S07E13: The Gang Blows Some Minds

== Previously on MCVFD ==
We came to the research facility overlooking the Slaad Spawning Stone after hearing a message indicating the facility had fallen to the Slaad. Our mission was to recover the facility, ideally acquire some research about Slaad lifecycle, and to rescue anyone we could.
When we arrived, we found the bodies of Gith Zorai guards, Slaad, and scientists scattered across the perimeter. There was a note from an intern named Will Robinson, who mentioned they were trapped on the fourth floor. Um walked up the building to look through the two available windows: the fourth floor revealed an ominous red light through slightly ajar double doors.
We’ve so far cleared the courtyard and 2 floors out of 4. Each floor going up has been incrementally weirder and unethical so far, with the floor we cleared last session involving involuntary human subject testing. We’ve taken a short rest, and are about to head up to floor 3.
== Session ==
The group strategizes while the DM finishes his garlic bread.
Nissa points out that every time we’ve opened the door so far, there have been Slaad inside. With Kanye out today, she plans to continue casting spells with crowd control, which require her to maintain concentration. We’ve also fortunately learned that Slaad are not very wise or charismatic, making those spells more likely to hit.
Um offers to let Nissa camp on his floating disk if it allows her to concentrate in safety.Nissa: How does this work, do I just follow you where you go?Um: It’s no different from Kanye deciding where you go, I’m just more responsibleAverlyth questions if she should also be on the ceiling if the two of them are. Sorith points out he can also walk on walls, he just can’t end his turn on the ceiling.Averlyth: Oh yes, leave the cleric on the groundNissa gives everyone a Bardic Inspiration as Um keys open the next door with the orange key card.
The third floor is more dimly lit, mostly from table lamps, with a red keypad on the door on the far side.
The science that was happening here is harder to interpret. As below, the floor is filled with the bodies of dead scientists. However, on the lower floor they had been torn apart - the bodies on this floor have broken bones and clear evidence of blunt force trauma.
Like they were toys for children having a tantrum.
Kneeling over the bodies are 3 former scientists. These… Slaad seem wrong. They have odd growths, sickly purple skin, and disgusting protuberances that are all now looking directly at us. Snarling, they all hurl themselves at us.
Um steps onto his disc and floats up with Nissa, parking them near the ceiling with a clear line of sight for all 3 Slaad. Um shoots at Slaad A, now dubbed Alastair.
The 3 Slaad continue running forward - they make it most of the way to the door but not all the way. They’re distracted and reacting to them on the disc in an animalistic way, jumping, trying to get to Nissa and Um. One of them falls back, his eyes roll up in his head - and a burst of psychic energy erupts from his head, towards the flying disc.
Um manages to resist the burst and nothing happens to him. Nissa takes psychic damage and falls off the disc, plummeting to the floor. She’s stunned for a minute, with a chance to recover every turn until then. Sorith manages to catch her on the way down, sliding her back a little so she’s not falling into a pile of Slaad.
Sorith casts Shatter, hitting all the Slaad (Alastair, Burt, and Coachella) and also breaking all the lab tools in the environment. Burt is now prone.
Averlyth casts a Guardian of Faith over Nissa, so the Slaads have to get hit by the Guardian if they try to attack her.
Unfortunately for Um, no one has done melee damage to the Slaad, so he can’t really get a sneaky attack on any of them at the moment.Um: I think I’ll stay put, I can hide behind the discSatura in the background: GIVE THE DOG SOME CHEEEEESE2 of the Slaads rush Sorith. They look a little more feral. The third one, Coachella, has more spark in his eyes, and he sidles around to avoid being in Sorith’s hitting range, before moving to attack the unconscious body of Nissa. The Guardian of Faith swipes him with a heavy blow of radiant damage.
Averlyth notices that Dndbeyond is listing all of the DM’s combat rolls under a different monster name.Averlyth: Um.... Mindflayers, Scott?DM: OH goddammit.Coachella reaches out with his weird tentacley pseudopods. Nissa takes more psychic damage, and now she’s grappled. Daals chomps a tentacle in response, bringing Coachella close to bloodied.
