Book 2: It's a Lovely Night for a Burglary

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Book 2 Summary

* In Baldur's Gate, there's a disease spreading through the fishing district. It seemed magical in nature, so the party wondered what was going on.
* Before Wistray moved on, she heard someone talking to a man in a holding cell beneath the council hall. Arix and Wanderer went to investigate after she left and after Morgana and Artemis fell ill to the disease.
* It was Orestes, and he was accused of attempted assassination of one of the councilmen, Dory. In reality, he was trying to knock the Black Book out of the way so it couldn't corrupt Dory. Someone called the guards on him and now he's waiting for a trial and probable hanging. He tells them what to look for and what he knows about Dory, and Arix and Wanderer go to his mansion to learn what they can.
* With Arix posing as her fellow clergyman, Arix and Wanderer approached his home and asked if they could speak with him. They were seeking donations to fund medical supplies to get to the sick. They were let in, much to people's surprise later on, as Dory wasn't taking visitors at the time.
* They share a meal with him, which was rotted, maggot filled salmon and veg, and then talked about the donations. He donated two hundred gold to the Temple for the relief efforts and sent them on their way. Arix and Wanderer didn't learn much other than what the place looked like and the horrible smell coming off of Dory. No sign of the Black Book.
* They report back to Orestes, joined by Artemis once she was feeling better, and tell him what they learned.
* After a discussion, the trio head for the thieves guild to find out if anyone knew how to get inside the museum. Apparently, someone had recently tried to break in so security was tighter. They also learn that they feel guilty for what happened to Orestes because they were the ones to set him up with the guy who turned on him in the middle of their mission, an unnamed Lashay.
* The trio break into the museum and get what they think is the Black Book, and then they bring it back to Orestes. Orestes takes one look at it and snaps at Arix about thinking they were hilarious for bringing him a fake. They explain themselves and then he tells them they'll have to break into Dory's house. He either has it stashed away somewhere, or he's got it on his person. To make things more complicated, his trial has been moved to the following morning, much sooner than it was supposed to be. They have to prove his innocence and destroy the Book before morning. Wanderer asks if there's a way they could destroy the Book, just in case something happens to him and they can't get the Book to him in time. Orestes gives Wanderer a charge of his eldritch fire.
* The trio break into the mansion and are immediately confronted by house servants who vomit bugs at them as an attack. They manage to fight them off and kill them. The three search the bottom floor but find nothing of value on the whereabouts of the Book or a way to prove Orestes' innocence. There's a noise upstairs and the three go up to investigate.
* At the top, coming out of a room, are Orestes and Morgana. He broke out and met her along the way, bringing her with him.
* The party searches the top floor and they find a journal and a shrine to the Outer God in the Book in Dory's office. Orestes destroys the shrine and Wanderer keeps the journal. Arix finds ledgers and uses his forgery kit to fudge the numbers. With both the journal showing Dory's decent into madness and the forged ledgers, they have a little evidence to prove Orestes' innocence.
* They all head to the cellar, where they find a secret opening into the sewers. They travel through it, fighting abominations and things as they go, and then they find Dory in the middle of a ritual. After a long fight, they kill Dory and Orestes destroys the Book. They head outside where the entire city guard is waiting for them. Arix and the Wanderer offer the journal and ledgers to their captain, explaining that Dory was stealing and unstable, Orestes is cleared of the charges.
* They go to get a drink to relax and run into a Reaper named Jin, a type of Eastern Blood Hunter. He joins the party after a few shenanigans and then everyone turns in for some sleep. Everyone has a nightmare, and it's assumed that it came from Azathoth, the most powerful of the Outer Gods.
* The next day, everyone goes out to run their errands. Arix and Morgana go get passage to Waterdeep, Orestes goes to some secret place and Artemis fails to follow him, Jin and Wanderer go to the markets. Wanderer has a vision from her goddesses and the pair rush back to the inn to meet the others, where she tells them about what the goddesses said. Jin and Orestes are on the verge of panic and Wanderer adds that she knows Malyn and Azat because of things that happened in or before the graveyard where her mother was killed. She explains what happened that night and why Azathoth sounds familiar. Orestes demands to know why she didn't stop it and she tells him that she couldn't, her mother died and Wanderer was knocked out. The ritual was over by the time she woke up in the morning.
* They pack up and rush for Waterdeep and then to Amphail, where the ritual took place.

