Aozaki Aoko [538-540] (Patreon)

Chapter 538: Traces of Dzaan

"Wow, magical potions stored for hundreds or even thousands of years, amazing!" Edgin said sarcastically. "But they're not labeled. Does anyone know what they do?"

"They still retain their effects," Aoko said as she stared intently at the unlabeled potions using her arcane sight. "I have no idea how their maker managed that, but..."

As Aoko pondered how to identify the types of these potions, Simon picked up one of the bottles, twisted off the cap, brought it near his nose, and fanned the air with his hand to catch the scent.

"This one should be a fire resistance potion," Simon said confidently. "And it's pretty potent!"

"You have a talent for this?" Holga looked at Simon in surprise. She'd known him for a long time, but this was her first time hearing about it.

"Didn't I mention before? I'm a half-human, with elf blood," Simon explained, screwing the fire resistance potion's cap back on and picking up another bottle. "My sense of smell is sensitive to certain magical effects, especially alchemical potions. If I've smelled one before, I can recognize it again."

"Excellent! What about the rest of these potions?" Edgin rubbed his hands together. Whatever the goal, a successful find on an adventure is always exciting.

"This one is probably a cold resistance potion... you can drink it when fighting frost giants," Simon continued, picking up a third bottle. "And this one, it's acid resistance—I’ve had it before."

"What about that last one?" Doric looked at the bottle filled with colorless liquid.

"Uh... this one's a scent I haven’t encountered," Simon frowned, "but if it’s similar to the other three, I’d say it’s a force resistance potion?"

"I agree with your guess, Simon," Aoko said. "From the magical aura, this one does have traits of a force spell. Even if it’s not force resistance, it’s probably something like mage armor."

"Well, sounds like a good haul. Is there anything else worth taking from this alchemy lab?" Edgin asked.

"Everything else is destroyed..." Aoko said after another careful look around. "Did you guys find anything else?"

"There's an alchemy book here!" Simon pulled a book from the cabinet debris and showed it to the others. "But it's too badly damaged..."

"Not worth repairing at all," Aoko said, flipping through the nearly falling-apart book, disappointed. "The key parts are all rotted away. Looks like there’s nothing else of value here—let’s check the second floor."

They returned to the main hall, cast feather fall, and jumped through the round hole from the first floor down to the second.

The layout of the second floor was different. They landed in a large room resembling the first-floor library. Not far away, a round hole in the floor led to the third basement level.

"The layout doesn’t match up..." Aoko muttered, thinking. "So each floor of this wizard tower is offset underground?"

"Probably a bit," Edgin said, surveying the area. "As long as it doesn't hinder our exploration."

"Looks like some kind of laboratory?" Simon looked at the scattered cages and observed carefully. "These bones aren’t human."

"That's not bone," Aoko said after a closer look. "It's some kind of hardened chitinous shell... Were these humanoids insects?"

"Those are remains of Thri-kreen!" Doric declared. "They’re loners from deserts and grasslands, can use psionics. I met a Thri-kreen ranger before—very peaceful guy."

"Netheril Empire was extremely human supremacist," Aoko commented. "Netherese arcanists caught and dissected non-human species everywhere, which ruined their reputation in the Astral Plane. So it’s not odd to find a Thri-kreen here. Let's look around, maybe there's remains of other species."

Aoko was right. Besides the Thri-kreen, they even found a githyanki skeleton. It seemed the Netheril Empire was like a pack of mad dogs, wanting to bite any unfamiliar race they saw.

"There are two rooms here. Let's search them one by one," Aoko said, shaking her staff. The ring at the tip clinked as she used a knock spell to open the door.

In the center of the room was a table flipped face down, surrounded by scattered books. At the top of the far wall was an upside-down fireplace, and there was a window on another wall, showing a view of nothing but rock and earth outside.

"These books look like they’ve been disturbed recently," Simon squatted to check. "Look, there are handprints in the dust."

"Probably Dzaan or the adventurers he hired," Aoko mused. "But why didn't they take the first-floor library books? We didn't see any sign of adventurers there."

"Maybe their way in was different from ours?" Edgin guessed. "Maybe they never even reached the first floor?"

"We’ll find out as we keep exploring... Is there anything valuable here?" Aoko picked up two books that still glowed with magical aura, hidden under other rotted books.

She flipped through them. The first was a magic textbook titled "Agama's Guide to Illusions," recording simple illusion techniques. Useless to Aoko, but interesting as it was written from a Netherese arcanist’s perspective.

The second book was more twisted: "Unfettered Thought," which discussed how to keep a human brain alive outside its body, including many experiment records—like putting brains in jars.

