"Hiss—"
Anser sucked in a sharp breath. It wasn't that he didn't recognize mind flayer tadpoles. The sheer scale of the place and the sight before him were simply unsettling.
He had previously seized two Brain Fluid Jars, each capable of holding at most ten mind flayer larvae, and even those were Rare-quality items. That alone showed how uncommon these things were.
Yet the Rock of Bral actually had a bargain-bin "brain pool" hidden inside it!
There was no way something like this had been established overnight. The mind flayers' infiltration of Bral might have begun a long time ago.
Anser suddenly remembered the previous mind flayer incident. That had been an accident, but the mind flayers' behavior at the time now seemed suspiciously like deliberate misdirection.
What had appeared perfectly logical might actually have been intended to steer everyone in the wrong direction and provide cover for something else.
And how had the Githzerai discovered the mind flayers in the first place?
They had searched the entire city, intending to find and eliminate every mind flayer, only for Bral's royal family to forcibly drive them out!
'Maybe the mind flayers were pulling strings behind the scenes.'
The face of the mind flayer from earlier surfaced in Anser's mind, and he frowned.
'That mind flayer definitely wasn't ordinary. Could he be the Underbaron—the Unknowable One?'
The other party had probably been gambling as well, betting that Anser wouldn't discover this place. That was why, even after knowing Anser was coming, he hadn't fled immediately.
But the moment he saw Anser, he had left without the slightest hesitation.
That mind flayer possessed the ability to become ethereal, and he could activate it extremely quickly. If he was determined to escape, keeping him there really wouldn't have been easy.
After observing for a moment, Anser turned his attention to the surrounding cells.
Every cell held more than one person, over two hundred in total—and that wasn't even counting the mutilated corpses in the corners, stripped of their brains and flesh.
'They're... eating people!'
He frowned slightly. Purple spiritual light filled his vision. Most of the prisoners were symbiotes, while a small number had been parasitized and would transform into mind flayers within a few days.
The "prisoners" who had accepted symbiosis were generally well dressed. There were Professionals among them, as well as genuine prisoners.
Their eyes were filled with fear and unease, and they trembled nervously, yet their minds were clearly lucid. They obviously knew what they were doing.
At that moment, Anser received a Sending from Evan. After explaining the situation, he told them to search elsewhere first.
He walked up to one of the cells, his cold gaze sweeping over several middle-aged spellcasters in robes.
"What did the mind flayers do to you? Did you agree to this willingly?"
No one answered. The underground prison was unnaturally quiet, the air heavy and oppressive.
After a long while, one middle-aged man sighed and said dejectedly, "Are you going to kill us?"
"That depends on whether you can still be saved." Anser's answer carried a double meaning.
If their symbiosis could be undone, and if they themselves had been brainwashed or coerced, then they still had a chance to live.
The die slowly turned, bringing up the target's information:
[Mind Flayer Symbiote, Human, Level 4 Wizard (School of Enchantment)]
"I recognize you." The middle-aged Wizard stepped forward, emerging from the crowd. "They tempted me. I... wanted psionic power."
"You wouldn't understand. Living without being able to cast spells is unbearable. A lot of my friends couldn't accept it either, but none of them ended well..."
The greatest problem caused by the disruption of the Weave wasn't the success rate of spellcasting, but the magical backlash caused by the unstable magical environment.
The harder someone tried, the faster they died.
Anser's mentor, Fabian, had died in the first wave of magical backlash.
When hard work accomplished nothing and talent alone wasn't enough to keep exploring a path forward, anyone could break under the strain.
Spellcasters who had once stood above ordinary people didn't even have the luxury of simply giving up. They could only swallow their pride and make a living doing work they would once have looked down upon.
If, at a time like this, a highly respected old Wizard told them that he had a safe and reliable way for them to acquire psionic power—and even allowed them to personally verify the results—almost no one could resist the temptation.
Once a mind flayer tadpole entered the brain, there was no longer any room for regret.
