Chapter 4: The Purification

The battle at Alfwyld is over. The Great Tree stands, the halfling homeland is saved, and the party carries four sealed portals on their shoulders. But the war is not won. The sixth and final active portal at Serexa Pass remains corrupted, held open by a guardian who has endured for a thousand years. The march west will test the party's resolve, peel back layers of the Weaver's conspiracy, and ultimately lead to the most dramatic ritual of the entire campaign: the simultaneous purification of all six portal anchors.

This chapter is the turning point of the adventure. Everything before this has been reaction, defense, and desperate sealing. After this, the party moves to offense. One of them will be permanently changed. And the enemy they have been chasing will finally be given a name.

Act I: Alfwyld Aftermath

Scene 1: Morning After the Battle

The chapter opens the morning after the Battle of Alfwyld. The party has rested (or tried to), and the camp is bustling with activity. Dwarves and halflings work side by side to repair fortifications, tend the wounded, and clear Void-touched debris from the forest floor. The Great Tree's canopy shimmers with faint golden light, a sign that the seal holds.

Dawn comes slowly to Alfwyld, as if the forest itself needs time to remember what light feels like. Smoke still rises from the southern barricade, and the air carries the sharp scent of scorched wood and healing herbs in equal measure. Dwarven soldiers hammer planks into broken palisades. Halfling healers move between bedrolls laid in neat rows beneath the Great Tree's outstretched branches. Above it all, the Tree's canopy catches the first rays of morning and holds them, shimmering with a faint golden warmth that was not there before the sealing.

Give the players a moment to breathe. Let them tend wounds, check on NPCs, and take stock of their situation. Then Gunnar calls a war council.

Scene 2: The War Council

Gunnar Stonehand has set up a rough command table near the Great Tree's roots, using a flat stone and a charcoal-drawn map. The following NPCs are present: Eryn Duskwhisper, Mother Bryn, Archon Thelian, Tormund (Gunnar's second), and any NPC companions the party has gathered.

The war council covers the following intelligence:

• Four portals sealed. Badger Caves, Brightwood, Shadow Lake, and Alfwyld are all holding. The seals are stable but not purified. Eryn explains the difference: a sealed portal is locked shut, but the corruption remains dormant inside. Purification would cleanse the corruption entirely and transform the seals into something stronger.
• Two portals remain. Amber's Call (sealed since the party's visit in Chapter 2) and Serexa Pass (still actively corrupted). Serexa is the priority.
• Serexa Pass intelligence. Thelian reports that Serexa's portal has been held open by an unknown force for centuries. The Void energy emanating from it has been growing stronger. Mirael's garrison at Serexa Fortress has been containing the worst of the corruption, but the source has never been identified.
• Cult movements. Scouts report that the cult forces that attacked Alfwyld were a fraction of the King's Voice. The main body appears to have scattered after the defeat, but several cells are unaccounted for, including a group last seen heading toward Nortaq.
• The Weaver. Eryn has been studying the intercepted letters. She has decoded four of the five letters fully and is close to cracking the fifth. The pattern she is seeing disturbs her, but she is not ready to share her conclusions yet.

The conclusion should be clear: the party must march west to Serexa Pass and deal with the last active portal. Gunnar will bring his dwarven forces. Thelian and his battle mages will accompany. Mother Bryn insists on coming, saying simply, "The roots call me west."

Act II: The March West

The march from Alfwyld to Serexa Pass takes approximately four days on foot. The route follows the forest's western edge before crossing the Mount Basin hill country and ascending toward the mountain pass. These travel days are not empty; they contain investigation, a tense standoff, and crucial revelations about the Weaver's true plan.

Scene 3: The Ravine Standoff (Day 1)

Late on the first day of marching, the vanguard scouts report movement ahead. A deep ravine cuts across the trail, and on the far side, a large group of figures is camped in the tree line. As the party approaches, the figures resolve into trolls: twenty-two of them, hulking and restless, carrying crude weapons and wearing scraps of mismatched armor.

The ravine drops ten paces straight down, its floor choked with loose stone and dead scrub. On the far side, you can see them clearly now: trolls. More than twenty, gathered in a loose camp among the pines. They are not charging. They are not hiding. They are waiting, and there is something almost uncertain in the way they stand, shifting weight from foot to foot, watching your column approach with eyes that hold more fear than fury.

