Joel peered out the cabin door. Jedidiah had left his pack leaning against the railing. Joel paused to debate the wisdom of running out and grabbing it.
Then something grabbed him. From over the cabin door, two tentacles lashed downward and around Joel's right arm and throat.
The young bard screamed as he was lifted bodily to the roof of the cabin. He found himself face-to-face with the most loathsome-looking creature he'd ever seen. Its head looked like a huge exposed brain, four feet across, with no apparent eyes and a great sharp beak for a mouth. It had no body, but floated in the air, trailing several tentacles as long as a man.
A swarm of the large creatures surrounded the ship, Several hovered over the rail and the cabin. From the cabin door below, Joel could hear Jedidiah chanting a spell. A silver war hammer manifested above the deck and shot out toward the lead creature. Tin magically summoned weapon buried itself into the creature's brain with a sickening squishing sound. The creature chirped but didn't fall.
Joel reached for his scabbard, but the creature holding him had already removed his sword with one of its tentacles. The remaining appendages wrapped about the bard's other arms and legs. Joel felt his skin tingle, as if he were being pricked with hundreds of sharp needles and pins, then go completely numb. His muscles no longer responded to his commands.
The other tentacled creatures began to float down the cargo bay to the deck below.
From what seemed far off, Joel heard the banelich's voice rise in an arcane chant. There was a clap of thunder, and a great cloud of smoke burst across the bow. A flaming chariot, pulled by two fiery horses, appeared on the cargo deck. The banelich stepped out of the cabin and fired off four black bolts of cold fire at the two creatures blocking his route to the chariot. They fell to the deck, their tentacles writhing like worms. Walinda, dressed in her plate mail and armed with her goad, rushed out onto the deck. The banelich climbed into the chariot with the priestess at its heels.
More attackers swarmed toward the followers of Bane, but the creatures were instantly singed by the flames burning about the chariot. Quickly they withdrew their scorched tentacles and curled them up beneath their bodies. The priestess and her master flew off. A flock of attackers flew after them, but the tentacled creatures couldn't keep up with the magical chariot.
The spelljammer ship began to sink slowly toward the earth. Joel, paralyzed in the tentacles of the creature that had attacked him, could do nothing but watch. Jedidiah emerged from the cabin, swinging a sword. It seemed to Joel that his god was floating in the air toward him as he lopped off tentacles to the left and right. Soon Jedidiah disappeared behind a swarm of the attackers. Then darkness claimed Joel.
When Joel awoke, Jedidiah was hovering over him with a look of grave concern.
"Glad you could join us," the god said. "Though you may wish you hadn't," he added grimly.
Joel discovered the numbness had left his muscles and he was able to sit up. Then he heard what sounded like shouting inside his head. Horrible ideas came spilling into his brain. He was nothing more than cattle, meant to be ruled by others. Only illithids were fit to rule, and one day they would conquer the multiverse. Joel put his hands to his head, but the shouting didn't stop.
Jedidiah covered his priest's head with his hands and muttered a quick chant. In a few moments, the shouting in Joel's head died down to a dull roar, then a persistent whispering.
"That should hold you for a little while," Jedidiah said. "I'm not sure if we'll have much more time than that."
The young bard looked around. They were in a small cavern lit by a light stone. The walls were covered with slimy black fungus. Walinda and the banelich were nowhere to be seen. Joel recalled how the two followers of Bane had fled the battle with the tentacled creatures. Then Joel saw something on Jedidiah's face that he'd never seen there before-fear. Something had frightened his god terribly.
"What happened?" Joel asked. "Where are we?"
"We strayed over the realm of Ilsensine," Jedidiah explained. "Ilsensine is the god of the illithids, or mind flayers, as they're called in the Realms. A very powerful god. Jas stole a spelljammer hull from the illithids, the same hull we were caught with. Ilsensine believes the illithids are the only beings fit to rule the universe. We're nothing but human cattle as far as he's concerned. The sight of us flying around in one of the illithids' ships was bound to upset their god."
"Uh-oh," Joel murmured.
"Uh-oh is right," Jedidiah replied grimly. "I'm a fool that it didn't occur to me just how far Ilsensine's senses reached. When it detected us, it sent some of its zombie slaves to bring us to its court. The banelich and Walinda fled in a magic chariot."
"Did you say those creatures with tentacles were zombies?" Joel asked.
Jedidiah nodded. "Sort of. They're called grell, and ordinarily they would simply eat us and be done with it, but the ones that attacked us are brain-burned puppets of the illithid god. They're not really undead-they just lack minds of their own. Like the illithids who worship their god, Ilsensine devours the thoughts of others."
"Is that what's going to happen to us?" Joel asked, understanding now the fear in his god's face.
"I think we're about to find out," Jedidiah said, nodding at something behind Joel.
The young bard turned around. A male dwarf stood in the doorway. The creature's eyes were as blank as a statue's, and his clothing hung in rags on his nearly skeletal frame.
"Follow," the dwarf croaked.
Jedidiah picked up his light stone, stood up, and helped Joel to his feet. "Joel, I need to concentrate on protecting our minds so Ilsensine can't tell what we're thinking," the older man whispered in his ear. "You must do the talking. Tell it whatever it takes to get us out of here."
Together god and priest followed the zombie dwarf through a twisting maze of tunnels until they came to a vast cavern. Over fifty zombie grell and five zombie humans stood guard over a myriad of tunnel entrances that led into the cavern. A strange scent, like vinegar, assaulted Joel's nostrils.
In the center of the cavern was a bed of what appeared to be burning coals, except that the coals glowed not red but green. Acidic vapors rose from the coals, apparently the source of the vinegary smell. Joel was wondering if they were going to be thrown into the fire when the coals began to bubble and rise like bread. In another moment, the coals took on the appearance of a huge brain, the color of polished jade, ten times larger than the brains of the grell. Sections of the brain pulsed and throbbed. Innumerable tentacles hung down from the brain and reached, like roots, into the stone below. Two shorter tentacles waved before the creature's brain body.
The voice that had shouted in Joel's head began to reassert itself, like the droning of a self-absorbed lecturer. He felt an incredible sense of pressure on his brain, as if it were a walnut someone were trying to crack. His skin crawled with a primal instinct. He stood in the presence of a power so great and so evil he didn't need Holly's paladin's sense to detect it.
Then the voice in the bard's head spoke directly to him, and Joel knew then that the green monstrosity before him was the god of the illithids, Ilsensine.
What have you to say for yourselves, thieves?
Joel bowed low before the floating brain. "Your pardon, great one," he said, 'Taut we are not thieves." His voice in the great cavern sounded very small.
You were caught with the stolen property of our people. You are thieves.
"The spelljammer, yes," Joel said. "My associates took it from the thieves, and together we brought it to your realm, Lord Ilsensine. In reparation for the damages done to the vessel, please accept the spelljammer helm attached to the vessel. It belonged to the thieves."