This guy would get along well with Araya Souren, Aoko thought calmly.

"There's a body here!" Doric suddenly called from a corner. "Looks like a wizard apprentice."

Chapter 539: Did His Brain Really Grow Legs and Run Off?

They entered a small room next to the lab. A skeleton curled up on the floor, its posture showing it died in great pain.

Aoko knelt down, summoned a mage hand, and began searching the corpse, checking various details.

First, the robe was clearly that of a wizard apprentice—same style from Netheril times to the current Arcane District in Neverwinter, a tradition passed down.

Second, on the right index finger was a ring with a strange emblem. Aoko tried to remove it, but couldn’t, so she snapped the finger bone and used an adamantine dagger to shatter it, freeing the ring.

"Hey, Aoko, aren’t you a part-time cleric? Isn’t this a bit much..." Edgin couldn’t take it, and tried to stop her.

"What’s with you?" Aoko looked at Edgin in surprise. "I'm not a cleric of Lathander. Besides, last time we robbed a grave, you weren’t this squeamish!"

"Well, I’m not a cleric... never mind, if you don’t care, I won’t," Edgin said, frustrated. "So, is there anything special about the ring?"

"I see some magical auras on it," Aoko said, studying it closely. "So I think it might be a key or some kind of credential for this tower, so it’s best to take it."

"Why did he die here?" Simon asked, glancing at the skeleton and the room.

"At first I thought he was trying to reach another level via a blocked staircase," Aoko said, using mage hand to turn over the skull and reveal the back. "But I think the real reason is this."

The back of the apprentice's skull had a large hole, which was hard to see from the front.

"Was he ambushed and had his head smashed in?" Holga, the melee expert, frowned at the hole.

"I think the answer is more magical," Aoko summoned a light orb to illuminate the hole. "Look, there are no bone fragments inside. If someone smashed his head, there would be fragments inside the brain. But it's empty."

"So his brain grew legs and ran off?" Doric asked, puzzled.

"Who knows? Look here," Aoko opened the book from the lab, showing the page about brains in jars. "One of the apprentice's research topics was keeping brains alive outside the body—he did a lot of experiments."

"So he... became the test subject?" Simon guessed.

"Possibly," Aoko nodded. "He was just an apprentice, maybe his teacher used him as material. The Red Wizards of Thay do that all the time."

"But there’s another possibility," Aoko paused. "Remember those little cuties we met in the Underdark?"

"You don't mean intellect devourers?" Edkin said, frowning. "But aren't those aberrations? What do they have to do with apprentice brains?"

"Heh, actually, there’s a big connection," Aoko gave Edgin a meaningful look and smiled. "Intellect devourers are created by a unique illithid technique."

"Illithids perform a complex psychic ritual using victims as sacrifices," Aoko continued. "After the ritual, the victim’s brain hatches, becoming an independent free brain—an intellect devourer."

"Stop... just thinking about a brain jumping out makes me sick," Edgin gagged. "So, you think the master of this tower is an illithid mage? Like Omeluum?"

"No, I didn’t say that," Aoko shook her head. "But the tower’s master might have learned how to make intellect devourers. Netherese arcanists did all sorts of forbidden things—even stealing illithid techniques from the Astral Plane."

"How long do intellect devourers live?" Edgin asked.

"I saw a record in the Neverwinter library," Aoko replied. "Ordinary intellect devourers live as long as illithids, about 125 years. But if they eat enough high-intelligence brains, they can evolve into devourer gourmands, much larger and longer-lived than normal. No one knows how long exactly."

"So we might run into a huge, super intellect devourer that’s eaten a bunch of wizard brains?" Simon said, feeling sick. "That’s too much!"

"Just be careful," Aoko said. "These are just my guesses—maybe there’s no intellect devourer at all."

"Aoko’s right, Simon. Better safe than sorry," Edgin said, patting Simon’s shoulder. "Looks like there’s nothing else of value here. Let’s check the next floor!"

After some more searching, they descended through the hole in the second-floor lab area to the third floor, landing near the center of the tower.

The room looked like the master’s laboratory, with much more elaborate and complex equipment than the apprentice lab. On the floor above their heads, which was upside down, many mysterious symbols were inscribed.

Not far to Aoko’s right was a spiral staircase entrance, long since buried. To the left, an archway led to a semicircular room with a statue inside.

Directly ahead was a half-collapsed wall, behind which was a secret room with no obvious entrance.

"Get ready, we might have company," Aoko warned quietly. "That wall looks recently smashed. Someone probably couldn’t find the secret door, so they just smashed through."

