He'd always wanted to get to leave the Prime Material. Like, before he died.

Can he find a place to hide from the dragon?

There's a broken column!

Unfortunately a warrior in half plate with a greatsword was standing on it.

She flips over Cayden and lands in front of him,  sword out. "Abomination! This is your end!"

The tadpole squirms.

His head throbs and his skin tingles. Visions rush past: a dragon's wing, a silver sword, your face through this woman's eyes. 

She seems to be feeling it too. 

It does not look comfortable.

Kiddo needs socialization with other members of its species, apparently.

He puts his hands up in the see-I'm-not-armed gesture. Not that he needs a sword to w-- he does need a sword to win. Asmodeus damn it. 

"Hey, hey, hey. I'm Chaotic Neutral, I'm human, I just got here, I have no idea what's going on, I don't want to hurt you, that dragon over there definitely wants to hurt both of us. Can we talk about it?"

"You are no thrall. Vlaakith blesses me today. Together we might survive, with the help of my people and the dragons."

...Vlaakith sounds like an obscure demon lord! It's the extra vowels. Demon lords have a thing for extra vowels.

"Can you catch me up on the current situation?"

She looks annoyed that Cayden doesn't know the situation, but in the sort of way you'd be annoyed at a dog being confused.  "We have been infected by ghaik parasites. We must escape this ship and be cleansed."

"...sorry, I plane-shifted here. I've been conscious on this plane for maybe fifteen minutes altogether. I only speak your language because I have a Ring of Tongues. I'm broadly in favor of getting off this ship, but I don't want to be cleansed until I know what the process involves. I don't know who Vlaakith is or what a ghaik parasite is, although I assume the second one is the tadpoles. --Uh, I worship Desna, Calistria, Shelyn, Sarenrae, Besmara, Arshea, Marishi, uh, Kofusachi... I don't know which gods you have here... do you know your alignment?" 

She gives a look of increasing confusion. "I follow Vlaakith."

"...yeah, okay, let's get off the ship and deal with this situation later. What's the plan?"

"We defeat the imps and take the helm of this ship."

Okay, so he's really not confident that he's on Unhelpful Sword Lady's side here. He's pretty sure he stepped into some kind of Chaotic-Evil-vs.-Lawful-Evil situation, what with the vowels and the not recognizing Sarenrae or Desna. But he's not really against killing imps, and he just wants to resolve this situation in some way so he can get answers to questions like "what plane am I on?"

Also he's frustrated and wants to kill something. 

"Sure, let's. Do you know where I could get a spare sword or am I doing this barehanded?"

She takes a sheathed dagger off her belt and hands it to him, hilt first. 

Cool cool cool. 

Time to go kill some imps. 

Oh god he hates having his lifeforce drained. He hates it. He hates it. 

His reflexes are all wrong. Now that he's trying to move as fast as he can, he notices that he actually is slow. His dagger hits places other than the exact tenth of an inch he intended it to hit. An imp surprises him. He can't remember the last time anything surprised him in combat. He tries to backflip his way through a group of four imps, just on impulse, without even thinking of it, and instead he falls on his butt. He falls! On his actual butt! Lae'zel was watching!

But imps were never exactly difficult, and he tears through them with only a few scratches, which are more embarrassing than painful.

He's winded by the time they arrive at the helm. This sucks so hard. 

If it's any consolation, Lae'zel is not much better.  More formally trained, maybe, less prone to impulsive backflips, definitely, but not better.

Hey! Cayden has had plenty of formal training! It was just all for someone faster and more agile than he presently is. 

Okay. Helm. What are they doing at the helm? 

In the room before the helm, there's another set of pods. Most are empty. 

One contains a half elf woman banging desperately against the glass. "Let me out! Please!"

"We have no time for stragglers."

Lawful Evil vs. Chaotic Evil it is!

"I'll get you out!"

He punches open the glass and then immediately regrets that decision. 

"Find the controls!"

"There's no time!"

He can't break the glass because he's not as strong as he used to be, which is probably good, because he's also not as durable as he used to be and if he got shards of glass in his hand it would hurt.

"Where are the controls?"