Although the Githyanki recruits had just joined the Lich Queen's battle group, the long-term military training allowed Laezel to effortlessly deal with several tomb robbers who were staggering due to the exploding oil barrels.
"Hey!" Laizer's companion shouted in dissatisfaction, "You should have left me at least two! My sword and dagger can't help but want to pierce through their eye sockets."
“Chk! Then run faster next time.” Laizel put the greatsword back into the leather sheath on her back. The flame on the sword automatically went out. She looked at the door that was damaged by the explosion. “But there are two more idiots here who can satisfy your needs.”
“Githyanki!” Gale pointed at Laizel and then grimaced in pain. The previous explosion caused the barbs on the wooden door to pierce his face. “Ivy is right. You always appear with the mind flayers…”
"Mind Flayer?" A woman who looked like she had just been fished out of a pool of blood flashed in from the doorway. She held a dagger in her left hand and a rapier in her right hand. "You are also on the Conch Shell?"
"To be precise, only Gale of Waterdeep is like this. As for me, I'm just a bard looking for creative inspiration." Before the explosion, Ivy had hidden himself behind the wall and was now plucking the strings of his guitar to play notes of welcome.
"Ah..." A pale-skinned elf squeezed into the house from behind his companions. He began his speech with a mock sigh, "There are more companions who share the same suffering as me. But I have to warn you, our camp is already crowded enough. There is no room for encumbrances and fools."
"We are not a burden." Gale pulled out the wooden spike on his face and pointed it at the three corpses under the stone slab. "I am Archmage Gale Dekalios. We killed the tomb robbers on the surface and then went underground. Most importantly, we are all looking for a doctor who can deal with the mind flayer tadpoles in our brains, so acting together is the best solution."
"I didn't know we had a camp, Asdaelon." The last person in the team, a half-elf lady wearing scale armor, turned her head to look at Gale and Ivy in the house, and then looked away, "Two spellcasters, now our team's melee and ranged strength are evenly matched."
"Since you are also troubled by the Mind Flayer Tadpoles like us, then you are welcome to join us. My name is Xie Nian, which means... Evil Nian." The woman who called herself Xie Nian was very beautiful. The scars on her face that had just healed not long ago could not hide the charm of her face, but she always exuded the stench of blood, so that when Ivy saw her for the first time, he did not think of her as a human. "I dare say that the Mind Flayer Tadpoles have bitten my brain into thousands of holes. I can't remember anything except this name."
"That's why we need to speed up." Gale stepped forward and shook hands with Xie Nian. "That's Ivy, Ivy Dum, a bard from the astral plane. We plan to go to Baldur's Gate to find a doctor... Uh... Although it is my honor to shake hands with such a charming lady, your actions may be a little too... intimate..."
Xie Nian was holding Gale's right hand and playing with it carefully, as if it were a beautiful work of art, and even his nose was almost touching the back of Gale's hand.
Hearing Gale's words, Xie Nian loosened his hands as if he had been electrocuted and took a big step back.
“Sorry…” It seemed that even Xie Nian herself couldn’t figure out why she made such a move. She looked at her hands hesitantly, and then let them clench their weapons again, as if this action could make her feel at ease. “My body doesn’t seem to cooperate with my brain. It always acts one step ahead… Is this also a symptom of the Mind Flayer tadpole devouring my brain?”
"I don't know... This is not a symptom mentioned in the book..." Gale rubbed his right hand on the front of his shirt, perhaps hoping to soothe the goose bumps on the surface of his skin. "But we don't have much time. We must act quickly and head to Baldur's Gate."
"Baldur's Gate is too far away. Before we get there, the tadpoles will swallow our brains, and we can only sadly turn into a group of mind flayers and enjoy the brains of the bards over there." Laizer bared his teeth at Ivy.
"She is Laizel, our Githyanki warrior." Xie Nian introduced, "She said there is a tiefling camp nearby, and there is a man named Su Luo there who knows the location of the Githyanki breeding room. As long as we get there, we will have a chance to deal with the mind flayer tadpoles in the brain."
The mind flayers are a race of hive-minds. A large tribe of mind flayers is often controlled by a single overmind, with all individuals relying on telepathic abilities to link to the overmind, meaning there is no delay or loss of information between them.
Therefore, in the long past, the mind flayers once established a huge astral empire and enslaved countless races as their food and servants, and the ancestors of the Githyanki were among them.
However, the kingship was not eternal, and the powerful mind flayer empire was eventually defeated by its own slaves. The Githyanki finally gained their freedom and began to hunt the mind flayers on all worlds.
