Waking up the next morning, Gaia immediately consults with the divine beyond to check if Elara is safe or in need of rescue. She gets a vision of Elara standing atop her tower, heavily wounded, but alive, alleviating their concerns about her. With no way to come into contact with her, she will have to wait until they reach her somehow.
Walking into the courtyard, the four remaining guards are trying their best to keep up their duties, but the party can tell that morale is low. As they emerge, the head guard, Garrick, invites them to join them at breakfast. He then retreats, returning with a bunch of weapons that he and his guards gathered up, in case the party needs any of it. He offers his own Powered Gauntlet, which Quill takes, hoping it can make a difference. Not wanting to waste more time than necessary, they gather their horses, and depart the stronghold, with well-wishes from the guards, who hope they can save at least some of their companions.
The party follows the valley to the east over the next days, hoping they are not too late to stop Legion, but at the same time, unsure what they will do once they catch up to them, considering the size of the army they now control. And the army seems to be growing, as they pass by several dead horses and people, as well as luggage, littering the valley road beneath the rain.
On the second day, they find an impromptu campsite, with several bodies littered around. They immediately recognize one of them as one of the guards standing outside Elara’s tower when they first went there. Quill takes the speaking orb and talks into it, helping them locate the other one, hidden inside the satchel of a dead horse, presumably Elara’s. It lies next to two others, neither of them marked in any way.
They decide to speak into one of the orbs, to see who it might belong to. A court woman named Ra’va answers, demanding to know who is contacting her. The party explains the situation, and is told by Ra’va that she is in contact with Elara. She wants to know their location, and tells them to not approach Legion, as they are not capable of dealing with them. In addition to that, Ra’va and the other Elder Archmages are working out a plan to negotiate with Legion, as they see no other solution, wanting to prevent as many civilian casualties as possible.
After Ra’va has spoken her mind and departed the conversation, Gaia rightfully calls her a bitch. They don’t think a negotiation is going to work out well, so they’re not giving up. The party uses the last speaking orb to reach out, asking if whoever is on the other side is Legion or a friend of Elara. They get a single reply:
“Yes.”
Legion recognizes the voice on the other side, saying hello to Quill, Gaia, Raenerys and Miryks, and insinuates that they know that they’re behind the fire in Starfall Basin. Quill questions this, but Legion says that they were watched since the moment they entered the city. Legion has seemingly learned to not reveal themselves when observing the party. The party wants to know where Legion and his army are located, but only gets a cryptic response, saying “our target is within reach.”
Quill contacts Ra’va again, telling her that they talked to Legion, with Ra’va demanding that they hand over the speaking orb to her, on the south side of Sovereign Lake, but the group is ambivalent about this. Quill asks Gaia to reach out to the beyond, to see if the negotiations will work in stopping Legion. Gaia sees a city full of empty eyes, wandering around like drones, doing their masters bidding. No, the negotiations are unlikely to satisfy Legion, so the party decides they have to stop them now, before it is too late.
As the rest of the party searches through the belongings of Elara for any useful items, Miryks leans down to speak to the grass, asking what they saw passing through. The grass tells about a big pink mass with legs wandering through the valley, shooting out small tadpoles at people, who fell under its control, before moving on. She shudders, then thanks the grass for the help, returning to the others who have found a health potion, before continuing their journey.
𐡸
After a few days through the grueling rain, they finally reach the other side of the valley. Low clouds and fog limits visibility, but they push on through, following the road. Finally they reach a semblance of vegetation, with trees appearing in the distance, but to their surprise, they find their path blocked by a single person standing in the road ahead.
Miryks beastforms into a raven to get a closer look, finding it to be an elderly man just standing there, waiting for them. He looks relaxed, with his hands behind his back, looking towards the party. She returns to the others to tell them what she sees, and figuring that it is probably Legion, they approach cautiously. As they wander ahead, they spot several large shadows in the clouds above, one of them distinctly shaped like a dragon.
