Like a tunnel that you follow to a tunnel of its own

Down a hollow to a cavern where the sun has never shone

Like a door that keeps revolving in a half forgotten dream
Or the ripples from a pebble someone tosses in a stream 

- The Windmills of Your Mind

The Command Team stepped through the teleportation portal. Okkallappa was true to its word. The portal key they provided took the heroes to the receiving office of Manzessine Prison. An illithid administrator was momentarily surprised. The two flesh golems were not. After a brief delay, the party made short work of the front office. As they explored the psychic administration system using an artifact Khalid acquired on Mezsoul, two Illithid inquisitors came through the portal. The team activated a psionic barrier and then Hazel walled the surviving Illithid in. Khalid found Jormus Goss and records for Okkallappa prisoners, and many more being held besides, including goblins. Fortuna, meanwhile, found a mycelium network connected to the administration system and disintegrated it with her magic, intending to cause as much damage and chaos as possible throughout the prison. This disrupted Khlaid's access to the prison admin system. The group moved deeper into the prison through a chamber of frescoes occupied by four flesh golems. Beyond that, they traversed a winding hallway within a spinning tunnel, filled with traps and the dusty remains of disintegrated shrieker fungus. One of several doors they found at a junction led to a cavernous room filled with unspeakable misery and Illithid brain feeding stations. Hazel healed the 93 surviving, emaciated ratfolk and amongst them, the group found one who still had some will of his own: am adolescent named Whelk. The group musters to move on when an unexplored set of doors opens and three Illithid sentinels burst through. tasting of panic and urgency. 

1. To the Illithid, there is no greater crime than treachery to their own race.

2. “VITIAM” (essentially, “crime” or “pathology”) only exists between Illithids. It must be studied systematically to be understood and bred out of the race. VITIAM cannot morally exist between an Illithid and any other race, as such, they can do whatever they want to the Lesser Races.

3. Mezzensine exists in large part for understanding VITIAM. It is the second of the Three Pillars of Mezzensine, which are: PUNIRE, INTELLIGE, CONTINE. That is PUNISH the lesser races (because death is too kind for some), UNDERSTAND vitiam between Illithid, and CONTAIN threats to Illithid civilization and the Spheres.

4. Administration at Mezzensine is broken down between SENTINELS, SPECIALISTS and the WARDEN (who is both). The Sentinels, are effectively the Illithid bred to be prison guards and administrators and rotate in through the portal for a long cycle (a month); Specialists rotate in for a short cycle (a week) or less, depending. The Warden never leaves.

5. The Specialists are eithers DISCOMFORTERS (torturers), DISCOVERERS (the scientists) and SENESCHAL. The Seneschal is the name for what amounts to the Illithid’s multi-faceted and complex Secret Service. There are many types of Seneschal.

6. There is no Elder Brain on Mezzensine, which is unusual for an independent planetoid. However, the Warden is rumoured to be an Illithid of terrifying power. He is best avoided.

7. Illithids believe they are the Only True Gardeners. As horrifying as their methods might be, Shroktath can confirm, that they have the blood to back their belief. They have a complex mythology of their ancient rebellion against the Inbetween Men.

8. The Illithid DESPISE all other races, whom they deem lesser (LUMINARE) or Above Lesser (SUPRALUMINARE), but they do not fear them. They FEAR the Inbetween Men (whom they call fathers or PATRES), but do not despise them. They FEAR & DESPISE the Ylfe (whom they call brothers or FRATRES), who shattered the Sphere and worship the One. They do not know enough about the Psulron to fear them or despise them, but know enough to avoid them. They seem to have an uneasy truce.

9. The Illithid did indeed try to destroy the sun (now called The Twain Heart) and in so doing, divided in two. They still harbour fantasies about drawing on its energy to empower their schemes…  including to simply destroy its energy, but they are not Of a Single Mind on the subject. Crushing Okkallappa is key to moving the Illithid to a “single mind”. When they were last Of a Single Mind, they tapped the Heart (the sun) to unleash its power against the Ylfe, with whom they were then at war (The Nyn'Ylfen War). The Ylfe countered with their own weapon, and between them, they shattered the Sphere Maglulon. According to many, this event also “cracked” the Final Sphere and allowed the One to begin to seep in as never before.