Chapter 1: Saying Goodbye to a New Friend
 The party arrived in Baldur’s Gate, recovering fairly from its descent into Avernus, with Wistray Stusk in tow. Upon making landfall in the Seatower District, Wistray revealed that she had always wanted to go to Baldur’s Gate, but now that she was there, it seemed bittersweet due to the events of the past few days. The Wanderer and Arix decided it would be best to take her shopping after getting permission from the Captain, giving her a small amount of gold to use for her own purposes. While Wistray and the Wanderer went to the market, a drunken group of revelers arrived in the market square singing songs and drinking in the morning. Arix joined in, not knowing what was going on but never one to turn down a party. Too late did he realize the identity of the revelers as Amnian, at which point he desperately sought an escape.
In the market, the rest of the party and Wistray browsed the stalls before Wistray simply stopped and focused on something. The Wanderer inquired as to what she was hearing, prompting Wistray to subtly gesture towards two men in an alley exchanging a small package between them. As they dispersed, Wistray followed one of the men who went into the alley behind him to the Council House. He stooped down and handed off the package to a figure behind the bars near the ground and exchanged terse words with the individual there, according to Wistray. The man had said that there was nothing more he could do for the man behind the bars, wishing him luck in his strange endeavor. The man behind the bars then cursed him and begged him to see this job finished, but to no avail, as the man sped off down the alley. Wistray wanted to see what was going on, but the bell tolled for her to return to the ship and depart for Gwynneth.

Before she and the Wanderer left for the docks, she presented the party with gifts as a thank you for their kindness: Arix received a brass broach, Artemis received a hairpin in the shape of a moon, Morgana received a copper ring, and the Wanderer received a feather charm for her hair.

The Wanderer escorted Wistray back to the docks, where the two talked, and Wistray asked for advice on how to deal with “meeting” her father for the first time. The Wanderer gave her sound advice and provided love and support to which Wistray was unaccustomed. The Wanderer saw Wistray off by revealing her true name to her and promising to come see her at Caer Gwaed with plenty of books for her to read. Wistray hugged the Wanderer before boarding the ship, which set off for Gwynneth. The Wanderer returned to the party with tears in her eyes.

Chapter 2: The Mystery of the White-Haired Man: Solved
After Wistray leaves, the party heads for the Council House. Arix slips inside and tries to convince the man at the front desk to let him in, but he refuses. He returns to the party and asks the Wanderer to borrow her coat so he may slip inside without notice and unmemorable to anyone who does spot him. Once he passes the front desk and heads down to the cells below, he uses a fake seal that mimics that of one of the councilmen to get the guards to let him speak to the Man with the White Hair. He also requested that they vacate the area so he could interrogate him privately.
He's gruff and sarcastic, wary of Arix once he mentions that he knows about the Black Books and that he planned to break him out of prison. The white-haired man asks him how he knows about the Black Books, and Arix informs him that the party had met the Ascended and that he'd killed him. The other claims that it's not possible. The Ascended shouldn't have even been possible to create, let alone kill him if they were successful and created him. Without the Book, how would they have finished the ritual to make the Ascended? It would have been incomplete.

He introduces himself as Orestes van Lynets and that he was imprisoned for an attempted assassination, which he claims was not his intention when he was at the party at the museum. The target they accused him of trying to kill was Terolmic Dory, one of the Councilman in Baldur's Gate. Arix asks him about breaking him out, but Orestes said that he couldn't or the whole city guard would be on him, and he'd be in more trouble. It would all but prove his guilt.

Describing the scene at the party, he said there was a LeShay there that seemed very interested in the Book, which is odd because someone like him wouldn't be able to really use it, let alone touch it since elves can't come into contact with otherworldly magic without consequences. The LeShay, however, is the one reason Orestes claims led to his capture. The Leshay was the one trying to cause problems and get his hands on the Book, not Orestes.

Orestes asks about the coat Arix sported since it belonged to his "adversary." Arix pointed out the hooded cloak he wore and then mentioned the daggers. The daggers caught Orestes's attention, and then the arguing began; what little civility they had was gone. He eventually points out that he could tell Arix more and piece this together if he had his box of gear.
They need to get Orestes the book, so they'll go into Dory's house or possibly the museum if it wasn't there...or both.

The discussion around the amount of security around Dory's house comes up, and Arix says that it should be easy to get in, which prompted Orestes to deadpan, "you're not exactly used to playing in the big leagues, are you?" alluding to Arix's inexperience. Arix replied, "You must not be used to the big leagues either, considering you got caught."

