Arassost knows immediately that Thalion will need a restoration spell. Before he can say anything, Dzaan’s simulacrum drops down from above, Krintaas close behind.

Inala asks whether he can undo the petrification, but the construct only shakes his head.

“If we help you restore your master, can you help us bring Thalion to Bryn Shander? He weighs ten times as much now,” Arassost asks. The simulacrum inclines its head in agreement.

Skye closes her eyes and lets her senses stretch outward as she casts her spell. The chamber remains still. No flicker of malice, no shadow of corruption. Nothing radiates evil. With that reassurance, they decide to go along with Dzaan’s wish and help him restore his master.

At their request, the simulacrum lifts a hand and murmurs an incantation. Thalion’s stone‑heavy body rises from the floor, weightless for a moment, and drifts upward through the opening to the first level. They leave him there with the dire wolf standing guard.

They all move to the rune‑chamber, the air growing strangely still as they enter. The cracked golden crystal in the ceiling glows faintly, as if waking from a long sleep. Dzaan lingers in the doorway, unwilling – or unable – to step inside. Above them, the wizard’s apparatus unfolds like a mechanical flower, its crystal disk humming with dormant power. He points to the center of the room, where the same rune is carved into the floor: the place where illusions can be made real, if someone offers a spark of life to fuel the transformation.

Arassost steps onto the rune. The chamber reacts instantly. Light gathers, sharp and blinding, and a bolt of pure magic shoots through him. Bright, clean, painless, but overwhelming in its intensity. Behind him, the simulacrum screams. “You fool!” His body folds inward, collapsing like melting wax until only a glistening heap of ectoplasm remains on the stone. Krintaas freezes mid‑movement. Then freezes further. Then stops entirely.

Silence settles over the tower, heavy and absolute. They exchange a long, silent look. So… that didn’t go as planned.

After Skye tends to Inala’s wounds, they rest briefly. Arassost slips away to retrieve the magical amulet, while Skye explores the tower.

On the first floor, Inala gathers pieces of the bent cages and hauls them up through the opening. Outside, in the snow, she fashions a makeshift sledge, sturdy enough to carry a stone‑heavy ranger. She drags Thalion’s petrified form onto it with a grunt. Arassost climbs up after her, summons a giant elk, and fastens the harness around its broad chest.

Suddenly the wind dies and an arm coils around Inala’s neck. A dagger, cold as the grave, presses against her throat. “This thing burns in a world that deserves to die.” The blade cuts her skin, but Inala barely feels it; cold has no claim on her.

Arassost sees the figure behind the Goliath and recognises him as Sephek Kaltro. The man with the icecold blue eyes, who was with the merchant group at the lake. The suspected murderer. The wizard reacts instantly. His illusion snaps into place, and a voice behind Sephek growls, “How would you like a knife at your own throat?”

Sephek startles and jerks the dagger away.

Arassost summons a boar. It charges, hooves pounding, but Sephek slips aside with effortless grace. He turns toward the creature and exhales a plume of icy breath. The boar wheezes and shivers under the frost.

“You don’t understand,” Sephek says, sheathing his dagger. Then he runs. The wind returns in a single rush.

At that moment, Skye appears, a locked chest in her arms – something she found behind a bed in the one room they hadn’t checked yet. She watches Sephek vanish into the distance, then looks back at her companions, eyebrows raised in a silent question.

They set out toward Bryn Shander. The world feels strangely empty around them; animals slip away long before the party draws near, repelled by the faint, steady glow of the Summer Star beneath Inala’s cloak.

Without Thalion’s guidance they miss a turning. It takes nearly an hour before Inala realises the mistake, muttering under her breath as she corrects their course. By the time night falls they are still far from the city, so they make a half‑camp in the snow. No tents, no fire, just enough shelter to endure the cold.

The elk throws its head, restless and uneasy. A figure approaches in the dark.Two blue eyes hover in the blackness, steady and unblinking. “Last warning,” a voice says. “Give me the artifact.” He takes two steps back. The wind stops, utterly still. Then it returns in a single breath. The figure is gone.

Inala stays awake, restless and alert, her muscles tight with vigilance while exhaustion settles deep into her bones.

At dawn, Arassost rises and tries to summon something strong enough to pull the sledge. First a weasel appears. Utterly useless. Then a panther, powerful, but not built for hauling. On the third attempt, finally, an elk materialises in a shimmer of magic.

Inala leads them onward. The morning stretches into afternoon, and half a day later the walls of Bryn Shander rise from the snow.

The guards at the gate welcome them in, though the panther is ordered to stay outside the city walls. No one argues; they are too tired, too cold, too ready to be done.

