Synopsis[]
Bonathan Ramshackle scours the SWAP library for information about his quarry, which he is finding in short supply. His research is interrupted by the arrival of Vasher Hoatzin, with whom he shares a stiffly cordial greeting.
Vasher pointedly mentions Odion's visit earlier in the day, seeking information about elementals, and suggests he'd hate to see such a promising young man cut down prematurely - to which Ramshackle replies that we do not choose when the Fates draw our legends to a close, though he has no intention of failing as he and the boy seek the prize.
In the wake of the explosion, chaos ensues. Weevil spies The John Johnson hiding under his moose, Lancelot. Flo is shoved to the ground by an emergency worker as she sees death up close for the first time, the scene a twisted mirror of her experiences with paparazzi. Cal instinctively slides back and out of the way, warhammer held defensively before her, backing almost into a half-Giant woman who clearly knows how to be useful in this situation - something Cal sorely wishes she could be. Odion, steeled against panic by some rather harrowing exercises at the SWAP in his youth, witnesses the scene with a calculating eye. Spotting one more ball as it falls to the ground at the tall woman's feet, he swiftly punts it out of the crowd and into an abandoned noodle shop.
Cal, Flo, and Weevil confab briefly, Cal learning to her horror that neither Flo nor Weevil seem invested in helping the injured. Before they can hash it out, "The" John Johnson's theme music heralds his ascent to the top of a boulder (which is coincidentally crushing someone) to heroically urge everyone to work together and dig people out (with shovels he has annexed and is now selling).
Weevil, ever the pragmatist, realizes that party unity is at stake if they don't lend a hand and jumps into action. Odion tries to interact with the large woman - Crawdad Sally - as if she's a local hero, a dynamic that she is absolutely not having, and she sends him to The Resurrectionists, Simmeon Burke and Ruthenia Hare, when he tries to give her gold for the revivification magic happening.
Weevil enlists Flo to help him shake down The John Johnson and his party for shovels, paying in fear and fear alone, and they get down to digging folks out.
Cal, having found her place fetching water for the medical tent, eventually spots a familiar face - Rip Durkin - disappearing into a tiny crack in the cave wall. Furious, she races after him, but although he is nowhere to be found she does manage to follow him into what amounts to an alternative way into the lair. Cal is excited to rub her discovery in Weevil's face, but his reaction of excitement is not what she'd expected or wanted.
Noting that Weevil has utterly exhausted himself digging, Odion insists that they rest the night before heading into the Lair, and spends what remains of his gold investing in the town. Later in the evening, Flo and Odion spot The John Johnson having a word with Crawdad Sally - almost as if he's hiring her for something.
The party sets off into the lair the next morning, encountering a series of difficulties. Odion, accustomed to a more tenured party, loses the group after passing through a chatiere and failing to ensure they've followed. While Flo searches for him (fuming to herself all the while that surely he's trying to dispose of her by leaving her alone with these filthy people), Weevil and Cal have a conversation about asking for help.
Weevil's efforts to highlight the pragmatic importance of teamwork seem to prove inadequate to the task of getting through Cal's obsession with self-reliance, so the next day when she sprains her ankle and tries to keep it to herself, Weevil tricks her into drinking a healing draught he made out of some of Mick's remains.
After a few days, the party manage to find themselves back in an area of the cavern that is present on their map - the detour through the crevice seems to have taken them only a few days out of the way. That same day, Flo trips on something sticking out of the dirt - a Bronze Armilla, which turns out to be cursed. The Gun seems to react as Flo touches the object, and Weevil investigates it magically, learning that Flo could use it to cast Find the Path once a day... and that it represents a Pact, and is connected to a ghost. The specter that he sees behind Flo has lost almost his entire face to fire, and when he turns around, Weevil notices a hole in the back of his skull, suggesting his cause of death was something going through his skull from behind.
Flo weighs the pros and cons of keeping a cursed, haunted object, tries to dispose of it - but rather than just doing so quietly, she is overwhelmed by the Gun's instincts and whirls to shoot the armilla three times after tossing it over her shoulder, each shot a ball of flame. The armilla falls to the ground, turning the sand around it to glass, and Weevil sees the haunting associated with it go up in smoke.
That night, Cal's pillow also gives up the ghost, having sacrificed all its structural integrity to lend her a few nights' comparatively good rest. The next day, Weevil nearly dies as he attempts some shadow chicanery to cross a ravine, saved only by Odion's quick adventuring reflexes. The near miss causes Odion to realize they need to do a better job communicating if they hope to survive; the ravine might have proved less of a threat if they'd approached it as a team.
They finally find their way to a bluff overlooking an enormous cavern, through which a crab-infested stream burbles. According to the map, the elemental's den is just at the other end of the bluff. They pause to camp one more time, but during Cal's watch she hears a sound and goes to investigate on her own. While she does eventually decide to summon help rather than continuing on her own, just as she doubles back, she trips on the remnants of her beloved pillow, and the sound of her tumble summons the source of the noise: a stone gargoyle with a horse's head, dragging knuckles, and six batlike wings down its back.