The once-powerful Mind Flayer Empire vanished, and the only remaining Masterminds could only hide with their tribes in the underground of various worlds to survive. After thousands of years of struggle, the Drow and Gray Dwarves from the Underdark learned the knowledge to identify Mind Flayers.
If a mind flayer is spotted somewhere in the Underdark, the other sentient beings in the area will often put their dispute aside until the elder brains are completely eliminated.
The Githyanki who defeated the mind flayers established a new empire in the Astral Plane. Since the Astral Plane has no time flow, any creature can live forever in the Astral Plane, but this also means that there will be no natural growth in the Astral Plane. Therefore, the Githyanki built breeding rooms in various material planes, and after the new compatriots hatched from eggs and grew up to maturity, they would be taken to the Astral Plane for further training.
The Gisyanki warrior Laezel is just such a college student who just graduated from the Star Bay Military Academy. He seems to be inflexible in all aspects of his interpersonal relationships.
"I am willing to provide treatment because you saved my life twice," Laizer said to Xie Nian in a threatening tone, "but I don't remember allowing you to treat the opportunity for treatment as a gift that can be shared."
"Remember, Laizel, I am the captain of this team." Xie Nian had no intention of explaining or appeasing them. Instead, he used orders to calm the anger of the Gisyanki.
"Very good, Captain." Leitzel accepted the order quickly, "But you must remember that only the strong can survive."
"I'm glad you've reached an agreement." Ivy played a few notes to represent unity. "Let's continue this tomb exploration!"
Evil Thought stared at Ivy's lute for a while, as if he was thinking about how to break it.
However, she was unable to put her fantasy into action because the voice of the half-elf priest came from outside the door, interrupting her thoughts: "There are many books stored here, all related to death..."
The team expanded to six people and gathered in the hall of the tomb robbers' camp, where a stone statue of an old man stood, perhaps belonging to a lost god.
"Kelemvor, the Lord of the Dead..." Xie Nian flipped open a dusty book and whispered the name on it. "The God of Death is always the god who changes the most... This is a name I have rarely heard of."
The half-elf priest Yingxin had just finished introducing himself to Ivy and Gale. He walked up to Xie Nian and glanced at the book in her hand.
"Lies." Yingxin said proudly, "Ms. Shar will never give up her believers. I advise you to read less of this kind of book full of false statements."
"What?" Xie Nian turned the cover of the book and finally recognized the original name of the book in the dust: "No One Claims Itself". "Why are you reacting so strongly? It's just that the priestess in the book was abandoned by Shar, not you."
"A century ago, Baal's conspiracy caused great damage in Baldur's Gate... But this is of no help to our current situation..." Asdeln looked at the book in Ivy's hand, "Secular Observation: Eyewitness Testimony of the Crisis of Baal's Descendants", and spread his hands to greet the others in the hall, "If our brains are eaten by the mind flayer tadpoles, we won't even have souls to stand trial before the god of death. We should quickly take away anything that can be used!"
"I agree with the Bold man." Gale of Waterdeep raised an arm.
Ivy put down the book in his hand. He didn't expect to see Baal's name here. He thought that he would know this name from the real savior of Baldur's Gate after meeting her.
————
"We still have half of the tomb to explore." After the team packed up the supplies and sleeping bags for the tomb robbers, Xie Nian immediately went into another passage, which was the direction they came from. "I took the trouble to open such a troublesome lock, not just to snatch a few gold coins from these poor guys!"
"No one can deny that our captain does have some very dexterous fingers." Yingxin shook his head and followed with his mace.
Opening a heavy oak door, Xie Nian led the team into a spacious hall. In the middle of the hall stood a stone statue. One side of the wall had collapsed, revealing an underground river behind it. The sound of gurgling water was echoing in this tomb that had not been visited for a long time.
"Yegu! The recorder of fate! I didn't expect that there would be people who would worship him..." Xie Nian stepped over the skeletons lying in disorder in the tomb and stood at the foot of the stone statue in the middle of the hall, muttering, "It is said that he records the fate of all living beings. Look at the quill and scroll in his hand..."
The statue of Jergal has no clear face, but is replaced by a skeleton. The god of death wrapped in a robe holds a feather pen in one hand and a scroll of astonishing length on the other arm. Many names are outlined in golden letters, and no one knows whether they belong to mortals or gods.
"Jergal divided his godhood among Baal, Bane, and Melkor, helping three mortals to become gods... By this calculation, more than half of the murders in Baldur's Gate can be blamed on him," Asdeln commented disrespectfully.
"Let's leave now. I feel uncomfortable desecrating a place of worship for a god," Gale suggested. "Even a god who has passed away long ago."
