Chapter LX
in which Haas is reborn
The Blood Letting
Haas is called back to the claw to perform penance for the weakness she exposed Vulsh too. Her friends and followers can only watch as she resignedly steps into the claw. They wait as it crushes her to a pulp and throws her immobile body into the swamp. After she bleeds out into the water, a black liquid surfaces from the swamp. It enters and seals her wounds. Haas wakes and finds that, while her connection to Vulsh is still as strong as ever, her ability to do the magics that came naturally to her is severely dampened. This punishment has allowed her a temporary reprieve from Vorshen's blood control, but it is not a permanent solution according to Vulsh. There is a very limited supply of the black transfusion liquid, which Glad suspects to be dragon blood. Haas does not confirm his suspicions.
Murder at the School of Thought
After Haas' penance, the Foxes blink back to the airship. They fly to Brenthia in the hopes of finding a similar cure for Glad or Maus or some form of protection from Vorshen's blood control. Gorbie sends them in the direction of a drug addict who used to be a professor. This ex-professor begins whipping up a few doses of potion that can be used to replace the entirety of Glad's blood signature, although it comes with heavy side-effects. Gorbie also warns the others to be careful of trusting the School of Thought too much. Unfortunately, the warning isn't heeded. The day after finding a helpful professor of alchemy, the Foxes discover that same professor murdered. Glad identifies the culprit with his necromantic abilities and suggests not leaving the suspects apprehension in the hands of the city guards, in case the murderer is, in fact, a member of Vorshen's Circle. Frax charges into the murderous faculty member's office, pinning him down. While Frax contains fire and the suspect, Saba, one of Glad's Chracioites, secures the room and happens upon a host of incriminating material. They find evidence of blood magic, the magical text stolen from the murdered professor, and a small notebook that the murder used to keep in contact with the rest of the Circle. This time, they're able to prevent the Circle cultist from committing suicide and interrogate him before the guards haul him away.
The Decapitated Dragon
While in Brenthia, the Foxes have a discussion about recent events with Xisben. He's as forthcoming and helpful as he ever is, but they're able to deduce that actors like Vorshen are able to get away with things that dragons can't and would be useful tools in skirting rules. It's possible that he's being used by Serosan for this very purpose. This leads to a conversation about other similar individuals and whether or not it's worth for it for one of the Foxes are their allies to get in on the ascendancy game. Glad himself considers going down this path after sort of getting Chracio's blessing. Xisben also gives a non-answer about whether or not pillars from one dragon could be converted to pillars for another, i.e. whether a Shul pillar could be turned into a replacement Mercayen pillar. Xisben also offers help with Haas' blood situation.
Having gotten what answers they could, the Foxes go about various other business like shopping, pillar recruiting, listening to lectures, and helping Xisben test his clone's mortality. Glad gets his picks up his blood magic counter potions from the ex-professor, sets his mercs to seeking the ingredient for a blood magic protection potion, and invents a pain-killing potion by subbing Xisben's blood for direwolf blood in a Regen II potion.
The Treasure Hunters
The Foxes use Haas' cloak to teleport to the peninsula and make their way into Irik's territory where they start trying to suss out the location of the hidden Dionastran temple. Glad isn't able to determine much of anything with his occult abilities, although he does notice an occult presence keeping an eye on him. He shares this knowledge with the party and is mildly disturbed that he can't divine much more about his presence given his expertise in the area. Haas is more successful. She recognizes the oddity of some river stones with her knowledge of ruins. They follow this river upstream until it disappears into an earthen mound. Glad is able to detect the buried corpse of a basilisk and something off about the magic in the area. Haas investigates further and finds a crazed blackscale feasting on its flesh in an underground tunnel. Glad assumes its run-of-the-mill blood magic, so the group doesn't purse this further. They find a resurfaced stream not far away but glad is able to determine that the northern stream is not actually connected to the one they were trying to follow. He suggests that Frax use his plant and water divining abilities to suss out where the stream disappeared to.
The Water Temple
They're able to figure out that the stream is being fed by an underground water vent that is magical in nature. After a bit of recon, the group make it to an offshoot room from a room connected to the water pumping tube where they find a switch that can control the level of water. They also find the Skarlak skeleton that is about 150 years old. They venture even deeper into the ancient structure finding a second level that seems to be abandoned. There are fountains and water troughs, though, that still seem to be in working order. Venturing further in, they come upon a place of worship decorated in gold and a golden snake statue that Haas interacts with. The snake finds her offering lacking and attempts to extort something more from her via another stone snake statue that's come to life. She dispatches of it with ease and Glad dispatches of the other statues as a precaution. Glad is forced to send his men back when two of them succumb to an illusion that leads to one of his men killing the other. Red is unable to divine the nature of the illusion on the place. Likewise, Haas is unable to learn much from the spirit world. Glad does eventually discern that there is a strong ward on the temple that prevents the use of blood magic. The Foxes also discover an orb that shows 24 differing scenes around the world. There's not much left in the way of non-gold loot or artifacts of knowledge.
In a deeper level, however, they meet Godrik of Dionastra, who lives in a house on a lake island. It turns out that he's responsible for the wards against blood magic and has been protecting the temple from Sokaldu, a blood mage in the area who has been desperate to get into the temple. Though Godrik isn't very forthcoming with any of the temple's secrets, he promises to both share information with the Foxes and help in their own troubles with Vorshen if they can dispatch of Sokaldu.