Horrifying In Retrospect

**"Horrifying In Retrospect"** is the 12th session of Mega Campaign.

## Summary

* Memphis goes to the Great Web and into the Parcel of Asomak while the rest of the party stays behind in the inn. There, Memphis consults the Asomak priestess (who’s super suuuuper old) on ways to gain favor with the goddess herself. She offers two potential favors that could help us get into her good graces – either sacrificing a slave or obtaining a chunk of an illithid “Elder Brain” in a hive located just off Eraney Keep in a place called Mind Gorge.
* Memphis definitely decides on the latter. She’s offered the assistance of a drow paladin dude named Duncan Varnash to aid them on their quest.
* Duncan’s hot. He also supports slavery! Very cool, very cool. He’s double also a little perturbed at the fact that we snuck into the city and that our friends aren’t actually slaves, after Memphis admits to that.
* The party sets off towards Mind Gorge with our new travelling dude Duncan in tow! Highlights include: Duncan killing the shit out a (relatively small) displacer beast and Yamma trying and failing to tame a weird alien thing that looks like a brain but has a bird beak. It also has tentacles. What the fuck?
* We arrive at Mind Gorge. It’s a little city surrounded by 100-foot walls on each side, with sparsely located cave openings on the cliff sides surrounding it. It’s sitting smack dab in the middle of a big ol’ mushroom forest.
* Our initial plan is to have Weesin walk into the city by polymorphing himself into an illithid and speaking to them via message. Weesin scans the area real quick by transforming into a cloaker and flying above.
* He learns that there’s a glass window located on the top of a pyramid in which the Elder Brain is held. After he returns with this information, we set him off on his mini quest as an illithid.
* In the meantime, we leave Duncan a little behind ‘cause his heavy armor makes tons of clanking, and that’s not great for stealth. We investigate some weird noises we heard in the mushroom forest.
* Surprise! The noise ends up being a patrol of illithids with their pet dog brain! What the fuck?
* Those illithids… almost annihilate us. Unbeknownst to us at the time, they almost perma-deathed like, two of us. We kill ‘em after Duncan comes to the rescue, huzzah!
* After the illithids lay dead, Weesin returns with bad news – the illithids can recognize he’s not one of them and sent him away with one final warning.
* We take a long rest. Duncan and Havai have a nice little talk, and Memphis pretends to sleep and listens in. Havai admits to Duncan that he has no idea what he is, why he was created, or where he came from. Duncan in response tells Havai a story he’d been told before...
* Illithids create more of themselves by spawning larvae that are left to develop in the pool of an Elder Brain, and later, those larvae are inserted into the brain of a sapient creature. There had been a legend of some time ago the birthing process going wrong, and a creature such as Havai was created. A larvae was implanted into a human body, but the transformation failed to rid the being of its human characteristics. The abomination was then taken to the surface by an albino illithid and was banished, never to return. Legend tells that the return of the half-illithid foretells the end times of the illithid race.
* Waking up from our rest, we decide on our next course of action: find a cave leading to one of the cave openings along the cliff faces next to the city.
* We find an entrance to a cave. At the foot of it, we’re met with a steep as hell cliff face. There’s another cave entrance a little ways below us, so we lower everyone down by tying our ropes together, having Yamma go last and levitate us down.
* We eventually reach the inside of the city and land on the roof of a house. After a lot of sneaking around and climbing, we reach the top of the pyramid that houses the Elder Brain.
* Our plan is to cast Silence on the glass panel, break it without a sound, and lower Clarke into the pool containing the Elder Brain so he can cut a huge chunk out of it. Everyone up top is gonna go ham on the three illithids in the room with ranged attacks.
* The plan totally succeeds with some sick moves from everyone! After Clarke cuts a piece of the brain out and is roped back up, Havai blows up the Elder Brain along with the last illithid in the room with his Eldritch Blast attack.
* Duncan watches in amazement as hundreds of illithids outside fall to the ground dead – they can’t survive without the Elder Brain!
* Mission success! We sack the place and leave off ready to head back to Eraney keep.