The maneuvers that Shilynn was forced to make while being attacked by the Giff in the dynamic orbit of the toroidal trinary calved away a large portion of the Inordinate Amount's oxygen bubble. To replace it, the crew set about looking for an oxygen rich body while staying one step ahead of the Brinkmanship. As the Amount raced towards the Flayer asteroid belt that marks the border of Illithid space of the inner-Shattered Sphere, the Brinkmanship appeared in and out of the Helm's furthermost long-range sensor bubble - two days behind. Curiously, the Brinkmanship, gradually seemed to veer off course. After not appearing for several days, it suddenly appeared, two days ahead of the Amount, heading in a different direction, one that was more consistent with pursuing the migrating Kindori and the Crown of Lost Spheres, rather than the Inordinate Amount, moving towards Mezsoul. Shortly after entering the Flayer, the Amount came upon an asteroid with a large supply of oxygen - inside of it. Along with Alexis the druid, the Command Team set about exploring a vast network of sharp intersecting tunnels that, at first, seemed largely the result of external impacts. However, the deeper they went, the greater were the signs of some sort of organic erosion as well as engineered reinforcement. Trying to detect life as they moved deeper, they were surprised to come across a trio of ghoulish rangers. One of the creatures succumbed to their attacks before the rest could dimension door away following a great heaving sigh of wind throughout the caverns. No sooner had they departed then the party was set upon by a massive bone ooze, attacking from multiple directions at once. Forced into an ever more cramped space, Shroktath was enveloped, while Khalid maneuvered through the tunnels, trying to force the creature back. In his desperation, Basile called upon the Brood Mother's favour to bolster Hazel, but opening to the energy of the Divine Pack, it was the power of Azal the Nightstalker, not the Brood Mother, that flowed into Hazel with fear and darkness. The ooze was forced back, but it too seemed to find a vessel to inhabit. Emptied of his essence as a Gardener, having poured it into the G-NOME for one last miracle, the negative energy of the undead ooze flowed into the mighty warrior, transforming into an avatar of undeath!

Pilot’s Personal Log. Following the incident with the Dohwar and the Giff, we raced towards the Flayer. Our long range sensors caught a glimpse of the Brinkmanship two days behind us and closing fast, having taken the long way around the debris field. The Command Team wanted to put more distance between us, but we were also in dire need of a source of air.

The dynamic gravitational fields of the toroidal trinary had wreaked havoc with the ship’s atmospheric bubble. A great portion of it sloughed away as I maneuvered the Amount to avoid the guns of the Giff spelljammer. Their pilot was good. But I was better… well at avoiding the guns, at least. The Amount was unscathed but our breathable air, not so much. It didn’t take Khalid long to realize that all of our gardens wouldn’t be enough to maintain the ship’s company all the way to Mezsoul.

The trick would be finding a place to resupply. Far fewer asteroids in the Flayer support life than in the Astromundi Cluster. Over the years, they have been stripped by pirates, smugglers and the illithid themselves to support their mysterious activities inside the inner sphere. They exist, but they are a rarity.

Pilot’s Persona Log. After closing on us for a number days in the race for the Flayer, the Brinkmanship slowly began to veer off course. It began imperceptibly but became undeniable the day before yesterday. By the end of that day, it was completely beyond the scope of our long range sensors – still more than two days behind us. It has now been almost two full days since it has appeared at all. They could be trying to stay out of range of the Helm’s enhanced perception sensors, but that would suggest they know or suspect we have them. 

Pilot’s Personal Log. That didn’t take as long as I feared. With the assistance of Alexis and Jennifer, the team applied the principles of the triangulation technique innovated to search the toroidal trinary. Doing so, we were able to isolate a promising site as soon almost as we entered the Flayer. But as it turned out, the atmosphere was not on the outside 

The atmosphere Alexsis has detected is below the surface of Asteroid 752IA-12. She’s moored the Inordinate Amount near the entrance of an ancient sub-surface tunnel of unknown provenance. (SURVIVAL) What is clear from the dusty entrance, is that you are not the first living things to have entered this cave mouth.

You have an atmosphere pump and 500 m of tubes.

The labyrinth offers myriad decisions to move up and down an in every cardinal direction – is there a pattern you choose? What's the marching order?

