Dear Anya,

I can’t imagine how this is going to reach you this time, so I am just journaling. We’re safe. For the moment. In some other alternate with a rather interesting host (I’ll get there – just read on).

One day, I (or your Uncle Fenelyn) will just give you my journal. I miss you and I hope you are well and staying safe. Or, how about just being less reckless than the rest of us.

Oerth was a mistake. The Barrier Peaks was a trap and we should have known better. We should have DONE better. But we went. Melisandre’s ship had a smaller ship…a “shuttle” according to her that carried us all down to the planet. In a valley we find a snow covered metal wall and Kenari manages to find a door then get it open. Lenata covers us in various blessings and we head inside. Mistake the second.

Turns out Dinya has been here before and is able to give us quite a bit of description about what to expect. We head in and then down into a some kind of tube lift. This is a ship of some sort – or was – so Melisandre starts messing with the computer things and manages to get emergency power going. We go down one level and hit a balcony where Dinya says her group had fought Illithid before. Kenari thinks we’re being monitored and Melisandre notes that there are functioning cameras in the area. Fenelyn tells us that there is some kind of dimensional anchor on this space that is flickering somehow. We go check out a room that is filled with something called radiation.

We get there and get the door open. Fun fact: doors do not stop us. Pretty much ever. One of us is getting in. Somehow. But we get in. There’s stacks of crates, some kind of tube with a human floating in a liquid that has a…thing hugging his face. The crates are locked. They say “starship warden” and seem to be locked. Melisandre spends time on the computers trying to get anything to work. After a bit of conversation we manage to agree to leave the person in the tube with the thing on its face. Not everything is a problem we need to fix. Eventually Melisandre gets the door to a lift open and we head further in. As we are going down – something shifts. This is apparently where we shift realities. Mistake the third.

But we exit the lift thing and head into a hallway and another door. Fenelyn’s psionic circuitry is shining and in this space, it lets him open the door into a room full of tubes that are full of people – all kinds of people – all out cold. All infected. So we destroy the place… It doesn’t take much (by our standards). Your Uncle and I waltz through the chaos to the next door and your Uncle opens that one too. We head down another hall – then another door – and more people in tubes. This time, we’re attacked. An Illithid tries a mind blast but fails. We start fighting. Fenelyn starts searching around for items of value and manages to find three power stones.

Turns out we’re not really fighting Illithid – those were holograms (? I think like spirit projections – but tech somehow). What does appear is a 9’ tall brain golem. Because those are great. Kenari starts ripping up the wires to destroy the tubes. Fenelyn starts messing with the machinery (finds a striathor – an Illithid writing too) and everyone else throws what they can at the brain golem. Mostly to little effect. At first anyway. We get into a rhythm and start dealing it some serious damage. There are some silver tendrils whipping out at us from between the tanks and we realize that you don’t want to get touched by them as they will make you quite a bit dumber than you were before. I manage to cut the end off of one and they zip back between the tubes fast. Fenelyn and Kenari get another set of doors open while I yell at everyone “break this” pointing to a set of conduits leading from the tubes into the floor. Fenelyn is opening a series of doors, tossing in alchemist fire and closing them again while Kenari breaks the conduits I found. The liquid in the tubes starts boiling. Guessing that’s not great. Ef Utan and Lenata fly around and try to get the thing with the tendrils. Melisandre gets a door open to a room full of tech that reminds her of her ship – there’s no time to steal anything so she decides to break it. Kenari opens a door to a room full of shelves of jars with a light amber fluid. She takes 3 of them. Just in case. The last door leads to a room that has a brain floating in the middle of it. Fenelyn thinks it’s a computer. So Melisandre hits it with a mind thrust while I am counting heads to make sure we are all still together.

We end up taking all the jars of amber liquid and storing them in Melisandre’s dimensional space since Fenelyn thinks that it’s the source of their spell resistance. We finish destroying the tubes. All the people inside are chronomancers. Their collected energy is being sent towards a single point across planar boundaries – somewhere in the dreaming. Dinya says “Oh good. The dreaming. My favorite.” As sirens go off.