Scene 4: The Cultist Interrogation (Day 1–2)

In addition to the trolls, the party's scouts capture 12 low-ranking cultists hiding in the woods south of the ravine. These are not hardened fanatics; they are farmers, tradespeople, and drifters recruited from Rootfield (a halfling settlement) by Thistle, who promised them a "halfling crown" and a seat at the table of the new world order.

The cultists are terrified and cooperative. Most of them have no real understanding of the Void or Malcath. They were drawn in by Thistle's charisma and the promise that halflings would finally have power in a world dominated by elves and dwarves.

Among the twelve is one figure who stands apart: a Void channeler, hooded and quiet, who does not speak until spoken to directly. When interrogated, the channeler whispers a single phrase before going silent:

"The weave holds."

If the party brings the cultists before Mother Bryn at the Great Tree (during a rest stop), she recognizes several of them as Rootfield folk. Her disappointment is palpable. She asks each their name, looks them in the eye, and says, "You will answer for what you have done. But not to me." She recommends they be held for halfling justice.

Scene 5: The Campfire Discussion (Day 2)

During the march, the party should discuss what they have learned together. By this point in the adventure, the group knows:

• Malcath was corrupted by Zarathen, not by his own will alone.
• The portals were designed by Auren Vale to preserve Malcath's humanity.
• The cult believes breaking the portals will free Malcath, but the truth is more complicated.

Different party members and NPCs each contribute a piece of the puzzle. Eryn has the historical knowledge. Mother Bryn understands the spiritual dimension. The Chosen carries firsthand experience from the sealings. And every party member has a perspective shaped by what they have seen and done.

Together, they arrive at a crucial understanding: Malcath already chose forgiveness during the original sealing. The portal network was not forced upon him. He cooperated with Auren Vale because some part of him wanted to be saved. Thistle's plan, and the cult's plan, are based on the assumption that Malcath is a prisoner who wants to escape. The truth is that he is a penitent who chose to remain.

The campfire burns low. Eryn spreads her notes between them all. "He was not imprisoned. He surrendered. When the seals were placed, the king did not fight them. He wept, and he let them hold him."

Mother Bryn nods. "The cult calls him a captive. But a captive does not open his own cell door and hand you the key."

The Chosen stares into the fire. "I felt it at Shadow Lake. Not rage. Not hunger. Something more like... waiting."

The silence stretches. Then another voice - one of the party - speaks. What do they say?

Scene 6: Eryn and the Fifth Letter (Day 2–3)

During the march, Eryn Duskwhisper continues working on the intercepted letters. She has been carrying five letters recovered over the course of the adventure, each written in a different cipher. She has cracked four of them, revealing fragments of a larger message.

On the second or third day of the march, Eryn approaches the party with a breakthrough. She has identified the handwriting on the fifth letter.

Eryn holds the fifth letter up to the firelight, her silver eyes narrowed. "I know this hand," she says quietly. "The loops on the consonants, the way the ink pools at the end of each line. This was written by the Weaver." She turns the parchment. In the margin, barely visible, four letters have been decoded: V-E-L-A.

The decoded fragment from the fifth letter reads:

Act III: Thistle's Capture

Scene 7: Scouts to Shadow Lake (Day 2–4)

Early on the second day of the march, the party should decide to send scouts to Shadow Lake. If they do not think of it themselves, Mother Bryn or Eryn will suggest it: Thistle was last reported heading toward Shadow Lake, and if the portal there is at risk, someone needs to verify its status.

The ideal scouts are Pip (if the party has recruited the halfling ranger from Chapter 3) and Sage (a halfling scout from Alfwyld). If these NPCs are not available, two party members can volunteer, or the DM can introduce a pair of halfling scouts from Mother Bryn's contacts.

The scouts depart on a four-day round trip. On Day 4 of the march, Sage returns with a report:

Sage arrives breathless, her cloak torn and her boots caked in mud. "Found him," she says between gulps of water. "Thistle. He is alone on the eastern shore of Shadow Lake. He has got Mother Bryn's book and he is scratching runes into the stones around the portal. But he is doing it wrong, the symbols are misspelled. He has been there for at least two days. No guards, no cult, no trolls. Just him, alone, digging runes in the dirt like a madman."

Scene 8: Capturing Thistle

The party must decide how to handle Thistle. The march column can detour to Shadow Lake (adding one day) or the party can split, sending a smaller group while the main column continues toward Serexa Pass.

Regardless of approach, the capture itself is not a combat encounter. When the party arrives at Shadow Lake, they find Thistle exactly as described: alone, exhausted, and surrounded by badly carved runes.

