Karat and Black Barry focus mainly on rescuing the villagers. The large main entrance doors on the north side of the temple are shut tight, so Karat asks Hooflepoof to unlock them with his thieves' tools, and he tries but finds that the doors are not locked, but heavily blocked from the inside. He also tries to break down the doors, but they are strong and cannot be broken.

So they talk to the villagers through the door, and try to convince them to unblock the door and come out by themselves, but the villagers don't trust a band of invisible adventurers and feel safest with the doors closed. Karat makes the case that they've killed all these bad guys, Black Barry also explains that there are seven of them, and they are powerful and have weapons for the villagers, and Hooflepoof even steps back and takes off his Cloak of Invisibility briefly so that they can see him, but the villagers are panicked, not sure that even if these are good guys they can take on such a horde of enemies, and don't know what to do. One of the villagers suggests that they will come out if the adventurers will gather up a group outside the door to protect them, but the adventurers make no move to do so.

Gourbain has so far been avoiding battle, hiding in the woods, and makes his way to the east where he can get a better look at what is going on over on the east side of the temple, which has been mostly obscured by billowing smoke. He sees that the cultist and kobolds on that side are moving hay bales from a shed not too far away to build up a fire against the rear of the temple, which is responsible for all the smoke. The bottom floor of the temple is stone and not flammable, but the upper floors are made of a rare teak wood, so it appears they are trying to build the fire high enough to catch the upper floors aflame. And they are getting close; the flames are already licking the upper window frames.

Bilbo, still hidden in the woods, shuffles over to Elfo and asks him to make her invisible. Elfo uses an Invisibility spell on Bilbo, himself, and Nars. Gourbain comes back to rejoin the group and tell them what he saw, and finds only the wolves Ripper and Dumpy, because the rest are now invisible. "Anybody here?" he whispers. Bilbo answers "I'm here", and explains about the invisibility. Elfo puts his hand on Gourbain's shoulder so that they can stay together without making more noise, but kobolds have keen ears and have already detected somebody. "I heard something over in these woods," he can be heard to say, and soon gathers a small group of cultists and kobolds who start blindly throwing attacks into the woods, without landing many blows.

Hooflepoof circles invisibly around to the southeast side of the temple, where he also observes the kobolds and cultists moving hay bales to feed the fire. He attacks the nearest cultist there and kills him without much effort. Karat, also still invisible, whispers to the villagers in the temple "watch how easily we can kill these guys" (they can see outside through small windows on the upper floors), and moves around near to Hooflepoof on the east side and attacks a nearby cultist, but makes a not very convincing miss.

By now the fire is really starting to catch the upper floors, and the temple is filling with smoke. Fearing that the temple will collapse and they will be burned to death, the villagers finally open the front doors and begin to stream out. Black Barry calls out "is anybody here good with a spear?" and hands out 7 spears to the first 7 outstretched hands. Elbolin and Hooflepoof tell the villagers to run to the keep, while Black Barry instructs them to gather here and he will lead them to the keep. Some run away, and some stay, and several of those with spears line up around the exit to protect the ones rushing out of the temple.

Elfo uses his Ray of Frost, aiming at the base of the fire, and knocks it down significantly, although by now the south wall on the upper floor is engulfed in flames.