There we were. In the middle of a mind flayer colony, next to the body dumpster they called their eating place. Our comrade on top of it, and I was standing here, a kid on my back, in plain side. Fuck. Have the others even noticed yet?
I shook my head, making up the moment I needed to grasp the situation by casting Hunter's Mark on the one mind flayer currently trying to eat my friend's brain. Knowing that I had to protect Veasna, I ran back into the tunnels, towards the others, and quickly put the girl down on the ground.
Finally, I took up my bow, aiming for the mind flayer I had already marked beforehand. Just as I nocked the first arrow, I noticed that the air was completely still around here – perfect. Breathing out, letting go of the bowstring, the first arrow soaring through the air, right above Yaza's head – hitting the bastard right in the mouth and through his neck. You ain't gonna eat any brain today anymore. As he leaned forward, trying to grasp Yaza again, I fired two more arrows, placing them flawlessly into both of his eyes.
I turned around to Veasna. "You stay back here, little princess." She stared up at me, nodding quickly. I'd rather not let her see this amount of blood and brutality, but I guess she had her share already anyway. As I looked back, Adara was just wildshaping into an owlbear again, and the mind flayer that had stood in front of the pile of dead bodies turned to face us – casting some kind of mind-destroying spell. Fear struck me for a moment, knowing that there was no way to protect Veasna from this.
Through some strike of luck, even though that wave put an insane pressure on my mind – we all seemed to withstand it. Even Veasna, who I worried about the most. Nudd stormed forward towards the mind flayer that just attacked us. But what made me smile was our monk, who was still being held by two mind flayers up to this moment. They were already struggling to hold Yaza, but as she kicked them both into their ankles with full force, sending them stumbling backwards, she could easily rip free. She instantly stormed off in our direction, leaping down the hill of corpses, and got tossed a set of clothes by our cleric.
"Surrender, the inquisition is here!", the elf shouted in a halling voice, after barely missing with her Guiding Bolt. One mind flayer dropped to its knees, holding up its hand, sightly terrified by the sight of actual hard-boiled adventurers.
Yaza, getting buffed by Ori'sHeroismas he ran past her, got dressed behind us, with the brat actually getting active again and healing some of the party members behind me. Veasna, getting bolder at the sight of the tiefling, mumbled the spell Blessing, causing all of us to be in the luck of the gods… hopefully. The monk got into the fight quickly – wearing Laelia's way too small clothes looking like a miniskirt – dashing in and cracking a mind flayer skull with a roundhouse kick, supported by Ori, while Nudd double-digust-breathed the other one with acid and fire. The mind flayer was screaming in pain, completely engulfed in flames. I continued dashing out my arrows at the mind flayers on top of the hill, finishing off the one I had already disfigured and swiftly killing the second one, while my comrades dealt with the rest, Adara ripping off an illithid head. It didn't take us too long to finish off the rest, and we were barely hurt in the end.
I tossed Coco at the mountain of dead bodies, leaving the creature to eat itself full. By now I barely raised an eyebrow as the black fluffball grew to the size of a carriage, scaring away a group of mind flayers that came to investigate with its size alone. We took a minute to get up to date on info with Yaza, who got tackled by a happy-crying Veasna. Apparently she and Mendeku had tried to escape with Veasna, but only he had made it out. We retold our encounter with Authwei, Thalia and later Mendeku. Quickly we decided to get Yaza her belongings back first, because we had to get out of here.
Before we left, I knelt down next to the mind flayers, going through their stuff. As the others weren't looking, I took out my butcher's knife for a moment, grimacing as I cut the sinews out of one of the mind flayers' legs. 'This will be useful later.'
As I got back to the others, Veasna and Yaza had noticed… that someone was missing. I closed my eyes for a moment, before taking the kid into my arms, nodding at the elf. She cleared her throat. "You know, Veasna, we had a harsh fight before this and… Dror didn't make it." The kid, of course, didn't want to believe us, but we all staid stern – even though my heart burned like hell, as I felt her tears wet my shirt. I couldn't do more than promise her that we'd visit his grave together. I picked her up, holding her close, as we needed to get going. Yaza looked a bit shaken as well.