The eastern shore of Shadow Lake is littered with failed attempts. Runes scratched into flat stones, then crossed out. Pages torn from a book and weighed down with pebbles. In the center of the mess, Councillor Thistle sits with his back against a boulder, Mother Bryn's book open on his lap, staring at the portal's faint shimmer across the water. He does not run when the dwarves surround him. He does not even look surprised. He just closes the book, sets it down carefully on a dry stone, and says, "She will want this back."

Act IV: The Weaver Revealed

Scene 9: The Decoded Letters (Day 3–4)

After Thistle's capture and Mother Bryn's recovery of her book, Eryn makes her final breakthrough on the intercepted letters. She gathers the party during a rest stop and lays out all five letters in sequence.

Eryn arranges the letters in a careful line on a flat stone. Her hands are steady, but her jaw is tight. "I have been wrong about this from the beginning," she says. "I assumed the Weaver was directing Thistle to break the portals. That is what the first four letters appear to say, if you read them in isolation. But the fifth letter changes everything." She taps the decoded fragment. "The Weaver knew Thistle would fail. He counted on it. These letters are not orders. They are a script for a performance, and Thistle was playing his part without ever knowing it."

The combined decoded message across all five letters reveals:

• The Weaver's name begins with V-E-L-A.
• The Weaver knew that Thistle lacked the knowledge to actually break a portal.
• Thistle's activities in Nortaq and at Shadow Lake were designed to draw attention northward while the real plan unfolded elsewhere.
• "Key Nine restored" refers to the portal sealing the party has been doing. The Weaver wanted the portals sealed.
• "The child does not remember" and "she will understand when she sees" refer to the Chosen.
• "The filters were never prisons" confirms that the Weaver understands the portal network's true purpose.

Scene 10: Kira's News

On the fourth day of the march, as the party approaches Serexa Pass, a rider appears on the southern road, pushing a lathered horse at full gallop. This is Kira Ironforge, a young dwarf outrider from Castle Black.

Kira carries two pieces of critical intelligence from Serexa Fortress:

First: Reinforcements are on the way. Captain Mirael has dispatched a company of soldiers to meet the party at Serexa Pass.

Second, and far more important: Draven Holt has uncovered the mole in Mirael's garrison.

Kira dismounts and salutes Gunnar, then turns to the party. "Draven found the cell. Mirael's lieutenant - another Halvard, from Avenstoff - was the leak. He was feeding the cult our patrol routes, our supply lines, everything. He tried to run when Draven confronted him. Draven stopped him." She pauses. "The lieutenant talked. What he said..." She looks at Eryn, then back at the party. "The Weaver has never left Lorenzia. Everything, Nortaq, Thistle, the cult attacks on Brightwood and Alfwyld, all of it was a distraction. The real operation has always been in the elven capital."

Act V: The Purification at Serexa Pass

The chapter's climax. Everything has been building to this: the last active portal, the ancient guardian, and the ritual that will transform the portal network forever. This act should be the longest and most dramatic sequence in the session. Take your time with it.

Scene 11: Arrival at Serexa Pass

Serexa Pass is a narrow mountain corridor flanked by sheer cliff walls. At its center stands the ruins of what was once a grand dwarven gate, now crumbled and overgrown. Beyond the gate, a stone-carved chamber opens into the mountainside. The portal is inside.

The pass narrows until the sky is just a strip of grey between the cliffs. The wind dies. Sound dies with it. Ahead, the remains of a dwarven gate rise from the rock like broken teeth, carved with runes so old that even Gunnar cannot read them. Beyond the gate, darkness. But not empty darkness. Something breathes in there, slow and vast, like a sleeping mountain. The air tastes of iron and ozone. Your skin prickles. And deep in that darkness, you can see it: a faint purple glow, pulsing like a heartbeat. The last active portal. The last corruption. The end of the line.

As the party approaches, describe the Void corruption visibly. The stone around the portal chamber is blackened and cracked. Veins of dark purple energy run through the rock like diseased capillaries. The temperature drops sharply. Any character sensitive to magic feels the wrongness here like a physical weight.

Scene 12: Bhorin Ambervane

Inside the portal chamber, the party finds the source of a thousand years of corruption.

He stands before the portal like a statue given terrible life. A dwarf, but wrong, too tall, too still, his royal armor fused to his flesh like a second skin of blackened iron. Veins of purple light pulse across the metal and up through his neck, his jaw, his temples. His eyes are twin points of violet flame in a face that might have been noble once, before a thousand years of agony carved it into something else. He does not attack. He does not flee. He turns to face you, and when he speaks, his voice is the grinding of stone on stone, the sound of a mountain trying to remember how to form words.