The labyrinth unfurls before you. Every turn leads deeper into mystery. There are times when the tunnels seem clearly organic – as though they were burrowed by some immense creature or alternatively myriad smaller ones, including many you would have to climb the reach. Junctions form where tunnels branch off in every possible direction, and some of these junctions widen into larger chambers. These places appear carved out by wind or water. However, there are also signs of crude reinforcement. The floors are covered in a fine light grey dust. There are no natural forms of light.

It’s not the sound of voices that you perceive, but of movement – of presence. A subtle change in air pressure. A musty smell of ancient decay.

There is a great sigh of air that pushes through the chambers, forceful enough to push Basile back, and cause Shroktath and Khalid to lean into it to stay upright. Followed by a rumbling that raises clouds of white dust from the floor.

BONE OOZE APPEARS

Viscous trails of milky grey ooze pour out of the tunnels into your chamber. Undulating lipid waves, covered in a carpet of needle-like spines. Plates of bone rise to its surface and sink back into an undulating mass of strange angles as it speeds sickeningly towards you.

I died. Again.

I sure feel hurt enough to be dead. Whatever that thing was we fought, it hit like an angry stone giant. It killed me. I think it nearly killed some of my mates.

But a funny thing happened on the way to Valhalla. I never got there. In fact - and I can't make sense of this at all - I can feel the power of the Gardeners renewed within me at the same time that I know that my life has left my body. And - weirdest of all - I’m still here, propped up in the infirmary on the Amount, writing this.

It might take a while to figure out what all this means.

We’d landed on an asteroid, and were laden down with hoses and pipes, ‘cause we were trying to locate a buried pocket of air to top up our low supplies on the Inordinate Amount. As we explored the weird tunnels, trailing the hoses back to the Amount, it became clear that we weren’t alone.

Moving shapes, an odd sense of things not being right. Yet when Alexis, who’d come with us to try and help find the air pocket, tried to detect life she sensed nothing. Looking back, that’s probably when the alarm bells should have started clanging. Anyways, soon after, the sounds of battle came from up ahead (I was guarding the rear), and soon after, the deafening, echoing boom of Khalid firing off his guns.

Some rocks were fired out of the tunnels at Alexis and me. They stung, but I could tell Alexis was really hurt, so I fed her one of my healing potions, and ushered her into the tunnel in between me (the rear of our party), and Khalid and Basile (the front of our party).

That’s when things really fell into the shitter. Out of these holes, poured a disgusting ooze with (oddly) bits of bones and corpses in it. Never seen anything like it, nor would I care to again. And this ooze thing attacked us from several sides.

I try as best I can to keep an eye on what’s happening with my mates, but I quickly had more than I could handle on my own plate. This thing was more powerful and evil than almost anything else we’d ever faced (Liches not included). It threw me around like a rag doll, honestly. And every time it hit me, it was like I could feel it sucking the life out of me like I used to suck the insides of a gujamellon out through a straw in the late summer. I fought as best I could, but I don’t think I ever really had a chance. My one hope was that, somehow, I might buy some time for my mates to be able to figure this battle out -  to defeat this thing or help me.

My mates tried. Fortuna, in particular, came up with a brilliant plan to flood the tunnels around us with acid which seemed to hurt this undead ooze creature. But rescue wasn’t to be. 

The ooze slammed me down and surrounded me for a second time, and I could feel my life being drawn out of my body. In a last, desperate act, I called upon my ancestor, the first gardener to come to my aid. My right arm broke free from the ooze, and I thought I saw a figure above me, made of light, dressed in an ancient armour. A moment later, an explosion, light.

Then nothing.

Then something. Something beyond weird, and which I’d never felt the likes of before. I knew I was totally changed. I’d almost like to say I felt numb, except there was pain. Lots of pain. My body felt like I’d been run over by a herd of mastodons. Stranger still, I can feel the force of the gardeners within me again.

As I said, I think it’s going to take a while to figure all this out, and, hopefully, “heal” me (whatever that looks like now). I feel horrified by the changes in me, honestly. But maybe there’s some way it can be used for good.

In the meantime I’m told that Thaliose and the Brinkmanship somehow managed to catapult through space from two days behind us to two days ahead. Neat trick. That bastard. And we’re now in the one down spot, chasing him again. 

Not really the most successful stretch we’ve had as a team, but we’ve had worse too. We’re all here at least, just some of us in different form. (Something happened with Hazel too. He looks and feels different - plain to see. I just don’t know what happened.)

Unknown to Fortuna, the deity that granted the knowledge to cast a divine spell last session was Ilsensine known to some as the Tentacled Lord, The Great Brain, or The God-Brain.