Ruins of Azlant Gameplay

"Yes, we're from the second group, we found the entire colony missing when we got here," Aisha answers. "What's your name? I'm Aisha."

“I am Armin, and these two are Celia and Jaram," she says, indicated the other  prisoners. "Thank you for saving us from the horrible fish-thing that has been keeping us here! But... how did you know we were here?" she asks.

"We didn't, we were tracking the people they took from our group, and eventually that led us here," Aisha explains. "But now that we've found you, we'll definitely try to get you out as well." With nods and thanks, she decides to move to questions of her own. "Did they do anything to you in here? Ask you anything?"

Armin shakes her head. "They don't ask us anything.The fish-thing took us here to run some tests on us in the room right next to here."

"Sorry to butt in," Kaimana says, shifting his weight in discomfort, "but can you tell us more about how you got here and what you've seen since?"

"It's a little vague, and distant," Armin says, "But, there was a stranger that came to the colony. He had dark hair and purple eyes. He seemed friendly enough at first, but he had some power or something. With just a glance, he climbed into my mind and controlled me like a puppet. He looked human, but now I realize that he was something else—what that is I can’t tell you, though. He commanded me and many others to sail to this island and submit to the fish-thing that lives here. At least I think that’s how it all went down, I think it affected my memory in some way. Since then, we've just been prisoners of the fish thing, subjects for its tests. More recently, the skum have been bringing new prisoners here."

Kaimana nods and looks to the other two as well.

"What Armin said," Jaram says, a bit stiffly, while Celia just nods.

"What can you tell us about the fish thing and its tests?" Aisha asks.

"I don’t know what it is, but it’s bigger than any shark I’ve seen. It has three glowing eyes on its ugly head and lots of sinuous tentacles growing from its body. I could swear I heard its minions call it Onthooth, once." Armin answers. "As for the tests, it takes you into that room over there, and does experiments on you with a machine. If you're lucky, you survive unchanged. If you aren't..." Armind shudders. "Well, you fought them outside."

As Armin describes the fish-thing, Amissa's eyes widen. Once she's done, Amissa looks at the others in the group. "That's an aboleth," Amissa says quietly. "She just described an aboleth. Oh, gods, that explains... so much." She shudders, and wraps her arms around her belly. "We're going up against something that thinks that gods are beneath it, whose people used to rule the majority of the world, and who could easily dominate the minds of several people at once. And we don't have a choice of whether or not to fight it. If we run, we're dooming the colonists. There's only one option."

Aisha lays a hand on Amissa's shoulder and lowers her voice. "Amissa, don't worry. When we fight it, it won't be able to touch our minds. I have magic that can protect us all from mental control."

Jax pauses, concern clearly written on his avian features. After a moment, he responds, "Okay. So, what else do we know about this...aboleth? Any weaknesses? And, for that matter, does that tell us how to help the colonists that were experimented on?"

Amissa nods slowly at Aisha, but then shakes her head. "That's good, but that's not the biggest issue. Aboleths have a wide host of innate spellcasting abilities, primarily focused on illusion and domination, and have a cloud of mucus that makes it so that you can only breathe water. On top of that, their physical attacks can alter your skin so that you dry out absurdly quickly, meaning that you have to be in near-constant contact with water. The real issue, however..." She stares at the ground. "The real issue is that a lone aboleth is, almost certainly, a forward scout for a much larger city."

After a moment's pause, both Celia and Jaram begin convulsing, vomiting copious amounts of black bile, and making loud gurgling noises. Armin shrieks, and moves as far away from the pair as she can.

The party watches nervously, casting spells and readying attacks as the pair seize up, going stiff. A mass of tentacles suddenly erupts from their abdomens, which lash out at Jax. Jax manages to avoid the first attack, but as he steps in to deliver a bite, one of them manages to rake his skin with the spiny tentacles, leaving behind wounds that ooze blood. Aisha heals him, as Kaimana moves in to strike, one of them only finding an illusory double. Amissa's magic missles follow after Kaimana's blade, pummelling the abhominal. Jax strikes again, though his target manages to evade his first two attempts, but still catches his claws and a talon, leaving it severely weakened. Despite this, it manages to latch onto Kaimana, severely wounding the bloodrager with its barbed tentacles. Amissa blasts the one grappling Kaimana away with her magic missles, and Aisha heals the bloodrager, before he delivers the killing blow to the other tentacle creature.

Aisha turns to Armin as soon as she's able to speak again. "Listen, I don't understand what just happened, but you seem different from them, I'm sure you'll be fine. We'll get you out of here as soon as we can."

Armin nods stiffly, looking uneasily at the remains of what the two used to be. "I thought that something horrible had happened to them. That they weren't what they seemed to be. I didn't want to say anything while they were near, though."

"Abhominals." Amissa takes a deep breath. "Undead creatures created when aboleth experiments go wrong and the subject perishes. Could be more in the next room, if unlucky."

"We should probably see what else is going on," Kaimana comments. After a second of consideration, he tosses the two bodies outside the force field.

((Placeholder: found experimentation room, went down hallway, pulled lever, nothing happened, went back to experimentation room))

As Amissa approaches the machine, suddenly, the text on the pin panel goes flat, and a humanlike face emerges from it. A harsh, metallic voice and a soft, friendly voice speak in unison, spreading through the water. The lips on the face move, but the voice isn’t completely synchronized with the movement. “Welcome. I was expecting you. There is much to talk about.”

Amissa blinks. "Huh. That was... unexpected. Who am I speaking with?"

"The analytical engine," the machine answers. "What brings you to me, and where are you from?"

"We're from a colony established on Ancorato. Some of our colonists were kidnapped and brought to this location, and they're being experimented on by the aboleth residing here. Our current goal is to eliminate the aboleth and rescue our colonists," Amissa says.