As the party left the gardens, backtracking through the now ancient and ruined manor house, they passed the mutilated bodies of dozens of goblins and slain villagers. Orna Ordan was too distraught to really be aware of anything that was happening, including the sight of her mother who was amongst the dead. When everyone finally got outside, Nendrinym, the hexblade, was just behind them. The hexblade had just finished interrogating and subsequently killing the three green hags after they failed to provide them with the location of the Moon Curser’s Key. Deirdre, the fairy, used greater illusion to make the party invisible to the elf. Gnomish mercenaries attempted to attack the party and Deirdre using some kind of a steam-powered tank. Deirdre reversed gravity around the tank causing it to fall into the sky. Nendranym and the other Zhentarim retreated off towards the Northwest.
Deirdre left the party to attend her punishment with the Summer Court. The party continued west on their own. After a few hours of walking, they passed the remains of the ruined wagon, inside which were several coffins. One of the coffins was empty, and the others contained dead tieflings. A short way later the party passed a stone bridge. Hanging from the bridge were three bodies with nooses around their necks. Just beyond the bridge was a tall tiefling man (Cerulean Alkatar). Dragomir waved to the stranger, who turned around and ran away. Dragomir immediately chased after Cerulean who shouted "Why are you chasing me? " to which Dragomir responded, "Why are you running?”
When Dragomir caught up to Cerulean, the pirate cast friends on the vampire. Instead of leaving Cerulean alone as he'd hoped, Dragomir led the pirate back to his group to meet them. After learning that Cerulean was amongst the tieflings imprisoned in that wagon earlier the party agreed to have him along at least until the city of Candlelight.
Later that night, while the group made camp, Cherish Heiss attempted to keep an eye on and comfort Orna, who hates her. Orna left the camp for several hours and no one noticed.
The following day as the party neared the edge of the bog they passed a traveling monk of Aurilandür heading in the opposite direction. The monk introduced themselves as Nox. She was there on a pilgrimage to visit a temple in the mountains on the west side of the island. Having failed to find the monastery that she was seeking, she was traveling the rest of the island on a spiritual journey. Seeing that the party needed help, she decided to travel with them.
As the party reached the western edge of the marshlands they passed through a circular stone gate near several windmills and an old inn. Two wagons like the one that they passed on the road were parked outside. All the rooms were already rented but the party agreed to sleep in the stables. The rooms had already been rented by a large group of halfling soldiers wearing the same coat of arms that the party saw on many of the doors aboard the Doldrum. Besides the halflings, there were three female tritons who were all guards in the tavern and a male triton bartender. Nox spoke with and drank with the female tritons at length, learning that they were guards from the nearby city. Cerulean and Cherish saw that one of the carts parked outside contained mining provisions, tools, oil, and lanterns, as well as lots of food. The other cart held about half a dozen imprisoned tieflings. Resolving to free the tieflings, Dragomir and Clio helped push the cart with the mining supplies to the hill leading back down into the bog. As the cart rolled towards the marsh, Cherish lit it on fire. All three of the triton guards heard the commotion and came outside to have a look around. They seemed amused by the cart being set on fire and told the party that they should be on their way but did not try to arrest anyone. As the party was getting ready to leave, one of the halflings stepped outside to relieve himself and was about to see that they had destroyed one of the two carts. Dragomir used his blood puppet powers to convince the halfling to run in a straight line off into the swamp.
After passing many fields of golden wheat, which Dragomir took the time to pluck several stocks from, the party arrived at the edge of the city of Candlelight.