The man, who is clearly influenced or under the control of Legion, tells the party that there is nothing for them on the road ahead, and that they should back off, before they force them to. The man tries to convince them that Legion will bring peace to the world, and that they should not hinder progress, but once again, through Gaia’s view of the future, the words are hollow. The man turns to walk away, prompting two wyverns and a green dragon to fly down from the skies to attack the party, since they won’t listen to reason.
The wyverns crash down amongst the party, knocking everyone off their horses, while grabbing hold of those who have fallen down. Raenerys sends her horse away, then tries to force the wyverns to drop her allies using her dark magic. Freed from the grasps of the wyvern, Quill summons walls of flame to cut off the battlefield, forcing the attackers to back off, while Gaia and Miryks use their magic and attacks to push the beasts into the fire.
The green dragon releases its breath onto the group, making Miryks and Gaia choke, but they take some healing potions to clear their throats. The fight goes back and forth, before the party has the upper hand, burning the dragons to a crisp. The green dragon, in its dying words, laments the fact that the party is unwilling to listen to reason.
As the fires die down, they harvest what they can from the corpses of the dragon, taking a couple of fangs that Kreel wanted for research, before continuing onwards. They catch up to the man who is walking calmly away, but Miryks forces him to stop with her roots, so Quill walks up to him, telling Legion that they should listen to the party, antagonizing them. Legion are not impressed by their antics, clearly annoyed at the party. The light leaves the man's eyes, as Legion drains it away, much to Quill’s dismay, who wanted him to live. Gaia tries to get any information from the man’s corpse using her magic, but he just crumbles to dust.
As they come to a crossroads leading south to Kestrel’s Roots, they ask Ra’va to relay a message to Elara, telling her to bring horses and a courier, lying that their horses have died, under the guise of heading north, away from Legion. Satisfied that the party has listened to her commands, Ra’va says that she will bring word immediately, contacting Elara. The party then heads south.
After about half a day’s travel, they come to the road leading west to Kestrel’s Roots, where Cedric, the courier they sent to fetch the wife of Finneas, is waiting for them with four new horses. They give him the speaking orbs, telling him to bring them to Elara, and to please bring their exhausted horses back with him. He obliges, and so they say goodbye to their mounts for now, taking the fresh horses into the dark woods to the east, hoping to beat Legion to Goldenworth.
Heading east through the forest, after a few hours, they hear Elara’s voice through the speaking orb. She is happy to hear their voices, and the party is happy to hear that she shares their views on Ra’va and her attitude. She is pleased to hear that the party lied to Ra’va about heading north, hoping the party can stop Legion before they do too much damage. Nibblet comments that she thinks Elara sounds nice, causing the party to groan as they realize that they should have sent him with Cedric, but they remember that Puddlewick is near Goldenworth, and would probably be a much better master for him. The party continues onwards, reinvigorated by being cheered on by Elara. They ride through the night, not stopping unless absolutely necessary, and eventually find themselves on the outskirts of Ashvale after two days' travel.
Sore and tired from the ride, with the horses looking completely spent, they decide to look through the village. As they feared, Legion has already passed through, and the town is completely deserted; the villagers either fled or assimilated into their army. Figuring that it is an emergency, they look through the town to find whatever they can that would be useful to them, mostly for disguising Raenerys and Gaia, as Quill and Miryks can already do so themselves. They decide to take the horses into the tavern itself for the night, and sleep without lights in one of the rooms.
Raenerys keeps watch throughout the night, and can hear the flaps from wings and screams from the mouths of wyverns patrolling overhead. Legion clearly wants to keep control of their captured territory, and the party breathes a sigh of relief that they put the horses inside.
The next morning, they don their disguises, making it look like they’re travelers from the Emirate of Khetam to the north-west, heading south towards Goldenworth. After a few hours, they see the city in the distance, smoke billowing from the walls and the central tower. They are too late, with Legion already in control. With no sight of an elder brain anywhere, they make their way across the fields towards Puddlewick’s tower, entering the enchanted forest after saying the password to pass through safely.