At this point, an Illithid monk appears next to me and attacks. And he’s good. Melisandre keeps working the computers and Dinya guards her – while I, Ef Utan and Lenata start in on the Illithid monk. The bastard manages to hit me a bunch of times and I strike back, but he’s hard to hit. Kenari manages to shoot him in the back. Ef Utan goes down from a mind blast and I get dropped to my back. We trade blows, all of us versus him and he’s holding his own annoyingly – though his grapple on me fails because I cannot ever be held by anything and he chooses to disappear when Dinya relieves him of an arm.

Melisandre has a break through on the computer thing and starts being able to read the Illithid project notes about enslaving the chronomancers. She finds some notes about alternate universes including which ones are under Illithid control or under Aboleth control. Melisandre discovers that these Illithids came from somewhere else and were all followers of “Thoon” before the computer starts to self-destruct. Fenelyn pipes up that the cultists of Thoon are a weird branch (even for Illithids) who were explorers and used something called a probability drive to get around. They had returned from an expedition to “the far realm” a weird – non-Euclidian kind of realm.

We’re discussing this while we investigate the last door in this space. Team work gets it open – with Kenari ably disrupting a trap. Then several more. The traps are wrapped around a box and are intended to keep whatever is in the box – IN the box. So we decide to open it. Lenata scrys and is able to see a dark-haired humanoid male inside. So we decide to open it. The guy falls out. He’s kind of thin, groggy. He’s a monk (according to Fenelyn). He says “thank you for releasing me.” And gulps down water like he’s been in there a while. Mel gets a green crystal pried off the side of the box. The guy tells us that his name is Kor. The Illithid imprisoned him in a box because he was the leader of a movement that fought the Illithid. We ask him where and he says “Earth” so we ask which one – which he finds rather confusing. Fenelyn says “Maybe he’s an American.” So I ask him if he is. He says he’s from the colonies. So we enthusiastically explain that we’re Americans too. Basically. Melisandre is still trying to get into the computers to get information out – but most of it is locked somewhere. I don’t really get computers to be honest. Books, but not books? Kor is talking about how he led the fight against the Illithid for many years till a final battle in some place called New Amsterdam. Melisandre is able to find his quantum signature in the computer with a note – Kor from the House of El – Enemy Number 1.

Kenari tries her best to bring Kor up to speed, but it’s a lot for him to take in. I’m still fuming about the Illithid monk slipping away – so Ef Utan gives me his dimensional shackles to use. Lenata casts some spells to try to find him, but no luck. Fenelyn leads us down a hallway following a bloody trail. We are stymied by a door that has a force field on the other side – when purple mist hits three separate spots in the hallway – it’s kind of a corridor nexus really – and large groups of thralls appear in each location. Melisandre casts her favorite polar vortex and uses it to block two of the groups – they’re thralls though so they try to come through – just get churned into soup doing so. Kor-El joins us fighting against the third group – he can fly. Literally. Ef Utan stumbles and knocks himself out with his giant sword. Dinya heals him yelling “I unstab you.” Kenari seems more thralls approaching from a different direction and throws tangle foot bags to hold them up. Fenelyn manages to disable the force field on the other side of the door and we all head in. It has a methane atmosphere but we all have life bubbles (courtesy of Melisandre) and so, in true gallows humor form, we all start referring to Melisandre as “Bubbles!”. Fenelyn gets in the room and is grappled by something he can’t see. Ef Utan and Melisandre attack it. Kenari swaps places with him then does her own escape trick swearing “What the fuck is in this room?” Lenata floods the room with light – it’s an Illithid. We all attack. Fenelyn talks to it saying “I brought snacks.” The Illithid munches some brains and hugs Fenelyn.

The mob continues attacking us as an Illithid Ulitharion joins the melee. Everyone splits between the mob of thralls and the Ulitharion. Ef Utan is temporarily enfeebled by an attack that Lenata manages to reverse. I run in with a full attack and hit him with a Quivering Palm that connects! He drops and we pivot because we can hear marching feet heading our way. More thralls. Fenelyn can feel someone/thing trying to get in past his dampening field. There’s a column with viscous fluid and swimming figures – the Commodore says “this needs breaking.” We move around the column and then we see the Neolithid. I’ve never seen one of these before. It looks like an Illithid tadpole but enlarged somehow. Melisandre drops a corrosive atmosphere spell in front of the thralls who just continue marching into it. The best rears up – Kor El is thrown back, but Ef Utan ducks. We start attacking. Melisandre drops a polar vortex on this thing. It gurgles a bit. Kenari (who’s been building a bomb) manages to chuck the thing into the beast’s mouth. We keep hitting on it and all at once it starts to decay – its body falling away into a starscape – that looks like our X-crawl Manhattan – almost. There is a blinding light and a wave of force rolls through – and I feel something shift inside myself.

