#modded in tutorial chest which contained her glaive also had HER COLORS

[writer86]

“The ship won’t be able to take another dragon attack!” Selene observes as one of the dragons flits past an opening torn in the Nautloid’s hull. But they’re moving forward as best they can. Moving upward when no further doors present themselves in the direction Us wishes to guide them. The next room contains a little bit of everything-

-consoles, chairs with alive-but-unconscious people, and another couple of pods, one of which contains someone very much alive and conscious. Alarmed, pounding at the barrier between herself and freedom, crying “Let me out!”

Selene approaches the console directly ahead of her. The console to the left, she deciphers to mean: Unleash. The one to the right, Annihilate. She squints intently at the one in the center, but can’t quite decipher it. Regardless, Unleash feels like what she’s trying to accomplish. She presses that button:

*Psionic energy radiates from the prisoners, but they do not react.*

Selene frowns, unwilling to Annihilate, or to try that which she could not decipher. If these people can be helped, she will not be the one to do it. With a sigh, she moves on to the conscious captive. She’s certainly very lively:

“You!” she shouts. “Get me out of this damned thing!”

Selene steps closer, but her gith ally is not so eager to help:

“We have no time for stragglers.”

“Straggler suggests someone who’s falling behind an established party,” Selene answers coolly. “She cannot straggle if she cannot join. If we can open this pod, we may gain another ally.”

[Look for a latch that might open the lid.]

*The construction is too alien. Nothing looks familiar.*

Again, Selene’s gith ally proves impatient with the delay: “This ship is crashing. Do you intend to die for a stranger?”

“I took a Nautloid teleporting tentacle for one,” Selene answers lightly. Then, to the woman in the pod, she says, “I’ll look around - there must be some way to get this thing open.”

“Try that contraption next to the pod - they did something to it when they sealed me in. Hurry! Please!”

Selene studies the console for a moment, but *The console appears dormant.* She tries to make out anything in this mess of living tissue that might look like a switch or a release and nothing exactly jumps out at her… but wait. There. That looks like an empty socket. Selene frowns thoughtfully, considering its shape. She doesn’t have anything that fits it - yet.

“I’ll check the other room,” she reassures the trapped woman; meanwhile, her gith friend is muttering incessantly under her breath, no doubt any number of unkind things about Selene taking this much time for someone who’s trapped. Selene ignores her.

In the next room, an Illithid chest catches her attention and she’s slightly surprised to find it open. Even more surprising…

“Oh, hello Beautiful,” Selene murmurs, lifting Celestial Thorn from amid a smattering of other weapons, armor, and other items. “Personal belongings of the captured, I think,” she adds to the gith. “This is mine.”

The gith glares back at her. “And? What good will it do you if the ship goes down because you delayed too long?”

With a slight shrug of her shoulders, Selene pulls a sword from the chest - glowing with a radiant light Selene finds both a little familiar and a little comforting - and tosses it to the gith. The woman catches it, stares at it, then glares at Selene.

“I have a sword,” she says sharply.

“And now, until such time as its former owner sees fit to reclaim it or die trying, you have a better one,” Selene answers with a grin.

She fishes through the chest a moment longer before the gith voices an impatient sound and says, “I believe this may be what you are looking for.”

Selene half-turns to find the gith holding a peculiar rune that does in fact appear to be the right shape to fit into the console beside the trapped woman’s pod.

“Ah, good eye,” she says with a smile.

“Chk,” the woman answers in disdain. “If you will waste our time for a stranger, I can at least see to it you waste as little as possible.”

“I knew you cared about something,” Selene snarks back, snatching the rune as she passes, and leading the way back toward the sealed pod. Once there, she fits the rune into the slot and the console hums to life.

[Arcana] Take a closer look at the powered-up console. Crit Fail.

Nothing in the appearance of the device betrays its purpose. It could do anything.

And yet, the woman inside did say they had messed with the console when they put her in it. Selene takes a breath… and puts her hand on the console:

*Suddenly you feel a hideous squirming in your head. The parasite. Then the discomfort fades, and another sensation washes over you. Connection. Authority.*

[Illithid][Wisdom] Will the pod to open. Success. *You feel the biomechanical brain of the console process your command… and yield to it. A shiver runs across your mind… you feel sated.*

Not an entirely comforting feeling, if Selene is honest with herself. But the pod hinges open much like Selene's own did so recently.

A graceful landing, Selene thinks to herself in mild amusement as she approaches the half-elf and offers a hand to help her stand.

With a grateful smile to Selene, she says, “I thought that damn thing was going to be my coffin. Thank you-“

*Your mind lurches into her thoughts. Her gratitude is mixed with wariness - because you have a gith with you.*

Again, the same feeling of a shared connection, as Selene witnessed her thoughts and feelings, so the other woman has sensed hers. And each is aware of the exchange. Her gith ally too has witnessed the caution, and wishes her displeasure known; she crosses her arms as the other woman speaks:

“You keep dangerous company,” she says with a suspicious side-eye at the gith.

Selene nearly laughs at this assessment, as she herself is - or was recently - extremely dangerous company. Instead, she just says, “Dangerous company’s what you need in a fight.”

Fair point,” the woman concedes. “Looks like there’s plenty of fighting ahead. Let me come with you. We can get off this ship, and watch each other’s backs along the way.”

“All right then, let’s get going. I’m Selene Windcaller.”

There’s a flicker in the other woman’s expression, as though the name sounds familiar, but she can’t place why. Then she says: “Shadowheart. One moment…”

She returns to her pod and retrieves an odd device from within. As with the Nautloid itself, Selene finds her curiosity piqued.

“What’s that?” she asks.

Shadowheart’s answer is a little too aggressive to be entirely believed: “It’s nothing. Trust me.”

But their gith ally is well past done with this distraction:

“Enough of this chatter,” she snaps irritably. “We need to get to the helm. Now.”

“She’s right,” Shadowheart agrees with a slight smile. “Lead on.”