"Maybe we can find a lot of magic equipment here! We need to arm ourselves." Evil Thought's blood-red eyes swept across every wall of the hall, trying to find all the spaces that might hide gold coins and treasures.
Hearing the word "magic equipment", Gale silently lowered his half-raised arm and started searching with his eyes wide open.
Soon, the wizard discovered: "There is another door here."
Xie Nian kicked the wooden door open and rushed in. After looking around, he said in disappointment, "All the coffins have been opened. The only intact box must be filled with garbage. Ah, there is a locked book here. It might be worth a few cents."
"That might be the death list written by Jergal himself." Arsdalen joked, "Open it with your nimble fingers."
The pale elf was right, Evil Thought did have some nimble fingers, and she simply fiddled with the lock with her bare hands for a few times, and the ancient book protected by magic was able to see the light of day again.
"It is indeed a list...but it is too sloppy..." Xie Nian frowned and looked at it for a few times, but was unable to make out any specific name.
"Those names belong to the departed gods..." Yingxin exclaimed, "They once fell, and were reborn after the second split..."
Pastor Yingxin made Ivy hear an unfamiliar term - "secondary split", which sounded like a synonym for some major event.
"These three names are written at the end, but I can't see anything clearly anymore... Ah, there's also a magic scroll." Xie Nian, who got the treasure, finally showed a satisfied smile. After putting away the magic scroll, he threw the book to Ying Xin, "Keep looking, there must be something else! This mausoleum has been visited by tomb robbers more than once. Although they broke through the wall to get in, their crude methods must have left behind the most valuable treasures!"
"Before you were taken away by the Snail Shell, did you make a living by robbing tombs or stealing other people's treasures? Otherwise, how do you explain your 'professional qualities'?" Asdeln seemed very interested in Xie Nian's past.
"Ha! Then I must be a super thief. Maybe I have even stolen treasures from the treasury of the gods!" Xie Nian smiled cheerfully, but the blood reflected from her red lips and red hair made Ivy believe that she was a killer rather than a thief.
"What is this button for?" Gale leaned over a wall, holding his chin and looking at the protruding button in front of him. "Press it and see if you can."
As the stone wall trembled, a hidden tomb slowly appeared in front of everyone.
"What did you touch, Gale? You mages always create problems you can't solve!" Shadowheart yelled. "The skeletons are alive! Watch out!"
"Hey!" Laizer's companion shouted in dissatisfaction, "You should have left me at least two! My sword and dagger can't help but want to pierce through their eye sockets."
“Chk! Then run faster next time.” Laizel put the greatsword back into the leather sheath on her back. The flame on the sword automatically went out. She looked at the door that was damaged by the explosion. “But there are two more idiots here who can satisfy your needs.”
“Githyanki!” Gale pointed at Laizel and then grimaced in pain. The previous explosion caused the barbs on the wooden door to pierce his face. “Ivy is right. You always appear with the mind flayers…”
"Mind Flayer?" A woman who looked like she had just been fished out of a pool of blood flashed in from the doorway. She held a dagger in her left hand and a rapier in her right hand. "You are also on the Conch Shell?"
"To be precise, only Gale of Waterdeep is like this. As for me, I'm just a bard looking for creative inspiration." Before the explosion, Ivy had hidden himself behind the wall and was now plucking the strings of his guitar to play notes of welcome.
"Ah..." A pale-skinned elf squeezed into the house from behind his companions. He began his speech with a mock sigh, "There are more companions who share the same suffering as me. But I have to warn you, our camp is already crowded enough. There is no room for encumbrances and fools."
"We are not a burden." Gale pulled out the wooden spike on his face and pointed it at the three corpses under the stone slab. "I am Archmage Gale Dekalios. We killed the tomb robbers on the surface and then went underground. Most importantly, we are all looking for a doctor who can deal with the mind flayer tadpoles in our brains, so acting together is the best solution."
"I didn't know we had a camp, Asdaelon." The last person in the team, a half-elf lady wearing scale armor, turned her head to look at Gale and Ivy in the house, and then looked away, "Two spellcasters, now our team's melee and ranged strength are evenly matched."
"Since you are also troubled by the Mind Flayer Tadpoles like us, then you are welcome to join us. My name is Xie Nian, which means... Evil Nian." The woman who called herself Xie Nian was very beautiful. The scars on her face that had just healed not long ago could not hide the charm of her face, but she always exuded the stench of blood, so that when Ivy saw her for the first time, he did not think of her as a human. "I dare say that the Mind Flayer Tadpoles have bitten my brain into thousands of holes. I can't remember anything except this name."
