Beneath the ziggurat’s hidden lift, the Agents found something that had no business being buried in a jungle a thousand miles from any coastline: a ship, grown rather than built, its hull a ribbed, cephalopod-like dermis, cold and faintly alive to the touch. Later study – such as Section 18’s resources allow, well outside the city and well outside anyone’s ordinary jurisdiction – has tentatively classified it as an Octopus-class illithid vessel: a hull grown rather than forged, its tendrils doubling as both propulsion and armament, dart launchers concealed in the tips.

The exterior alone was enough to make clear this was no ordinary ruin. What waited inside was worse: a lift that fought back with grimlocks at their heels, a guardian beast the Agents came to call Mor’Dhu, and a living illithid, Skarr, still very much in command of what remained operational.

FILE NOTES

Deeper in, a voice speaking from somewhere within the ship’s own systems – not Skarr, something considerably older – confirmed the vessel had crashed a thousand years before the Cataclysm, its crew fleeing the very same kind of threat Krell now represents to the Vessentaag’s unknowing faithful. Reverse stasis initiated. Resuscitation stage five complete, it announced, partway through the Agents’ escape – whatever that means for what else might still be aboard, or waking.

STATUS: Filed under Locations. Contents partially catalogued, partially still moving. Access strongly discouraged without Dranathess-level clearance, which Section 18 does not currently hold.