The entire party is rudely awoken by armed guards pulling all the travelers outside the inn. The heroes had revived the previously unconscious Mike enough, that he’s awake if groggy. Outside the inn is more armed guards on horseback. One of the guards bears a family resemblance to Gideon, which is only emphasized when the guard takes his helmet off.
After a brief interrogation, the guard ascertains that Gideon is in debt to and working for Beckett Sunfounder. This does not sit well with Gideon’s brother, the guard, because Gideon is the son of Duke Excalion of Caladan Town. Gideon will be taken back to Caladan Town, but still Gideon refuses to talk. Fearing the end of the gold funding, the heroes convince the guard to assist them on behalf of Gideon’s debt to Sunfounder. The guard throws a coin purse of ten gold upon the ground which Agnes grabs.
Shortly after the departure of the guards and Gideon, the halfling town Kith erupts in activity short of a panic. The inhabitants are arming themselves with whatever comes to hand from their farmhouses. Two halflings come by and say that they’re very worried that a halfling child named “Ruby” is missing, last seen on the north side of the town, and is no longer present in the telepathic town hall that all these halflings may communicate in.
The heroes rush to the north side of the town, where they get directions to the house of the child’s parents. Outside the house is a halfling named “Pined Esk” who introduces himself as Ruby’s da (dad) and expresses anxiety at her disappearance. This area was also the last seen location of the rumored agent of the Syratic League.
Agnes feels strongly at this child’s disappearance since her own child had suffered a similar fate. Cletus casts detect magic and notices a faint nimbus of Fey magic around Pined, which Pined explains as being the source of the halfling community’s gift of a pseudo-hive-mind. Mike jumps and runs into the nearby woods and finds a set of footprints skirting the north of the town and heading east toward the Surge Marshes. These footprints are heavy, deep, iron shoes, and larger than an average man’s shoes.
Following the footprints east into the Surge Marshes, the heroes catch up to the source of the footprints: an old man wearing giant iron boots, yellow jaundiced skin, two daggers, and a red cap with what looks to be dim, peeling red paint on it. The old man has a red-haired halfling child in his arms and before the hero’s eyes, the child disappears. This disappearance enrages Agnes. After failed negotiations, the heroes and the Redcap have it out with the heroes beating up the Redcap badly. The Redcap’s only significant hit is a blow to the side of the ribs of Cletus with a dagger, which the Redcap then wipes his bloodied dagger on his cap leaving bright red coating to replace the old peeling coating.
During the fight with the Redcap, Belor notices the halfling Pined Esk hiding behind a tree with a pair of garden shears and doesn’t consider it an enemy and returns to the Redcap fight. The heroes have the Redcap almost surrounded and beaten, when the Redcap breaks free and dives into the swamp and the last thing to disappear is his cap, which leaves behind a large red mushroom. Cletus picks and pockets the mushroom. Cletus and Gracchus do notice that the Redcap’s blood is green and mildly corrosive.
The heroes interrogate the halfling Pined Esk after the fight. Pined Esk claims to be very worried about his daughter Ruby Esk, which the heroes discern isn’t the entire truth. Pined also claims that the halfling community has accepted that Ruby is gone and written her off as a loss “the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the one”.
The entire party casts about for a new trail to follow now that the Redcap’s trail has ended. They find a smaller and much lighter trail of footprints that continue leading east towards a squat stone building in the distance. Cletus also interrogates a crocodile, some lizards, snakes, and birds nearby who confirm that a child with red hair has gone by and that the squat stone building is new. The crocodile’s name is King Leon, and the crocodile mentions the Snake Underground but which particular snake or snakes that refers to is vague.
When the heroes arrive at the squat stone building, they meet a gnome of the Syratic League named Auric Moniker who warns them they enter the newly risen temple at their own risk. This temple building has one entrance in the front that shows nothing through the dark, impenetrable entrance. The front wall depicts a very generic man traveling through a forest to a city. The second wall depicts a man traveling through a mirror and up some stairs. The third wall depicts a man kneeling to something. The fourth wall is unadorned blank stone.
