With the resistance about to battle the gnolls for Alderheart, first the mind flayers must be defeated when they land or a victory at Alderheart won't matter.
The resistance sent forces to the Gith camp where they coordinated the forces to prepare for the illithid invasion. The gith welcomed the help, but didn't expect much from the resistance. This chaffed the Butchers of Meadowfen but they felt no need to prove themselves. The gith shared that there were likely to be ulitharid, large mind flayers, as part of the invasion. Not to mention slaves that would be fighting for them. They also touted the device that Xander Zibbik created that he guaranteed would stun the Elder Brain and allow them to kill it with ease. The party rolled their eyes at the suggestion Xander would be helpful but didn't say anything. In the morning they prepared for the invasion with a Heroes Feast and left to scout for the nautiloid ship.
The first sign of the mind flayers was a crashed ship, much smaller than the party expected. They easily dispatched a mind flayer and another creature that floated and shot beams from its eyes. Some gith showed up after the battle and appeared quite worried. Scout ships only accompanied Ancient Elder Brains. This was not what they expected, it would be a much tougher battle.
A mile away the nautiloid ship descended and all the gith and folk forces converged on it. The party was told to wait outside and look for any mind flayer stragglers that emerged with the gith went to the real fight. Of course, the heroes immediately entered the ship and began searching for the Elder Brain.
After several small skirmishes against some large lizard folk the party found the lair of the Elder Brain. It sat in a vat, unmoving (Xander's device must have worked), with a magical shield keeping the party from being able to attack it. There were two power sources feeding the shield and the party began damaging one as several mind flayers and two large ulitharids converged to protect the Elder Brain.
The shield dropped just as the Elder Brain began to slowly wake up and the party was hit with a mind blast from an ulitharid, stunning almost half the party. Suddenly things looked very bad as all the mind flayers converged on them. Eventually everyone in the party recovered from the mind blast but it took them a few more rounds to regain their footing.
The Elder Brain began grappling the party with tentacles which made it even more difficult to approach it. Adina activated the The Chain of Ardea and the tide began to turn. Soon the party was on the attack and the Elder Brain was reeling from the damage. Unable to stun all of the party at once, the Elder Brain was defeated which left the mind flayers stunned for a moment. After that they fighting was uncoordinated and the disadvantage made them much easier to defeat.
Once again, the legendary Butchers of Meadowfen had proven themselves in battle.
Ulitharid Mastermind
