The Crimson Lotus Gang:

• Charisma, a “human” -mutant- sorceress whose power source is Gamma Radiation which she was exposed to as a child.  As a child of the Atom her hair goes green in the presence of radiation and she progressively gets greener the more powerful spells she casts (and as she gets angry).  She has no love for the Technic League.
• Sylvanus, a dark elf monk who escaped the clutches of mind flayer slavemasters in the area of the Scar of the Spider after a daring raid by surface dwelling heroes freed her.
• Brokthor, a human fighter who was raised by dwarfs and thinks he IS a dwarf.
• Tufast, a human cleric who serves Thor –  power of thunder and lightning.  Much like his barbarian family he hates technology and has a particular spite for robots.  He sees the cleansing power of lightning as the perfect antidote to the curse of the robot infestation of Nimmeria.
• Isumi, (NPC) a marooned alien sniper and grenadier with a mind flayer vendetta.

The Valley of the Brain Collectors

Session 26

By  Sylvanus

After making a deal with the “dragon” Maukui, which in my opinion was an entirely unwise decision and will only come back to bite us later, our party moved on.  In the next room we find a white elf dressed in chains, flanked by two shapeshifting flayer bodyguards.  I recognized the elf as Paajgat – the one Maukui had described, remembering that he had asked us to her spare her.  Despite my reservations towards the deal we had made, I knew we must hold our end of the bargain. She did not attack us, rather watched with amusement as we engaged with her bodyguards.  It was only when Charisma accidentally hit her with a spell in its area of effect did Paajgat attack.  It was hard enough fighting her bodyguards without having to focus on her as well.  I did notice however, that Brockthar had engaged with her.  I call out to him to try and incapacitate her rather than kill her outright, so that we may honor our side of Maukui’s bargain.  Whether he heard me and chose to ignore me or simply could not hear over the sound of the fighting, I didn’t know.  But before I knew it, the elf lay dead along with the shapeshifting bodyguards.

An argument between myself and Brockthar followed shortly.  He had intended to kill her, regardless of the bargain.  Though he argued he was simply defending himself, attacking because he was provoked.  He also told me he had no plans of honoring our deal to Maukui, which infuriated me further.  After all, why bother in the first place?  The situation was somewhat resolved when Tufast revived Paajgat and binding both her hands and mouth so she could not attack.  We would decide what to do with her later, so we took the portal to Chessed in Cortina/Thomas and placed her in the only cell in the dungeon underneath Tufast’s shop.

We returned to the den of the mindflayers and continued our journey to stop the Dweller-in-Dark-Places.  After unsuccessfully trying to use the portal in the portal room, which we assumed we needed the hand of the Dweller-in-Dark-Places, we were ambushed by four ugothokra. Again I heard the voice of my former master ringing in my head, and I tried my best to block it out.  Cutting down the cybernetic spiders, we knew there was only one last place to go. We ventured to the inner den of the Dweller-in-Dark-Places, preparing for combat.  When we entered, we saw he was flanked by four shadow flayers.  There was a short exchange of words, which I don’t remember precisely because I was too focused on killing the monsters in front of me.

The fight was long and tedious, and there were several moments where I thought he would devour my brain. When we finally thought that he was dead, he retreated teleporting himself away and promising he would return. Before I could react, Tufast called upon the divine power of his god Thor to bring Dweller-in-Dark-Places back to face divine justice. From what I understood, this spell wasn’t entirely reliable and I promised aloud that if it worked I would convert to the deity Thor. Thor answered Tufast’s call and the Dweller-in-Dark-Places was back and we were ready to strike. It did not take us long to strike him down for good. “Go to hell” I muttered as I landed the final blow with my Skycutter.

We looted the area and I left with Isumi to bury her kin. We were attacked by a troll, but it was nothing we couldn’t handle. Now all that remains is to go back to the Portal room and retrieve the intelligence crystal. Whether or not this is the brain tape we have been searching for and whether or not we will honour the bargain with Maukui remains to be seen…