Session 24: Xyrxog, Mob Lord of the Free City
General Summary
Determined for answers, the party penetrated deeper into the inner sanctum. They knew that somewhere within lurked the Mind Flayer whose thralls had lured them below and harried their steps.
They came through an office, and discovered a scrying pool beyond. Vin the Wizard ventured beyond the pool, and found herself on a small balcony, 40 feet above the floor of a circular cathedral. Rising up before her, floating in the air, the aberrant form of Zyrxog: mind flayer, arcanist, mob lord, and ruler of this place.
Sigvurd advocated retreat, his militaristic training dictating the crowded balcony and the line formation it forced them into as a poor choice for battle. But the rest of the party began firing, and it didn't take long for the illithid to lock them in place.
The battle swung in frantic waves. The mind flayer wracked and gripped their minds, turning Lins' sword against her friends. The wizard fell, only to rise again with an incantation from Nemara's grimoire. The mind flayer took arrows to its tentacles face, and Sigvurd, resigned to the battleground, and began dispatching Zyrxog's summoned creatures.
But things took a terrifying turn when the dwarf leapt down onto the earthbound illithid, easily absorbing the fall damage, but failing against the stunning power of the monster's tentacles.
With Sigvurd's head firmly grasped in it's writhing maw, it looked like Zyrxog might be the end for the party's barbarian. Vin sent her familiar down, giving it the form of a huge tyrannosaurus, but its crushing bite was not enough to release Zyrxog's grip. The Warlock, in whose grimoire was Sigvurd's only chance at coming back, was pinned down.
Fortunately, all that time in the Grimoire of Hero Storing had imbued the party's fighter with a touch of fey magic. She stepped into a silvery mist on the balcony's edge, and emerged only 10 feet from the ground.
Lins closed the distance to the mind flayer, which Nishithra held obligingly within reach. Her blade struck home, slicing through the illithid's distended brain. As it convulsed, Sigvurd slipped from it's grip, free from its stun.
The mind flayer shuddered and became still, killed by sword and spell.
The party quickly dispatched the remaining minions, and began to take stock of their accomplishments.
A pool of purple tadpoles was vaporized with impunity. A back door revealed a private chamber with a chest full of treasure, and a ledger of business transactions. The latest of these was a payment from one Loris Raknian, for something called 'the apostolic scrolls', and for the deaths of Vin Frostkeeper, Lins Bogmar, a tiefling called Nemara, and a one-eyed dwarf answering to Sigvurd.