Alistair and Bill both come around to attack Sorith. He’s dealt a heavy amount of psychic damage, but doesn’t pass out thanks to his monastic training. He’s now flanked and grappled by Alistair.
Nissa won’t wake up. She just can’t stop dreaming about why no one will give the dog cheese.
Sorith uses his new Staff of Striking to smash up Alistair, bloodying him. He uses up charges to hit him more, then uses an unarmed strike with his bonus action. Alastair is now barely standing upright. He still holds on barely with his pseudopod thingies.
Averlyth casts a black dark saber-style Guiding Bolt with her last 4th level spell slot at Nissa's attacker - Coachella is now bloodied.
Um uses a bardic inspiration to ruin Coachella’s day with a crossbolt through the eye. He falls over dead.DM: Coachella is cancelled.We all watch in horror as Alistair, the Slaad grappling Sorith, starts chomping his head. Alastair completely fails to crack open his skull.
Bilbert looks pissed at Coachella’s death, his eyes roll back in his head again, and he shoots at Alastair, Sorith, Nissa and Averlyth. Everyone succeeds so anticlimactically absolutely nothing happens.
Sorith smacks Alastair until he crumples to the ground. He tries to smack up Bilbert, too, but no dice.
Averlyth pulls out the laser pistol and tries to shoot Bilbert. She misses, but doesn’t hit Sorith either.Sorith: If you did, I could’ve just deflected missiles againAverlyth: … Would that have been better???Um shoots Bilbert, bloodying him. Sorith narrowly manages to shake off a psionic attack. 
Nissa awakens finally to see herself surrounded by some dead Slaad and a Guardian of Faith standing over her. She pets Daals and tells him he’s a good boy and gives him some cheese.
Sorith uses more charges of his staff of striking to stun Bilbert to death; Slaad B-whose-name-keeps-changing collapses near Nissa.
With the fight over, we can now search the room! There are dead bodies of Slaad, scientists, broken lab equipment and notes. This room very clearly had human subjects on this floor as well, given the cages. Um once again finds a red keycard rummaging around the remains.
Averlyth and Sorith look around, then notice the scattered notes and experiment logs appear to describe how chaos phage affects the subjects and the resulting transformation - nothing to do with curing it. Below a table lamp, we find another journal entry.
Journal Entry: Day 42: I had the strangest conversation with the level two supervisor. I sat him down after work one day and explained my concerns, told him that what we were doing was unethical and certainly not the type of science I expected to be doing here. But the man acted bizarrely. He responded as though I was enthusiastic and told me what good work I was doing, and that the head researcher had expressed an interest in putting me on “the rapid track” to level three. Now I find myself here, in this dimly lit place. The science here is even more abstract. We’re still operating on prisoners, but whatever we’re testing on them is different. The details are jealously guarded, but I think it’s a modified version of Chaos Phage. I’m not sure how it’s been changed, but I can see from the observation records that it’s much faster acting. Who knows if that’s all they’ve done to it. These men have no concern for the health of the subjects. The sedation is often insufficient, and I hear the prisoners moan and struggling against their straps. Whatever we’re doing here, it’s clear that it’s no longer about Slaad or saving lives. I can’t imagine the head researcher approves of this. I’m going to find a way to take my concerns directly to him.Nissa: So what we’ve learned is that they can hurt us with our brains… and our crowd control doesn’t work on them, and Averlyth is down to… one spell slot?Averlyth: And a gun!Nissa remembers she just bought a Lyre of Building that would let her cast Passwall, creating a hole below the enemies on the top floor, then make them plummet. Averlyth suggests we go and close all the doors below us if we want to do that, since we have all the key cards.
Nissa considers summoning a construct with her Lyre; Averlyth could summon a Celestial too, the group could let the summoning spells go into the room first.
The group takes a short break while deciding how probable any of these plans are.
