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In Nesme, Wrex hides himself in the shadowy confines underneath the front porch of a house. The well-chosen spot keeps him invisible to prying eyes while still allowing him to keep an eye on what's happening in the street. He sees what can only be Cain's mephit hurling through the sky heading west, and hears bells from the center of the city. Just a few minutes later, a contingent of Riders of Nesme pass by, having departed their rebuilt fortress to reinforce the temple. As the afternoon passes into early evening, the streets are swept by several patrols of Riders, Aurilites, winter wolves, armored bears, ice mephits, and more. Wrex hears one of the priestesses of Auril summon those in the surrounding area to an assembly to be held later that night, where the High Archoness herself will speak in front of the temple.
Meanwhile, the other adventurers have safely reached their campsite in the wilderness several miles northwest of Longsaddle. Markus is excited about having breathed fire, and confused about why Mellia ordered a retreat. She explains that the battle had turned against them, but that one of the clerics was killed and that the adventurers will return. She uses the magickal gifts given to her by Cain to partially heal Markus, and feels connected to a higher power. She then casts a spell she recently developed that conjures a magnificent mansion in a pocket plane that can only be accessed through a single, hazy portal. Ralkin, Markus, and Urist take special care to hide some of their magickal items in a nearby patch of weeds lest clashing extraplanar magicks lead to disaster. Urist tries to wake the still-paralyzed Cain with a swift kick to the genitals, but it doesn't work and the fire cleric has to be carried inside.
Once the adventurers pass through the portal, they see the foyer of the mansion has been emblazoned with the symbol of Kossuth. The mansion has been outfitted with a common room full of barrels of ale and wine, as well as rooms custom-designed for each adventurer. Markus' room is full of mirrors for example, Wrex's room has furniture sized appropriately for him, Ralkin's room contains a workbench, and Cain and Mellia's rooms share an adjoining door. Even Cain's mephit has been provided for, with a long playroom full of wooden furniture to burn. While Urist ensures the ale is good quality through a lengthy taste-test, Markus admires himself in his room and Ralkin begins hammering and bending metal to construct another bear trap.
Cain regains the ability to move a few minutes after being carried into the mansion, and promptly heads outside. Telling Mellia to stay back, he heads towards some trees in the distance and starts to incinerate them with furious intensity! He falls to his knees in prayer, and remembers an aphorism instilled into him during his recent time at the Flaming Brazier: "The fires of Kossuth can never be extinguished; they may smoulder, but in time they will rise up to consume all!" Hours pass, and then Cain hears mocking applause behind him. "My eyes and ears in Nesme have told me of your pathetic failure," says the acerbic voice of Felix Ruul. "All of your planning and effort, and you fall before the Frostmaiden's wretched followers like a mewling worm. I cannot wait to share your failures with the rest of my Order, and perhaps the Eternal Flame himself!" A low, menacing growl escapes Cain's lips and his gaze, burning with anger, falls upon Felix. "Leave now," he tells the Red Wizard. "Or I will kill you where you stand!" After years of bullying the cleric, Felix is clearly taken aback by Cain's terrifying visage. He teleports away after lobbing one last insult.
When Cain returns to the extraplanar mansion, he remains visibly angry. Mellia tries to console him, telling him that they'll plan better for the next assault on Nesme such as by turning Cain invisible so he will not be a target for the Aurilites to concentrate on. Mellia shares her plan with Cain and the other adventurers to begin a guerilla warfare campaign against Nesme; teleporting in and out of the city to wreak havoc and then disappear before a coordinated defence can react. This, Mellia argues, will keep the Aurilites off-balance and exhausted. She adds that the campaign could be conducted from Startop Mountain, allowing the adventurers to proceed on their quest there at the same time. Cain says a lengthy campaign against Nesme will buy time for Felix to prove himself even more of a nuisance than before, and that the wizard may even try to turn others against them. He acknowledges Mellia's assertion that the adventurers simply are not powerful enough for a frontal attack on the temple to be successful, but says that next time, the group should try to wrest control of the powerful artifact rumoured to be possessed by the Aurilites. Mellia warns him it may be warded, and that they'll have to be careful. She says that once she retrieves Wrex in the morning, the gnome may have additional useful intelligence. She shows Cain their rooms, and the two spend the evening in romantic commiseration. Afterwards, Mellia traces the flame of Kossuth embedded in Cain's face, and asks him why he did it. He explains that, upon his return to Thay, it was a sign of devotion to have his faith displayed for all to see.
