On the way home the party is attacked by two Balhannoths – huge hulking creatures with many tentacles and slavering mouths full of jagged, ripping teeth.One drops out of a tree straight on top of Forge and embraces him in a tight magic-suppressing embrace. His friends attack the creature and kill it quickly but another one runs down a tree trunk and grabs Pelius in the same way. With Pelius already damaged, and now losing more vitality due to the suppression of his magical armour, things are looking grim.

Faren plays a song that he hopes will be remembered for its morale boosting power, and Baris the Black positions himself to make a deadly backstab. But it is the mighty Talia Karmylis that inflicts the most serious damage with a swinging multiple power attack releasing magical wounding in addition to her majestic double cleave. Still the creature clings to poor Pelius, who seems likely to die until Aibron Torromson wades in with a double critical attack that finally slays the creature and releases the anxious cleric.

Back at the Inn, the Questors shrug off this recent attack and discuss the information they have garnered from Ahab’s feast, beginning to formulate a plan to acquire the CLIP OF GOND from the HIGH HOLY CRAFTHOUSE OF INSPIRATION. During the night they are troubled by DIVINE DREAMS and so further discussion ensues at breakfast until they meet their appointment with the High Holy Crafthouse Subrector, Gillian Weymouth, for a tour of the museum, where they learn much of the museum’s defences and in particular the powerful magic securing the Clip of Gond.

Later that evening Faren jeopordises his Bardic Tenure at the Sambar Inn once again when he breaks his performance session early, responding to news that Baris’s ‘squeeze’ delivers as she runs into the Sambar Inn to ask for aid. Her sons had been playing in the local graveyard and had not returned so she had alerted a MILITIA PATROL only to hear the terrible screams of dying humans and gnomes. The Questors follow her lead to the entrance of the graveyard and see five motionless bodies lying in the pathway ahead………