With Azmar behind them, the party rents a wagon pulled by Peggy the Battle Ox and begins the road north toward Wolford, the mining city whose diamond crisis has already started shaking the economy of resurrection across the region.
The journey is surprisingly peaceful. Between The Dam and ACE’s previous efforts to “clean up” the roads between Azmar and Wolford, the route is safer than expected. With a rare moment of calm, the party gets to know Vulmer better.
They learn that Vulmer is completely committed to the war effort. To him, the Crown must fall, both as revenge for what happened to the Overseers and as the only way to bring peace to those harmed by Rosenhall’s expansion. More personally, it is the only way to drive the Taimavar out of Rosenhall entirely. The Taimavar were the ones who carried out the order to burn the guildhall and murder his friends.
The party agrees that the Crown needs to fall, but they push back on Vulmer’s timetable. If the six of them simply rush into rebellion, they will be crushed by the united response of the Lords’ Alliance. Vulmer counters that a small, precise special-force operation may be exactly what they need. If they move quietly and turn lords, ladies, and militias before the Crown realizes what is happening, they may be able to create a rebellion before Rosenhall can stop it.
The real problem is the banner.
The Prophet is brilliant but scatterbrained. Vulmer understands strategy, but he is not the visionary. Their dead friend Francis used to handle that. The Prophet saw the short-term future, Francis shaped the long-term message, and Fable and Vulmer made the plan happen. Now Vulmer is trying to find a resistance message that can appeal not only to dissidents and adventurers, but to common people and nobles alike.
Eventually, the party reaches Wolford, and something is clearly wrong.
The city is overgrown and strangely abandoned in places. Wagons sit in the road with exports and imports still loaded, as if the workers simply stopped one day and never came back. The tavern is rowdy, filled with kobolds in dirty miners’ helmets drinking pint after pint, but beneath the noise is the unease of a town whose lifeblood has stopped flowing.
The party splits.
Fable and Fern head into the general store, where they meet Jarnus, a minotaur shopkeeper. Jarnus explains that the miners dug into something several days ago, something bad enough that the church locked down the mines entirely, including the upper levels. The debate over what to do has gone on for almost a week, with no one allowed back inside.
The dispute is so severe that a cleric of Gruumsh has been brought in as an adjudicator. Clerics of Bahamut and Tiamat rarely agree, but they also rarely deadlock for this long.
The diamond shortage has already grown dire. Prices are skyrocketing, the town is rationing supplies, and Fable is only able to buy a single vial of pig’s blood. Jarnus agrees to watch Peggy the Battle Ox while the party investigates.
Fable and Fern then visit the sheriff’s office and discover that Malcolm, Hugo Monsterblade’s son and the captain of Wolford, has already gone into the mines after the Golden Rat Syndicate. The blackmail letters survived Crackjaw’s fall, and it appears the remaining goblins have moved through the Underdark into the Wolford mines. Judging by the missing shotgun in Malcolm’s armory, he did not go to pay them. He went to deliver justice.
In the jail, they meet Turbulence, a genasi who claims to be an adventurer unlawfully detained by the Lords’ Alliance. Fable and Fern take pity on him, knowing they may one day be in the same position, and cut him loose. Turbulence agrees to head to Azmar and join their resistance, becoming one of their first recruits.
They then visit the bank and deposit much of their coin after being warned that throwing money around in Wolford’s current crisis could have dangerous consequences. There, they meet Sydney Caldwell, a consultant from Drachma brought in to help manage the mine’s economic collapse and address the pressure created by comparison to Azmar’s rapid growth. Sydney makes it clear he is no fan of Rosenhallian politics and invites the party to seek him out overseas if they ever want to do business.
Meanwhile, Nys and Behzad head north toward the church district.
There, they meet Whitney O’Connor, a Lords’ Alliance operative assigned to protect the clerics and guard the church’s relics during the crisis. The church is loaded with armor, weapons, and holy treasures, piled like a dragon’s hoard. Whitney immediately bows to Behzad, treating him as true royalty, something Behzad has not experienced in a long time. He is relieved to see a rightful lord and knight of Bahamut arrive to bring order to the situation.
Behzad enters the council chamber and meets Ajax Firestorm, cleric of Tiamat; Father Farcrest, cleric of Bahamut; and Warthru, cleric of Gruumsh.
Father Farcrest has already written to Lunaris, the holy city, and Pious Titus has responded. The holy father himself is coming with a company of paladins to smite whatever was found in the mines. This immediately worries Behzad. If Pious Titus is coming personally, then whatever is below must be severe.
The clerics explain what happened: a miner dug deep and found a pair of sealed gates buried beneath the earth. Through the cracks, he saw a hooded figure with hands like razor blades. He was so terrified that he ran all the way back to the surface, and the church sealed the mines as a precaution.
Ajax Firestorm believes waiting for Lunaris is unacceptable. The journey will take a month, and Wolford may starve before then. He wants immediate action: rally Jarnus, Malcolm, and whoever else can fight, then go below and clear the threat.
Behzad finds a compromise. The civilians remain barred from the mines, but the party and Jarnus will descend as scouts for the Holy Father. His words carry weight. Both the cleric of Bahamut and the cleric of Tiamat agree that he is the common ground they needed.
In fact, Behzad persuades them so effectively that they appoint him acting regent lord of Wolford, empowering him to command the city during the crisis and ensuring no one interferes with his duties as a knight of Bahamut.
Vulmer loudly applauds. To him, this is another victory for the resistance. They now effectively have influence over two vital cities: Azmar and Wolford.
Behzad immediately pushes back. This power will be laid down when the crisis ends. He swore an oath to Bahamut, and he intends to honor it.
Vulmer thinks that is foolish. They are trying to destroy the Crown, not hand it back a fully functioning diamond mine. But the rest of the party sides with Behzad, arguing that making a loud political move this early would draw too much attention. Vulmer disagrees. From his point of view, Behzad is a rightful lord of the Lords’ Alliance. Rosenhall might even applaud him for taking control of Wolford away from troublesome Azmar.
The argument remains unresolved.
The group regathers at the tavern and reads the local paper. It reports that the Crown’s Edge militia and Lieutenant Addison are missing. More importantly, Field Marshal Valentine “Lioncrown” Kensington issues a public statement denying that the Crackjaw operation was ever an attempted occupation of the Sapest. He accuses Baroness Sev of using tragedy to create political theater and shift blame away from Azmar’s own lawlessness and ACE’s role as an unlicensed militia.
The party realizes this is a major political victory. The Lords’ Alliance cannot openly occupy the Sapest now without contradicting its own public statement. For the moment, the Crown has been forced to retreat behind its own propaganda.
They speak with the miner who saw the figure behind the gates and realize that the description matches the same hooded, faceless presence that spoke to Behzad in the aqueduct beneath Azmar. The Wolford mine and the old aqueduct may be connected by something far older and darker than ACE.
The party heads to the restricted mine district, where gunfire echoes from the open cavern mouth.
Malcolm has gone in ahead of them.
Grabbing Jarnus from the general store, the party rushes into the mines to find him, and to discover what waits behind the sealed gates beneath Wolford.