The party confronts Bob at the Ravenfall Spire as a storm builds and wyverns claim the peak. In the struggle to stop him, the idol’s influence briefly shifts to Winston before the group manages to contain it. The spire and cave are revealed to be remnants of Ravenhold’s arcane defenses, long faded and diminished, but not fully inert. Bob is freed from the idol’s control, the immediate threat passes, and the group secures the artifact, though its pull remains. With Ravenfall left behind but deeper mysteries unresolved, the party chooses a new course.

The party remains at the highest accessible peak as night approaches, the jagged spire and cave nearby. Bob is nowhere in sight, leaving an unsettling question unanswered. If he came this way, he should be nearby. If he did not, then something else must have happened.

As they discuss how to proceed, they notice a worn leatherbound journal lying exposed on a flat slab of stone nearby, as if deliberately placed.

The journal proves to be Bob’s. Its entries show a steady mental deterioration, shifting from careful observation to fixation and compulsion. The party grows concerned by the implication that the red stone idol is actively shaping Bob’s thoughts and driving him toward the spire.

As the party debates their next move, a lone wyvern flies in from the far side of the peak and lands atop the spire, glaring down at them. Its growl carries across the stone. The wind begins to intensify as the party considers whether to attack the creature directly or advance under cover toward higher ground.

Winston uses his shadow-stepping ability and natural stealth to move ahead, slipping between rocks toward the base of the main cliff below the cave. The others follow cautiously, moving from rock to rock as the wind continues to build.

As they near the cliff, the wyvern takes flight and begins circling overhead, issuing low, territorial warnings.

When Winston reaches the base of a secondary cliff that offers a possible route upward, the wyvern dives to attack. Winston narrowly avoids the initial bite by dropping between rocks. As planned, he and Shepherd unleash coordinated restraining magic, binding the wyvern in place.

With the wyvern temporarily restrained, the party presses forward, trying to gain better footing and cover near the cliff and cave approach.

Amid the shifting stone and rising wind, a humanoid figure seems to detach itself from the nearby rock, or perhaps it had simply gone unnoticed until moving. Bob stands revealed, his flesh transformed and stone-like, clutching a softly glowing red idol. As the wind howls, he begins moving toward the summit.

Winston turns his attention from the wyvern and uses shadow magic to restrain Bob. In response, the idol pulses brightly. The ground trembles, and a shower of rocks cascades down the cliffside toward Bram and Raz, who narrowly avoid being crushed.

As tensions spike around Bob and the idol, the wyvern’s restraint falters. Sensing the threat near the cliff, it commits fully to violence.

Bram scrambles up toward Winston and Bob as Winston lashes out with his sticky tongue, wrapping it around the idol and attempting to wrench it free. Bob resists with surprising strength. Winston notices the tip of his tongue beginning to stiffen unnaturally.

The wyvern dive-bombs the cluster of Winston, Bram, and the newly arrived Raz. Talons and wings shred armor and flesh as it slams into them, then surges onward to attack Fhino and Shepherd.

At last, Winston succeeds in ripping the idol from Bob’s stony hands. The moment it leaves Bob’s grip, Bob’s strength collapses. He reaches for Bram and manages a strained, grateful thank you before sagging, as if something inside him has gone quiet.

For Winston, the opposite happens. As the idol tightens in his tongue, a sudden certainty settles over him. Clear, heavy, undeniable. Bob was right. The idol belongs at the top of the spire. It is not a choice. It is the only thing that matters.

His tongue wrapped tightly around the idol, Winston shouts with difficulty,

“We have to get it to the top!”

Thunder rolls across the still-cloudless sky.

Bram realizes the new danger, urging Winston to place the idol into a sack as planned. Winston refuses. Raz attempts to intervene by placing a telepathic hand over Winston’s eyes, blinding him.

Nearby, Fhino and Shepherd finally bring down the first wyvern. For a brief moment, it seems the aerial threat has passed.

Then a second, larger wyvern emerges from the cave, letting out a terrifying howl.

As Bram tries to take the idol from Winston by force, the idol flares angrily red. Lightning strikes dangerously close to Fhino and Shepherd. They escape injury, though Shepherd is left temporarily deafened.

As Bram and Winston struggle over the idol, Winston shadow-steps away, vanishing and reappearing within the darkened cave above. Bram and Raz race upward in pursuit.

As Fhino tries to join the chase, he flies too close to the newly emerged wyvern, which instantly surges forward and snaps at him.

Winston climbs atop the cave beneath the main spire, shouting again that the idol must reach the summit.

While Shepherd and Fhino battle the second wyvern, Raz envelops Winston in magical fog, obscuring his vision but also blocking the party’s sight of him. Moments later, a tongue lashes out from the fog toward the tip of the spire, narrowly missing.

As the winds tear the fog apart, lightning strikes the spire directly above Bram and Raz. Raz takes the blast head-on. Blinded and deafened, he likely would have been killed, if not for Bram throwing himself in the way to absorb the worst of the strike.