Late that night in Nesme, Wrex sees the citizens of Nesme begin streaming out of their homes and heading towards the temple. He uses skill and his innate ability as a svirfneblin to alter his appearance, and emerges from his hiding place looking like a teenage human boy! Although the townspeople have been told to watch out for strangers, Wrex's easy manner and quick wits allow him to join the crowd without arousing suspicion. When the crowd reach the temple, the leader of the Aurilites in Nesme, titled the High Archoness, emerges and addresses everyone assembled. She repeats the necessity of remaining wary and on the look out for spies and intruders, but assures everyone that any further attacks by "cowardly disciples of the Flamelord" will be thwarted as easily as was the one earlier in the day. Two alleged spies and traitors are brought forth, and the High Archoness conjures a thick block of ice around each one, covering them from the neck down. Their death comes slow and cruelly. Wrex returns to his hiding place, and hears the family residing in the house above him discussing the presence of the Aurilites in whispered conversation; they seem to have mixed feelings, grateful for the protection they offer against the legions of undead roaming the Evermoors but resentful at the gradual loss of liberty they once held.
[25 Flamerule 1372]
In the morning, Mellia wakes Cain and asks if he would like to accompany her when she retrieves Wrex from Nesme. Cain says he is exhausted from a terrible night's sleep, and tells her of nightmares involving an army of undead once again assembling in the Evermoors to take Nesme. But this time, rather than rely on pure numbers, their leader, the Dread Knight, plans to blast through any ice dome generated by the Aurilites using catapults hurling flaming, tar-covered boulders. The wrath of the Dread Knight has only grown since the earlier defeat. Cain adds that although the visions disturbed his sleep, if they are true, they may be propitious for the adventurers' own quest to destroy the city.
Downstairs in the mansion, Markus notices a winged shape hovering outside the portal back to the material plane. It's clearly a mephit like the one abandoned in Nesme, but this one has hard, rock-like skin broken up by glowing cracks filled with lava! Markus runs to share the news upstairs, and calls out for Cain and Mellia. The cleric leaves Mellia's room and opens the door to his own room; Markus notices nothing awry and tells Cain the news. When Markus leaves, Mellia tells Cain that it would have been okay if the cleric had opened the door to her own room; they have nothing to be ashamed of. Cain says he was only trying to protect her honour, but agrees with her position. Mellia and Cain go outside to see the mephit, and it introduces itself as Magnim and says it is here to serve Cain. The mephit is welcomed inside.
Mellia telepathically contacts Wrex and asks him to confirm his location for pick-up. He suggests meeting at Tantor's Outfitting, but she's not familiar with the location and tells him to be at the river bank in one hour. Wrex, who is now disguised as a middle-age surface gnome, makes his way to the river and stops on the east bank. He sees that the city is once again thriving on the summer river trade, and that the docks are quite busy. Mellia, for her part, turns herself invisible and teleports to the location where she and the others fought off slavers months ago--a location on the west bank. When she doesn't see Wrex in the vicinity, she heads for the arching ice bridge across the Surbrin but the heavy security has resulted in a long queue. Before she can get across, her invisibility spell expires and she's noticed by a patrol! She's forced to teleport away. Wrex notices a commotion on the far side of the river and tries to cross, but is turned away at the bridge. Realizing that he's going to have to spend another night in the city, Wrex searches until he finds a perfect hiding spot: the cellar of a rug merchant's house largely destroyed by Rufus' earlier attack on the city.
Mellia returns to the mansion, obviously frustrated. She explains to the others that she'll have to try again the next day. The group continue strategizing. Markus says the constant teleporting has proven itself a risky means of travel into battle, both because of the uncertainty of arrival and because Mellia can only carry some of the group on each journey. Discussion is also had of where to teleport to for Startop Mountain, and the group settles on the keep above rather than one of the orc caverns underneath. Before long, Cain's fire mephit arrives, having flown nonstop from Nesme. Cain's mephits enjoy some enthusiastic play together.