"That's why we need to speed up." Gale stepped forward and shook hands with Xie Nian. "That's Ivy, Ivy Dum, a bard from the astral plane. We plan to go to Baldur's Gate to find a doctor... Uh... Although it is my honor to shake hands with such a charming lady, your actions may be a little too... intimate..."
Xie Nian was holding Gale's right hand and playing with it carefully, as if it were a beautiful work of art, and even his nose was almost touching the back of Gale's hand.
Hearing Gale's words, Xie Nian loosened his hands as if he had been electrocuted and took a big step back.
“Sorry…” It seemed that even Xie Nian herself couldn’t figure out why she made such a move. She looked at her hands hesitantly, and then let them clench their weapons again, as if this action could make her feel at ease. “My body doesn’t seem to cooperate with my brain. It always acts one step ahead… Is this also a symptom of the Mind Flayer tadpole devouring my brain?”
"I don't know... This is not a symptom mentioned in the book..." Gale rubbed his right hand on the front of his shirt, perhaps hoping to soothe the goose bumps on the surface of his skin. "But we don't have much time. We must act quickly and head to Baldur's Gate."
"Baldur's Gate is too far away. Before we get there, the tadpoles will swallow our brains, and we can only sadly turn into a group of mind flayers and enjoy the brains of the bards over there." Laizer bared his teeth at Ivy.
"She is Laizel, our Githyanki warrior." Xie Nian introduced, "She said there is a tiefling camp nearby, and there is a man named Su Luo there who knows the location of the Githyanki breeding room. As long as we get there, we will have a chance to deal with the mind flayer tadpoles in the brain."
The mind flayers are a race of hive-minds. A large tribe of mind flayers is often controlled by a single overmind, with all individuals relying on telepathic abilities to link to the overmind, meaning there is no delay or loss of information between them.
Therefore, in the long past, the mind flayers once established a huge astral empire and enslaved countless races as their food and servants, and the ancestors of the Githyanki were among them.
However, the kingship was not eternal, and the powerful mind flayer empire was eventually defeated by its own slaves. The Githyanki finally gained their freedom and began to hunt the mind flayers on all worlds.
The once-powerful Mind Flayer Empire vanished, and the only remaining Masterminds could only hide with their tribes in the underground of various worlds to survive. After thousands of years of struggle, the Drow and Gray Dwarves from the Underdark learned the knowledge to identify Mind Flayers.
If a mind flayer is spotted somewhere in the Underdark, the other sentient beings in the area will often put their dispute aside until the elder brains are completely eliminated.
The Githyanki who defeated the mind flayers established a new empire in the Astral Plane. Since the Astral Plane has no time flow, any creature can live forever in the Astral Plane, but this also means that there will be no natural growth in the Astral Plane. Therefore, the Githyanki built breeding rooms in various material planes, and after the new compatriots hatched from eggs and grew up to maturity, they would be taken to the Astral Plane for further training.
The Gisyanki warrior Laezel is just such a college student who just graduated from the Star Bay Military Academy. He seems to be inflexible in all aspects of his interpersonal relationships.
"I am willing to provide treatment because you saved my life twice," Laizer said to Xie Nian in a threatening tone, "but I don't remember allowing you to treat the opportunity for treatment as a gift that can be shared."
"Remember, Laizel, I am the captain of this team." Xie Nian had no intention of explaining or appeasing them. Instead, he used orders to calm the anger of the Gisyanki.
"Very good, Captain." Leitzel accepted the order quickly, "But you must remember that only the strong can survive."
"I'm glad you've reached an agreement." Ivy played a few notes to represent unity. "Let's continue this tomb exploration!"
Evil Thought stared at Ivy's lute for a while, as if he was thinking about how to break it.
However, she was unable to put her fantasy into action because the voice of the half-elf priest came from outside the door, interrupting her thoughts: "There are many books stored here, all related to death..."
The team expanded to six people and gathered in the hall of the tomb robbers' camp, where a stone statue of an old man stood, perhaps belonging to a lost god.
"Kelemvor, the Lord of the Dead..." Xie Nian flipped open a dusty book and whispered the name on it. "The God of Death is always the god who changes the most... This is a name I have rarely heard of."
The half-elf priest Yingxin had just finished introducing himself to Ivy and Gale. He walked up to Xie Nian and glanced at the book in her hand.
"Lies." Yingxin said proudly, "Ms. Shar will never give up her believers. I advise you to read less of this kind of book full of false statements."
