The Derro Alliance
7 August. Kvothe, Agatha, Ubo, Dravona, Sylvara, Caldris.
Before the recording started
The transcript begins partway through the battle. Two things had already happened:
- Ubo was brought back up. He went down on 15 May and spent the intervening rounds unconscious, rolling death saves. He made them. He is on his feet and casting by the time the record picks up.
- Kvothe cast Polymorph on the mind flayer, turning it into a frog.
The chuul
It tried to leave with Agatha still in its grip, and the room did not let it.
| Ubo | Repositioned the Moonbeam. The chuul made its Constitution save and was bloodied anyway |
| The chuul | Two pincer attacks — killed a Derro outright, missed a second |
| Withdrawal | Dragging Agatha, it ate three attacks of opportunity — Caldris's longsword, a Derro scimitar, a cluster of Derro hook-hands. All three missed |
| Melee | 13 damage, leaving it on the edge |
| Dravona | Fire Bolt. 13 points, exactly the remainder. The chuul burned |
That is two sessions running in which a chuul has dragged Agatha toward a cliff edge and Dravona has killed it.
The execution
Kvothe had turned it into a frog — 1 hit point, with 62 hit points waiting underneath. The party did not gamble on the difference.
They used the damage carry-over rule: anything past the frog's 1 HP lands on the true form. Then they built a firing squad around it.
- Surround and secure — bodies on every exit
- Kvothe cast True Strike on Caldris to buy a critical
- Sylvara readied the Oathbow
- Everyone withdrew to thirty feet — far enough that a reverting mind flayer could not Mind Blast the group
- One signal. Everything at once.
Charred, slashed and perforated. Nothing reverted, nothing spoke, nothing got a save.
It is the party's first kill on a mind flayer. They worked out the mechanics of the spell holding it before they started, and built the volley around them.
Vortikand, and the Derro who talked back
The surviving Derro did not attack. Draconic got nowhere; Undercommon worked, with Dravona interpreting.
Their wizard gave his name: Vortikand.
He drew the distinction himself, unprompted:
| His term | What he means |
|---|---|
| "Smart Derro" | His own people. Free-minded. Fighting the illithids |
| "Stupid Derro" | The ones serving the Great Ones — and not by choice |
| "Brain Capture" | Total psychic enslavement. What was done to the second group |
| "Fish Folk" | The kuo-toa |
| "Great Ones" | The mind flayers |
Asked about the Derro the party had been fighting — every horde, every ambush, the guards at the double doors, the ones at the portal chamber — Vortikand said they were thralls rather than enemies. He did not put it as an accusation. He put it as a reason to work together.
A truce was struck on the shared hatred of the Fish Folk and the Great Ones.
The hidden outpost
Vortikand led them to a Derro post concealed in the cavern wall and let them rest in it — a sanctuary, offered freely, by a faction they had been fighting a session earlier.
What was in it
| Find | Detail |
|---|---|
| 160 gold coins | Struck with a fish-head device |
| A scroll case | Hard leather, mechanically and magically sealed |
Agatha identified the coinage. A Religion check named the lobster-headed figure on the face: Blibdoolpoolp, the Sea Mother — kuo-toa goddess, a deity of madness who hates surface-dwellers and mind flayers in equal measure.
The party already had her name off a Derro corpse months earlier — "deliver the Pale Ones by the seventh moon or face Blibdoolpoolp's wrath." This is the first time anyone put a face to it, and the first time the record says she hates the illithids too.
The scroll case, and why it no longer exists
- Kvothe opened it and triggered a gas trap — 23 poison damage, and poisoned
- Dravona cleared it with Lesser Restoration
- Ubo consulted the spirits to read the scroll and rolled a 6. Nothing manifested
- Vortikand warned them the Great Ones can track it, and told them to destroy it
- Dravona cast Void Maw and disintegrated the scroll entirely
Nobody read it. The party destroyed a sealed, trapped, magically tracked kuo-toa document on the word of an ally they had known for about an hour.
South, toward the rebels
The party set out south for the Derro Rebel Stronghold, held by a leader named Muranekk.
| Role | Who |
|---|---|
| Guide | Vortikand |
| Forward scout | Halvriss |
| Rear guard | Sylvara — Cover Tracks, DC 16, made it |
| Sustenance | Dravona ate rocks rather than draw on party supply |
Halvriss found a defensible crack in the wall — cramped, but hidden — and they camped in it.
Why they fight
Vortikand asked the obvious question: why do surface-dwellers fight the Great Ones at all?
The party answered that this is a last stand for their home under the "Eye of Fire" — the sun — and that they are the final barrier against the Underdark coming up.
Camp
| Who | Task | Result |
|---|---|---|
| Kvothe | Entertain | Performance 16. Dravona, Kvothe and Agatha shielded from the next fatigue or strife |
| Ubo | Herbalism | Two Fairy Caps into the healer's satchel |
| Dravona | Cook | Party supply consumption down by 1 for the day |
| Agatha | Pray | The whole party has advantage on one check or attack tomorrow |
Four for four. Dravona's cooking carried the Weaver's grace this time.
How the night ended
Nobody died. The mind flayer commander that had escaped Outpost Crystal and hunted them across the Sunless Sea was dead, the party had a truce with Vortikand's people, and they were several days' march from Muranekk's stronghold with advantage on one roll each banked for the morning.