Chapter 271 Life Support Cabin
Master's power comes from learning, and the greatest motivation for learning is curiosity.
They will not let go of anything that interests them, and this curiosity will cause a lot of trouble.
Aldee is no exception.
The psychic core of the shell ship is right in front of you. If you don't let it collect it, wouldn't it be a waste of time?
After losing power, I clearly felt that the surrounding air began to become as cold as the outside of a shell ship. The crystal that was originally very bright and well-lit began to become darker and darker, and gradually became darker and darker. Emergency lights that automatically turn on during a power outage are almost the same.
This shows that the spiral shell ship is currently operating at a low power level and is using the only remaining backup energy source.
At the same time, it also means that if there is an illithid on the shell ship, it must be aware of the fact that someone is invading.
But as mentioned before, Aldai is not an illithid at all. As for whether other people will be scared to pee when they see an illithid's octopus head, that is not within her scope of consideration.
After all, we are not familiar with each other, it is just a simple relationship between boss and employee. Do I still need to pay attention to your mental health?
The three people who were kept in the dark obviously didn't know this. Their expressions were a little regretful, maybe because they hadn't seen the gold coins and gems yet.
Everyone left the engine room and walked up the chitin stairs again, returning to the intersection they went down to before and continuing upward.
As expected, continuing up the stairs soon led to a particularly empty room with a good view.
It's an elevated chamber with a dome, suspended from the dome is a complex apparatus composed of tissue that looks like a luminous jellyfish, whose curled luminous tentacles create a twinkling star map.
Below there is a high-backed chair with short armrests, inlaid with some sparkling blue crystal balls. The crystal balls are tilted towards the star map, as if attracting people to manipulate it.
This is the bridge of the shell ship, controlling the core area of the entire shell ship.
Directly in front of the chair is a floor-to-ceiling window composed of transparent valves. Here you can see the scenery outside the shell ship, but it is not snowy.
The snowy field I saw before was an illusion, but if you look out through the window of the shell ship, you will see a large area of bare dark rocks, as if they are in a huge cavity underground.
And if you get closer, you will find that there is a bottomless abyss not far in front of the conch-shell ship. The conch-shell ship has made an emergency landing on the edge of the abyss and almost fell into it.
After noticing this, Derger's legs immediately softened and he hurriedly moved away from the window calmly.
Dwarves all have one characteristic, that is, they are afraid of heights. The height of a horse is enough to scare them away from moving, let alone such a bottomless place.
"We are lucky. If we accidentally stepped on the air and fell into the abyss just now under the cover of the illusion, we would really be hopeless."
Aldai's words made everyone look happy. At least luck was on their side, at least so far.
On the starboard wall, there is an open panel, revealing a fleshy tentacle embedded with crystal fragments, and some patterns that look like words are etched on the flat part below.
This piqued O'Day's interest.
"Do you understand illithid writing? What does it say?"
"I can barely understand it. It says that the ship was attacked by a red dragon. The coordinates were entered incorrectly during the emergency jump, causing the hull to be in direct contact with the ground and destroyed."
This part is consistent with Aldai's guess, but the following content is a bit exciting for the other three.
"There were a total of four crew members on board, three of whom died and one was seriously injured when the shell ship crashed."
Aldai turned around and pointed to the stairs leading to the upper part behind the bridge:
"Those who were seriously injured left a record and looked forward to the arrival of rescue. They returned to the captain's room and used the life support device to hibernate temporarily."
"Could it be that..."
"Yes, it may still be alive now."
"."
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The terrifying legend of the illithid has almost become a story used by adults to scare children. Many people have childhood shadows about this. Even though they know that the illithid may be seriously injured, the octopus face alone is enough. Awakening the psychological shadow.
But it’s not enough if we don’t go up.
Aldai pulled the plug on the shell ship, and the life support device would soon fail, thus awakening the hibernating illithid. The few of them did not want to be chased by the octopus head.