"I am Bhorin. King of Amber's Call. Guardian of the Anchor. I have held this door open for a thousand years so that his light would not go out. You will not close it. You will not kill what is left of him."

Scene 13: The Confrontation

The confrontation with Bhorin is the emotional heart of Chapter 4. It should play out as a dialogue scene with the potential for combat if things go wrong, not as a fight with dialogue interruptions.

Bhorin's Position: He believes the portals are prisons. Sealing them will destroy Malcath's last thread of humanity. He has endured unimaginable suffering to prevent this. He will not stop willingly unless he is shown the truth.

The Party's Task: Convince Bhorin that he is wrong. The portals are not prisons but anchors for Malcath's humanity. Sealing them does not destroy Malcath; it preserves him. Bhorin's suffering has been in vain, but his intention was noble.

Phase 1: Words. The party tries to convince Bhorin through argument. This is a social check (Force of Will or Intelligence, difficulty 3, DM's choice). Arguments that work well:

• Explaining the true purpose of the portals (anchors, not prisons).
• Sharing what the party has learned from Mother Bryn about the Eleven Seals.
• Appealing to Bhorin's devotion: "You wanted to protect him. So do we. Let us show you how."

Phase 2: Proof. If words alone are not enough, the party needs evidence. The Dwarven Memory Stone from Amber's Call (if the party still has it from Chapter 2) contains the memories of Tharion Ambervane, Bhorin's ancestor and one of the portal network's original creators. Activating the Memory Stone in Bhorin's presence triggers a vision that both he and the party can see:

The Memory Stone flares with golden light, and for a moment the chamber is somewhere else entirely. You see a workshop carved from living stone, its walls covered in diagrams and equations. Two figures work side by side: a dwarf with Bhorin's face but younger, unbroken, his golden beard braided with silver clasps, and beside him, an elven woman with ink-stained fingers and eyes that burn with quiet intensity. Tharion Ambervane and Auren Vale. Tharion speaks without looking up from his work: "The filters are not locks, Auren. I keep telling the council this. A lock keeps something in. A filter lets something through. We are not building a prison for Malcath. We are building a sieve that catches the darkness and lets the light pass." Auren nods. "His humanity. The part of him that wept when Elarion fell. The part that cooperated with the sealing. We are giving that part a way back, Tharion. Not today, not tomorrow. But someday, when someone is ready to receive it." The vision fades. Bhorin stands frozen, the violet fire in his eyes flickering. His voice, when it comes, is barely a whisper: "A filter. Not a prison. I have been... I kept the door open because I thought..." He cannot finish the sentence.

Phase 3: Combat (if necessary). If the party fails to reach Bhorin through dialogue and proof, or if they attack first, combat begins. Bhorin fights defensively, trying to drive the party away from the portal rather than kill them. He is extraordinarily powerful but telegraphs his attacks, giving the party time to dodge.

Scene 14: Flame Warden Aldric

Whether the confrontation with Bhorin was resolved through dialogue or combat, the Purification ritual requires divine assistance. This is where Flame Warden Aldric enters the story.

A figure emerges from the shadows at the chamber's edge. An old man in the red-and-gold vestments of Taninsam, his hands raised, palms out, showing he carries no weapon. His eyes burn with something that is not madness and not magic, just faith so absolute that it has become a physical thing. "I am Aldric," he says. "Flame Warden of the Eternal Fire. I dreamed of this place. I dreamed of what must happen here. I am ready to do my part."

Scene 15: The Purification Ritual

This is the climactic scene of Chapter 4 and one of the most important moments in the entire adventure. Every party member should have a meaningful role. Take your time. Use the read-aloud text as a foundation and improvise around it based on your party's actions.

Phase 1: Preparation

The party must position themselves within the portal chamber. The Serexa portal is a ring of carved stone, 3 paces in diameter, standing upright in the center of the chamber. Purple Void energy swirls within it like a slow whirlpool. The air hums.

Assign the following roles to the party members. Each role requires a specific action during the ritual:

• The Anchor (the Chosen): Stands at the portal's center. Connects to the network. Directs the purifying fire through all six anchors simultaneously.
• The Flame (Aldric, assisted by a party member): Channels divine fire into the portal. A party member with faith, magic, or sheer willpower can assist Aldric, amplifying his power.
• The Shield (1–2 party members): Protects the ritual from Void backlash. As the purification burns away corruption, the Void energy will lash out. The Shield must absorb or deflect these attacks.
• The Witness (1 party member): Stands outside the ritual circle and maintains awareness of the physical world. If the ritual goes wrong, the Witness is the one who can pull others out. This role requires someone with strong mental fortitude.

