After defeating the shadow demon, Mira urged them to leave the citadel as quickly as possible, sensing the imminent danger of staying too long. The group debated whether to continue searching for Silas or to retreat. Ultimately, they agreed to leave, mindful of their dwindling resources.
Moving cautiously through the corridors, they entered a room occupied by cultists. The battle was swift, but despite their success, Ferinthria and Lirielle expressed concern about their limited spell slots. Realizing the urgency, they asked Mira to guide them to the nearest exit, and she agreed.
As they passed a storage room, Momeline took a quick look inside and spotted Jesse Durn clutching a handful of scrolls. She attempted to restrain him, but Jesse slipped free and dashed out of the room. Ferinthria also tried to grapple him while calling out, but Jesse’s speed allowed him to evade both attempts. Guards, seeing Jesse sprint past, pursued him, allowing the party to take advantage of the distraction and head toward the upper exit.
At an intersection, Jesse took a left turn, seemingly heading for the main gate, while the party continued straight towards the upper exit. Once outside, they looked down and saw Jesse emerging from the main exit, swiftly dispatching a guard with a sneak attack before vanishing into the mountains.
The party decided to make camp and prepare for the journey back to Southaven. During the night, Momeline successfully hunted a large deer, replenishing their dwindling rations. The journey to Southaven took five days, but the trek was uneventful.
Upon arrival, Mira was reunited with Dr. Wizzlethorpe, who was relieved to see her and immediately began tending to her injuries in his lab. In gratitude, he gave the party two flasks of Alchemist’s Fire. Later, Lord Kael listened with grave concern as the party recounted the events at Duskwatch and the cultists’ plans. After questioning Mira and learning about the “takeover” of Lusteris which has supposedly begun, he revealed that Velara had departed for Lusteris five days prior on an ambassadorial trip. Disturbed by the news, Lord Kael provided the party with a riding horse and a letter of authority to act as envoys of Southaven and tasked them with finding and protecting Velara.
The party prepared for the journey, opting to take the faster route through the Pale Mountains rather than through Elfwood. After a night’s rest and some final preparations, including identifying a few magical items and selling the blue-gemmed ring, they set out the next morning.
On the fourth day in the mountains, the party was ambushed by goblins, but a familiar figure—Zigra, the goblin hexer they had previously spared—intervened and ordered her tribe to stand down. She invited the party to her camp. There, they met Gralduk, the tribe leader, who was initially hostile but eventually spoke to them about the ongoing conflict with a nearby dwarven encampment. Gralduk expressed frustration at the dwarves’ incursion, lamenting that it upset the natural order where dwarves create and goblins take. Dravencoles, visibly irritated by the goblins’ worldview, remained skeptical of their intentions.
Gralduk asked the party to poison the dwarves’ food to weaken them, but when the party refused, he settled for asking them to persuade the dwarves to leave. As the party left, Grenda, Gralduk’s partner, examined them suspiciously and dismissed Ferinthria and Dravencoles, though she seemed to trust Momeline’s intentions.
Arriving at the dwarven camp, Commander Orin Stonegrip greeted them gruffly and proposed that the party take advantage of the goblins’ trust to poison their supplies or burn the supply tents. The party resisted these plans, but when Momeline revealed her dwarven parentage from Boulderforge, Orin disclosed that the goblins had raided Boulderforge just three months prior. This revelation convinced the party to support the dwarves, but they insisted on trying to evacuate the goblin women and children first.
Returning to the goblin camp, the party warned Gralduk of the impending attack and urged him to let non-combatants leave. Gralduk scoffed at the idea, asserting that no goblin in his tribe would flee. The party devised a plan to discreetly help the goblin caretakers and children escape. They succeeded in convincing the goblin caretakers in both the north and south sections to leave, with Ferinthria using her tides of chaos to bolster her persuasive efforts. They also freed a dwarven mother and child from a cage while disguising Lirielle as a goblin to avoid suspicion.
Meanwhile, Dravencoles and Momeline distracted the goblin warriors by engaging them in drinking games and contests. Dravencoles demonstrated his strength in arm wrestling matches, while Ferinthria captivated the goblins with an alluring dance, keeping their attention away from the gate. Momeline quietly incapacitated one of the gate guards and eliminated the other, signaling the waiting goblin caretakers and children to escape.
Once the non-combatants were clear, the party signaled the dwarves as promised. Commander Orin led the dwarven warriors to attack the camp, pleased with the party’s efforts. As the battle unfolded behind them, the party accepted a dwarven token of friendship from Orin and resumed their journey toward Lusteris, wary of the challenges yet to come.
With the Pale Mountains behind them, the party is now just days away from Lusteris, the sprawling city where Velara’s fate—and the cultists’ sinister plans—await. As they travel, concerns weigh heavily on their minds: Will they reach Velara before danger finds her? How widespread is Silas’s influence within the city? And what exactly is the nature of the “Starborn” that Silas and the cultists seem so intent on awakening? The answers lie ahead, but the path forward remains uncertain.