Watc reports to Briar her concern that the magic seeking dodecahedron menagerie is homing in on her vis innards, unprotected from detection in the way the vis tankers are. Briar reports the potential security issue up his chain of command to Vesper Othuro who was not briefed on Briar’s involvement in the acquisition of the vis pool, nor on Watc’s coincidental construction of the same. Flat-footed Vesper Othuro will send riders for abjurist Professor Tutella Protectio immediately. Briar returns to camp.
Six spellguard led by spokesman Lieutenant Desmond present themselves to Briar as directed to escort Watc, and only her, for a consultation. Lieutenant Desmond proposes a shortcut through the forest. Watc senses she is the object of a failed spell cast by Desmond. Desmond denies her insightfulness. Watc, constructed as a wartime skirmisher, expeditiously retreats [105’ per round] from the stranger danger back to the safety of camp. Briar reports the incident to Vesper Othuro who has not heard back from his riders and does not know of any Lieutenant Desmond. He interrupts the suppers of Lieutenants Harcourt and Shaver to deploy spellguard to protect Watc’s camp. Charlie gets a good night’s rest at the expense of Harcourt and Shaver. Ander cooks up some acid.
Professor Protectio arrives the next morning to debrief Watc and suggests they adjourn to a wagon. Protectio produces a vial of vis and one of the dodecahedrons on a string to demonstrate the attraction of the dodecahedron to vis, to Watc, but not to other enchanted and magical items. He casts a nondetection spell over Watc and promises to help transcribe that spell into her spellbook.
Villagers from Timberfen have come out to greet and barter with the caravan. Observing Ander’s immense enthusiasm for bartering and shopping, Vesper Othuro directs Charlie to explore Timberfen for useful trade items. The starving villagers are mostly interested in food so that they won’t die. Shrewd Ander opens negotiation with inedible chupacabra teeth and pelts for which he arranges to meet the village smith and acquires a knife. Barika trades some tenderized, butchered hillbilly meats from yesterday’s battle for a shiny metal dodecahedron that village hunters Farlan and Brissil acquired from the brains of a tasty, black, eyeless dog a couple weeks back. Briar detects magic and finds no other hotspots on the villagers’ wares.
A woman in distress catches Sqyylarr’s attention. Villagers restrain the woman from approaching the group and she appears to leave, but later emerges from a different direction and runs up to Sqyylarr imploring her for help. The villagers reluctantly allow Qarrlaah to lead Charlie to her hut where her son is chained hand and foot to a sturdy center pole. She explains that her son, Raev, was found after a hunting trip gone wrong, grievously wounded in his abdomen, his eyes removed and covered over with bone and skin. Although awake, he is devoid of his personality and impervious to the pain he should be in. Briar detects the presence of the magic-detecting dodecahedron implant.
Sqyylarr checks Raev for undeadness, but he is alive if not living well. Ander pokes and prods and prescribes radical brain surgery with a followup course of divine healing. Qarrlaah is inconsolable. Briar lays on hands to stabilize the abdominal wound. Watc ritually constructs Leomund’s Tiny Hut as a way of severing any magical link with a puppet master, but Raev does not respond any differently when isolated. Watc is disappointed by that outcome but also because she summoned the Tiny Hut to be chartreuse yet it came out green instead.
Sqyylarr notices a column of smoke on the horizon, but Ander assures her that it is just the caravan on fire, and it will be quite some time yet before the village burns down. Watc casts a sending to Professor Xalver to get guidance on treating Raev and for a status on the fire situation. Xalver indicates there is no time to communicate right now because there is a fire in the caravan.
Briar presents the options to Qarrlaah while Ander digs out woodworking tools most applicable to brain surgery. The sounds of crossbow bolts pinging harmlessly off the Tiny Hut interrupt the preoperative informed consent.
Sqyylarr and Briar easily spot the spellguard imposters surrounding the Tiny Hut and firing from cover. Briar picks out Lieutenant Desmond who demands the surrender of the golem, or else Timberfen is really going to be sorry. Briar hatches a cunning plan for Watc to feign a surrender while the others ready attacks from within the Tiny Hut for when Desmond approaches. He does not fall for that old chestnut. His henchman cut the throats of several screaming, gurgling villagers.
Ander emerges from the Tiny Hut, drops a force ballista, and catapults a rock from the city wall into Desmond. Ander charges through the adjacent elder’s hut, shattering out the back wall where Desmond was just hiding, but he moved on. Watc skirmishes out to pop Desmond with a chromatic orb, flanking him where Ander can shockingly grasp his metal armor.
Shifted Briar, supported by Sqyylarr and Barika, charges one of the “spellguard” murderers but gets critically, sneakily, poisonously, lethally struck by his lurking friend. Sqyylarr and Barika protectively defend crumpled Briar from the deadly pair of rogues.
Watc and Ander abandon their pursuit of Desmond to protect Briar. A fireball igniting his henchmen gives Desmond pause. He escapes with the shouted promise that this is not over.
It is over for Barika, however, when she takes a fatal sword’s dosage of poison. Ander avenges her with a couple of slaying firebolts, dropping the pair of rogue henchmen. It seems their cohorts have abandoned the village and retreated along with Lieutenant Desmond.
Watc stabilizes Briar, and Barika comes to on her own. They drag Briar into the Tiny Hut. Ander relieves the dead rogues of their weapons and poisons. Pulling off their concealing helms reveals they are merely human with two perfectly normal eyeballs each. Just to be certain about it, Ander performs a postmortem exploratory of the henchman’s brain over Sqyylarr’s protests. No dodecahedron. Ander stuffs the chiselled skull and brainy goop back into the helm, good as new.
Barika convinces Qarrlaah to accompany Raev with them back to the caravan for study and treatment. Qarrlaah regards her desperate son and burning home and agrees. They leave meats and a couple of gold for what’s left of Timberfen to rebuild their shattered, burning homes if there are sufficient unmurdered villagers who so desire.
Back at the caravan, Watc, mindful of the importance of levity for unit cohesion, commands Ander to perform a practical joke on Briar for when the clerics arrive to revive him. Ander uses his good journaling ink to scribe glasses and a moustache on Briar’s unconscious face.
Clerics of the Raven Queen arrive to awaken Briar, or whatever, if Briar’s living will doesn’t stipulate he would otherwise prefer death’s loving embrace, or whatever. Briar awakens.