Sorith has Water Whip to grapple any enemy into the hole, Averlyth has Thorn Whip as a cantrip to do the same.Nissa: Oh man, Kanye’s going to be so mad he’s missing out with his dual wield mustachesThe group empties their pockets and band funds of everything they’ve got left for this fight.Averlyth: You know if there’s only one or two enemies up there, I can bust out the succubusNissa: Now’s the time, go all out. This is the top floor.Um: There might be something on the ceiling. I mean the roofUm uses the red keycard to open the door to the stairs. Nissa opens the door cautiously, ready to cast Haste from her Bracer if she needs to bust a move. She doesn’t see any immediate threats and moves in.
This floor appears half the size of the lower floors, as there’s a wall halfway through. It’s the darkest floor in the building, and there’s a set of double doors visible ahead of us with a shaft of ominous red light spilling out. There’s a set of cages along the wall, one of which has a tattered journal. There’s a single workstation desk in the middle of the room with well organized notes.Nissa: Well there’s nothing to fight..Um: And there’s a lot to read…..DM: One of these days I’m going to get you so good with a mimicNissa: It’s going to be a first edition Lusty Argonian Maid isn’t itDM: I was going to give you something historical or sciencey and you went straight for the smutNissa walks over to the cage and first cracks open the journal. It is obviously poor Will Robinson’s journal. The poor intern trusted the head researcher and ended up in a cage with other imprisoned scientists. Every day, one of them were taken into the other room and are never seen again. In his last journal entry, he reveals he's the last one left.
Journal Entry: Day 55: I’m in a cage. How could I have been so foolish. Of course the head researcher knew. I was fooled by his charming demeanor. But when I pulled him aside during one of his rare visits to level three and shared my concerns he just smiled and laughed that easy laugh of his. Then I blacked out and woke up here. There are a few other imprisoned scientists in the other cells, including the researcher from level two who warned me to keep my head down. Now I know where he disappeared to, I guess. He tells me that every day the head researcher takes one of us into the operating theater. We never see them again, but the bodies that are wheeled past us are not Slaad. They’re purple and have horrible tentacled faces that I’ve only seen in my nightmares… I’ve torn the first page from my journal and threw it out the window with a cry for help. Maybe one of the Githzerai guards will see it. I can’t believe they could be in on this depravity.
Day 61: I’m the last. They took my friend last night. No help is coming. I know my time is limited. Forgive me for my role in this.Averlyth: Oh god, are we going to fight Will Robinson in the next roomDespite our sadness over the probable fate of Will Robinson, Nissa’s trained researcher’s eyes are glancing over at the desk. (She jokes that she might take enough time reading for the whole group to take a long rest.)
It’s immediately obvious to Nissa that the desk belongs to the head researcher. The notes are written in a language that we know but don’t recognize. Nissa casts Comprehend Languages on herself, then skims over the notes. They describe the culmination of a project to reverse engineer chaos phage to produce a disease to convert a host into an illithid, or a mind flayer. There’s a series of ticks next to completed tasks on a list, with one left unchecked: "Test on a Gith Zorai subject".DM: Illithids are the species that previously enslaved the Gith Zorai. Presumably this is someone trying to get revenge!Nissa: This isn’t really any of our business…………….Um peeps through the open double doors. He sees what appears to be an operating room The lights glow a sickly red, revealing a terrified-looking Gith Zorai youth tied down to the table, standing over him is a kindly looking human scientist ready to inject something into him. He looks up at Um, smiles, and tells the Gith Zorai youth that we have guests. He asks us what we're here for.
Um: Oh no, I triggered the cutscene
Nissa channels her inner Kanye, kicks down the door and yells: “I AM NISSA ATLOCK, OF THE CLAN ATLOCK. UNHAND THAT GITH ZORAI”
He looks up at her, and we notice he is holding the little knob on the IV bag that will start it going. Nissa detects the room is thick with illusion magic.Sorith: I could throw something at the IV bagAverlyth: Should I summon the Succubus?Nissa: You know what? Fuck it. I cast Passwall.A hole appears below the kindly looking scientist, he falls through and we hear muffled yelling and cursing from 2 floors down. Um and Averlyth notice the veil of illusion fall away and everyone can see clearly now - the room is revealed to be a cross between an operating theater and a torture chamber. There’s a lot of body parts piled up in a corner, bloody drains on the floor, the whole place is gross. The red light is the same, the hole in the floor is the same, but notably the operating gurney that the kid was strapped to is 5 ft to the left where we thought it was - good thing Sorith didn't throw anything after all.