Arix sets about getting the black journal out of it to give to Orestes so the man would have access to what information and knowledge he had. He may also be able to figure out why the Ascended was able to be created and then killed so easily. Arix said he's pretty sure the Elder Tree did most of the work, which confused him because Orestes was sure it was dead, but no; it was very much alive and kicking.
The guards stopped Arix when he went to retrieve the notebook for Orestes, questioning his reasons for being there and talking to Orestes privately for as long as he had. It took a little back and forth for him to lie his way out of their suspicion so he could sneak into the evidence lockers to get the notebook.

Orestes flipped through it slowly and thanked him before telling him that hopefully, he'd have more information on how they managed to kill the Ascended.

Once Arix rejoins the party, he catches them up on what he'd learned with Orestes and the necessity of getting Orestes out of there and getting the Book out. The Wanderer grows a little more nervous when Arix brings up a LaShay, and she doesn't volunteer anything, but there is a hint of her knowing him.

Time to do some recon and plan a break-in or two.

Chapter 3: Alms? Alms for the Poor—Oh Sweet Gods in Heaven, What the fuck is That?
A plague slowly spreads throughout the shipping district of the city, and according to the innkeeper, Tony, people near the drains for the sewers seem to be the ones getting sick. However, he admits that he hasn't smelled anything out of the ordinary when he's been near one. He tells them there wasn't much of a pattern for who was and wasn't infected; race or resident versus visitor didn't seem to matter.
Artemis and Morgana catch the disease after they leave the Council House. Both pass out on their way to find an inn; Arix and the Wanderer quickly get them to the nearest inn. The Wanderer uncomfortably convinces the innkeeper to give them a discount on their rooms since she's a priestess, and it might mean she'd have to pull from the alms box to pay him. In return, she offers to go through his inn to pray over it and bless his establishment against disease and strife later.

A bedridden Artemis and Morgana leaves Arix and the Wanderer to learn what they can about the plague, the whereabouts of the Black Book, and prove Orestes's innocence...by themselves. The symptoms were looking greenish, weakness, lethargy, fever, and more. The Wanderer tries to figure out if the illness that has struck Morgana and Artemis has anything to do with the Black Books, and, disturbingly, it feels similar to what she experienced in the cemetery the night her mother died; it's evil and possibly eldritch.

Arix rejoins her in one of the rented rooms where she tended to their companions, breakfast in hand. She shares what she learned about the disease and that it's likely the work of a Black Book, and destroying it might end the plague, healing those who are still sick. Arix accidentally mentions to the innkeeper his plans to get Orestes out of jail by proving his innocence. Enilasor quickly excuses it as Arix having been raised by the accused, and who would know the man in that prison better than him?

After Tony tells them what little he knew about the LeShay who had stayed there for a few nights, Arix and the Wanderer leave to go to Dory's house.

Arix's suggestion is to break in or fight the guards to get in, and the Wanderer's is to don her vestments and have the pair of them use the ruse of collecting donations for the temple to help pay for treatment for those falling ill to this disease. In the end, the Wanderer gives him her coat in case he gets into trouble and needs to make a break for it. However, this leaves the Wanderer to get out on her own.

They introduce themselves to the guards and state their purpose. After explaining that they only wished to aid the sick, someone fetched Dory's butler to explain the situation. The butler leaves to relay the information to Dory, and then he returns and invites them into the house to meet with Dory.

The house is dark inside, windows shuttered with the curtains drawn, and lights dimmed. Their ability to see in the dark is the only thing that helps them navigate the halls, aside from the butler.
The butler informs them that Dory has invited them to dinner, which Arix and the Wanderer graciously accept. When Dory joined them, he brought the stench of decay and death. He was bandaged from head to toe to hide his "skin condition."

They regret it the moment they're served their meal.

Maggots and all manner of rot cover the fish and vegetables, thoroughly turning Arix's and the Wanderer's stomachs. She makes the excuse of wanting to pray over the food so she can secretly cast a spell to purify it to remove the rot. It didn't get rid of the bugs, but at least the mold wouldn't make them sick.

They talk about the situation in the district for a while. When they finish, Dory asks for her name and inquires about the mask. The Wanderer tells her second lie, replying that she decided to relinquish parts of her identity as a sign of devotion to the Horae. However, she was once known by the name of Mistfield―inadvertently revealing her last name to Arix.

In the end, the kind and generous councilman donates two hundred gold pieces to the temple to pay for medical aid to the people of his city.

