Limping Lefty looks for some Sehanine sympathy, but the party is otherwise in good shape after the cloaker(s) encounter. Lefty finds 150 gold from the real deceased real cloaker and receives a light curative via Haerelben. Meega points out that the bustling noises of departing cultists has ceased, leaving open the possibility of returning to investigate the two large, initiate-powered mill wheels discovered earlier, and their relationship to the changing water level. Bromsby and Theren continue to explore the marketplace, listening at a couple of different doors. Decorative walls and flagstone floors in this area are embedded with coins featuring a smiling dwarf which match signage above one of the doors. Haerelben confidently identifies the likeness of Smilin’ Mordy.
Bromsby and Theren detect sounds of breathing and shuffling beyond the barred doors. Lefty starts hand burning her way through a wooden door, but gives up when the door does not ignite. Theren knocks on the Smilin’ Mordy door and offers cheerful greetings to the shufflers within. The reply invites Theren to go away. Theren inquires whether that would be Smilin’ Mordy speaking. There is no Smilin’ Mordy, go away.
Once verbal diplomacy yields nothing, Bromsby suggests the occupants either unbar the door or step away from it. He pops a hole in the stone wall with Iron Oath. Lefty peeks in and sees a robed cult sorcerer evocating up some nastiness. Meega, with Sehanine-enhanced strength, kicks the door open a couple of feet.
Lefty dodges the lightning bolt that erupts through the hole. The bolt singes Bromsby and catches Haerelben full in the face. Haerelben staggers around a corner to collect himself. Bromsby erupts earth under the sorcerer. Lefty charges in through the ajar door, sees several other waiting cultists, and charges right back out. Meega dashes in, face to face with the sorcerer. What name? KILL HER!
Killher the cult sorcerer passes a lightning bolt through Meega and into Bromsby. Theren makes his entrance yelling for diplomacy and shoots a couple of bolts from his crossbow, Diplomacy. Cultists leap over the tables to assault Meega and Theren, and one slams the door shut. Bromsby picks off a cultist through the hole. Lefty can’t shove the door open so she squeezes through the hole. A thunderous boomerang smashes into Theren, but he continues diplomacizing his assailants with bolts.
Meega chops down the sorcerer, already gravely wounded by the crushing eruption of earth. A second chop splits a cultist. Meega scrambles through the erupted earth to assist Theren by taking out another cultist.
Lefty runs down the last cultist, cornering the thunderous boomerang thrower. Bromsby orders him to yield. His boomerang [Storm Boomerang] is surrendered to Lefty. The obliging cultist answers questions, revealing that the large mills control water gates. He is released and departs.
Bromsby reads engravings in the room: Welcome to Vergadain’s Hall. Strange that the dwarven god of trade would use the likeness of Smilin’ Mordy. Bromsby proposes that this area has been thoroughly explored, and the fire cult area is conveniently nearby and ripe for disruption by the increasingly capable [ding 10] party. But first, a rest.