Bram scrambles toward Winston once more. Instead of grabbing the idol, he strikes it sharply with the haft of his warhammer, knocking it free and into a waiting sack without touching it.

The sack immediately begins to glow red as the ground trembles.

Winston staggers as the certainty leaves him all at once, realizing he had been controlled.

Outnumbered and injured, the second wyvern takes flight and retreats from the peak.

Bram quickly carries the sealed idol downslope, away from the spire and cave. As he does so, the wind slackens and the oppressive tension fades rapidly.

Fhino helps Bob descend as well. Bob is weak but lucid, and the stone-like rigidity in his body remains.

Meanwhile, Winston and Shepherd investigate the wyvern cave. It is clearly not natural. Partial runes are carved into the walls, and sections of crystalline arcane conduit are embedded in the stone, leading both upward toward the spire and downward into the rock below.

Among goat bones and rotting meat, the party recovers:

• Two unstable shards of arcane crystal, similar to those described during the Whitecap incident

• Two intact crystals of True Air, likely formed by the lightning strike

• The partial remains of a flickerfly, from which the razor-sharp wings are salvaged

• Two shed wyvern talons

Shepherd takes a rubbing of the runes. Bob believes the cave was once part of Ravenhold’s arcane defenses, designed to gather True Air and channel elemental energy down into the city far below.

Bram harvests meat from the fallen wyvern, and its hide is used to wrap the flickerfly wings for transport.

As the party begins descending from the peak, the remaining wyvern eventually reappears to reclaim the spire. The group continues downward for a time, putting distance between themselves and the summit. As night falls, they judge the terrain ahead too dangerous to navigate in darkness and make camp sheltered against a rock face well below the spire and out of the wyvern’s sight.

As they settle in, Bram realizes he never truly examined the idol. Feeling its pull, he opens the sack and looks down at it. Fhino snaps at him sharply, breaking his focus.

Shepherd argues that the idol should be thrown off the cliff, or perhaps returned to the spire after all. The others refuse. They agree to keep two-person watches so no one is ever left alone with it.

While on watch together, Bram nearly convinces Shepherd that they should take the idol back to the spire, but in the end, the night passes without further incident.

The next day, the party resumes their descent, carefully crossing the stone bridge once more. The troubling pattern continues. Whoever carries the idol begins to feel its influence within a few hours. Subtle at first, then insistent. The group realizes that, given enough time, one of them will eventually give in.

Fhino proposes an awkward but effective solution. Two fifty-foot ropes are tied to the sack. Fhino flies one hundred feet above the party, holding the upper rope, with the idol suspended fifty feet below him and fifty feet above the others, who manage the lower line.

With no one within fifty feet of it, the idol’s pull fades to a dull pressure.

Using this method, they continue the journey back toward Flynn’s tower. With magical healing and time, Winston’s tongue returns to normal, and Bob begins to slowly recover as well. Shepherd transforms to a mule to carry him, so that the party can avoid another night on the mountain.

The party reaches Flynn’s tower late that day, reuniting Bob and Lisa. Over a shared meal, they recount what happened at the spire.

At Winston’s prompting, Bob is asked to demonstrate his Talent. Bob explains that he has no artistic Talent, describing himself instead as a scholar. Winston adapts, producing the sample of black liquid the party has been carrying and explaining what they know of it so far. Bob examines the substance carefully, performing a series of methodical tests and observations. His approach is calm, precise, and analytical. The group comes away convinced that he is likely free of corruption.

The conversation turns to what should be done with the idol. The party asks whether the Aegis Archive can be trusted with an artifact this dangerous.

“We’ve… they’ve dealt with worse,” Flynn reassures them.

Discussing their next destination, the group decides that once they reach the coast they will not return to Dawnspire. Instead, they plan to travel south and deliver the idol directly to the Aegis Archive’s main vault at Headland Hold.

As they descend the canyon road toward the coast, still using the sack and rope method to keep distance from the idol, Shepherd questions Bob and Lisa about the inner workings of the Archive. They describe it as competent but heavily bureaucratic, noting that this is likely why Flynn left.

“Flynn used to be with the Archive?” Shepherd asks.

“Actually,” Lisa replies, “what I heard is that he founded the whole thing.”

The spire remains where it has always stood, bloodstained and silent, as the party turns away from the mountain. Whatever the idol was meant to complete here was interrupted, not understood. Its purpose remains unknown, and whatever drew Bob upward was left unresolved.

In the shadows below, Ravenfall endures. The cave, the conduits, and the ruins hint at a wider arcane network whose reach and condition are still uncertain. What else might linger among the stone, unseen and waiting?

The idol is contained, but still dangerous. Safely delivering it to Headland Hold now matters as much as stopping it did on the spire. With unanswered questions behind them and new responsibilities ahead, the party sets their course south.