Session #51 - The Gestation Room
The party is confronted by the newest addition to the Estate’s cerebral forces. An imposing, brainish golem with draconic aspects that is able to create its own Intellect Devourers. At first struggling to adapt to the difficulties of fighting in the dark (and on a pipe) – Daddy’s Little Plumbers eventually find their stride. Despite the Cerebwyrm’s best efforts it could not send anyone pitward. While Huck, Po, and Kaladin tango’d with the big beasty up top, the rest of the crew delved below and fought off a wave of brain dogs.
With Sulu landing the final hit that sends the behemoth plummeting – it spends its final breath to point to Kaladin and Veera, alluding that they and it are not so different. Xacharius emerges through a magical tear and pleads for your team to continue the fight – revealing that Xeno has become distracted with the war and that the imprisoned wizard can help guide your way. As Veera goes to grab his hand, a lightning bolt surges through the entire party granting you each a generous boon.
You delve further, witnessing the scale of the battle raging on below but being sure not to linger. Team 287 eventually arrives in what can best be described as a ‘gestation room’ which plays host to a myriad of aberrative horrors. You find that Xeno and his ilk have been experimenting with the ichor – or Enblightenment Fluid as the labels suggest – as well as a new substance called ‘Irradiance’. When used together, Veera accidentally turns a simple devourer into a towering cerebwyrm which is then shunted out onto the battlefield.
The party turns their attention to a clump of 4 tanks in the center of the room. Each has a name of a Morphis progeny inside, Terra, Neo, Poly, and Sarah whose tank is empty. The party thinks back on their final confrontation with the late Sarah Morphis and does not think Waterdeep would survive a clash with her siblings. And so you all get to work, Maria rerouting some piping to pour Irradiance into their tanks – losing their arm and leg in the process. After Terra and Neo are irradiated into a piles of ash, Kaladin intervenes and posits that perhaps what you are all doing is no better than murder – maybe even genocide. And that there’s no way to know if those dwelling in the tanks are intrinsically evil or are test subjects like Kaladin and Veera.
With two down and only one left alive, the crew opens the final tank to see if Poly Morphis is anything like her sister.