Chapter 540: Secrets in the Spire

Actually, Aoko couldn't be one hundred percent sure someone was inside—just that someone had been here recently. But her instincts told her there was something off about that calm Red Wizards of Thay who burned to death in the Easthaven, so she decided to be cautious.

Since Aoko still hadn’t learned contingency spells, she was a bit weak in ambush situations, not quite at the top level for wizards.

But even the party’s toughest member, Holga, couldn’t match her in level or magical resistance, so when exploring dangerous unknowns, it was safest for Aoko to take point.

With that in mind, Aoko sent out a previously prepared simulacrum. It didn’t have many spell slots left, but it still retained some of Aoko’s magic resistance and basic stats—perfect for this kind of situation.

After summoning the simulacrum, Aoko cast protection from evil, resist elements, resist energy, and entropy shield on it, then buffed herself and the others with various defensive and transformation spells. When everything was ready, she sent the simulacrum striding through the collapsed wall into the secret room.

However, there were no traps and, strictly speaking, no ambushes.

Inside the upside-down secret room, someone had carefully set things up. In the center of the room was a table; on it, a humming pendant, surrounded by books thick with bookmarks. Whoever had arranged this had clearly lived and researched here for some time.

Though there was no ambush, there was someone inside—a figure who surprised Aoko and caught Doric completely off guard.

"Hello," the person greeted them politely and calmly, "welcome to the lost Nether Spire. My name is Dzaan."

"Don’t talk to him!" Edgin's face tensed, gripping his lute like a hammer, ready to attack. "What’s there to say to a Red Wizards of Thay? Weirdos like Xenk are rare!"

"Calm down, Edgin," Aoko stopped him from charging in. "Look closely. This Dzaan isn’t alive."

Hearing Aoko, Edgin calmed down and, with the others, examined the man before them.

He wore cold-weather gear, a worn witch’s hat, and a diligent, gentle smile—didn't look like a bad guy. Behind him stood a silent undead in studded leather, which by its magical aura was some kind of wight, Dzaan’s bodyguard.

"...You’re a simulacrum?" Simon was the first to realize, and asked the Dzaan before them.

"Correct, I’m just a duplicate created by the real one," the simulacrum Dzaan replied. "My creator left me here with his servant to guard this room."

"...Do you know your original is dead?" Aoko suddenly asked. "I saw him in the Easthaven—he was caught by the authorities and burned."

"Is that so?" The simulacrum Dzaan looked surprised, as if considering something, pacing back and forth.

"I have a question," Aoko said. "As far as I know, all Red Wizards of Thay have been turned into liches or undead by Szass Tam. But I saw your original alive. Why?"

"Oh, that's simple," Dzaan replied. "My teacher was illusionist who fled Thay."

"Before Szass Tam took power and started turning everyone undead, he purged all non-necromancy schools. The chief illusionist was one of his first targets, so many Red Wizards fled. My teacher was one of them. I call myself a Red Wizards only to honor my teacher—I’ve never lived in Thay."

"You believe him?" Edgin rolled his eyes. "Even if Dzaan is alive, doesn’t mean he’s not lying!"

"Edgin," Simon said calmly, "simulacrums can't lie."

"What did Dzaan find here?" Aoko ignored their exchange and asked the key question. "Or rather, what’s your purpose here? Why did your original kill the adventurers he hired?"

"Because after learning what he discovered, the mercenaries tried to kill him and take the treasure for themselves," simulacrum Dzaan explained. "This spire is just a fragment of the floating Netherese city, which crashed here two thousand years ago. The city itself is buried under a glacier northeast of this spire."

"So your original killed them in self-defense?" Hearing news of a Netherese floating city, Aoko kept her expression calm, though she was excited inside. "Frankly, neither your original nor you seem very strong to me."

"You’re right," simulacrum Dzaan admitted. "My original wasn’t that strong, and lost his spellbook in the fight. That’s probably why he was easily caught in the Easthaven."

"I can share all the secrets of Iserin and this spire with you," simulacrum Dzaan said, "but on one condition."

"What condition?" Aoko ignored Edgin’s winks and asked directly.

"At the very bottom of this spire," simulacrum Dzaan said, "there is a chamber that can turn illusions into reality. I need a living spellcaster like you to activate the magic in that chamber."

"As a construct of snow and shadow, I lack the spark of life. My bodyguard, Krintaas, is undead and can’t help either."

"And since I’m a simulacrum and can’t lie, I assure you: activating the chamber’s magic will not harm anyone. But note," Dzaan said, "you’d best dismiss your simulacrum before activating it, unless you want to accidentally create a living duplicate of yourself."