Chapter 4: Thieves at the Tavern and a Heist at the Museum
Arix and the Wanderer return to the inn to discover that Artemis is up and moving again. She still looks a little sick, but she's well enough to go with them. After they catch her up, the trio makes for the thieves guild.
It's down at the docks, and Arix starts chatting with everyone while Artemis and the Wanderer kind of stand around awkwardly. This is where they meet Jislin, the bartender.

He asks around for information on the museum and the state of security. The moment he mentions the Book, the woman he's talking to, the leader of this thieves guild, immediately tries to shut him down and warn him away from it. Bringing up the LeShay silences the entire room. She tells him that he's gone and that he likely won't return to the city. Upon asking why he wants to know where he is, Arix tells her that it is better that she not know. Arix attempts to hire a few people to make a distraction so the party can get into the museum, but there are no takers. He then asks for help with getting Orestes out. She tells him that they failed him, dropped the ball, and that he likely wouldn't want to see them after what happened.

When Arix finishes his business, all three head for the museum to steal the Book.

There's a stained-glass window in the room where the Book is displayed, but they can't open it to get in. Arix sneaks them in, and the trio makes their way to the exhibit where the Black Book is displayed. They break the top off the lectern to get the book out because of how it's fixed on it, and then they take it to Orestes.

He's furious because they brought him a fake, but they couldn't tell, and the Wanderer did sense something evil on it; Orestes thought they purposefully brought it and that Arix stole the real one. He calms only marginally when they explain themselves.

With Orestes's trial moved to the following day, they have no choice but to break into Dory's house. They need to find the Book and destroy it before they kill Dory. Killing him before they destroy the Book is too dangerous, but Orestes doesn't quite explain why. They'll also need to find evidence to prove Dory's corruption and madness and that Orestes's intention was not to kill him.

Orestes tells them that Arix shouldn't handle the Books as, after asking the party a few questions about temptations, he feared that Arix might be too susceptible to the lure of them. Artemis and the Wanderer should be safe, however.

Before they leave, the Wanderer asks Orestes what they should do if they can't get the Book to him in time. How do they destroy it without him? She doesn't want to scare him or assume that they will fail to help him, but she does want to be prepared to keep moving forward if he isn't around. Orestes stares at her for a few moments, silent, and then calls up his magic. He has the Wanderer lean close to the bars to blow a charge of the purifying magic surrounding his hand over her.

They had a backup plan now.

Chapter 5: It's a Lovely Night for a Burglary
Arix, Artemis, and the Wanderer head for Dory's home and look for a way in. Arix sneaks them in, and they're almost immediately confronted by three servants, decaying and infested with maggots.
A fight breaks out, and the Wanderer lashes out first to fight the things off. Arix winds up cornered in the music room, and Artemis drops her scimitars on the floor. They take turns trying to buy each other time to retrieve their weapons or retreat to a safer distance. They kill them off and then search the bottom floor for any sign of where Dory keeps the Book, but they find nothing of use to them.

Above them, there's a clattering thud and then silence.

The trio readies themselves for another fight and slowly makes their way up the stairs to investigate. However, they find Orestes and Morgana trying to get out of a storage room, where they'd used a grappling hook to break in through a window. They split up and searched the top floor, but they found nothing in his room, which looked like no one had used it in weeks. His office, however, has a small shrine to the god Quachil-Uttaus in one corner, and the Wanderer realizes that she can't feel her goddesses any longer. In a desk, she finds a journal that shows Dory's descent into madness under the influence of the Book, a Book he acquired from his friend Evanak, an explorer of some kind who had an exhibit at the museum. He said that he doesn't like it because it smells off and it give him His desire to help his people was what it preyed on, meaning that anything and everything can be used to corrupt a reader. She takes it with them as evidence of Dory's "corruption," adding to the ledger that Arix had forged a few minutes before.

The Wanderer then searches for something that Dory may have an emotional connection to. She finds a painting of him with his wife and daughter. According to his journal, they were lost at the hands of the archdemon when Baldur's Gate was briefly sent to hell. She cuts out a piece of the painting that had just their faces to take with them. Orestes tells her that there was nothing left of the man and that there is little point in keeping it; the Wanderer argues that maybe there will be just enough of his humanity left to catch him off guard so someone else can get a good hit on him.

The party heads downstairs and then again to enter the cellar. The Wanderer finds a passage behind a statue that Orestes opens up for them to enter. They go through the winding tunnels of the sewers, using Arix to sneak around the diseased staff to pull levers that would change the flow of water so the party can continue forward. It is a relatively easy push until they reach the Star Spawn Grues that Orestes warns them away from; getting too close can cause madness if they have never been exposed to eldritch magic before like he has. They quickly dispatch them and move on.