They head straight for Copper Knobberknocker and the Temple of Lathander, the Morning Lord. Inside, Copper is in the middle of a heated back‑and‑forth with Mishan, both of them talking over each other in the way only long‑time colleagues can. Nothing has changed.

“We’re back,” Inala says.

Copper turns, relief flashing across his face. “Be welcome in our temple.” His gaze sweeps the group. “Where is your friend?”

They step aside so he can see the sledge.

Copper pales. “Mishan!” he calls, voice cracking.

“We met with a basilisk,” Inala says. “We’d better go inside.”

They explain everything: the hut, the research, the fight, the petrification. Copper listens in silence, grief tightening his features when they speak of Macreadis. Inala hands him the Summer Star and the blueprints. “It seems you’d better use three rings instead of two.”

Copper nods slowly, absorbing the weight of it all. “How can I thank you?”

“We would be very grateful if you could heal Thalion,” Inala says. “And… could you help identify these potions?”

Copper barely needs a glance. “Those are potions of resistance.” He turns Skye’s blue flask in the light, studying the shifting colours. “This one, though… I’m not sure yet. I’ll need more time.”

Hours later, after careful examination, he straightens up with a satisfied nod. “It’s a minor illusion cantrip,” he declares. “Worth four to five hundred gold pieces.”

The next day, Mishan performs the restoration. Light spills across the stone form, and Thalion draws a sharp breath as life returns to him. He blinks, confused. “What happened? Where am I?”

“Be at ease,” Mishan says. “You are at the Temple of the Morning Lord in Bryn Shander. How do you feel?”

Thalion flexes his fingers, then his legs. “Okay… I guess.” The others welcome him back warmly. Arassost, too, feels lighter, the pressure behind his eyes finally gone.

Inala urges Copper to increase security; the druid and the blue‑eyed man want the ring destroyed. Copper nods grimly. He will contact the Speaker.

Later that day, Skye hands the chest she found to Thalion. He tries to open it, and ruins the lock.
Inala tries brute force. Nothing.
Skye rolls her eyes, tries again, but also fails to open it.
In the end, they hand the chest over to Copper.

***

LEVEL 5

Dzaan inclines his head. “I’m a simulacrum, a magical copy,” he explains. “You’re referring to my master, who used to live here.”

Thalion offers a polite nod. “My condolences. Sorry to be the bringer of bad news.”

“Then I definitely need your help,” Dzaan’s copy replies, urgency slipping into his voice. “On the lowest level of this tower is a room that can turn things… into reality. I am my master’s failsafe. My purpose is to bring the original back to life should the original come to harm. I want to become real.” He gestures to the undead warrior beside him. “And this is Krintaas, my bodyguard.”

Arassost steps inside, letting his senses brush against their intentions. The simulacrum feels, as far as Arassost can determine, genuinely neutral. It wants to exist. That is not, in itself, evil.

“Why do I feel this place in my head?” Arassost asks quietly. “What is this magic doing here? And do you belong to the worshippers of Mystra as well?”

The simulacrum studies him. “Do you feel the Weave?” Arassost nods. “Then that explains it,” the simulacrum says. He follows Arassost’s gaze to the faint blue glow of the altar. “My master always worshipped Mystra there.”

Arassost asks about their purpose.

“We wait for my master,” Dzaan’s copy says. “If he is in danger or dead, it is my task to bring him back. He was a very powerful red wizard. He discovered this place, protected it, had friends in high places within the Arcane Brotherhood, and great ambition. He wanted to understand the Weave more deeply. And the Netherese discovery.”

From the hallway, Inala leans in. “Why are you all staring at that amulet?”

“We’re wondering what it does,” the construct answers. “I found it in the tower, and I’ve been studying it for a while.”

Arassost examines the amulet. It is undeniably magical.

The simulacrum offers a trade. “Take me to the lowest level and let me use a spark of your life force.”

Arassost narrows his eyes. “What will this do to me?”

“Nothing,” Dzaan’s copy assures him.

Inala crosses her arms. “Since Dzaan was accused of murder, that sounds rather evil to me. We’ll have to think about it.”

Meanwhile, Skye searches the bookshelves and finds a volume in elven script. The tower appears to be one to two thousand years old. Together with Arassost, she turns to the altar. A shimmering light surrounds it. When Skye touches the stone, a flask descends into her hands. It emenates a thick blue glow, the heavy liquid is unmistakably magical. She weighs it for a moment, then passes it to Arassost.