Unfortunately, Cain's nighttime rest is once again disrupted by tortuous visions; in this one, he sees tendrils of glowing green energy rising from all over Faerun before coalescing into a single beam that dives deep through Startop Mountain, passing through hundreds of feet of darkness before pouring into a silver circlet with four bony horns. The circlet is laying just a few feet from an incomprehensibly large behemoth shrouded in darkness; and as Cain awakens in terror, his last memory is of the circlet inching closer to the beast!
That same night, a possible flaw appears in Wrex's plan to stay hidden. Although clearly out of sight, a patrol that includes winter wolves passes near the house that the gnome has secreted himself within. One of the wolves catches the scent of a living creature from within what should be an abandoned hovel, and the priestess leading the patrol orders the rubble searched. Hearing this, and acting quickly, Wrex leaves his sword in the cellar and hurries up to the main floor and feigns sleep. When he's woken by a kick in the ribs from a Rider of Nesme, Wrex says that his name is Adin, and that he's a rug merchant left alone after his wife left him. The soldier is quite suspicious at first, claiming to know all the rug merchants in the city, but Wrex proceeds to weave a tale so convincing that the soldier doubts himself and then apologises! He vouches for "Adin" to the Aurilite priestess, and when she hears that Adin claimed to see a red-haired woman with pale skin appear and then "blink out" near the river, Wrex is escorted to a nearby guard barracks for a meal and a comfortable place to sleep for the night.
[26 Flamerule 1372]
In the morning, a pale and drawn Cain shares the details of his vision with Mellia. She tells him to rest, assuring him that they'll head for Startop later in the afternoon.
Far away, in the northwestern reaches of the High Forest, Rufus' journey towards a grove sacred to his patron deity continues. He's still a few miles away from the grove when he enters a clearing and is surprised to see Faevid Jaementhe waiting for him there. The ancient wood elf has long been a friend and mentor to Rufus, and shares with him the calling of a druid of Silvanus. Faevid bids Rufus to sit on a nearby rock and talk with him, adding regretfully that Rufus is forbidden from entering the sacred grove since he has fallen from the Lord of Oak's favour. Faevid asks the halfling to explain why he thinks Silvanus is displeased with him, and Rufus responds that he went to Nesme and saw that an evil cult had taken it over. Rufus says he summoned a tornado and attacked because the Aurilites had cut down trees in the area, conjured a bridge of ice in the heights of summer, and bound living animals to their service.
Faevid nods patiently, but replies that perhaps Rufus acted too hastily, and without consideration of the full consequences of his actions. The Lord of Oak, Faevid says, believes in maintaining balance and protecting nature through careful, deliberate action. By attacking Nesme so impetuously, Faevid says that Rufus not only risked open warfare between the followers of Auril and Silvanus in the north but also threatened to upset a delicate balance in the Evermoors. Right now, Faevid says, the only thing keeping the swelling ranks of undead abominations contained is their continued, if inexplicable, focus on destroying Nesme. If Rufus had succeeded in routing the Aurilites, the citizens of Nesme would be defenceless and would be slaughtered by undead; this, in turn, would allow those vile things to spill out on to the Silver Marches. Rufus, however, is not clearly persuaded and remains obstinate. "Fine, what do you want me to do?" he asks. "You want me to go kill the adventurers who plan to attack Nesme?" Faevid repeats that he is not here to tell Rufus what to do; the entire point of the discussion is to get Rufus to see that he needs to slow down and deliberate on the consequences of his actions. As a representative of Silvanus in the outer world, Rufus carries a great deal of power and responsibility that must be exercised judiciously.
Faevid suggests that perhaps Rufus' temperament has become affected by his constant and self-indulgent use of smokeweed. He says that as a symbol of atonement, Rufus should refrain from smoking for a full tenday in order to gain a clear head to think through his actions. The halfing shrugs and says that he had already deliberated, but that if Faevid insists its the only way to get his powers back, he'll go through with it. He says that he'll stay and help Faevid tend to the High Forest for a tenday.
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