The next bits get confusing. We’re trapped. The hole beneath the beast is widening. The star scape that we can see is shifting. We can’t get out of this room and the room itself is dropping away from us. There’s a portal that Fenelyn can sense and we try to go through – but as we’re doing so – he realizes that this is a trap. The whole thing. We’re stuck in a box of some kind. The neolithid is gone – if it ever was really there. Lenata tries planar refuse and we are safe for the moment, but still in a box. The face of an Illithid – older, with a weird metal eyepatch appears and starts monologue-ing. We’re pieces on a board and this whole thing was to get rid of us – blah blah blah. Let’s just see about that.

Kor El loses it and punches a whole in the box and winds up floating away from us. We head towards it (Bubbles!) holding onto Ef Utan who is flying through space while the rest of us are actually roped together. Which may rank as one of the crazier things I’ve done. Ever. We can make out land masses and head towards the one we know as New York. This time when we land – the big statute on the island is a woman with a torch in robes. We hit the beach. Kenari’s key now says something along the lines of “edict” “quarantine” or “exile” – but it says it in qualith. So that’s interesting. We’re milling about when a black machine thing that makes a lot of noise lands and a group of people in black clothing with black glasses head towards us. Fenelyn discerns who is actually in charge and heads right for her – with some help from Ef Utan. Kenari tries to stash her guns in her back – which does a weird poofy thing. I resolve to not open my pouch for the time being. The Commodore notes that there are psionics here and the most powerful one she can detect is in the helicopter.

There’s some back and forth. Kenari decides to entertain the crowd. An Aboleth arises from the ocean and we kill it. Quickly. We wind up in the helicopter to meet the Boss. His name is Mr. Tyerex. He’s in a wheelchair. And he’s an Illithid. Who invented an alternative to eating brains.

Well. The enemy of my enemy?

brrrzzz’t….

Reinvigoration protocols executed and successfully completed. Navigation coordinates successfully installed. Destination: Penumbra. Awaiting launch command, or alternate coordinates. Artificial attraction field initiated. Air generators online. Heating filaments energized. Lockdown on exists successful. Psychoportive propulsion initiated. Remaining travel time to Penumbra estimated at six sleep periods.

brrrzzz’t…

brrrzzz’t

…is anyone receiving this? Repeat: This is the starship Primorata, we have been caught in a Drift event of some sort and our ship has fused with that of a pirate’s. We’ve been falling through realities due to a….malfunction…with our Drift Drive. Please, is anyone rec…..

brrrzzz’t

Cmdr. Alanar Mirani’s Investigation Summary

INS Stormbreaker put to space five years ago in 2002 DR but is currently under quarantine at Lionheart Imperial Elven Navy HQ pending investigation.

The captain and crew claim to have spent a tenday in Realmspace engaging and destroying a Scro battle fleet (our allies, of all things!)… in the year 1374 DR. Gun camera footage from her Flitters do record an engagement between 2 mint condition Goblin Arrows (a very one-sided battle, the goblins had a bad day), and CIC data feeds do record engagements with unclassified hostiles. Still, the captain and crew’s claim is preposterous, and investigators are looking for evidence of psych weed in the ship’s hull or in the crew’s possession. Even Arindale, the elven spirit bound to the ship’s mythal, seems to be affected.

brrrzzz’t

MYTHIC ABILITIES NOW IN PLAY. 08/25/23

Ken and Finn get the impression that we’ve skipped across a reality boundry as the above ship is on our plane and below the ship is in the sky. Lenata casts Reverse Gravity.