Eventually, they enter a large cistern where they hear Dory's voice; they enter to find him trying to finish a ritual. The chamber, filled with mushrooms and slime, is a sickly sight to behold; the sounds of maggots can be heard faintly echoing around the room. In front of Dory is a disgusting-looking lectern with a Black Book resting on it. He's reading from it in Deepspeech, a language only Arix and Orestes understand, calling for the release of the god inside the Book.

Without his bandages, the party can see the vile disfigurement brought on by the diseases inflicted on him by the Book. He's rotting and bloated, maggots crawling in and on his skin. His eyes are pale and lifeless, glazed over by the effects of death that had yet claimed him. Any traces of the warm and kind man who'd cared deeply for his city and its people are gone, the façade he'd carefully maintained completely destroyed.

A suggested plan was to hurry and attack, not to give him a chance to react. However, Orestes, Arix, and the Wanderer discussing an idea with one another alerts Dory to their presence. He informs them that he can hear them. They don't give him a chance to speak any further.

Orestes and Morgana, in her snake form, charge him while Artemis fires her bow. There is a back-and-forth in the fight, and then Dory grabs the Book, rushing to put the lectern between himself and the party. He opens his mouth and exhales a large cloud of poisonous gas at everyone but Artemis; it engulfs Morgana, but Orestes and the Wanderer manage to escape it, with the Wanderer pulling Arix out of the way just in time. Enraged that they escaped it, he launches a fireball at Arix and the Wanderer next. They can't escape it, and after throwing another knife at Dory, Arix bolts to the other side of the cistern, leaving the Wanderer behind while Dory summons large rot grubs to fight for him.

Artemis fires more bolts at the grubs, then pulls out her scimitars to attack, shifting her attention away from Dory to deal with them. After slicing them, she darts away to put distance between herself and the grubs so they can't retaliate.

Meanwhile, Orestes is still in a blood rage, and Morgana is still attacking Dory in snake form. Using his magic to turn invisible, Dory escapes them and the Wanderer to appear at the other side of the cistern, unknowingly popping in where Arix is positioned. Arix successfully interrupts Dory's attempt to shoot off another fireball at Morgana, Orestes, and the Wanderer. Arix lobs off his arm, but Dory regrows his arm and hand using slime and grubs.

In the end, as one, they finish him off. Morgana leaps out of the water and wraps around him to hold him in place, the Wanderer shoves her hand against his face and discharges the spell Orestes gave her, Orestes severs his legs, Arix stomps on his neck, and then Artemis fires a bolt into his head to kill him.

After pulling the Book from Dory's pocket, Orestes burns what was once Dory and then sets the Book fire with his purifying flames.

There's a horrific screeching that echoes in the sewers as the god in the Book is destroyed. With it gone, all of the grubs and the turned servants die and disappear.

They return to Dory's home and then outside, only to find that most of the city guard is waiting for them. Poised to attack, they inform the party that they're under arrest for a list of unnamed crimes.

Orestes declares that they just killed Terolmic Dory, panicking the rest of the party because that's certainly one way to introduce them. The Wanderer slowly pulls out Dory's journal and holds it out to them, and Arix offers them the forged ledgers that prove that Dory was corrupt. Arix gives them a brief overview of what happened in the sewers to try and get them out of trouble, and eventually, it works.

The guard captain tells the guards to lower their weapons but points out that Orestes is still a fugitive. Orestes and Arix explain that they needed him in this fight because of the nature of what they were up against, and the Wanderer adds that the plague should clear up because of the work they've done.

The guard takes them to the council house to give their testimony, and then the party is promptly released.

The party heads for a tavern to catch their breath. Before they reach the door, there's shouting and sounds of a struggle inside the building. Someone in a black robe is thrown out the door, the party barely getting out of the way in time. The Wanderer and Arix help him up, and the party realizes that he's a Reaper from the East. The Reaper is a faction within the Hunters, but...he's lost his sword.

His name is Jin, and he'll be joining the party for a while...just as soon as he gets his sword back.

Chapter 6: The One About the Vision, the Possessed Sword, and―Oh Fuck, We Need to Hurry
The party heads for the museum after Wanderer tells him that they had an exhibit with Reaper gear. They can't get inside however because Arix, Artemis, and the Wanderer broke in the night before to get the book.. The guards won't let them in because of said break in...though they don't know it was them. It takes several minutes to convince them to let the party in, but they eventually manage it and retrieve Jin's sword.
After Jin retrieves his sword, the party follows him out of the city and far into the woods where it should be safe for him to have a "discussion" with his sword. He tells them that Reaper weapons talk to their owners. His problem is that his sword also has an Oni trapped in it and he's yet to figure out how to get it out and then kill it before it can kill him first for daring to trap it in the sword with the original sword spirit.