10. Illithid were once allied to the Goblins of Maglulon. This is part of what led to the Ylfe to pursue the Goblin genocide.

The portal shimmers behind you before fading to darkness.

Mezzennssine Prison is buried in the heart of a nameless asteroid. It is a place of unimaginable torments. The most brutal villains of Wildspace blanch at the sound of its name. You are standing at the front desk.

Literally.

An Illithid secretary looks up from a circular desk with a scrying machine at its center. It looks vaguely like Khalid’s district mapper. There are three physical levers next to this. Its tentacles quiver in irritation as they drop a gypsum chip (which serves as the “paper” of the Illithid’s psychic bureaucracy).  It clatters on the desk, and its emotions taste officious - as if to say, “There are no appointments scheduled for this cycle!”

The physical door to its right glows with a suppressor field similar to those used to block travel between the districts of Mezsoul.

His surprise is best reflected in the fact that the two flesh golems to its left  react first.

Beyond the portal chamber is a chamber of worked stone, with a ramp leading downward. Elegant frescoes made of tiny tiles cover the walls depicting illithid criminals being studied, and lesser races being heroically tortured, bravely devoured and righteously crushed, in body and mind. 

Four flesh golems cobbled together from parts of ratfolk and former prisoners turn to look at you as you enter the gauntlet between them.

Beyond the hall of frescoes is a tunnel within a tunnel. The tunnel you traverse is static while another spins around you. The passageway itself twists and turns. Everything is sloped, although it is difficult to tell if you are moving up or down. 

This chamber is a horror movie.

There are too many Ratfolk in this stone chamber (93, all told, alive). Many are dead. Many wish they were. Many more cannot tell the difference. The smell of death and rot and fear and despair is overwhelming. This is a nightmare place. Filled with emaciated ghosts. 

There is something of an antechamber beyond the larder door, separated from the larger cave by an elaborate metal fence. Ratfolk are packed in, pressing up against the grating. A metal contraption allows pincers to seize one and draw them into a sort of dispenser head first, at the pull of a lever. Two Illithid may feed at once while other Ratfolk watch their companions.

You can see where feeding slop falls from a hole in the ceiling at the centre of the chamber. Many of the Ratfolk are crusted with the same yellowish substance that rims the outlet. The source of it is not at all clear.

A large locked metal gate stands between the two brain extraction stations. Offered their freedom, the Ratfolk cannot believe that this is not another cruel Illihid illusion. Others believe they must stay. They have been raised to be labour and food, after all. Besides the darkness, it is all they have ever known.

After our struggle, we arrived on the other side of the portal to find… bureaucracy? An illithid quill cruncher flanked by a couple of flesh golems as guards. Following a brief, startled pause we broke the frozen meeting with speedy slaughter.

I think we managed to stop the alarm from being raised. Well, within the prison. The arrival of a couple of mind flayer inquisitors a few minutes later reminded us all that outside the prison the mind flayers were very much aware and alarmed by our presence. Not that either helped these two very much. We savagely put them down as soon as they attempted to bring down the psionic barrier separating the portal from the room. Then Hazel used his divine magics to encase the portal in stone, making future visits from the illithid a lot tougher. 

We ransacked the desk and the corpse of the mind flayer official, and came up with some psionic devices, adding to our haul from Meszoul. One of these allowed us to see into the room beyond the next door where more flesh golems and a strange network of fungi hanging above them. We guessed this was some sort of communication network for the prison, and Fortuna took the bold step of infusing the network with a powerful disintegrating magic. What impact this would have, what reaction it might cause… we would have to see.

We took down the flesh golems and made our way into a curving hallway. (Memories came back of the bowels of Brahl, and the creepy, ancient tunnels there. If my body still could, I would have shuddered) We made our way past some magical traps left for the unwary, and came upon two storage chambers. One held a variety of implements, the other held “live food” in the form of roughly a hundred terrified ratfolk. You didn’t have to be a telepath to sense the (understandable) reaction coming from Hazel, who served out a heaping helping of his healing magics to the pack. 