Bright lights and lens flares – another plane shift? Ef – plane of radiance? Len – Nothing on the Prime I know of. Ken – Not the positive energy plane. It’s bright but not glaring. Feels like a random gate? It goes through a couple of shifts. Seems to be a similar perspective as there’s always an overlap. The one constant constellation that’s always there. Ken sketches the placement of the constellation on a parchment. Something familiar but
can’t quite put a finger on it. Not the House 7 Stars banner. The Pleadies constellation. Sets Finn and Etsuriko’s teeth on edge. Finn – Analyze portal – shifting 2-way connection, not familiar with destination each time
it shifts. Multiversal portal to the same location? Gut feeling that it’s becoming unstable. Ken pulls out the Dimensional Key to see if it’s affected by the portal shifting. At first nothing, but then after a shift
the coating on the key changes to another number. The shifts are speeding up. We should leave? Can we? Trying to teleport feels off like going from plane of fire to Greyhawk. Failed Will saves, Vedis and Kenari think it’s a good idea to go in the portal.

Vedis – Whee! as she pushes off to go into the portal.
Ef flies and grabs her. Kenari checks the key to see if she can at least recognize which portal we’re going through.

The Neothelid has purple lines of energy spring up around it. A moment of white light and screaming almost digital noise for a moment for everyone but Mel and Finn. Mel passes out. Finn – uses surge of Super Genius for Knowledge Illithid. Finn interpets it as a burst of neural data that is deliberate. This is a trap and the walls of the box are decaying around us. Finn throws the crystal dagger at the Neolithid with no effect. Something has been using the corpse as a puppet to set up the trap.

Len – casts Planar Refuge and uses what’s left of the structure to create a safe place like a pocket Eden. I could Plane Shift but it’s weird – it’s like 5 options but 3 are uninhabitable. There’s something that’s kind of like the Ethereal and one that feels like the Plane of Fire, and one that’s just weird.

The face of a Mindflayer with a steel eyepatch and a leather band HUGE semi-transparent appears above us and we get the telepathic equivalent of high-brow laughter. We will of course wind the grand game depite your
slim grasp of greater things. Your end is being recorded for entertainment since we’re not using you for food.

Ef- scroll of greater planar adaptaion. 12 hours.

Ken – screw this monologue. She grabs everyone and plane shifts to what looks like the Ethereal. It’s got the foggy insubstantial feel with distant screams eminating with no visible source. Dark blots that are mirrors
of the starfield are visible. We maneuver to see if we can get out of “the box” so to speak. Nope, the “box” is flying through alternate dimensions.

Len – Casting portal? Won’t work as we’re not on the same plane. Kenari keeps an eye on the key as Korel fumes in anger and the others discuss other possibilities. Finn – I could scamble the portal to randomize where
we end up?

Korel punches the Neolithid in anger and we’re all covered in the crackling purple energy and make Fort saves. Will you stop doing that? OMG SIT DOWN! The dmg heals back over time. The corpse is now in multiple pieces
drifting off. The skyfield perspective is starting to spin. Korel is either unconscious or dead as the stars go bright, lens flare, new star field and Korel is gone.

The floor shifts and a blue planet appears that’s a similar Oerth type planet. Kenari ties us all together as we decide to jump. Apparently the box went spinning when Korel punched the Neolithid and we realize the planet has been a point of refence all the time. Ef casts fly so he can take everyone along with him and drinks a Bull STR potion. As we make out parts of the planet it looks similar to the X-Crawl world.

Ken teleports group to what she remembers was Ellis Island from the X-Crawl world. Here the status is holding a TORCH instead of a SHIELD though. Much of the skyline seems the same, but it’s a lot more developed.
What does the key say? It doesn’t have a number as such but a series of glyphs of the Illithid language instead. Finn – hard to translate into common, but it’s something like “Quarantine or Exile.”

Are there people around? We appear in an out of the way area and we’re attracting a bit of attention. One or two here or there aren’t human (elf, dwarf, etc). Early 2000s Manhattan. Multiple boats in the river. Coast Guard helicopter in the distance. We put our conspicuous things away. “Ya’all are great you look like a bad 80s movie!” Finn – what kind of money do they use here? As we strategize a sizeable black helicopter lands and a dozen guys with black suits and sunglasses come out and head our way. Lead goon in front is a skinny blonde chick, 5’1".

Kenari opens her bag to put her guns in it. When she does she makes a REF save as she dodges as a splash of purplish energy shoots out. She closes the bag quickly and says “Sorry, it wasn’t supposed to do that!”