After getting past their initial fear, they discovered that they truly had gained psionic power. They hadn't been parasitized, and their minds were still their own. That, in turn, gave them an initial measure of trust in the mind flayers.
After receiving even more benefits, their resistance gradually faded.
Anser knew there had to be subtle psychic suggestions and manipulation involved. These people simply couldn't perceive them—or pretended not to.
'Symbiosis and psionic power... This is probably an extraordinary form of trade and control!'
If parasitism was a deadly poison, then symbiosis was slow poisoning—but the bait was nearly impossible to resist.
Anser remembered an old incident.
More than two hundred years ago, a similar mind-control conspiracy had occurred in Baldur's Gate.
The Chosen of the Dead Three had discovered a dormant elder brain beneath Moonrise Towers and enslaved it with the Crown of Karsus, turning it into their puppet.
They then attempted to conquer all of Faerûn through mind flayer tadpole parasitism and psychic control.
Back then, being parasitized by a mind flayer tadpole likewise didn't trigger an immediate transformation, because the primary objective was control rather than reproduction.
But now, these "symbiotes" were clearly far more discreet and far simpler to create, making the whole process much easier to implement.
There was no need for the Crown of Karsus or even the involvement of an elder brain. A handful of mind flayers could get the process started.
But this method also had two drawbacks.
The first was weak control.
These mind flayer tadpoles had all been altered so they wouldn't trigger a transformation, but that also meant other mind flayers couldn't directly control them. They could only sense them, communicate with them, or kill them outright.
Only an elder brain could directly control the symbiotes.
The second drawback was time.
From the moment the tadpole entered the body until psionic power awakened, the process required at least 2d6 (2–12) days. During that period, they needed to conceal themselves as much as possible to prevent others from noticing their highly unstable condition and psionic fluctuations.
Anser told the well-traveled Sakkors about the symbiotes.
Sakkors immediately became intensely interested and urged Anser to bring the hatching pool, the symbiotes, and the parasitized subjects back with him.
Anser had been planning to do exactly that. If the research went nowhere, he could just kill them all. Letting them go certainly wasn't an option—that would be idiotic.
He swept his gaze around the area and found a staircase leading upward in one corner. It appeared to have been sealed for a long time, with obvious traces of magic.
He cast Mold Earth and gradually restored the staircase.
The stairs twisted upward before emerging through the innermost cell of the prison above. The entrance was extremely well hidden.
'It doesn't look newly excavated. I wonder why it was sealed off. Even Froidin didn't know about it.'
"What did you find down there?" Stoll appeared at the cell door like a gust of wind.
Evan, Delira, Kristin, and several others gathered around as well.
They had just finished searching the fortress inside and out without finding anything else unusual.
"There's a mind flayer down there, along with a hatching pool..." Anser didn't conceal anything and led everyone back into the underground prison.
None of them had ever seen anything like it. At first, they crouched beside the hatching pool and observed it with great interest. Stoll even wanted to reach in and grab a tadpole for a closer look.
But as Anser gradually explained the process of parasitism and transformation, along with the conspiracies of the past, everyone's hair stood on end. They backed away several steps, suddenly treating the brain pool like something venomous.
Evan and Kristin reacted the most strongly. They immediately wanted to destroy the hatching pool, and the looks they gave the symbiotes were equally murderous.
Anser hurriedly stopped them, then locked the hatching pool, the symbiotes, and the parasitized subjects inside the Black Tower's prison.
Evan and the others didn't ask questions or dwell on it. They had known Anser long enough to understand that he wasn't some indiscriminately merciful do-gooder. He knew where to draw the line.
Anser had originally prepared a whole pile of explanations, but since no one asked, he couldn't be bothered to give them.
With the lair dealt with, everyone split up. While True Seeing was still active, they continued sweeping the entire city, doing their best not to let a single symbiote slip through.
These people posed an even greater danger than the mind flayers themselves. There was no telling when one of them might become a disaster waiting to happen.
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