-------------- The Clones – Barra’keesh

The master climbed the steps to the monastery’s main shrine. His heart and mind were racing. The bodies were scattered everywhere. Who had done this, who had brought this evil upon The Hidden was the only thought in his mind. What horror, what monstrosity could have caused such pain and suffering? The students were all dead, drained of both life and thought, their minds wiped completely blank. Even after death, the master could tell that their brains had been drained of all knowledge.

There was a sudden motion, something moving so quickly and through some border realm of existence, that even the master was taken by surprise. He couldn’t react quickly enough to keep the intrusion out of his mind. By the time the creature’s powers had overcome his respectable resistance, it was too late. A moment later, it was as if he had never existed. Only a lifeless, mindless husk remained.

Mother knew that there were other powers out there, things she had no skill or power to fight. Her time with COVE was sufficient to teach her what those things were. One of the first things she wanted when she learned how to create the clones was a powerful psionic. Since her source of knowledge was the Shadows, the agreement was to use their science to make an agent that would serve both Mother and the Shadows. Mother agreed.

Her creation, her first, was a combination of her own genes and that of an Illithid shadow agent, with a little stolen Shadow DNA thrown in for good measure. This was her learning experience. She went through dozens of failed experiments before perfecting the final process. The Shadows gladly sacrificed a few Illithid to her efforts. When she was done and the final form emerged from the maturation chamber, they were not disappointed.

Barra’keesh Shar’elgur was quickly trained to be a shadow agent. By the time the Three Wars saw the end of the Shadows and freedom for Barra’keesh, she had developed a solid hatred for the Shadows’ only mortal enemy, The Hidden. Of all of Mother’s clones, she was the only one with a purpose independent of Mother’s desires and will. She had the psionic power to defeat even the most skilled master of The Hidden. Her retractable tentacles were based on Neogi DNA, allowing her to penetrate the skulls of her victims, and rather than draw forth the brain, she could suck it empty of all thoughts and knowledge. She could pass through walls and speed from place to place through the shadow plane. And her unique power and presence allowed her to command the Illithid as no outsider had ever done before, making her Mother’s envoy to the Mind Flayers, now leaderless and divided.

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