizontal tattoos cover the entire torso, starting at the top of the chest and continuing down to the groin. Similarly colored scrawlings are on the wall on either side. The creature’s eyes are closed and its head hangs forward on its chest. After the first couple of seconds, they realize it must be unconscious or sleeping, since it is breathing, though very softly.
The two alienists can read the tattooing without much difficulty. It’s in daelkyr, and seems to be notes about what it calls the “changing pools” (which they guess are the three pools with the creatures in them). It refers to eight subjects from the breeding pens that have recently been introduced into the pools.
The scrawls on the walls on either side are individual words: Forward; Back; Up; Down; Larger; Smaller; Notes; Experiments; Supplies; History; Miscellaneous; Magic; Record; Erase.
The feathers are also carved ivory painted black. Looking at the rod, Nameless recognizes it as a Raven Skull Rod, a particular type of long-distance communication device that the Dhakaani made, and sometimes still make. The user can speak into one and the message emanates from another that it is linked to (they’re usually constructed in batches of 2-5).
Nameless is explaining the above to the rest of the group when they all notice something changing about the long curved wall which makes up one entire side of the chamber (i.e. the wall without the protuberance) and has no decorations placed anywhere near it.
The wall is swiftly turning more translucent and then glassy, reflecting the rest of the room in its surface. Along with the room it reflects all of the group, but with significant changes. Each and every one of them is reflected as malformed in some very obvious way. Six, for example, has large tentacles instead of arms, each topped with a writhing snakelike head. Luna still appears in bear form, but the center of her back has a foot-wide fleshy growth, covered in a mixture of scales and pustules. And so on.
Except for Nameless, who is reflected just the same as normal.
Looking in wonder, Gareth doesn’t see what he expected. “This is interesting,” he says a little worriedly, “I wonder what is causing this. And more importantly, what will happen.” He then averts his eyes from the image, remembering stories about magical mirrors that take action when you stare into them.
Trillia (whose reflection happens to have four eyes, all of them on tentacles) looks at the wall with interest and casts a detect magic. After a few seconds of concentration, she says, “Hmm - it’s not an illusion. I’m picking up a conjuration ... wait, make that a strong conjuration aura all along the wall.”
While she is concentrating and then speaking, a twenty-foot wide circular section in the middle of the wall begins to darken, while the area beyond that begins to turn yellow. As it does, the wall becomes less reflective and more translucent, with the result that the reflections gradually fade away.
Luna growls her disquiet and cranes around as far as she can to check whether she actually has anything growing out of her back. She is not apparently changed in any way, and as far as she (or anyone else) can make out, neither is anyone else. After having checked that she’s not morphing into something strange, Luna gives a growl that (linked with the expression on the bear’ face) is as eloquent as a string of swear words.
Six, meanwhile, first pokes the word that Nameless said is “History” with his pole. There is no response, and after waiting for a few seconds, he turns and pokes the large wall with it. When he does so, he feels just the slightest bit of give, as if it were not completely hard.
While Six is doing the above, the result of the change in colors on the wall becomes evident. The central black portion is now a huge pupil, twenty feet in width, while the yellow area around it forms the iris. The long wall is now spanned by a fifty-foot long eye.
Luna sniffs at the changing wall and doesn’t smell anything different about it, so she presumes there’s not actually a creature coming through it. Nevertheless, she growls at it in warning.
While she is doing so, the eye begins to shrink, giving the watchers a sense that it is due to an increase in distance. As it does, they all see that it is surrounded by a pale gray expanse of flesh, with creases in it that are as long as some of them are tall. Within seconds, the eye is half its original size, but it still stretches twenty-five feet in length.
Then it stops, and swivels slightly, seeming to notice the room and all of the adventurers. The eye focuses, and all of them have a sense of a gigantic mind focusing on you. It is not malign or inimical in any way; it is just totally and utterly alien to their conception of reality - and very mildly curious. For a moment, each of them realizes exactly what a butterfly (admittedly, a very intelligent butterfly) feels like in the seconds before an infant pulls its wings off to see what happens. The overriding emotion for them, even for Nameless and Trillia (who have studied alternate realities but never experienced it in such close proximity), is a combination of utter fascination and complete awe.
Luna shakes off the feeling and looks around to see that everyone else is standing stock-still and motionless, staring at the wall. After a couple of loud growls evince no response, she hurriedly drops a dispel magic in the area, hoping to remove whatever it is that affected her companions. The spellcasting has no visible effect, her companions still remaining spellbound.
Noticing motion on the wall, Luna looks back to see that the eye is simultaneously moving away and sliding by, as if the wall were a giant window through which the group were looking out at the creature, whatever it is. As the eye passes by, the wall’s color and texture begins to fade back to its original translucence. There is a brief vision of a gigantic bulk and waving tentacles more than a dozen feet across, and then the vision fades, leaving just the bare pinkish wall.
The rest of the group feels the fascination effect wear off suddenly and are back in control of their faculties. Trillia shakes her head and then quickly walks up to the wall to touch it. Then she looks back at Nameless and says excitedly, “Is it just me or did we just get a glimpse into Xoriat?”