As Hazel and Khalid talked with the pack, I let my thoughts wander. Plunging into the deepest reaches of an illithid prison was about as far from safe as I’d experienced in my time in the spheres, but this scene made it undeniably clear the worth of our dangerous mission. Such great evil, committed casually and with such arrogance. A part of me wanted to kill every single mind flayer in existence. But I knew - that would make me no better than the Ylfe. It would make me a false gardener. And, weirdly, something more - these illithid were actually my brethren. I knew it clear as I knew anything. The mind flayers were gardeners gone horribly wrong - imprisoned not in Mezzensine but by an evil, oppressive group think. They needed to be given a chance to purge themselves of this sickness. Freeing the Okkallappa prisoner [Gurvon Yoth] [Jormund Goss - DM], I hoped, might give the mind flayers a path, through disagreement and the happy messiness of chaotic life, back to a better place in the garden of the architects.

But after seeing the ratfolk, I had to fight hard against the part of me that just wanted to kill every single one of them.

Finally, my companions decided to move to and through the portal. Hopefully the extra loot they gambled on getting would prove worth the foolish risk. Leaving the city of Mass Chains felt like leaving a prison and arriving at the prison felt more like freedom. The prison was tangible and obvious. It’s purpose clear and without a hidden nature and we had our full faculties again. This would be the place I would love to tease out all of its secrets.

These new versions of my companions never cease to confuse and surprise me. I think I have been really making an effort to have some self-restraint when it comes to killing and all that stuff. They have taught me some valuable lessons, and I try to avoid being too hasty. So, when we arrive at the front desk of the prison I think to myself. Kill the Illithid clerk with fire, disintegration or possibly a pointing sword while disabling the golems and then once the room is secure look at the exciting levels and such. Ready for action, I look at my companions to see if they are on the same page mentally. They are not. They choose to try to trick the genius squid-brain and its mechanical guards. To me this seems difficult but might prove more useful than my obvious approach. After an initial awkward social moment with the prison administrator, things start to look like they might work. Who would have guessed… and then the fighting breaks out, the squid is squashed, and the golems are goners. Did they just mean to give the Illithid a false sense of security before killing it? Isn’t that cruel?

Well, the new plan was best as old wrinkly face Chief Inquisitor Thundar-Ka followed us through the portal with a squid-buddy of his. [DM - Tundar Ka was killed in Episode 37. These were two different Inquisitors. They have some questions for you.] Talking about cruel: Hazel entombed it in an evil suffocating wall of stone (with its dead buddy) AND blocked any others from using the portal to save them. Hazel must take pleasure from slow deaths.

And of course, I couldn’t help myself from ripping open the control panel and seeing the cool alien technology. Others played with the leavers. What I found inside was very complex and it took me several seconds to figure out. There was a genetically engineered mycelium fungal network linked to psychic controls with crystals as capacitors whose purpose could only be to store and transmit resources and knowledge…. Interfaced to fungal shrieker alarms spread across the prison system and biological storm doors and….

I was interrupted by the beeping of the district mapper. Khalid had outsmarted me and already   interfaced the district mapper with the console and gained access to the document archives. What’s in the prison, what’s in the prison????

Blah-Blah-Blah, INBETWEEN MEN, Blah-Blah-Blah, GOBLINS!!!, Blah-Blah-Blah bad Ilithids and such…B-I-N-G-O. Of course, our target is at the lowest, most secure level. Well at least we shouldn’t miss anything interesting on the way down. Back to the network. What if I could overload it or worse? Mycelium is both a multitude and singularity, that could prove interesting with slight arcane modifications to spells. I wonder what a modified disintegration would do to the network. I could do the calculation or talk to the group about it…. OR JUST CAST IT AND FIND OUT!!!!!

(One modified disintegration later with questionable results we were on the move again).

We fought more security fleshies in the next chamber and I almost got killed. Deeper into the prison system we found traps at every intersection and chokepoint. At least the shrieker alarms were all fried.

Often when making quick decisions, it can be rather difficult to be bound to morality, and it was apparent that Illithids don’t have that intellectual burden. We found the first prisoners. To our horror, a chamber of rat folk was found, the entrance food dispenser popping out rat folk on command. We freed them, healed them and tried to make whole their despaired minds. Is my love for Illithid gourmet equally cruel? (Nope)

We can’t forget our goal here. Save the Okkalappa prisoners so the Illithid can ween themselves of brains and onto stories. Not unlike how becoming vegan is great for the environment.

….. and then there were four. (An Illithid patrol comes upon us).