In tonight's "Middle of Elsewhere" campaign session, the PCs:
- Were sent after the scent of the half-fiend illithid they'd slain last session, after the Elsewhere leaders concocted a potion to boost the shadow druid's dire fell fox companion's sense of smell, as the leaders were concerned about illithids hiding in town
- Tracked the half-fiend illithid to a northern section of town, when they were approached by what appeared to be a simulacrum of our enemy wizard, who just wanted to talk
- Had the dire fell fox - and, strangely, the simulacrum - get stunned by mind blasts
- Ended up fighting two "normal" illithids (not half-fiend), one of whom picked up the simulacrum and started carting him away
- Had the fiendish orc fighter and shadow druid PCs mind blasted by the other illithid, who was quickly slain by an achaierai and a slay living spell cast by my fiendish human cleric, while the other one levitated to a rooftop with the simulacrum and vanished from view
- Had my cleric frisk the dead illithid, finding a key in his pocket; the key allowed him to see the magic portal through which the fleeing mind flayer had gone
- Waited out the mind blast effects, then had my cleric air walk everyone to the rooftop, and we entered through the magic gate using the key - which led us to a permanent Mordenkainen's magnificent mansion, in which the simulacrum was being tied to a chair by two illithids while another levitated to the top of a tank of murky water and was fishing out a mind flayer tadpole (they planned on turning the simulacrum into a mind flayer through ceremorphosis)
- Had the orc kill the illithid they'd tracked inside, then cleave to one of the others
- Took out the other two mind flayers (who were initially hesitant to use their mind blasts inside the room) with a combination of spells, the orc's falchion, and the dire fell fox
- Thought they were done with combat, when the brain golem inside the glass vat with the tadpoles tipped it over to escape, then attacked
- Eventually killed it and waited for the insanity effect the simulacrum had succumbed to (by the achaierai in the battle outside), then had a chat with him (while he was still tied up)
- Listened while he argued it was in everyone's best interests to turn the godseed over to the enemy wizard, since he was coming to the end of his unnaturally extended lifespan (he's been alive for thousands of years, much of it spent in an astral bubble), and without it he'd get more and more senile and likely send Elsewhere off earlier than its annual planar gate jump, potentially stranding all of the planar scouts on duty outside Elsewhere's confines on whatever plane it happened to be on; he also claimed the wizard devouring the godseed would not yet cause him to ascend to godhood (he'd need several)
- Counterargued the gods did not want a mortal to ascend to their ranks and it was in our best interests to let the 22nd-level wizard just die already, then killed the simulacrum
- Found out the other three illithids each also carried a key to the Mordenkainen's magnificent mansion, which will now become our new headquarters
