Feldspar's mind nearly reels -- she feels as though she barely missed something terrible, but for the intervention of someone powerful. Shadow...?

She closes her eyes and shudders, then opens them and looks around with tiny glances. Drusk, unmoving, Quillary, unmoving, drooling. Jorin, unmoving after bracing himself. They seem to be in pain. Somehow she avoided it. Hildegrim, run away before that thing did whatever it did. Hmm. She groans without moving her mouth much, and lets out a low almost-word. Sounds like "help" but in another language. She also reaches back with her hand, trying to stay unseen by the... thing... and touches Drusk. She casts lesser restoration on him, in a similar way to which she earlier cast daylight. She goes back to being slack-jawed, attempting to further the ruse. If it was a ruse. That jerk, what was he doing here, with all those people, and so arrogantly reading a book and laughing at them. She curses him (BA: hexblade's curse on Big Bad). She stays still, eyes lolling about, but really looking around the chamber, trying to figure out who else he's talking to.

(Feldspar goes after Drusk in the initiative order, so Drusk would already be recovering from the modified stunning.
I was going to use restoration on Jorin, since he is last in the order, so it is probably easier to have Feldspar apply it to Jorin directly.
The Big Bad's "partner" normally goes last in the order, but I'll have it go next, and then Jorin can go.)

While Feldspar is secretly restoring Jorin's movement, the Cloaker flies down from the ceiling.
The (large-sized) creature resembled a leather cloak stuck to the ceiling when resting, but now looks like a manta ray while descending. It flies past the rest of the party, and disappears around the corner, where it attacks Hildigrim. (Rolled two d20s in the game log for the to-hit.)

• The bite misses badly with a 7 , as it was aiming for a human-sized opponent. The bite of a cloaker is dangerous, as a hit allows it to wrap around its prey like an oversized leech.
• The tail is able to hit with a to-hit of 17 , doing 7 of slashing damage. Although painful, it doesn't have any special properties like the bite attack.

Jorin is up (snapped to his senses by Feldspar), then a new round starts with Hildigrim.
(Currently Hildigrim and the cloaker are out of sight south of the party, around the curve of the passageway.)

My bad, I missed the "until the big bad's next turn" instead of a full minute. Just missed the whole thing. We'll roll with it, Jorin it is!

Ok, Jorin makes b-line for the Drider, yelling furious and raising his weapons to strike!

• Movement:  Running to G7
• Bonus Action: RAGE
• Action: Reckless Battleaxes
  • First Attack: 22 Damage: 15
  • Second Attack: 24 Damage: 16
• Action Surge for more reckless battleaxes!
  • Third Attack: 27 Damage: 16
  • Fourth Attack: 26 Damage: 17
• +6 radiant damage to the first attack that lands

Hildigrim disengages from the cloaker and moves back toward the chamber, but only far enough that he can still see the cloaker. "It's not a drider!" he yells, while getting his bow ready. Then, asking Volo to distract the cloaker, he fires an arrow at the creature.

26 to hit; 9 damage; 12 sneak attack (magical piercing)

8-1=7 arrows

(Sorry about the delays on my end.
I'll do some combat die rolls here, and the next post will have a lengthy explanation and an updated map.)

Hildigrim hits the cloaked for 21 damage. It still has a lot of health left, but that is still a nasty arrow wound.

Jorin hits 4 times. The last 3 hits do a combined 49 damage. The first hit (15 + 6 radiant) is redirected, which will be explained in the next post.

Big Bad Attack vs. Jorin, with advantage due to him being Reckless.

• Attack: 18 Damage: 28 psychic
• If that hits (Jorin AC 17), INT save vs. DC 16 or be stunned: 1
• It didn't use a Mind Blast this turn, but it still might have recharged for next round: 2 , 1

Jorin's first axe swing looks like a direct hit at the juncture of the neck and shoulder, but the axe surprisingly stops at contact. At the same time, the spectral purple ropes and the runes flare up, and the scout to the southwest of the circle erupts in blood. He has a massive axe wound cleaving his neck and shoulder, with an additional flare of radiant damage. The scout is clearly dead.
(BigBad used its reaction to redirect the damage to one of the captives. 21 damage is enough that the scout is dead-dead, no death saving throws needed.)

At that moment, Hildigrim backs out from around the corner (off the map to the south). After a satisfying arrow shot against the Cloaker trying to bite him, he shouts to your group, "It's not a drider!" just before Jorin's second axe swing.