We walked down the tunnel towards where I had sensed Yaza's robe before, trying to keep quiet. As we got closer, we saw light – and what resembled a bustling city. The heart of the colony, the living space of the illithids. In the middle of the square that was full of tentacle-faced dudes was a mound of personal belongings, Yaza's most likely in there.
After a quick discussion, we settled on the elf and me going in there – her appearance altered into a more illithid-like one by Mimo, me turned into a mind flayer by Disguise Self. Veasna wanted to come with me, but Adara luckily kept her from doing it. Still, the tiny cleric cast Blessing on the two of us, to help us go unnoticed.
As the mind flayers left us alone, we could get to the mound of stuff unhindered. It took us a few seconds to spot our monk's robe and backpack, but as I looked at the tons of other stuff, I bit my lip – and began searching through it, despite the elf's discouraging words. I found a ton of stuff, including bullets, a book and a diamond, some wine and a national flag. Laelia could only convince me after a few more minutes that we should leave.
We tried to stay under the radar again, but one mind flayer spotted us, and as I resembled one of the guys we had just killed, I at least knew what role to play. He asked what had happened to the intruders, but I could play it off by telling him about how we had seen Coco, munching on the hill of dead, ready to gulp down everything, including a mind flayer. 'Even illithids gotta have a fear of death.'
As we got out of there, I sighed deeply, my heart still racing. I turned to Mimo, who had helped me out in between. "I'm so fucking glad I'm fluent in Undercommon." He widened his eyes. "Yeah, which is concerning. As far as I know, not many people speak Undercommon." I shrugged. "I'm not many people. And my father taught me, when I was, like, four or five." "What kind of creature is your dad?!" "Just your typical suburban dad." "Sure." I blinked. "And by the way, why the hell is a mind flayer parasite concerned that I speak Undercommon?!" "Because I know that normally just drow and mind flayers talk that shit! Not humans!"
We got back to the others, even though Laelia stumbled once. I glance at Veasna, who's still in owlbear Adara's grasp. "We're back, sweety!" Looking up at my client, I go: "We can be damn happy that I speak Undercommon." "You speak Undercommon?" "Yeah, I speak Undercommon." She put Veasna down.
"So if we leave through the tunnel, those things will probably chase us. And the least of us are as fast as Ori." Laelia and Mimo seemed to have an internal fight, as I handed Yaza's stuff back to her. And they still wanted to save those people in the cage. Laelia examined the flag I found for a moment. As Yaza changed into her own clothes, Veasna loudly exclaimed: "I saw many people naked already!" and my brain instantly switched to who do I need to stab. 'I've gotten way too attached to this kid already.'
"By the way, little one, we met your asshole of a father, he's not concerned", I informed Veasna, patting her head. She seemed to understand… even though she still wanted to defend him somehow. I also asked Mimo about the book I had found back in the underground kingdom, with the symbol I saw here, and he told me that it was written in illithid language, and he could probably read it. And that it seemed to be from this colony…
We went to free the people in the cage, and Mimo told us "DON'T touch the fence!", so we didn't. Apparently only mind flayers could touch it. I turned to Yaza. "By the way, how did you get out of there?" "Well, the exact story was that I threw a stone at a mind flayer and he came in, and I ran out, if I remember correctly." "That is amazing.", the elf commented. I raise an eyebrow. "But the rest of the people didn't run out?"
I pulled Veasna's ear for a moment. "And you're going to listen to us when we tell you to be quiet!"
"Ouch!"
"Ada, don't do that, elf ears are very sensitive", the elf tried to scold me.
Veasna huffed. "But they're good to pull too."
"Do you have an idea how often my father pulled my ears when I was small? I was a little dumb shit", I rolled my eyes.
The elf sniffed. "Well, mine didn't."
"For your it also wasn't that way that if you weren't quiet you would've been eaten by wolves."
"Why did they tell that to children?!"
"No. That was meant literally."
"What?! Where did you live?"
"We lived in a city, but our job was hunting out in the wild, so..." I glanced over at Adara.
We talked on, and my memories got warm, thinking about my father. "He'd totally adopt you without a question. My father's made out of sugar when it comes to children", I grin at Veasna.
"I wonder what my father's doing right now...", the elf wondered.
I sighed. "I also wonder how mine is doing, haven't seen him in, like, three years. Apart from that one… dream."