After all is said and done, everyone goes to the inn to wash up and rest.

The next day, Arix and Morgana go to the thieves guild to secure passage to Waterdeep, Orestes goes off somewhere secret with Artemis tailing him, and Jin and the Wanderer going to the markets to do a little shopping and drop off the donation the Wanderer had collected from Dory.

In the middle of the street, the Wanderer goes still, hit with a vision from the Horae. She panics once she comes out of it and frantically drags the pair with her to find a shop where she could buy a journal and pen in. The Wanderer writes down everything she remembered from the vision, and then the three are hurrying back to the inn to meet with the others and tell them what the goddesses said.

Elsewhere in town, Orestes has left on his own for a while, though Artemis tries to tail him to see where he's going. He notices and uses a spell to send two copies of himself in other directions from him to throw her off, but Artemis uses her skills as a tracker to figure out which were his. Unfortunately, the path he took dead-ends at the end of an alleyway. A small window opens up at eyelevel and someone peers through it, demanding the password. When she has none to give but tells them she's trying to find Orestes, they close the window and refuse to let her in through the secret door. Frustrated, she kicks the door, only for the defensive spells on it to launch a ball of fire out of it. Thoroughly singed, Artemis leans against a wall and slides down to sit and wait for him. After an hour, he finally emerges and asks her if she'd attacked the door or something, but otherwise brushes off her injuries.

The pair make their way back to the inn, where they find the others waiting for them.

He and Jin/Arix(?) argue back and forth, and then Morgana chews him out for not helping Artemis after she was injured. He smarted off that she shouldn't have been following him when he obviously didn't want anyone to tail him, and tried to brush it off again. Morgana wasn't having it and continued to bless him out while healing Artemis. He and J/A continue to bicker and the Wanderer tries to get his attention so she can tell him about the vision, but he either ignores it or he doesn't hear her.

Orestes, done with the questions and the tongue lashing, turned to head upstairs to lock himself away in his rented room. He caught a glimpse of the Wanderer's eyes as he turned away, finally hearing her soft "wait!" The look was familiar. The panic and shock were familiar to him, a look he'd worn when he was first exposed to a Black Book.
> *"What do you know?"*
> *"A lot?"*
>
>

She told them to meet her in her room so the party could talk about this privately and freely. Once they were in, door locked behind them, she pulled out the journal and loose pages she'd scribbled the vision on, and began reading it off for them. There was still time to save the Wards, that some people who were exposed to the books weren't completely lost, that they would be betrayed, and then Malyn Volar. Orestes said that the Wards couldn't be true; they didn't exist, but the party told him about the Elder Tree at the temple, the same temple he had been in a few days or so before the original three showed up. The name Malyn Volar was familiar to him, though he couldn't place why.
Thankfully, he believed that Azathoth had yet to be released from his Book, so there was still time to stop the end of creation.

The Wanderer kind of nervously cut him off with the question, "What if he's already out?"

He and Jin laughed because "then there's nothing we can do and all is lost." They saw the look in her eyes though and Orestes immediately told her to tell them what she knew about it.

The Wanderer told them that Malyn Volar was the warlock from the cemetery in Amphail, the one who'd possessed her mother and made her mother attack the her when they interrupted his ritual. The name Azathoth sounded familiar to her; she's sure she remembers Malyn using it when he was performing his ritual.

Why didn't she stop them? Because she was busy fighting off her mother, and then something knocked her out shortly after her mother was dead. She woke up the next morning to find that Malyn was gone, as was the magic. She couldn't stop it; she didn't even know what was happening at the time.

Orestes tried to clarify after a few tense moments of him panicking. It's been two and a half years, and the Horae said that the Wards still existed, that they could be saved, right? There's still time to stop him, right? Enilasor nodded and then held out her sketch of the lopsided pentagram. Five points. Five Wards. They lined it up on one of Orestes's maps using the location of the Elder Tree and now they had an idea of where those were. But back to Malyn. It happened in Amphail, but it's been two and a half years.

At least it's a start for tracking him down. Orestes and Arix return to the thieves guild and ask them to rush their passage to Waterdeep. They'd leave the next morning.

In the night, everyone but Jin has a nightmare about Azathoth.