Part I
The party headed south to look into what the gnolls were doing in Mokkden Caverns. The resistance had rumors that they keep exploring the caves, but wasn't clear why.
During the trip South, Snow was contacted (via the Sending spell) by someone claiming to be Kuato asking how the mission went. After a little back and forth over a series of spells, Snow felt confident the tiny voice was (at least) with the resistance, and he gave a report about how the raid on the tower went. Also, over the several days of travel, Dúne, Cyrus, and Snow all had the same episode of glowing with purple light only to feel healthier afterward.
The party stopped at Amichai's childhood perch to check in on his parents. No one was there and they did a quick search of the home. It had been vacant for at least a month, there weren't any signs of a struggle, in fact a few essential things were missing like they'd left in an orderly manner.
Amichai suggested they go to the small cave complex where his family harvested slimes. All they found (other than a lot of slimes, as if there hadn't been a harvest in quite a while) was a jacket that was left behind with a letter from a neighbor. The letter mentioned other neighbors had gone missing and described what obviously were gnolls in the area.
Back at the perch they settled in for the night and did a more thorough search. On the back of a painting of Amichai as a hatchling they found a quickly sketched map that to an old outpost, close to one of the major cave entrances to Mokkden Caverns. Perhaps a clue left for Amichai?
The next day the party made their way to the outpost. There were gnolls on the ramparts but they weren't keeping a close guard. Cyrus and Dùne scouted around and saw at least 25 gnolls as well as an old teleportation circle. Meanwhile, a group of gnolls entered the compound (with a humblefolk too) and a short time later another group left with a luma. At about the same time, Düne sensed a portal opening up for a moment, in roughly the same direction the gnolls were headed.
The party headed in the same direction that the gnolls did and entered the caverns. The first room they came across was a shrine covered in trinket offerings to the gnoll god, Anubis. Düne could read a little bit of the writing and could make out the words of Promised Land and words of praise to Anubis.
Amichai became aware that something invisible was in the room with them. The party cornered whatever it was and it revealed itself, an odd looking stocky biped with long fur that hung off its chin. It had on armor and was well armed, but took a defensive position and looked over the party. They tried to talk with him, but didn't have a common language. Cyrus picked up an Eye of Anubis trinket, threw it down and stomped on it. The creature nodded his head and relaxed.
They left the shrine and began exploring the rest of the cave system. Soon they heard the distinct sounds of fighting. Rushing forward they found the gnolls engaged with more of the same creature they'd just befriended, only some of them were large, over twice the size.
The party joined against the gnolls and quickly dispatched them. The large sized creatures (that for some reason the party was now calling Duergar) shrunk down to their "normal" size. They picked up their dead as well as a few of the gnolls and headed to another cavern. A portal opened up and they stepped through.
The first Duergar they met paused and cut an insignia off his armor and gave it to the party. Just as the portal was closing the party saw a different group of bipeds join the Duergar, they looked very similar to No-Name.
After a lengthy discussion, the party decided to rescue Amichai's parents. They waited until night and climbed over the wall, easily dispatching a guard. It was so easy they decided to take all the other folk with them, a group of twenty or so. Düne cast Pass Without Trace three times, which covered their tracks for a good three hours. They were pretty confident the gnolls wouldn't be able to find them.
It took several days to get back to Wolpertinger Caves where they left the folk. They also show the patch to No-Name who grabbed it from Cyrus and began weeping. He wouldn't give it back until Cyrus did a little scroungecrafting and made another one for him to keep.
After checking in with George and resting for the night, the party headed back to Mokkden Caverns to try and discover what it was the gnolls were looking for, or afraid of in the caverns.
Two days later the party found themselves exploring the caves again, this time going much deeper. They entered a section that had an ambient glow from a sludge that trickled along the paths, sometimes getting a few feet deep, sometimes a few inches.
They encountered an odd plant and some gas bubbles that attacked them, but it seemed to be mostly annoying, nothing the party couldn't handle.
Part II
Exploring the rest of the cavern, the party found a few piles of gold coins and some gems, nothing of much significance. They came into a larger cavern and battled the Slime King, which seemed fairly anticlimactic after Cyrus punched-stunned him and then the party attacked en masse, taking him out before he ever recovered. The rest of the slimes were defeated with ease. They found a bit more treasure and a journal of some kind written in gnoll. No one could read it so they took it with them.
They traveled back to the outpost where they'd rescued the folk. It was deserted now. An inner courtyard had eight gnolls that had been beheaded and in gnoll custom the heads were then burned. One of them was the Captain who'd been in charge. Looking through the rest of the outpost it looked like a faction had been either punished or overthrown, it was impossible to tell.