Episode 5: Gladeston, Part 3

The party reports to the council chambers to hear the decision: thanks to their help with Jun, the horses, and repairing the damage to the town, they have been granted permission to stay and are welcome to return in the future. Despite this, they decide to leave and make their way towards the address in Ivana's note: an individual at the University of Khaldun, the dwarf city in the mountains. Faelan warns them that a Ravenshire blockade has been sighted between Gladeston and the next town on the road to Khaldun, Armaster, but that there is an alternate route through the mountains. The party decides to take the mountain route. Kika gives Milla a dagger to defend herself in situations like the bandit scenario from the previous day.

On the road, they notice direwolf tracks concentrated around an area at the base of the mountains. Hiding their wagon and horses in the forest, they investigate, and find a cave guarded by direwolf-mounted hobgoblins. The party attacks, defeats the guard hobgoblins, and continues into the cave. Inside they discover more hobgoblins, and drawings on the wall depicting Tiamat, the dark counterpart to Bahamut, instructing the hobgoblins to break through the barrier in the sky. The party discovers that the hobgoblins have captured an air elemental and are torturing it to make it conjure massive whirlwinds, which are then being manipulated by a hobgoblin shaman (named, oddly, Stevie) to try and break through the barrier, and causing the storms in Gladeston. They get this information from a hobgoblin that Kika shoots an eye out of, then ties up and interrogates. His name is Hunter.

They knock out the hobgoblin shaman and attack their leader, a bugbear. As his final, dying act in an attempt to take the party down with him, he releases the elemental. Fan attacks the creature, which defends itself. It kills Milla instantly with a critical hit, and the party stops attacking immediately to try and revive her. The creature also stops its attacks, and flees when the party clears a path for it to do so.

Kika picks up their dead friend and races back to Gladeston on one of the horses, with Fan and Ridley close behind on the second horse. They find one of their druid acquaintances, and beg for a cleric. He leaves to find someone capable of resurrection, and the party waits. The druid returns with a cleric of Freyr, god of peace, fertility, rain and sunshine: the most popular religion in the area. The cleric is willing to help, but explains he needs materials worth a significant sum to use for the ritual. The party is still low on gold, and the situation seems dire... until Ridley produces his ruby.

The ritual is successful, and Milla returns to life. The party returns to Faelan's hut to rest.