Ef bodyguards Finn as he walks up to the blonde to talk to her. We need to talk to whomever is making the decisions. Blonde – we can do that. Vedis – detect psionics – detects psionic auras inside helicopter and
woman in trenchcoat and one of the goons. Len – Detect Magic – only auras are ours. Food stands that say “corn dogs” as Finn looks around for a place of comfort as he’s not going anywhere in private. “I was told you’d be an odd group.”

And who was that, exactly? Mr. Tyrex of Tyrex Amalgamated. Vedis looks at the helicopter. Larger troop copter type, back half unoccupied other than a single figure sitting in a wheelchair, scarred and in a suit. Psionics
on par with us. He’s a good telepath as that’s all she can tell.

We go over to eat some corn dogs and chill as we’re not going in the helicopter. Crowd starts to form. Kids “I didn’t think kids liked anime!” Kenari does some Acrobatics and lays out a pouch for coins as Lenata
casts Prestidigitation to provide light effects. Zan – detect Chaos ability triggered – Order from the helicopter. Under the water about 40 ft left of the island. Mid-tier Tanari equivilent. Ef moves closer to the
water’s edge and says “Where are we” in lower planar tongue.

Initiative

A greenish light under the water and a massive fish-like tentacled figure rises up – a large Aboleth explodes out of the water creating a field of mist around it. The air bubbles protect us from the first FORT save.
Tentacles attack Ef and one hits as 3 our of 4 miss. Slime causes FORT save that he makes. Patch of forearm where the skin is transparent and can see muscles underneath.

Finn talks to bald dude – This is a native problem, please handle it so we can complete our discussion.

Len casts Scourge of the Horsemen to do damage. 48 acid dmg. It turns towards Len and a swirling pattern of air/ball forms between the tentacles – She overcomes the hypnotic pattern and has to reroll the will save to come much closer to failing the 2nd time as she feels the burst of mythic energy.

Ken hops into the helicopter and pulls her dragon pistol to attack once that rapidly heals. Her surprise strike however overcomes DR and does 22pts dmg. Can we take off please? Don’t worry our guys can handle it – pilot. Guy in wheelchair isn’t doing anything yet.

Etsuriko turns Omniweapon into a spear and attacks hitting multiple times. She crits and it suffers 1pt per round INT bleed as she concusses an Aboleth.

Vedis uses Marshall’s Order – Advance – Dinya puts Mel’s body in the helicopter as the others move up and Ken stays in the helicopter. Vedis gets on the helicopter and tosses mind blade at the Aboleth to crit it. Decapitation – double dmg & save or DIE. The Aboleth fails as Vedis slices off it’s head. SKA-DOOSH.

The lady motions us all to the helicopter. If you told us an Aboleth was going to come out we’d have gotten on the helicopter sooner. Nasty Old Things rivalry between Aboleth and Illithids exist apparently. Medic checks out Mel and says she’s stable but not sure why she’s unconscious. The wheelchair guy keeps his back to us and speaks with an electronic device to his throat. You will pardon me my appearance is disconcerting to many.

Finn – We just proved we don’t need you, why do you need us? Will save failed as Finn squeaks and no sound comes out. He then makes himself comfortable as Vedis introduces herself and Kenari assures the guy that we’ve seen some weird shit and won’t get offended if you want to turn around. He’s a tech visionary leader who does research that alerted them of his arrival. Your obscured origins might give us common cause. I oppose the Illithids across the multiverse. You’ve tapped into something more which is why you’ve been directed here. There are few if any here who are able to breach those barriers of quarantine.

His wheelchair turns around and he’s scarred, burned, purplish scarring removed a 3rd of the face on one side. Tentacles and hourglass eye prominent on one side. I created an alternative to eating brains.

Mel senses the Illithid. Len remembers Klassath saying that these are Illithid Nobles with more tentacles and more powerful. Eulitharin. Mel attempts a Mind Thrust. 61 dmg halved. Nasty brain burn. She then shoots it
with her Eris pistol but misses. Kenari tosses fire then grabs the two then grabs Dinya and Finn and teleports out of the room over by Ef and Superman. Ef swings with his sword at the masses and crits. 95 dmg. Wipes out the troop on that side.

