A Detour North
While the rest of the group made their way to Caer Abhainn, Lorelei had taken a detour. Reviewing the maps before departure, she realized that the village where Fergal and Flynn had gone into hiding sat not far off the route north. She arrived at their cabin in time for dinner on the third day, bearing gifts for Miriam and news for Fergal.
The timing proved fortunate. Fergal had been quietly digging into the identity of the Paralian cleric who had orchestrated his capture — Treascair mercenaries he could explain, but a cleric of a foreign church was a different thread. He had a contact meeting arranged for the following morning and asked Lorelei to join him.
The contact, Eamon Vance, was a retired intelligence officer who had trained alongside Fergal in his early days in the Treascair military. Now freelancing as an information broker, Vance had done his homework. He identified the cleric as Bishop Xifos Aetria, a senior figure in the Church of Katergaris — a church that had grown considerably in influence over the past decade as the King of Paralia retreated further into seclusion. Nothing confirmed, Vance said, but the rumors around Aetria pointed toward involvement in activity well outside a Bishop's remit. When Lorelei shared that Aetria was the name on the Grey Wolf's weapons shipment, the pieces locked together.
She got back on the road immediately, pushing hard to make the cemetery by sunset.
An Empty Graveyard
She arrived after dark to find the cemetery empty. Bucky's tracks were there in the soft ground — she followed them back into the city and found the group at the Carp House. They traded everything they had: the group's account of the tense exchange with Lysander and the intelligence from the inn, Lorelei's account of Fergal's contact and Aetria's name confirmed. With the Bishop already gone and no shipment to hand over, the group agreed there was nothing left to accomplish in Caer Abhainn. They set out for Cothrom.
Ambush at Camp
They did not make it far. On the first night out, Lysander's men found them.
The fight that followed was among the hardest the group had faced. Lysander proved everything his reputation suggested — a precise, controlled commander who made his soldiers fight well above their weight. Members of the group even went down before the tide turned. Finally the group took down Lysander and then cast Spare the Dying before he could bleed out. Without their commander, the rest of the mercenaries soon fell.
The bodies of his men were looted and disposed of while Lysander was bound and left unconscious, waiting to answer some questions.