Cletus throws a torch into the entrance and it does nothing to alleviate the darkness within. Cletus and Gracchus yell “Leroy Jenkins” and jump into the temple’s dark entrance and are lost to sight and to sound. Belor and Agnes follow quickly. And for some unexplained reason, Mike and the halfling stay outside. Auric Moniker of course doesn’t enter either.
Sound and light from the outside aren’t visible inside the temple, and so the slightly smaller party of heroes loses sight of Auric, Mike, and the halfling Pined. Inside the temple there’s a series of corridors, and each side of the corridor has a depiction of the man that was depicted on the outside of the temple. One side shows him walking, then later running. The other side shows the man fighting things hidden behind doors, chairs, pillars, and just not visible. On some of the tiles in the temple, there are faces of people in the cobblestones, screaming and angry. The four heroes inside, Agnes, Belor, Gracchus, and Cletus hear chittering intermittently that echoes down the hallway.
Belor meets a displacement trap and disappears, causing a slight panic in Cletus, Gracchus, and Agnes. But soon Belor’s heavy foot-steps echo down the hall and he catches up to the party.
The heroes come upon a small room full of Cobbleswarm creatures traveling in concentric circles. These Cobbleswarm look exactly like a cobblestone from above, and from below they look something like a horse-shoe crab with a stinger. Gracchus goes first in jumping over them and avoids getting stung. Cletus crosses without difficulty. Agnes trips and falls when jumping over them. Belor trips, falls, and starts getting turned around over and over by the Cobbleswarm. What follows is a comedy of errors in rescuing the dwarf from the Cobbleswarm’s motion where everyone else is trying to pull him out and keeps falling.
A spectator in the next room laughs at the hero’s antics. This spectator is a blue-ish tint, slim, with very lean muscles, wearing pants and a leather apron, holding a straight-edge razer. The heroes have enough knowledge and magic detection to realize he’s a Vile Barber from the fey realm. Vile Barbers are usually more suited to cities and to cutting throats in dark alleys than to temples in a marsh and so finding him here is a bit of a surprise.
The Vile Barber spectator identifies himself as a servant of a mage of Caladan Town and then expresses interest in making a deal in trade for the halfling child which he summons and disappears by magic as proof. For a deal he wants power and domination of the mage guild for his master, or for as much gold as he can carry for himself. But before the negotiations really take off, four stone people enter from the corridors from the temple entrance, walking in front of the halfling Pined Esk who himself has Mike at the end of a pair of garden shears. What follows is a three-way standoff, where the heroes want their friend Mike back and Ruby back. The Vile Barber doesn’t care because he wins any way and he’s having fun. The halfling Pined Esk wants the child Ruby from the Vile Barber and for the heroes to stay back or Mike gets the garden shears.
At some point along the way, the halfling abandons his disguise as Pined Esk and reverts to the hideous form of a green swamp hag. What follows is some vague monologuing about the hag wanting to open a portal to the Fey realm in the throne-room below the temple. Belor attempts to claim the temple, but the hag laughs at him and says she’s already claimed the temple.
Everyone agrees to go to the throne-room, and they all continue down some stairs in the next room where they find the throne-room. In the throne room is two thrones, one greater and one lesser, a translucent portal presumably to the Fey realm, and a set of pillars that march down either side of the room. The depictions of the man on either side of the stone walls is now identical and shows a ritual or spell being recited from a book and then the man kneeling. On the lesser throne sits a grey-beard wizard chanting and apparently holding open the portal with his concentration. The hag and the stone people block the entrance with the heroes in the middle of the room.
The wizard expresses doubt and worry about his choice to open a portal. The wizard also doesn’t look so good and is unsure if he’d survive letting go of the portal. To make a friend, if possible, Belor casts cure wounds on the wizard. Meanwhile, the Vile Barber is continuing to shadow step and flit around the room with the child still in captivity.
The green swamp hag expresses more and more desperation to achieve a resolution and then squeals and runs away from the entrance with the stone people following her. Some booming noise is coming from the entrance.