As Marvin followed the caravan north along the Coast Way, somewhere in the Underdark, a mind flayer in a black robe trimmed with gold drifted into a space constructed entirely from living flesh and tissue—Nemorianthos Dominator.
The layout of this space resembled the bridge of a ship.
Nemorianthos drifted before the captain's seat and silently settled into it. The four tentacles around his mouth lashed about erratically, revealing his agitation.
Mind flayer colonies belonged to highly centralized hive-mind societies.
Every mind flayer colony was governed by a supreme elder brain.
The elder brain was the absolute core of a mind flayer colony. It was both ruler and repository of knowledge, as well as a super-biological computer constantly carrying out vast quantities of precise calculations.
Under the control of the elder brain's powerful psionic abilities, every mind flayer obeyed its commands without question.
Of course, there were occasionally traitorous mind flayers who broke free of the elder brain's control and awakened self-awareness.
After every mind flayer died, its corpse was thrown into the brain pool and absorbed by the elder brain, becoming part of the collective will.
Thus, the older a mind flayer colony was, the more mind flayers its elder brain had absorbed—and the stronger it became.
And the mind flayer colony known as Shell Rock City possessed an extremely long history.
So long that Nemorianthos suspected its elder brain had grown powerful enough to harbor ambitions of godhood.
Otherwise, why would it be so obsessed with finding the mythallar core?
Perhaps the elder brain hoped to uncover the long-lost secrets of Netherese magic within it and, through reverse engineering, restore Karsus's Avatar.
Still, Nemorianthos had to be grateful for the elder brain's ambitions.
If he had not still been tasked with obtaining the mythallar core, then because of Ailei