The axe strikes the drider, its form wavers, twisting in on itself. The spider legs become tentacles, hanging from where its mouth should be, its hair morphs into a hooded cowl, and its night-black skin becomes a purplish blue as it stands on two legs and sneers... The party has seen mind flayers twice before, in Waterdeep and underneath the city in Skullport. This one is more terrifying, much taller than a "normal" mind flayer, six mouth tentacles instead of four, with a darker skin hue and madness in its eyes.

The arrogant telepathic voice continues in your minds. "No matter that the illusion has been penetrated. You do my bidding even as you try to attack me. These weak fools in my ritual will die quicker from your actions." The axe failed to draw blood, as the impact was blunted by the life-force the drider got from the dead drow. (It had 20 temporary HP to start the fight.)

Jorin is already raging. With the trickery to cause a scout's death and the deception of the creature's true identity, Jorin reasons that the right response is two more axe swings.
These strikes clearly pierce the creature's breastplate and draw ichor, and for a moment the mental voice is quiet.
(Already used its reaction on the first axe blow and the temp HP are gone.)

The Ulitharid grasps Jorin's head with its tentacles (18 to-hit), blasting him for 28 psychic damage. More concerning is that Jorin has gone limp, stunned again (save roll of 1).
The tentacles grip his skull tighter, getting ready to extract his brain...

Quillary, Drusk, Feldspar, and Jorin are up, in that order.
(Give me suggestions if Drusk should use Lesser Restoration to un-stun Jorin, try to heal up the scouts so they might not die on the next attack, or something else.)

Quillary cries out when the scout dies bloodily, then again when Jorin is captured. She steps to the side (left), to get out of anyone’s way, and incants, gesturing at the Omnilithid.

Action: cast Dispel Magic at 4th level on the big bad. Here is her ability check for spells higher than 3rd. (DC is 10+spell level), in game log.

Wisdom Ability check: 22

Woo!?

Ah shit

Welp, Jorin will stare into the betenacled void of this thing's mouth on his turn, lol.  NO WAIT, Jorin will use Fanatical Focus to reroll the INT save: 8

Jorin's face twitches slightly as he continues to stare.

OOC: I forgot I cast mirror image as soon as we came in here and she saw the big bad -- there should be quite a few rounds left on it.

Feldspar's eyes widen as the driver disappears. She looks back at Drusk and says, "can you fix Jorin's brain again?" She looks at the situation and laments she has no real arcane options that she can use that won't take out more captives. This will have to be handled with steel. She hopes... whatever that thing is has become too distracted by Jorin or that whatever Quillary did interfered with its magic. Her sword is in her hand and she darts off to the opposite side of it from Jorin, hoping that he has recovered enough to be a distraction. As she does so, three other Feldspars dart forward as well, surrounding the Ulitharid. She casts hex as she approaches. 

She's revolted by the tentacles and the brain eating, but she also guesses that something like this doesn't worry too much about its legs, and that's where she focuses her attacks.

Attack: 20 Damage: 9 plus 6 necrotic damage
Thirsting blade Attack: 11 Damage: 6 plus 4 necrotic damage

Crit, and a 20 at that! Couple more things happen. Should be +8 damage on Feldspar's normal melee attacks with hex blade's curse active, not sure how the code fell off.

Then the vicious shortsword adds 7 damage on an attack roll of 20. And rolling double the damage dice for that first attack on hex: 2

So the damage on the first attack is 9+8+7+6=30 whatever the extra hex damage is from the crit

Then the second attack roll is missing the modifier, I'm seeing an 11, which should be 11+8=19. Assuming that hits, the damage should be 6+8=14 plus the 4 regular hex damage, or 18.

So 48 plus whatever that one additional roll is, assuming 19 hits. 

(That's how Quillary is different than Drusk.
When he dispelled the Forbiddance , he had to be methodical and only succeeded due to the Guidance of Lliira.
Quillary just needs to be under intense pressure, and be pissed off at the use of necromancy by the monster.)

The purple spectral ropes surrounding the scouts blow away like smoke after Quillary uses Dispel Magic .

Drusk is creeped out by the monstrous illithid as much as the others, but manages to get close enough to slap Jorin on the back, using Lesser Restoration to remove his Stunned condition.