Phase 2: Ignition

Aldric begins to pray. His voice starts quiet and grows. The vestments of Taninsam glow. The air temperature in the chamber rises sharply.

Aldric raises his hands, and fire answers. Not the orange-red of a campfire or the white-blue of a forge. This is something older, something that has been burning since before the world was named. Golden flame erupts from his palms and spirals upward, illuminating the chamber in light so pure that the Void corruption recoils from it. The purple veins in the stone hiss and darken. The portal's swirling energy stutters. Aldric's eyes are open, but he is not seeing the chamber. He is seeing something vast and radiant, something that has waited a very long time to reach this place. When he speaks, his voice is layered with another voice, deeper, older, and infinitely patient. "The fire was always here. It was only waiting for someone to carry it."

The character assisting the Flame must make a Force of Will check (difficulty 3). Success amplifies Aldric's power, causing the golden fire to burn brighter and hotter. Failure does not end the ritual but makes Phase 3 harder: the corruption fights back more fiercely.

Phase 3: Purification

The Chosen reaches into the portal network. Through the Serexa anchor, they can feel all six portals: Badger Caves, Brightwood, Shadow Lake, Alfwyld, Amber's Call, and Serexa itself. Each one pulses with dormant corruption, like an infection beneath a bandage. The golden fire flows through the Chosen and into the network.

The Chosen's hands touch the portal stone, and the world fractures into six. You are here, in this chamber, but you are also in the Badger Caves, where moss-covered stone glows faintly gold. You are in the Brightwood, where corrupted trees crack and split as fire races through the roots. You are at Shadow Lake, where dark water begins to steam. You are in Alfwyld, where the Great Tree's canopy blazes with light. You are in Amber's Call, where ancient dwarven halls ring with a sound like singing. And you are here. At Serexa. Where a thousand years of pain are about to end. The corruption does not go quietly.

As the fire burns through the network, the Void corruption fights back. Each party member faces a challenge based on their role:

The Anchor (the Chosen): Must maintain concentration as six portals worth of Void energy tries to overwhelm them. This is a Force of Will check (difficulty 4). The Chosen sees visions: Malcath's face, Zarathen's whisper, the sinking of Elarion. They must hold on. Failure causes the Chosen to lose connection to one portal, which must be re-established (costs time and increases difficulty for the Shield).

The Flame (assistant): Must keep feeding energy to Aldric as the divine fire demands more and more. This is a Toughness check (difficulty 3). The fire is not harmful, but it is draining. Failure causes the assistant to stagger, reducing the fire's intensity and giving the corruption a momentary opening.

The Shield (1–2 characters): Void energy lashes out in physical tendrils of dark purple light, striking at anyone near the portal. The Shield must deflect or absorb these strikes. This is a series of Dexterity or Strength checks (difficulty 3) (player's choice), one per round for three rounds. Each failure means the Shield takes 1d10 Void damage. If both Shield characters fail in the same round, a tendril reaches the Chosen, increasing the difficulty of their next check by 1.

The Witness: Must maintain awareness and call out warnings. The Witness sees the ritual from outside and can spot patterns the others cannot. This is an Intelligence or Wisdom check (difficulty 3). Success allows the Witness to warn the Shield of incoming attacks (granting +1D10 on their next check) or guide the Chosen through the visions (removing one penalty). Failure means the Witness is momentarily overwhelmed by the sensory overload and loses a round.

Phase 4: Binding

When the purification is complete, the corruption burns away from all six portals simultaneously. The purple light in the chamber dies. The veins in the stone fade. The air clears. And something new happens.

The fire dims. The darkness retreats. And in the silence that follows, something extraordinary happens. The six portals do not simply close. They transform. Through the Chosen's connection, you can feel it: the anchors shifting from passive seals to active channels, from locked doors to open windows. The corruption is gone, but the portals remain, humming with clean, golden energy. They are no longer containment. They are connection. Six points of light on a map you can see behind your closed eyes, a web that stretches across the continent, and at its center, holding every thread, the Chosen. The binding is not violent. It is not painful. It is like remembering something you never knew you had forgotten. The portal network settles into the Chosen's soul like a key turning in a lock that was built for it. And in that moment, a warmth blooms in the Chosen's chest, rises to their face, and settles behind their eyes.