Therefore, weighing the pros and cons, the most appropriate operation is to strike first before the illithid has fully awakened. So a few people immediately climbed up the chitin stairs, came to the door of the captain's room and looked inside.
The domed chamber is filled with clutter, many of which are piled on a workbench with legs only half a meter high. Behind the workbench is a crystal ball as big as a human head, mounted on a low stand.
Five strange, glowing baubles are affixed to a chitinous wall seven feet above the ground. These devices look like the tips of metal wands held in a pair of pliers.
Apart from this, the most obvious thing is the ‘coffin’ placed directly in front of the gate.
It was an oval, capsule-like thing, with the bottom made of flesh and chitin, and the upper part made of a dark red translucent lid, and a rotating structure could be seen at one end of the lid.
This is the life support device.
Because the cover is dark red and translucent, under the dim light only a human-shaped shadow nearly two meters tall can be seen, and the long tentacles on its face are vaguely visible.
The rogue Nemea, who was used as a scout, was about to poke his head in to take a closer look, but was immediately stopped by Aldai's staff.
"There's a trap here, get ready to fight."
Aldai only explained this sentence, and then whispered a spell.
As the spell progressed, everyone saw the large and small crystal balls in the room burst and exploded one after another, and screamed like living creatures. It was not until the last crystal ball exploded that Aldai signaled to everyone You can go in.
Compared with other things in the room, what everyone paid most attention to was the illithid lying in the life-support device. Everyone drew their weapons and cautiously approached the capsule-like device.
Because he stayed here for too long, the outer shell of the capsule-like device was covered with a layer of dust. Nemea looked back at the others and saw that they were clenching their weapons and ready to fight at any time. Nemea went up and used his hands Wipe off the dust.
As a result, with a flick of his hand, under the dark red translucent shell, the originally unresponsive octopus head suddenly opened its amber eyes, causing Neemia to scream in fright.
"Quick! Press the hatch cover!"
All of the illithid's creations can be controlled with psionics, that is, telepathy.
The hatch of the life-support device opened upwards at the command of the illithid. Several people standing next to the hatch quickly got down on it to prevent the hatch from opening.
At this time, the dwarf Derger, who was the heaviest and most powerful player with the ballast cover, felt as if a bomb had exploded in his head, making him dizzy and his consciousness went blank.
Others saw Derger suddenly let go of his hand and kneel down towards the position of the life-support module.
"He is mind controlled!"
The frighteningness of illithids is not only their appearance, but also their ability to control other creatures through their psychic abilities.
This illithid may have just woken up, and its psychic abilities have not yet been restored. It just asked Draeger to kneel on the ground and stay out of the way.
However, the physical strength of the illithid is not weak, and the recovery speed of the awakened illithid is much faster than everyone expected.
Without Derger's suppression, Nemea and the halfling priest Perrin alone could not suppress it at all, and the illithid was about to climb out of the life-support cabin.
At this time, Aldee rushed to the hatch cover, raised the staff as if riding on it, and smashed the head of the staff with a huge blue orb inlaid on the head of the illithid.
Then there was a thunderous bang, and Nemea and Perrin, who were pressing the hatch cover, had to let go and cover their ears. The terrible sound reverberated farther away like a shock wave.
However, the illithid trying to push up the hatch lid rolled its eyes, purple-black blood seeped out of its eyes and skin, and there was no more movement.
"What happened just now? I feel as if someone has grabbed my brain."
Draeger stood up and pressed his temples. When he saw Nemea and Palin covering their ears, he still didn't understand the situation.
"It's okay, the illithid is dead."
Aldai turned over and jumped off the life-support capsule, but before everyone could breathe a sigh of relief, they saw a pile of black, liquid-like things appearing at the door.
These liquids flew out like sprays from the wall near the door. They were thick and seemed to be gathered together consciously. In the blink of an eye, they turned into three black viscous objects in the shape of illithids.
"It's liquefied consciousness. I didn't expect the illithid to hide such a trap."
It's a little bit tricky...
(End of chapter)