Dinya shoots the Illithid with her pistol but misses. The illithid attacks Ken, Dinya and Ef. For a moment we feel like we’ve got epic Covid level brain fog but then we’re ok. Ef however feels his INT and CHA drop to 1.
Len casts Restoration on Ef – heals his intelligence, but still Goblin Ef. “I’ve got something you can goblin!” Etsuriko dimension doors in front of him with a Quivering Palm. 5 hits. Hero Point used. The Illithid DIES.

Vedis – Guys, I think there’s something further in.

Finn perception check. Picks up on to the south of us from ther rest of the complex is the sound of zombie like marching feet. The dampening field – feels taps against it ever stronger and more frequent.

Len casts Communal Protection From Evil. Vedis is ectoplasmic and floats into the room. Large crystal spheres with pale violet viscus fluid. Swimming around in them are 3/4 humanoid figures in each one actively moving.
Finn and KorEl enter the room. Mel casts corrosive atmosphere outside the room. Kenari sneaks behind a column and starts building a bomb. Ef flies up next to KorEl. Dinya moves up. Len casts Flame Strike on the right sphere.

Everybody up front makes reflex saves. the shockwave blows Vedis back as the sphere blows. Mel narrowly avoids taking an ancestor to the gut as she gets blown back to Len. Ef is blown back and KorEl is slightly staggered. Shockwave of force energy.

The crystal shatters down one side and begins leaking as the room gets brighter and reveals the back end of the chamber and the flowering Neozealot. Abandoned tadpole that consumes the others and becomes huge and feral.

Etsuriko moves forward of Finn and holds. Fin goes to the Eulitharid to cut its head off and search the body. Us in the back hear a popcorn sizzling in a pan sound as we see the ranks of thralls marching into the corrosive
atmosphere until they disolve and fall over and build up a pile of mushy flesh.

The beast in the back rears up and flail for a moment as a heat distortion goes through the air and hits KorEl and blows him back. Ef reflex save to avoid being crushed. THAT HURT! He flies up to take a swing and misses as it shimmers.

Third punch hits and he nails it for 30 rocking it back slightly. Mel slides behind a column and drops a Polar Vortex on the creature. Ef moves up to attack the left sphere. The sphere shatters and figures flow out.
Will saves as we hear a psychic scream reverberate through the room. The Neothelid roars. Ef will save just makes it against a beam of psychic energy. Len casts Holy Ice on the Neothelid.

Etsuriko does full Hong Kong jump into the beast and uses Quivering Palm. Vedis uses her psionic focus. Maximized Cold Energy Push.

Finn finds a crystal dagger with a static feel. He then closes and locks the door to the room.

There is a cloud of sparks around Etsuriko. She just makes Will save. 32 dmg. Psychic Crush. KorEl moves up flying punch. Misses 3 times.

Mel casts Control Atmosphere in front of polar vortex. Toxic atmosphere.

Kenari runs up and tosses her bomb into the critters maw and blows out one of the tentacles and ports back behind a column. 20 dmg. USED HERO POINT. Immediately feels like being watched as it’s staring at me.

Ef casts scorching ray and then moves up to attack. 23 dmg. As the Neothelid dies purplish electric currents run across it as it decays. The floor falls away revealing space underneath it as the floor slowly collapses.
The space isn’t one we’ve mapped but Ef places it as almost the same as the skies above the city of Manhattan in the X-Crawl world. The starfield fades as a blinding light comes through on that side.

MYTHIC ABILITIES NOW IN PLAY.

We sum up the situation to Kor. Want to help us?

We start out the hallway and see a trail of ichor that trails down and up the right SE side of the map. Lenata casts Shield of Faith on Melisande. Ef casts Bull Strength on himself. Kenari checks room below where we found Kor. Opens door to find a force field blocking the doorway an inch inside the doorway. Humidity inside but can’t see in as it’s kind of opaque. Field seems tech created. Mel looks for access panels.

22pts dmg and staggered to Vedis and Finn. Lenata heals 13pt.

Balls of purple mist appear and then dissipate. 20-45 humanoid figures approach clad in simple leather armor armed in short swords. Zombie like thralls in three halways. Lenata casts Owl’s Wisdom on Melisande.

Vedis uses her Haste wand. Kenari activates her Shield necklace. Dinya casts Detect Chaos and gets a solid LAW vibe.

