"We may as well head towards the fortified cave. It doesn't seem spectacularly populated, but it's our best bet for finding someone who can remove the tadpoles"

"And we may find a lead on the location of a creche."

All right, cave it is. 

On the way to the cave he's going to try to build rapport with Lae'zel. Here are his thoughts on fighting techniques, what does she think about them. 

They are interesting! She's more of a straightforward two hander type, but she can see the appeal of this "backflip."

How'd she get her training? Cayden was mostly self-taught but he did get kicked out of six different militaries. (He resists the urge to tell the stories of how he got kicked out, even the really epic one with the two gnomes and the water bucket.)

She was trained in Creche K'liir. All Githyanki get military training in their creches, with some specialisation as they get older. 

She has finished the main part of her training, and now just needs to get the head of a mind flayer to be considered a full adult and travel to the Astral Sea as a kith'rak.

She's also a kid????

Why is everyone in this party a baby.

He needs to go hang out with Gale (an actual adult) and talk about adult things. Like house-- wait, no, Cayden is homeless. Like kid-- wait, no, Cayden's involvement with his children's lives is somewhere between "babysitting when he's in town" and "anonymously dropped off a big bag of gold on a front porch." Like health problem-- wait, no, until two days ago Cayden could fall off a ten-story cliff and be fine. They could talk about some adult thing, which Cayden has, because he's an adult. Reminisce about their childhoods.

Outwardly, Cayden is curious about how all githyanki train in creches! Don't most people have to, you know, farm? 

Because time doesn't pass normally in the Astral Plane, eating is recreational for the Githyanki that live there, which is most of them. They do have farmers, but they have many more warriors and artisans because those are more useful. 

Young Githyanki are raised in creches on the Prime Material, because otherwise their eggs would never hatch, and they'd never grow up. (They carefully move eggs between the Astral and the Prime Material so a whole creche worth hatches at once.) 

That's really cool! 

Since Lae'zel knows a lot more about mind flayers than he does, can she tell him a bit more about them? All he knows is that they reproduce by tadpole parasitism. (Is he flattering her? A little bit. Teenage adventurers thrive on being taken seriously, respected, and consulted for their expertise. Watch and learn, Astarion.)

Does he want to know how to kill them, or the historical context surrounding them?

He admits he's curious about the historical context!

Her people were originally slaves to the mindflayer empire, which spanned across planets and planes. They mind controlled their slaves, and used them for both their labour and meat. (Mindflayers exclusively eat brains, and even now they 'farm' their slaves.)

Until one day, they made a mistake. They chose a bodyguard among The People, a woman named Gith. She was strong in mind and body, and could resist the mindflayer's control without them realising she had slipped her leash. She taught the rest of The People, and the broke their chains and broke the back of the mindflayer empire.

And they could have completely destroyed all mindflayers if they weren't betrayed by their own people. 

There are two peoples now-- the followers of Gith, the Githyanki, and those that rejected her,  the Githzerai.

"Like... sapient brains, or could they in theory live on cows?"

"We have no records of them eating animals. They at the very least strongly prefer the brains of those who can think."

Aw, man, he's going to have to kill a little kid. He hates killing little kids. 

"What are the Githzerai up to?"

She arches an eyebrow. "After preventing the mindflayer's fall, they decided to go into the primordial chaos of Limbo and meditate."

Honestly, that seems a lot better than child soldier creches to Cayden, but what does he know.

Cayden chats with Lae'zel a bit more about fighting strategy and how she was trained. Does it seem like she has in any way heard of the concept of 'fun'?

Lae'zel has heard of fun! ... her concept of fun sounds very competitive.

Honestly, fair enough. 

"Bet I can beat you to the tree."

Oh, he is so on. 

Lae'zel wins! Probably because Cayden was a snack last night!

Yeah he's definitely not at his fittest.

They're getting closer to the gate of the cave. There seems to be yelling?

Well, that sounds bad.

(Cayden has a sword now. He stole it off a dead tiefling.)