Quick Summary
The team bravely faces down the illithidragon, and Arye makes a great sacrifice to ensure her friends' survival. Working together and defying the crystal mind, the team survives and makes a getaway on The Lila, narrowly escaping the eldritch horror of the Four-in-One.
Session Recap
Session opened with Chicory sprinting for the portal from which the party came and thrusting their arm through, determining it was still open to the lair, then peeking through and seeing the Berbalang. Ellsee alerted the team to a nearby ship floating amongst pieces of the ruins, and urged Lewis to help Chicory; he pulled the changeling away from the portal as the Berbalang sabotaged it. Arye bravely drew illithidragon’s attention with her arclightning attacks, and on seeing what the team was up against, told Solstice to “find them a way out.” Solstice cast heat metal on the illithidragon’s collar, then deflected its attack to move in the direction of the ship.
Through their link with the crystal mind, Ellsee threatened it with the Four-in-One’s displeasure about it acting against Dyana’s child. The crystal mind revealed that it had known who Ellsee was and intended to kill her before the four-in-one could learn of her existence, but Ellsee’s argument did make it hesitate. Throughout the combat, the team each made attempts to break the psionic link with the crystal mind, to varying degrees of success.
As Solstice cast jump on herself and Ellsee and focused on reaching the ship, Chicory backed up Arye and dealt sustained damage against the illithidragon, taking heavy psychic damage in return. Despite his fear, Lewis put himself between Chicory, until his mind was dominated and he was sent to attack Ellsee. On seeing Chicory so hurt and restrained, Arye backed off the illithidragon to carry them closer to the ship and Ellsee. Ellsee, in their starry form, asked Chicory to hold on just a little longer and used greater restoration to break the crystal mind’s control of Lewis.
The illithidragon caught up to the fleeing team and lunged for Chicory, but Arye switched places with them and was grappled in its tentacles. Solstice attempted to intervene with a solar flare, but the illithidragon’s hunger was as strong as its attacks. Arye told Chicory to run as she was lifted into the air and her brain was consumed by the monster, which immediately lost interest in the rest of the team and began to retreat into its lair.
Solstice successfully woke the construct ship, the damselfly named The Lila, and cast a vengeful sickening radiance on the illithidragon as she flew the ship towards her friends. Laetus used a surge of adrenaline to carry Arye’s body to the ship, and Ellsee kept Chicory up with their powerful healing. Chicory cast one last shatter on the illithidragon as they climbed aboard, and Ellsee followed.
Only Lewis wasn’t on the ship when Solstice’s eyes began to leak black resin, and fulfilling Ellsee’s dread premonition, the portal flared back into full brightness as the Four-in-One arrived, with the renegade Mind Flayer in control. The illithidragon exhaled a parting gift of poison breath before it vanished into its den, and Solstice cast wall of force around the portal, buying the team precious seconds to put distance between them and the eldritch horror of the Four-in-One. Laetus barely managed to scramble aboard while screaming in wordless terror, and the Renegade disintegrated Solstice’s wall and consumed some of Ellsee’s healing magic before it reached Chicory.
Ellsee called out “Know thyself! Recognize me! Something!” but the Renegade didn’t respond; when Solstice charged the damselfy’s wings and piloted the ship through the ruins to escape, it targeted her with reality break, incapacitating her with visions of the far realms. Chicory quickly took control of the ship until Ellsee could bring Solstice back to consciousness and allow her to sever her connection to the crystal mind, freeing the team entirely.
As Ellsee looked back at the Renegade, which opted not to pursue the team, Ellsee felt its formidable mind brush theirs. They saw a vision of Atropus in wildspace as the Four-in-One told them: Thank you for this.
Once a safe distance away, Chicory asked Ellsee to help Arye. Ellsee sadly admitted that she was too low on magic, and needed to get back to Soltura in order to find the rare components necessary for reincarnation. Chicory expressed their grief at once again being in the position of watching someone they love die, and their anger at Laetus for being the reason they had come to the lair in the first place. Ellsee validated their grief, and when Chicory went to sit with Arye, Lewis got out of their way and tucked himself into a far corner. Ellsee sat with Lewis, and Solstice tried to draw on her memory of the astral maps she saw in the lair, but realised it was impossible to navigate safely without a way to detect colour pools.
Solstice brought the ship to a stop, then went below deck to investigate. There she found a navigation system and ship control, and a sleeping space with a broken scrying mirror set up. The three foci for the scry hinted at an adventurer who had likely met her end in the Four-in-One’s lair, and that the deceased pilot had been searching for her.
In processing everything that happened and all that they had lost, Solstice became overwhelmed and gave herself an impromptu haircut with her dagger; Ellsee checked up on her, and the two expressed their disbelief and grief, and Solstice showed her growth by being willing to feel the grief. Ellsee helped Solstice tidy up her new haircut in a quiet moment of connection, while above deck, Lewis watched protectively over Chicory.
Session ended with a focus on Chicory holding Arye’s hand, and the connection that subsists; the bonds of love, which cannot be broken by any distance, not even death.