17pts dmg from swarm. Ef casts Fireball on north group. Mel casts a Polar Vortex to cover the lower hallway access to us. Kenari shoots some. Dinya sweeps with Cat Herder. Lenata casts Divine Wrath on north group. Lenata’s Spiritual Ally attacks.

Vedis does maximized energy push to north group. Finn shoots one. Etsuriko and Mel see that Kor shakes off his wobblies and acts VERY FAST. He flies down the hallway literally and hits through the north swarm.

30 pts total from swarm. Lenata channel heals the group for 30pts.

Ef cleaves the group with his BFS. 42pts crit, 27reg dmg. Ef wipes out the north hallway mob and manages to bang his head on something knocking himself unconscious.

Kenari scouts the north hallway and sees a new swarm showing up so she calls out a heads up and throws out 3 Tanglefoot Bags covering the hallway. Dinya lays hands on Mel to heal her. 15pts. “I unstab you.”

Spiritual Ally attacks with spear for 15. Lenata casts Ice Slick down the north hall. The thralls pile over the tanglefoot bags and crawl over the bodies. Etsuriko attacks the thralls. 24 pts.

Vedis uses Surge Blast 11pts. Surging Euporia. +1 attacks, saves and skill checks. 3 ROUNDS. Finn does Summon Spell Dampening Field and then disables the force field in the room as the methane atmosphere leaks out. (thank goodess for Life Bubble. Thank you Mel!)

Mel is now Bubbles. Let it be written. Vedis uses max cold burst at north swarm. Finn sees motion inside room. “Hello? We’re freeing slaves and come in peace.” He sneaks in the room. CMD. Finn looks around when a figure
grapples him from behind. He almost gets free. Tentacles against the back of his head. Kor plows through the swarm. Ef follows with his BFS and does a commercial placement for B-Ezy Adventure Boots. “I never slip on anything!”

Mel hurls a force disc through the swarm in the north hallway. Full-on Tron. Kenari uses Benign Transposition to switch places with Finn. I activate Freedom of Movement and pull out of the grapple as I scream over the mind link “WTF is in this room?”

Dinya enters the room detecting chaos but only detects cat. Tentacles try to grab for Dinya but just miss. Lenata floods the room with light and now we’re blind and foggy. Spiritual Ally moves in to attack. The creature squeals like a Predator.

Etsuriko battles the swarm with her Omniweapon. Vedis uses her energy ray at the swarm. Finn picks up a dead thralls head and runs to the door. Axiomatic Discourse “We’re friends don’t eat us.” A long purplish clawed arm reaches out from the fog and hugs Finn from behind as it eats the head.

Kenari – “Methane is flammable, right?”

Sirens go off. Kenari runs to the door to keep an eye on the hallways. Mel digs deeper with the computer checks. Dinya sticks close to Mel.

An Illithid appears next to Etsuriko in loose fitting silks and does a flurry of blows to Etsuriko. Dinya uses Sanctuary on Mel as she works on the computer. Lenata summons a Spiritual Ally. Kenari flicker steps closer and shoots it. The Illithid Monk trips Etsuriko and she is now prone, and he shatters her collarbone with his elbow, then kicks back and trips Ef Utan before he mind blasts him and he is now unconscious. Len’s spiritual ally hits the monk. Len casts Touch of Incompetence on the monk but fails. Etsuriko attempts to grapple the monk but fails. Kenari shoots with another gun. The Illithid channels his ki/psionics to attack Etsuriko. Len attempts to change fate but it still hits. Finn sneaks down the hall. Mel breaks through the firewall to find out the location where the alarms came from. The alarm was auto, the response was manually triggered. Somewhere on this level is where it was triggered. Etsuriko strikes again and Ef wakes up to get an attack of opportunity at it. He then casts Scorching Ray at the Illithid and drops it to its knees. Kenari switches places with Dinya and Ef so she can get an attack on it. Vedis uses Energy Push on the Illithid but he dodges. The Illithid attempts to grapple Etsuriko but she pulls away as tentacles grab at her head. Finn shoots at it but it seems to bounce off like a force field.

Dinya strikes the monk and chops off one of its arms as the tentacles go wild. “Lunch time is over.” It’s engulfed in purple smoke and disappears.

