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Original character art by Jimmy McClure.
Music by Kevin MacLeod.
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Previously on Call from the Deep

Starring:
Gotwald Ironhorn, level 12 minotaur Rune Knight Fighter
Mac, level 12 tortle Drakewarden Ranger/Rogue
Savra Akkedis, level 12 lizardfolk School of Necromancy Wizard
Torrel, level 12 kenku Fathomless Warlock Pact of the Amulet/Fighter

The party examines the prisoners in the wall of force cubes. Savra discovers each cube has a brief readout-chart of vitals, and a description, including a Gith who had been implanted with a tadpole and turned violent, a pair of bizarrely mutated creatures, and — Kazin!?

The psionic hero-warrior from our Storm King’s Thunder campaign, who has a history with the Kraken Society, has seemingly been captured and placed in stasis. Thankfully, he hasn’t been experimented on, but the illithid have realized his potential, and have prepped him for tadpole implementation and ceremorphosis.

The party searches for a way to free the prisoners (or at least Kazin), but Savra finds all the magical cords lead to another locked door across the hall.

Vestress normally opens all the quallith doors with ease, but this one is different. It’s DNA-locked, opening only to one of Zellix’Phor’s primary attendants. She knows four survived the conquest of Ascarle: Druskis, Thilliosk, Tharcereli, and Luzgrigaul.

The party recognizes two of those names as powerful villains they had previously defeated; Druskis in The Styes, and Thiliiosk in Purple Rocks above.

Vestress remarks that all the mechanical engineering they’re seeing in this dome looks like the work of Luzgrigaul, and there’s a good chance they’re here somewhere.

With the brainscanner telling them the Augmenter Brain is also beyond the locked door, the party is forced to search the area for one of the mind flayer attendants.

Beyond the prison room, the party finds a ventilation shaft in the ceiling, a macabre operating room, and a miniature cafeteria for thralls.

They return to the central antechamber, this time heading west.

Gotwald immediately triggers a trap, slamming the doors shut around a corridor as poisonous gas pumps out of the nearby pipes.

Thankfully, his Hill Rune makes him resistant to poison, and as a Fighter his Constitution is pretty darn impressive. He mostly shrugs off the poison and crushes the pipes while Vestress quickly opens the doors.

Gotwald and Savra head west, stumbling on a small barracks-like room with several sahuagin-illithid thralls. They fall quickly to a lightning bolt from Savra and some quick follow-up axe strikes from Gotwald.

They reach a lengthy corridor with a severed skull at the end, and rippling walls. This time Gotwald calls for Savra to go first. Her detect magic and observation reveals the skull is a similar device to the one they’ve called the brainscanner — a playback device for recorded information.

Sure enough, there are several brains nearby. Savra pops one in and an awesome holographic 3D space battle plays out on the walls between mind flayers and githyanki.

The noise attracts a nearby mind flayer, however. They open a door in the hallway and stride out, casting dominate monster on Gotwald.

The Fighter somehow makes the WIS save and charges the creature, with Savra providing spell support from behind.

The surviving mind flayer blasts both of them with mind blast, and this time it’s Savra who makes the save.

Meanwhile, Mac lingers back in the poison gas-trap room, opting to check out the southern hallway. He sees another ventilation shaft in a storage room, and calls Vestress to open a locked door.

Beyond the door is a engineering workshop with an odd mind flayer covered in technological enhancements. A large mech suit opens up, and Luzgrigaul climbs inside as several smaller automatons activate!

Luz casts hold person from inside the psionic suit, paralyzing poor Mac, as the mechanized soldiers advance. 

Cheese grabs him, slowly dragging him out of the room, but the suit flies close and blasts with him a psionic attack, while Borgas takes several nasty hits from the soldiers.

Vestress screams back to the others that they found Luzgrigaul, and that “the fish and the green one” are in danger!

MVPC – Gotwald

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