Escape the Nautiloid: Difference between revisions

== Walkthrough ==

'''''Hint:''' This walkthrough makes extensive use of compass directions (north, south, east, west). Disabling the option '''Rotating minimap''' under the User Interface settings may make it easier to follow these directions.''

=== Nursery room ===

[[File:Prologue-01.jpg|thumb|right|Nursery room]]

On the west side of the room, you will find an illithid restoration device that fully heals you upon interaction, and a door to the next room.

=== Brain room ===

[[File:Prologue-02.jpg|thumb|right|Brain room]]

==== The Intellect Devourer ====

When you interact with the person in the chair, your character may notice by succeeding an [[Arcana]] Check that the exposed brain is not in fact the person's own brain, but rather an [[Intellect Devourer]] named [[Us]]. You have various options to try to free the creature from the skull, although you can also leave it in place or destroy it outright. Should you choose to free it and succeed, it can give you a bit of information about your situation and will become a temporary [[Companion]] who assists you in battle.

While freeing the intellect devourer from the skull, you also have the option of trying to mutilate it to make it more obedient to you, although this seems unnecessary as it's obedient to you either way (Note: [[Us]] will become hostile if you attack any non-hostile creatures while on the [[Nautiloid]] unless you [[Lobotomised]] it.), and failing the [[Dexterity]] Check while trying to mutilate it will cause the creature to go hostile.

=== Meeting Lae'zel ===

To the west of the brain room there's an opening in the Nautiloid's shell. An outer path leads northwest, where you have your first encounter with the [[Githyanki]] soldier [[Lae'zel]], who was previously seen being infected with a tadpole in the opening cinematic.

As Lae'zel jumps down from a ledge to attack you, the telepathic connection between you caused by the mind flayer larva makes her realize that you're not under mind control, and that the two of you could cooperate. She insists that you go to the helm of the Nautiloid, where you can take control of it, but first you need to clear the way by battling [[Lesser Imp|imps]].

In the battle, there are three imps you need to defeat. This is easily done by going on the offense. They drop [[Scimitar]], [[Handaxe]] and [[Light Crossbow]].

{{clear}}

=== Shadowheart room ===

In this room you will be greeted by a pair of knocked out cultists on chairs, and some sort of control panel with three pairs of sigils and buttons. Lae'zel will warn you not to touch anything.

1. You also hear a woman trapped in a mind flayer pod thudding against its glass encasing. It's [[Shadowheart]], who will suggest you try to use the contraption next to the pod to get it opened. Interacting with the contraption will reveal that there is an empty socket of some sort. You need an object to fit in there (see the next section). On the other side of Shadowheart's pod, there is a backpack with gold and a random gem.

If you weren't able to lockpick the reliquary containing the Eldritch Rune for Shadowheart's pod, you'll want to look into the room to the east to find the key. To the south, in turn, you can finally enter the helm.

=== Ceremorphosis room ===

At the entrance of the room lies a dead thrall on which you can find the [[Gilded Key|key]] to the reliquary in the previous room.

There is yet another mind flayer pod at the center. This one contains a dazed woman who seems unresponsive. Behind her is a console with a sigil and a button. The sigil triggers an arcana check, and succeeding it reveals that it says "Perfect". Pushing it transforms the woman in the pod into a mind flayer.

{{clear}}

=== Helm of the Nautiloid ===

As you enter the helm, you will see a mind flayer fighting [[Commander Zhalk]], a powerful [[Cambion]] wielding the flaming greatsword, the [[Everburn Blade]].  A cutscene will play in which the mind flayer orders you to connect the nerves of the transponder, referring to the control apparatus of the ship that allows it to travel between dimensions.  The mind flayer thinks that you're a thrall, thus considers you an ally.

A pair of lesser imps and a [[Lesser Hellsboar]] will block your path, but they should be easy to defeat if you have both Lae'zel and Shadowheart as companions. One of the imps carries a Light Crossbow, the other a Scimitar.

Note that nearing the console also makes another two lesser imps and another lesser hellsboar appear, though these should be easy to kill or even just run past.  (If you've already milked Zhalk and the flayer for XP, you really don't need these minor guys on top of all that.)  Once you've reached the console, interact with it to start a cutscene and end the prologue.

=== The Crash ===

In the cutscene that follows, the character that interacted with the neural console connects two arms to make the ship warp out of [[Avernus]] and back into the [[Prime Material Plane]], but moments before the warp a red dragon latches on to the ship and breathes fire onto the console.

Back in the crashing Nautiloid, our main character is trying to hold on, but is hit in the face by a piece of debris and sent flying out of the Nautiloid. As the character falls to the ground, moments before impact they are held mid-air by magical force and end up having a soft landing.  There is nobody nearby, indicating that this might be the doing of the mind flayer larva lodged behind the character's eye.

==Achievements==

{{Achievement|Descent From Avernus}}