Mel attempts to connect her portable computer to the ship’s computer. Most of the sensors are burned out. Most of the active functions are tied into systems the Illithds are tapped into. She accesses a number of diff files, a few that detail a project going on here: enslaving chronomancers and pooling their abilities, project used across realities. They attempt to tie the computer files to Finn’s circuitry. Also a smattering of info:

There is a report on the relative success and failure ratios of their thralls with Wayland Utani. In addition, there are notes of a number of alternates where they already have complete control. Note of an alternate
that is completely under Aboleth control. Note of the reason they are using this space as a base in this reality is that they followed this chunk of the Warden through a weak point in the alternates. One set of files say “Thune” – see Illithid Cultists of Thune says Klassath – that completely self-destruct when she tries to access it. The Cultists of Thune are a weird branch that are explorers of the planes/alternate realities. The mindflayers of Thune are what came back after an expedition into the Far Realm. Mel checks their ship databases for the word Thune, Far Realms, etc. Info on the Far Realms is sketchy. Occasional probes yield lovecraft-esque effects.

“Quintessence” – Illithid extraction drug. Are they extracting that from the chronomancers?

Lenata casts a spell Hero’s Fortune that gives everyone a hero point.

Kenari detects lightning traps on the door and finds a way to break them. Finn manages to open the door. There’s a block of weird Illithid machinery about as big as a car in it with not as much dust on it as the rest of the place. Seems to be active, with a hairlike line around it.

Kenari finds a variety of traps around it, but they are aimed inwards rather than outwards. No obvious interface. There’s a concealed panel in the wall and where one of the big conduits comes out of the wall into the machine is a lightly glowing emerald, green crystal imbedded into the machine on the side of it. Mel checks the panel. Whatever is pacifying whatever is in there is some kind of radioactive mineral turned to gas and pumped in there. There is a note as to its quantum signature. This can be used to
trace what reality it’s from. “Highest priority, limited access, Tamer’s Creed Only.”

Scry – Looks like a dark-haired male human in his late 30s

Mel discovers it’s a telepathic interface with the control panel. She turns off the traps and opens the box. Psionics take 3pts non-lethal dmg. Top half levitates into the air as mist rolls over the edges. Hand comes out. Skinny 5’9 short dark hair, plain clothes, white tunic leather belt and good boots. He looks really groggy. Lenata checks him medically. Not infected.

Finn reads his aura. LG Human, 5 lvls Fighter, 10 lvls Monk. Vedis offers water. Mel took the green crystal and put it in a radiation proof box. “Thank you for helping me.” “Kor” is his name.

He led a fight against the Illithid on his home planet of Earth. (Earth Prime?) “I hail from the colonies. We take in many immigrants despite the king across the ocean.”

Why did they take him prisoner and not kill him? What did the Tamers want with him? Last thing he remembers is cohorts were engaged in battle and they were losing. He’s not fond of magic. It’s not common where he’s from. Most often wielded by individuals with great power and little ethics.

Mel finds a small bank of subject files that might include him, but she can’t get into them yet. 367 entries under Earth, each with different quantum signatures. There are 8 files, his is one of the locked ones.

They were having a final battle in a place called New Amsterdam. His reality is one of the ones that fell. Kor was one of the last ones left who fought them till the end. For a brief period, he was under the control of the Illithids. He crumples a piece of iron debris like it was paper. “Some things make you more of a target.” Kor of the House of El. CALLED IT.

Lenata – “There’s no trigger Melchior…you just push that blinking button and ask Penumbra very nicely to fire.”

Melchior – (scratching head) “…no offense ma’am but I think I might be better off on the Nomad…”

Ef Utan – “It took you eight hours to get the location we needed from that captain?”

Vedis – “Well we had to butter him up first before we could get him to talk…”

Ef Utan – “And when did Finn start using actual butter? Wait… I don’t want to know…”

Etsuriko – “Come on Kenari, we are leaving!”

Melisande – “How could you stand being an empath in a bar? People can be so disgusting…doubly so when shit faced.”

Vedis – “Oh you have no idea…I worked hard to limit it to just picking up drink orders after my first night with some orcs on a rager…”

Melisande – “Have you tried a Polar Storm? That tends to remind people how to behave.”

Vedis – “When you’ve got a Beholder for a boss you tend to not want to destroy the bar…”