The kid is either unconscious or stunned, now mumbling to himself.Sorith: I’m going to go do a medicine check on the kid, see if I can revive himAverlyth: I’m right here… I know I don’t have spell slots…..The Gith Zorai kid is malnourished, dehydrated, and smells awful, but he doesn’t appear to be in immediate pain. Sorith disconnects the IV from the kid’s arm before any of the substance can get into him. With Um’s help, the two of them successfully move Will Robinson from the gurney onto Um's floating disk.
Nissa points her finger down the hole and casts fireball.Nissa: This building appears to have a bug problem.Um: I always forget you have ranged weaponsDM: Just the one!We can’t see the scientist but he’s now bloodied.
Averlyth takes Nissa’s lead, casting Flame Strike down the hole. We hear a distinct “Son of a BITCH”.
We all look on in horror as a still burning Mind Flayer levitates up through the hole in the floor. He looks fucking furious.
Um and Nissa are both confused; psychic thoughts twist their mind, provoking uncontrolled action. The Mind Flayer floats backward, landing on the floor on the far side of the hole, then pulls a healing potion out of the drawer. Some of his burns undo themselves.
He definitely no longer looks like a nice professor, he’s now just an ugly tentacle guy.
Sorith, loyal to the plan, would like to use Water Whip. Unfortunately the Mind Flayer is able to avoid getting pulled back into the hole, though he takes some damage and continues to be burned and bloodied.
Um and Nissa both stand there being confused, unable to do anything this turn. Um is able to shake off the confusion, but Nissa continues to remain confused.
Averlyth casts Lightning Bolt directly at him, and he fucking dies.
The head researcher of Fresenius Research has been defeated, the hostage has been rescued, the building is no longer infested by Slaads, and we’ve uncovered some horrifying new research that will allow anyone to turn anyone else into a Mind Flayer, but we might've also burned a lot of it up with our "methods".
Um destroys the rest of the unethical research with a lighter. Sorith helps by punching them with his magical fire like a showoff.
The group.... is putting the Mind Flayer juice IV bag into the Band Fund.
Nissa tries to talk to the delirious Will Robinson. Apparently the head researcher was the one that opened all the cage doors when he executed his plan. Will couldn’t tell if he was acting alone or if he was working under Fresenius's orders. Will: I’ve never heard of Fresenius before, are they bad? Maybe he was just a rogue operatorNissa: They’re not… greatUm: They’ve had at least 2 rogue operatorsSorith jokes if we should hire Will, Woodhouse could show him the ropes.
Nissa goes down to the second floor to make the dead Mind Flayer answer 5 of her questions. 
Question 1: Nissa asks who he was working for. He responds “The name’s on the building??? it’s Fresenius Research”
Question 2: “Did they know what you were doing, or were you just an evil dude?”
Mind Flayer: “Why not both?”
Before Question 3, Nissa opens her bag of stolen research documents, shows him Daal and bluffs the living hell out of him, claiming she also works for Fresenius Research and that we were forced to kill him for appearances, but ultimately were on the same team, and needed his help.Mind Flayer: WTF? Prove to me you worked with Fresenius, what did they serve in the cafeteria on island on Tuesdays??Nissa: (after 30 seconds of silence) Waffles.Mind Flayer: Son of a bitch, how’d you know?Nissa acquires a contact from Fresenius Research - in the future, we have a name and a location.
Question 4: "Were you ever going to promote Will? You got his hopes up :("
Mind Flayer: Yeah of course, promoted to Mind Flayer. You guys came through the fourth floor right? You got the wrong impression, those were all of the failures, the solution is perfected now. We’re gonna repopulate the race and go back to taking over the universe
Nissa: ……..… Okay, byeeeee!