Although it took me a while to shift through Feldspar's attack posting, her revulsion gives extra sting to the attacks, hitting twice for 50 damage total.
The creature is rather annoyed that it couldn't redirect the 32 point critical hit to someone else.

The Cloaker flies to Hildigrim and continues attacking.

• Bite Attack: 20 Damage: 8 piercing (+ attached to Hildigrim on hit)
• Tail Attack: 7 Damage: 9 slashing
• The Cloaker is clinging to Hildigrim. Any damage to it will be cut in half, with the other half going to Hildigrim. The creature is crawling up the halfling's body, towards his head. Detaching the cloaked from Hildigrim requires a DC 16 STR check.

Jorin is up. He is grappled by the Ulitharid's tentacles, but he still has Freedom of Movement to help him out.
After he goes, Hildigrim can take his turn to start the next combat round.

(Yes, Quillary is very id powered. :)

Jorin rips the tentacles from his face and steps back away from the grapple (i think freedom of movement alows this?  If not, no bigs).  After taking an AOO, he rushes back into the monster's face, hacking and slashing with this blades.

• Movement: 5ft out of the reach of the creature to break the grapple
• Action:  Reckless Battleaxes
  • First Attack: 24 Damage: 10
  • Second Attack: 29 Damage: 13
• Bonus Action: Reckless Moonblade
  • Attack: 19 Damage: 11
• + 5 radiant damage to the first attack that lands

 Oh wow, double crits!

(No thanks to Quillary for suggesting Freedom of Movement? How soon they forget...)

Not to be outdone by Feldspar, Jorin slips free of the tentacles with magical ease and also does 50 damage to the ulitharid with some critical hits.

Hildigrim is up. He is currently grappled by the Cloaker, which is clinging to him like a leech.

Feldspar and Jorin are like dueling banjos on this uber-ilithid!

OOC: Remind me, DM, do you adjust the character sheets, or do we? Also, the following action and its result are subject to your approval.

Hildigrim dodges enough to reduce the damage (7 instead of 13), but screams a little as the creature attaches itself to him. He ducks as the creature's tail come flying at his face, screaming again. Then, stuttering a little, he incants his next spell and disappears in a puff of smoke, reappearing 30 feet closer to the giant illithid. He huddles against a wall and prepares to defend himself as he's certain the cloaker will be coming for him again.

Bonus: misty step

Action: dodge

Quote from DirtyDogP >>

OOC: Remind me, DM, do you adjust the character sheets, or do we? Also, the following action and its result are subject to your approval.

(OOC: Technically, I am another player and not the campaign DM, so I can't adjust your sheets or see most of your character Description.
Whatever you can see for Drusk's sheet is what I can see for Hildigrim.

Mingofaust is the official DM, so she has the edit permissions that I don't. So remember to be nice when the DM hat is handed over next month.

I was disappointed that Drusk's Misty Step is "self" only, so he can only try to brute-force the cloaker off, but Hildigrim having the spell makes life a lot easier.)

Hildigrim is freaked out at the Cloaked trying to envelope his face, and Misty-Steps out of its clutches.

The Ulitharid is in beat up, taking 100 damage between Feldspar and Jorin. (And if Quillary didn't negate it, a third of that could have been redirected to kill a scout.)
You hear the telepathic voice again, but it has lost the arrogant sneer, and is instead soothing.
(If you've seen the movies, a cross between Wormtongue in "Lord of the Rings" and the Lord Humongous in "Road Warrior".)

"There has been too much pain, too much suffering.
There is no need for all this violence in the Underdark.
You should stop fighting and march directly back to your fortress, so you can live in peace."

Mass Suggestion : Everyone should roll a WIS save vs. DC 16, even if it isn't your turn yet.
If you fail, you will use your full movement on your turn to leave combat. You don't have to Dash, but you won't be helping out in combat while you are charmed.

(Everyone should roll now, so that anyone who makes their save will know who needs to be snapped out of the spell.
The party knows from past experience that pain is a good way to stop these kind of shenanigans, although you are free to try something else.
Initiative order: Quillary, Drusk, Feldspar, cloaker, Jorin, Hildigrim, ulitharid)

Drusk WIS save: 12 (using Game Log)
Drusk starts to turn towards the exit, as it is a long march back to the Citadel...

Quillary’s Wis Save vs DC 16 (not w/Adv because she’s not a half elf, she’s a Reborn) in game log: 29

She just growls.