The guest in the drider Baron Chaverin’s basement wasn’t the most conventional of creatures. There had to be some modifications to several rooms to give the visitor a more secure home and to better suit its needs. A large brick pool was constructed by the dark elves allowing the occupant to soak for prolonged periods of time in water that was kept comfortably warm by circulating over a series of enchanted stones. Here deep below Redemption Castle the Baron’s guest could muck about however it saw fit within reason without being pestered by curious people or subjected to the harshness of daylight. Because the guest was an illithid, also known as a “mind flayer,” and these terrifying monsters despise the light and tend to be ill at ease around large groups of non-illithids.

The creature had been known as Qhan, but now it was known by Baron Chaverin and his associates as Doctor Q. It was vital to Chaverin that Doctor Q be made to understand how important the illithid could be to the plans being hatched by the fellowship Chaverin belonged to. Doctor Q had not been a difficult person to convince. Chaverin had after all been the first person the illithid saw when the drider has brought it back to life after Doctor Q had been viciously slain by a necromancer. It had taken a couple of days to explain to the illithid what had happened, but once it grasped the circumstances of its death and resurrection it was keen on joining whatever scheme that Baron Chaverin suggested.

It became quickly obvious to Chaverin and everyone else that dealt with Doctor Q that this illithid was not exactly all of the terror it was hyped up to be. Doctor Q stood barely five feet tall, and it had only three face tentacles, having lost one of them in the crash that had brought the mind flayer to this world. Each of these tentacles was three feet long so they hung down and flopped about in a most disconcerting manner. Doctor Q though was easily intimidated by physically imposing figures and there are few monsters more physically imposing than a drider. Chaverin sensed it immediately and soon it was common knowledge among the fellowship that while Doctor Q looked frightening it wasn’t much of a threat to them. However, it was equally obvious that not everyone else would know this and if the fellowship played their cards right, they had a terrific psychological weapon at their disposal.

To test their theory Chaverin brought Doctor Q into his interrogations with captured Lotharingian spies. These hapless men were already at their wits end after having been tortured for days by the drider and his drow elven goons. The introduction of a mind flayer was handily more than they could tolerate. One by one each of the prisoners broke fully and revealed every secret they had ever sworn to keep. Unfortunately for them Chaverin was not a compassionate man and the drider generously allowed Doctor Q to do what mind flayers are notorious for doing; using its face tentacles to drill into the skull of one of the doomed men and extracting his brain for consumption.

It was a morbidly fascinating experience for Chaverin and the others that had been allowed to witness the spectacle. It had also been deeply enlightening. After it had feasted Doctor Q revealed that the spy might not have known when and where the Lotharingians would invade when the spring thaw began, but he knew that certain officers among the fallen knights most certainly would know. These higher ranking Lotharingians could provide the fellowship with the information it sought to minimize the impending invasion or perhaps thwart it completely.

It was after this revelation that Chaverin and the rest of the fellowship began to make earnest efforts to make Doctor Q as comfortable as they could, and indeed make him feel as welcome as possible in their ranks. Doctor Q was ill-equipped in most ways to take any real part in their shenanigans and had timidly suggested that he be given the title of “observer.” This was not taken to heart and instead he became known casually as “brain guy.” Doctor Q had found itself a new home.