Multitudes of One

The party reassembled at their camp, taking a moment to catch their breath. They reequipped their gear, preparing themselves for the deeper reaches of the Lesnina forest. As they ventured further, they came across a field filled with poisonous flowers. Kilijan sent his homunculi ahead, using them to carefully disarm the plants and clear a path. They soon arrived at a clearing within the forest. There, they observed a green hag engaged in a heated argument with several quicklings. The hag demanded the quicklings pay their debt to her, revealing she held their younglings hostage. The quicklings pleaded with the party for assistance, but the party declined to intervene in their dispute. Manasa found his thoughts drifting back to a conversation he once had with Dendar, his former patron, in the Vernes village before he burned it down. Dendar had agitated Manasa, urging him to destroy the village because its inhabitants had exploited the delusion of his brother, Atlas, against him. Manasa then recalled a drunken night in Revilon, spent with the party and General Taylor. During that evening, he had revealed to them that he discovered his brothers, Atlas and Kronos, were merely figments of his imagination. It was then that Kilijan surmised the Vernes must have acquired Atlas from the Materia Swamp, drawing him from Manasa's materialized memories, dreams, and hopes. Back in Lesnina, Manasa emerged from his recollection. He and the rest of the party unequivocally informed the quicklings and the hag that they would not involve themselves in their affairs. At that moment, the entire scene shimmered and dissolved. The hag and quicklings vanished, revealing that the encounter had been an illusion, a test by Lunaryn, the forest spirit guardian. Lunaryn had sought to determine if they were truly creatures of the feywild who understood and respected its inherent rules.

Lunaryn explained to the party that Lesnina had been drawn into a Confluence, a device created by mind flayers for the purpose of harvesting thoughts. He told them that while such confluences typically lasted only a few seconds, this particular one had persisted for twelve days due to the complexity of Lunaryn's mind, which proved difficult to replicate. This prolonged process, Lunaryn clarified, was why the mind flayers had dispatched the first hunting crew, the one the party had already encountered and dealt with. Lunaryn then stated his unwillingness to surrender and asked the party for their assistance. The party agreed to help Lunaryn. Soon after, a recon team of mind flayers emerged, approaching them with a clinical, emotionless demeanor. They demanded the party surrender to be harvested. Sagiatto responded decisively, stating, "Dude, you're talking about HARVESTING, of course not. Fuck off." A fight broke out, with the party facing four mind flayers: one negotiator, one suppressor, and two extractors. The party quickly dispatched the first extractor and the suppressor. The negotiator then offered them a deal: if they hunted Lunaryn for the mind flayers, they would be allowed to exit the confluence unharmed. The party refused the offer and proceeded to defeat the remaining mind flayers. After the last mind flayer fell, the Elder Brain responsible for overseeing the confluence contacted the party directly, its voice echoing through the remains of one of the defeated creatures, intending to make them an offer.

The Elder Brain communicated its terms, presenting the party with a choice to surrender or face a second unit. The party, however, refused the offer outright. Kilijan then employed dynamite, which, in an explosion, destroyed the Mind Flayer's head. This extreme action prompted the Elder Brain to mentally probe the minds of the party, attempting to assess the risk-to-cost ratio for the entire confluence it managed. Weneon and Greg's thoughts, when accessed by the Elder Brain, were relatively simple, primarily focused on the immediate goal of escaping the situation. Kilijan's mind, in contrast, overwhelmed the Elder Brain with intricate analyses of his surroundings and a detailed understanding of his own identity as a wechselkind. This revelation of Kilijan's true nature was inadvertently shared with the rest of the party through the mental link established by the Elder Brain. Sagiatto's probed thoughts revealed a past life he had led before his journey to the plane of Arborea. Sagiatto himself held no conscious memory of this prior existence, but the Elder Brain detected him attempting to access fragmented and deleted data within his mind. This data pertained to a daughter named Eliza, an incurable disease, and a solemn promise Sagiatto had made to locate a cure in Arborea. Manasa's mind presented even further overwhelming complexity to the Elder Brain, specifically regarding his thoughts about a split personality. Manasa had constructed two imaginary brothers, Atlas and Kronos. The Elder Brain attempted to analyze this mental construct but failed to fully comprehend its nature. The Brain discerned that while Manasa believed he had simply invented his brothers, they were in fact triplets from the same womb, with Manasa being the sole survivor who carried the latent memories of his two brothers, whom he later named Atlas and Kronos. Following this final, highly complex thought, the Elder Brain concluded that continuing the operation was no longer worthwhile. It assessed that the minds it had encountered were unnaturally complex, rendering any further losses of its units unprofitable. The confluence then dissolved, and Lesnina reverted back into a regular feywild forest.

After Lesnina reverted back to a regular feywild forest, Lunaryn appeared to the party to thank them for their actions. Behind Lunaryn, Aldric also appeared and thanked the party. As Lunaryn delivered his thanks, Aldric showed Lunaryn a drawing he had made. Behind Lunaryn, the trees gave way to reveal a sacred clearing. In the center of the clearing, a sword stood embedded in a stone. Aldric then showed the party the same sketch he had shown Lunaryn, a drawing of the Master Sword, which he explained was from the imagination of the person who imagined Aldric himself into existence. Manasa approached the sword, and Lunaryn gave him permission to take it. Manasa touched the sword, and his health drained almost completely. Despite the drain, Manasa pulled the sword from the stone and heard the voice of his mother, thanking him for not forgetting the memory of his unborn brothers. As Manasa looked at the sword, he saw his reflection in it, alongside the faces of Kronos and Atlas. Aldric said his goodbyes and returned home. From out of the woods, General Taylor and Tamil emerged, followed by the battalions belonging to the party. General Taylor joked that traversing Lesnina had not been difficult, but upon seeing the party's battered appearance, he realized they had encountered trouble, laughing about their knack for finding it. The group then stepped out of Lesnina into a vast field. Two miles ahead, the harengon camps surrounding Elminster's Tower were visible, poised to await the imminent attack. General Taylor addressed the battalions, instructing them to listen to their respective generals: Kilijan, Weneon, Manasa, Sagiatto, and Greg. General Taylor then declared, "Today we rest, tomorrow we plan, and the day after we fight." The army erupted in cheers, shouting the name "The Uninvited" as they hyped themselves up to confront the harengon army ahead.