Elise, who had a deal with the hags to refine nadai, reached out to us, her underling Nowak in tow. As she spoke, deep indents appeared on their necks, as if something invisible choked them. Elise was able to turn into a misty form and go inside her staff, but Nowak wasn’t able to stop the force choking him. He was decapitated before us.

With the pendant that Elise dropped as she retreated, and the still conscious Elise within the staff, we had plenty of help to guide us where we needed to go. The pendant gets hot in certain spots. Following the direction of the hot spots, we were led to the Mistress of Maelstrom, a gift shop we know also deals with contraband. It has since been shut down and looted. Once inside, we notice a door locked, so we unlock it. The moment that door opened, the decomposing, mangled corpse of a grey-haired orc woman pressed against the door falls. I recognize her as the shopkeeper. The medallion gets searing hot in the direction of the corpse as black locusts start coming out from her mouth. A swarm then emerged from her back, leaving a semi-petrified husk. Once the locusts are taken care of, we find a second medallion in her mouth.

While the corpse ordeal happened, Helios and Sasha were in another room. A small trail of familiar crystal thread was being used – the same crystal thread that was once used to seal Jeffery’s eyes. A candle with a small blue flame sparked in the center. Helios recognized it as a type of spell that needs to be recast daily for a year to make permanent. They decide to stop the progress.

The second medallion has an eye on it that moves. We follow the eye to the edge of Sharn, then it closes and the first pendant gets hot pointing down the cliff.

We get down to what seemed to once be a building, and see three small pedestals. Elise peeks out of the staff to tell us that this isn’t a good place, saying that the ‘old crone’ had her do shipments here. We also need a green gem to put to the pedestal.

Wandering through this place, we see a statue holding 12 gold coins. Through a favor with some enslaved fire spirits, we are told that the three coins with “Sora” lead to “Interesting rooms.” In one of them, we find a cabin with children of varying ages. We remember of stories of kids in the cogs going missing, and recognize a high elf child as one who disappeared 6 months ago. They say that they were invited by a “Jiji” who is wrinkly, that others don’t stay too long, and that they have to prove they could leave before leaving. The half elf says that he’s only been here a few hours. From this we conclude that she is the type of hag that likes corrupting and tormenting children.

The second coin had nothing worth mentioning.

The third coin led to a maze of ducts and large fans. This place is meant to move cold air around the cogs. And in the center was a large container of nadai. Elise warned us that the intention was to use the ducts to release the drugs for all of Sharn to breathe in. We reverse the airflow, and with the nadai in the system returning to our direction, we had to get out immediately.

We head back to the first coin, get the kids out, and find the green gem. With the pendant, the medallion, and the gem on their proper pedestals, we were able to make it safely to the cogs before the reverse flow got to us. And so Izana took the children to get help, and Cypress invited us to her balcony, where we saw Dral-gur appear in the sky and those drugged by nadai turned hostile.

Rosie then appeared and with the power of sick tricks, had us land on a ship headed straight to Sharn to divert its direction. To accomplish this, we had to carefully extract the pilots who were controlling it, then literally stab the ship’s control interface into the base of our skulls. Once we set the trajectory to the ocean, we destroyed the control interface. The influenced crew still aboard tried to get to us to stop us, but we managed to fool them.

And next thing I know, we are in a completely different area and commanded to protect the druids from Dral-gur. We were successful in protecting enough of them to finish the ritual, and the evil is sealed… for now at least.