When the Chosen opens their eyes, the other party members see it: a flicker of gold in their irises. Not constant, not bright, just a shimmer, like sunlight catching water. It is permanent. It is beautiful. And it means that the Chosen is no longer entirely what they were before.

Scene 16: Bhorin Freed

With the purification complete, the Void energy that sustained Bhorin for a thousand years is gone. If he was not defeated in combat, he stands in the chamber, diminished. The blackened armor cracks and falls from his body in pieces. The purple light fades from his eyes, revealing grey dwarven eyes underneath, old beyond measure and full of bewildered sorrow.

The armor falls away like a shell. Beneath it, Bhorin Ambervane is impossibly old, shrunken, his golden beard now thin white wisps against a chest as frail as parchment. He sinks to his knees. The chamber is quiet. The portal hums with clean golden light. And Bhorin looks at his hands, at the skin that has not seen daylight in a thousand years, and begins to weep. "I was wrong," he says. "All of it. A thousand years of suffering, and I was wrong." The air in the chamber changes. A presence arrives, not through the portal but through something deeper, as if the mountain itself has opened a door that was always there. A warmth that has nothing to do with fire. A silence that has nothing to do with absence. And a voice, vast and gentle, that speaks a single word: "Come." Bhorin looks up. His eyes widen. Whatever he sees, the party cannot see it clearly; just a shape of golden light, immense and patient, standing at the chamber's edge. The god Tatsu. Come to collect a soul that has waited long enough. Bhorin rises. The years fall from him, not physically, but in the way he carries himself. His back straightens. His eyes clear. He takes one step toward the light, then another. At the threshold, he pauses and looks back at the party. "Tell my people I did not forget them. Tell them I tried." Then he walks into the light, and the light closes behind him, and Bhorin Ambervane is gone.

Aftermath

The New Dawn

With the purification complete, the atmosphere at Serexa Pass transforms. The oppressive Void corruption that hung over the pass for centuries lifts. The sky above the mountain corridor seems brighter. The stone, freed from a millennium of dark energy, begins to look like stone again, grey and solid and honest.

By evening, the camp at Serexa Pass looks almost festive. Gunnar's dwarves have been reinforced: 106 soldiers who were held in stasis by the portal's corruption have been freed during the purification, stumbling into daylight with the confused expressions of people waking from a long sleep. Combined with Gunnar's original 101 dwarves, the army now numbers 207. Fires are lit. Rations are shared. Songs are sung in the old dwarven tongue, songs that have not been heard in Serexa for a thousand years. And above it all, the portal hums quietly in its chamber, golden and clean, a beacon instead of a wound.

Status Report

As the party rests, take stock of the new situation:

• All six active portals are purified and bound to the Chosen. The critical threshold is no longer a concern. The portals cannot be broken by conventional means now that the Chosen holds them.
• The three collapsed portals (Nortaq, Holywell, Sawwell) remain dormant. The Chosen can feel faint sparks at Holywell and Sawwell but nothing at Nortaq. Restoring the collapsed portals is possible but would require extraordinary power. This becomes relevant in Chapter 5.
• Gunnar commands 207 dwarves, a significant military force.
• The Weaver operates from Lorenzia. The elven capital, home of the Star Council and the Arcane Creed. Reaching the Weaver means entering the heart of elven political power.
• The Weaver's name begins with "Vela..." Eryn is working on the full name but needs access to Arcane Creed records in Lorenzia to confirm.
• Thistle has been dealt with (however the party chose to resolve it).
• The Chosen has golden eyes and dreams of Malcath every night.

Key Decisions

Record the following choices. They affect future chapters:

Looking Ahead: Chapter 5 - The Weaver's Web

The Purification is complete, but the adventure is far from over. The Weaver operates from Lorenzia. The Chosen carries six portals in their soul and sees Malcath in their dreams. And the decoded letters raise more questions than they answer: if the Weaver wanted the portals sealed, if the Weaver knows the Chosen's true nature, if everything the party has done has been part of the Weaver's plan, then who is the real enemy?

Chapter 5 takes the party to the elven capital, where politics, espionage, and ancient secrets await. The tone shifts from the martial and mystical to the political and personal. The party will need sharp minds and sharper tongues to navigate the Star Council, infiltrate the Arcane Creed's sealed archives, and confront the being who has been pulling strings since before they were born.