"You had a dream? Was it a nice one then?", the elf asked.
"It was a nightmare.", I blandly replied. Veasna teared up again. I sighed. "I'd rather not talk about it. I think some people here would have a problem", glancing at Ori and Adara. "I didn't joke when I said my father was a hunter. Uhm… well, the dream might have been that my home country sent him out… to hunt us all down… and let's say it didn't end well."
"Oh my.", the elf murmured. "Did you not part on good terms with him then? Because you seemed to be thinking quite highly of him."
"Oh, I… did not really have the chance to part with my father, but… I know his sense of justice, so… I mean, I'm very sure he wouldn't hurt me or… anybody… outside of that dream, but it's still terrifying to see him like that", I sighed. "You don't want to be hit by those arrows."
Ori turned to Adara. "Her father, a hunter?"
The druid huffed. "Are you stupid? Don't you know about the tales?"
"I'm not good at politics."
"You're not good at anything. You're a bard, you should know about the Wendigo!"
"What are you talking about, Adara?", Laelia asked.
The orcish woman sighed. "Silverthorne is a name we know of. We don't hold a grudge against you, what your father did what not what you… would do." She glanced at me. "Let's say humans have a tendency to invade other countries to get riches… in whatever way they can. He was known to be one of the most brutal."
Yaza was the one to finally break up the conversation and remind us of what we really wanted to do. Laelia finally went ahead, and somehow, though in pain, managed to pull the fence apart. As she was holding it open, people started streaming outside, apart from a few who appeared wholly apathetic. Two tiefling kids that ran out instantly came towards Yaza, talking at her from both sides. Apparently brothers, that she had conversed with when in this prison. From Angarath.
We discussed the situation for a moment, as the people were already running towards the exit, mind flayers screaming in shock somewhere. We were among the last as we started sprinting, and for some reason we had to force Nudd to come with us, with the help of a very sturdy rope. I had to evade a few prisoners that had stumbled, but it went well… until a mind witness, a giant tentacly monster, started pursuing us all. Luckily, we managed to get up the stairs (under screams of our dragged dragonborn barbarian) and the elf sealed off the exit with a wind wall.
I took a breather, before starting to search for the way back to Geronimo. After all, we had promised Veasna that she could visit Dror's grave… I quickly found our centaur again, and we brought him back up to our course of action, quickly retelling the events. We got back to the battlefield, where we had fought the vampire. The earth on Dror's grave was still fresh, and as the kid teared up again, I sat down, distracting myself by working on the bow.
Until I almost choked on my breath, as a bright white light emitted from Veasna. A frighteningly powerful wave of force welled over us, and I didn't dare to stand up, as a lich emerged from the ground. He talked to the brat, and they seemed to finish with an agreement: The lich would restore Dror to life, and instead Veasna would come with him and finish some kind of ritual. I jumped up, dropping everything, just trying to keep her from leaving, but as a certain orc raised up from his grave, she stepped closer to the lich… and both of them vanished, leaving me with empty hands.
I didn't know whether to cry or be happy that Dror was back, who seemed to be incredibly confused. I pushed the painful thought that we had lost Veasna again aside, and jumped at the orc, embracing him. "You're alive. You're really alive!", I whispered. I couldn't deny it anymore. I saw everyone here as friends. Just like I had seen my unit as friends… until that happened. I didn't want anyone to get hurt, or die, and goddamn would I point my bow at anyone who tried.
The other's quickly explained what had happened, Dror becoming incredibly shocked by the moment he realized that he had been dead for half a day. But we needed to get going… and rescue Veasna.
After a few minutes, I got up. We needed to get going, to rescue Veasna, but first we needed a good meal to get our energy back. As I wanted to free my mind anyway, I went off to go hunting. Unfortunately, there didn't seem to be anything in this damn cursed forest…
About a mile or two away, I suddenly smelled something that made my stomach growl. Delicious game soup. Cautious, I followed the smell, down into a cave, where I spotted a comfy-looking house. The door was incredibly large, and gave off a loud creak as I tried to sneak in.
What I saw inside was one shock after the other. An oni woman, offering me a bowl of soup. Mendeku, sitting at the table with a baby on his lap. And Thalia, stepping out of the door.