Inala climbs down to the next level and lands hard on the floor. The room is a wreck of broken furniture and overturned tables. Something shifts in the shadows. From behind a broken desk, an eight‑legged reptile crawls into view, eyes glowing like cold lanterns. It fixes its gaze on her, unblinking. A tightness grips her muscles. The stifness creeps up her spine. “A basilisk!” she shouts, voice sharp with warning.

Thalion drops beside her and immediately turns his face away. Using only the shadows to judge the basilisk’s position, he looses an arrow, that whistles past the creature. The basilisk snaps at Inala, jaws clacking shut where her arm had been a heartbeat earlier.

Above them, Arassost drops a fuzzy object through the opening. It hits the floor, unfurls, and becomes a giant rat. He sends it forward with a sharp command.

Inala feels the stone creeping through her limbs, cold and heavy, but she forces it back with a growl and slashes the creature across its flank, drawing a line of dark blood.

Thalion risks another glance… and that’s all it takes. His body locks. He fires again, but the arrow goes wide as the petrification takes hold.

Skye arrives at a run and casts bless over Thalion, Inala, and herself.

The basilisk lunges and bites Inala. She grits her teeth and hits back hard, while beside her Thalion turns fully to stone. He stands frozen mid‑movement, a statue in the middle of the fight.

Skye utters a vow of enmity, her focus narrowing to a single point. She steps in and strikes with divine smite, radiant light cracking across the basilisk’s hide.

The creature whips around and bites Skye. It then locks eyes with Arassost’s rat, that stiffens instantly and turns to stone.

Arassost throws another fuzzy object. This one bursts into a dire wolf. It hits the ground running, slams into the basilisk, and drags it prone with a vicious bite.

Inala roars, rage flooding through her. She raises her greataxe and brings it down in a single, brutal arc. The basilisk collapses.

Thalion remains frozen in stone.

With a rope tied around her, the big Goliath slides down uncontrollably and lands flat on her face. She finds herself in an upside‑down room coated in frost, lit by two everburning torches. A door stands ajar, flanked by two stone statues of tall wizards in robes. Behind it, a long corridor stretches into the dark, debris scattered across the floor, two doors on each side. At the far end, the tunnel has collapsed. In one of the rooms are tall bookshelves. A hole in the floor – which once was the ceiling – opens into a five‑foot tunnel leading downward. The books are in poor condition. Inala manages to read one of the few readable covers, which is titled Magical Wonders of Netheril.

In the other room, equipment lies scattered. Inala finds a key and a new door. In the smaller room behind it she sees shards of glass and a metal chest hanging upside down. The key fits. She opens the chest. The lid swings back and four vials tumble out, each in a different colour: green, blue, red, and purple. Inala catches them and tucks them away.

The others come down after her. Arassost slides down, and Thalion sails after him. The wizard rolls out of the way just in time. Skye descends smoothly with climbing gear and hands Inala her backpack. She puts the potions away.

The Goliath walks back to the book room where the tunnel begins. Arassost looks at the other books, and takes Mysteries of the Phaerimm with him.

Inala descends to the second level. Two cages stand nearby, both bent out of shape. Two tunnels branch off: one in the floor, one in the ceiling. The cages have been twisted by the tower’s crash, and inside she sees the carapace, the hollow shell, of something insect‑like. Inala spots a large shape and decides it must be an ant.

Thalion comes down after her. “An ant?”

“Yup.” She must have hit her head hard when she landed.

Thalion examines the collapsed staircase. Beneath the rubble, a skeletal hand reaches upward. Inala clears some debris and notices that the ring finger is missing. Not torn, but cut cleanly off.

In the next room they find a table, more books, and a fireplace. Inala calls Skye and Arassost over to take a look at them. Thalion checks the second chamber: a desk, and all sound is muted inside. He steps out and tells the others. “It must have been a study.” He steps back in and walks toward the desk, which has been smashed to pieces. Nothing of value remains.

Inala moves to the third level. A stone altar is attached to the ceiling, an eight‑pointed star carved into it. She yells upstairs for the Paladin. Skye recognizes it as the holy symbol of Mystryl, the previous incarnation of Mystra. Nothing else is visible.

The others come down as well. Arassost looks around and sees a faint light‑blue glow coming from the altar. The pressure in his head feels less intrusive. The others notice several more rooms, their doors still closed. Thalion tries one of the doors, but the staircase behind it has collapsed. Another door leads to a room that looks like an office. What catches their eye is an amulet on a chain, turning slowly, and two figures behind the table looking at it.

One is an undead warrior. The other is an attractive man in winter clothing. “Welcome to the Lost Spire of Netheril,” he says. “My name is Dzaan.”

The adventurers exchange a glance. “Weren’t you burned at the stake in Easthaven?”