"What?" Xie Nian turned the cover of the book and finally recognized the original name of the book in the dust: "No One Claims Itself". "Why are you reacting so strongly? It's just that the priestess in the book was abandoned by Shar, not you."
"A century ago, Baal's conspiracy caused great damage in Baldur's Gate... But this is of no help to our current situation..." Asdeln looked at the book in Ivy's hand, "Secular Observation: Eyewitness Testimony of the Crisis of Baal's Descendants", and spread his hands to greet the others in the hall, "If our brains are eaten by the mind flayer tadpoles, we won't even have souls to stand trial before the god of death. We should quickly take away anything that can be used!"
"I agree with the Bold man." Gale of Waterdeep raised an arm.
Ivy put down the book in his hand. He didn't expect to see Baal's name here. He thought that he would know this name from the real savior of Baldur's Gate after meeting her.
————
"We still have half of the tomb to explore." After the team packed up the supplies and sleeping bags for the tomb robbers, Xie Nian immediately went into another passage, which was the direction they came from. "I took the trouble to open such a troublesome lock, not just to snatch a few gold coins from these poor guys!"
"No one can deny that our captain does have some very dexterous fingers." Yingxin shook his head and followed with his mace.
Opening a heavy oak door, Xie Nian led the team into a spacious hall. In the middle of the hall stood a stone statue. One side of the wall had collapsed, revealing an underground river behind it. The sound of gurgling water was echoing in this tomb that had not been visited for a long time.
"Yegu! The recorder of fate! I didn't expect that there would be people who would worship him..." Xie Nian stepped over the skeletons lying in disorder in the tomb and stood at the foot of the stone statue in the middle of the hall, muttering, "It is said that he records the fate of all living beings. Look at the quill and scroll in his hand..."
The statue of Jergal has no clear face, but is replaced by a skeleton. The god of death wrapped in a robe holds a feather pen in one hand and a scroll of astonishing length on the other arm. Many names are outlined in golden letters, and no one knows whether they belong to mortals or gods.
"Jergal divided his godhood among Baal, Bane, and Melkor, helping three mortals to become gods... By this calculation, more than half of the murders in Baldur's Gate can be blamed on him," Asdeln commented disrespectfully.
"Let's leave now. I feel uncomfortable desecrating a place of worship for a god," Gale suggested. "Even a god who has passed away long ago."
"Maybe we can find a lot of magic equipment here! We need to arm ourselves." Evil Thought's blood-red eyes swept across every wall of the hall, trying to find all the spaces that might hide gold coins and treasures.
Hearing the word "magic equipment", Gale silently lowered his half-raised arm and started searching with his eyes wide open.
Soon, the wizard discovered: "There is another door here."
Xie Nian kicked the wooden door open and rushed in. After looking around, he said in disappointment, "All the coffins have been opened. The only intact box must be filled with garbage. Ah, there is a locked book here. It might be worth a few cents."
"That might be the death list written by Jergal himself." Arsdalen joked, "Open it with your nimble fingers."
The pale elf was right, Evil Thought did have some nimble fingers, and she simply fiddled with the lock with her bare hands for a few times, and the ancient book protected by magic was able to see the light of day again.
"It is indeed a list...but it is too sloppy..." Xie Nian frowned and looked at it for a few times, but was unable to make out any specific name.
"Those names belong to the departed gods..." Yingxin exclaimed, "They once fell, and were reborn after the second split..."
Pastor Yingxin made Ivy hear an unfamiliar term - "secondary split", which sounded like a synonym for some major event.
"These three names are written at the end, but I can't see anything clearly anymore... Ah, there's also a magic scroll." Xie Nian, who got the treasure, finally showed a satisfied smile. After putting away the magic scroll, he threw the book to Ying Xin, "Keep looking, there must be something else! This mausoleum has been visited by tomb robbers more than once. Although they broke through the wall to get in, their crude methods must have left behind the most valuable treasures!"
"Before you were taken away by the Snail Shell, did you make a living by robbing tombs or stealing other people's treasures? Otherwise, how do you explain your 'professional qualities'?" Asdeln seemed very interested in Xie Nian's past.
"Ha! Then I must be a super thief. Maybe I have even stolen treasures from the treasury of the gods!" Xie Nian smiled cheerfully, but the blood reflected from her red lips and red hair made Ivy believe that she was a killer rather than a thief.
"What is this button for?" Gale leaned over a wall, holding his chin and looking at the protruding button in front of him. "Press it and see if you can."
As the stone wall trembled, a hidden tomb slowly appeared in front of everyone.
"What did you touch, Gale? You mages always create problems you can't solve!" Shadowheart yelled. "The skeletons are alive! Watch out!"
