"What do you see?", whispers Leosin, who cannot see in the darkness of the cave. Only Elfo, Karat, Elbolin, and Black Barry have darkvision.

"I don't see nothing", whispers Hooflepoof.

Elbolin explains what they see in the room. "Sounds like they were storing some sort of loot in here," says Leosin, "but now they've packed it up."

They can hear voices coming from the other fork in the passage, so Karat asks Leosin for Hooflepoof's Cloak of Invisibility so that she can go and explore. She tiptoes back down the passage and takes the fork to the left, fairly quickly coming to a room that looks like sort of a barracks, with a number of beds and chairs and a table, and 5 guards and 6 cultists lounging around, apparently enjoying some time off. She creeps back to the store room to tell the others what she saw.

"Did you see any other exits?" asks Leosin.

"Um, actually, I forgot to look for that," says Karat, "I'll go check again."

On her second mission, Karat notices that there is in fact another passage, on the other side of the barracks cavern. She tiptoes back to the others again and tells them about it. They're pretty excited to explore it, especially Leosin. They figure, being dressed like cultists, they can probably just walk right in. Except Leosin, who doesn't have a cultists' uniform, so he borrows back Hooflepoof's cloak. They walk right into the barracks room, and through the middle of it, acting like they know exactly what they are doing.

One of the cultists flashes them a hand signal, with all the fingers splayed but the index and second fingers bent down. Several of the adventurers return the gesture. Another cultist looks up and asks them where they are going.

"None of your business," Bilbo blurts out, but Elbolin quickly follows with "we're on an errand for Anamith." The cultists make no attempt to stop them, although they look slightly amused as the adventurers head for the opposite passage, as if they think they are stupid.

Just a few feet down the opposite passage, to the southeast, they find themselves in an abandoned chamber that appears to have been recently used as someone's personal quarters. There is a desk here, and chairs, and a smaller bedchamber off to the side. Spread open on the desk is a simple map showing the villages in the Greenfields area. An arrow is sketched toward the west and the town of Beregost, where it turns north on the Trade Way. A separate paper with numbers in columns has the note "Everything must be freighted north to Naerytar. Rezmir gave us permission to keep some pearls, the ring with a filigree of braided feathers, and a handful of small stones." Other papers have bad poetry about dragons.

Elbolin explores the side chamber, where there is a bed and two trunks. In one of the trunks is a splendid purple robe. He describes it to Leosin (who still cannot see in the dark), who believes it is probably the robe of the "wearers of purple", a very high status in the dragon cult. There are few Wearers of Purple, few enough that Leosin believes that most of the cultists would recognize if a stranger were wearing the robes. But under certain circumstances, they could be very powerful, or very dangerous. Leosin had seen Frulam Mondath and suspected her to be a Wearer of Purple.

In the other trunk are mostly common clothes, many of which are black, and of course purple. Hooflepoof takes a pair of purple socks.

The room is layered with heavy carpets, but Elbolin notices a slight depression near the back of the chamber, behind the desk, and pulls back the rugs to find a passage just in the corner between the wall and the floor, just large enough to squeeze through. And so he does.

He slides about thirty feet down a slippery chute, tumbling into a cave that is sort of a shrine, adorned with deep carvings of dragons, including a prominent carving of a five-headed dragon emerging from a volcano. Elbolin has little time to take it in, as the shrine is also occupied by a huge half-dragon and two berzerkers. The half-dragon addresses Elbolin immediately, "you look familiar."

"Um, yeah, I've been around. Excuse me, I accidentally fell -" but the half-dragon interrupts him, asking "why were you in Mondath's chamber."

"We were just exploring while waiting for somebody to bring our instructions from Anamith."

"I am Anamith. Why didn't you go with the rest?"

"My friends and I fought in the battle in Greenest last night, and then spent the night in the woods. We missed the departure, I guess, and were unsure what to do now. So one of the dragonclaws at the entrance was helping us."

Anamith exhales a half-puff of smoke and scans Elbolin carefully with a red eye. "All right," he says slowly, and then to one of his berzerker attendants, "take him to Zokar, he can give him a job."

The berzerker leads him quickly through a different passage and through several rooms that he doesn't get much chance to observe. One room seems to be a barracks for kobolds. Up some stairs is a long chamber with what looks like an iron fence along one side. Another room they pass through very quickly, stepping over dead bats on the floor. The next room is full of fungus. Several times the berzerker gives Elbolin brief instructions, such as "avoid that step", or "follow me closely". They end up back at the cultists' barracks that they had passed through earlier, adjacent to the room where Elbolin slid down the chute.

Once there, the berzerker asks for Zokar, but the cultists and guards say he isn't there, he went on an errand somewhere. Afraid that he will be recognized by the cultist, Elbolin quickly darts into Mondath's chamber, where his friends are still exploring, and says in a stage-whisper "we've got trouble." The berzerker and several of the guards follow close behind. Karat looks quickly around for something to light up with her Light cantrip, finding the lamps around the walls, which could easily be lit by normal means, but even easier with magic.

Elbolin speaks up first. "These are my friends," he says. "We are just lost. Just tell us what to do."

One of the guards apparently recognizes Bilbo from her battle with Cyanwrath, and says "hey, I recognize that one. These guys aren't with us, they're some sort of invaders!"

Bilbo claims to have some sort of twin, but nobody's buying it, so Elfo quickly casts a Charm spell on them. They lose all suspicion, though they are still confused. "So, who are you guys really, and what are doing here?"

Hooflepoof chimes in "Of course, we're cultists just like you. We just got lost when we came back from Greenest. Don't you trust us?"

Under the influence of Charm, they can't help trusting him. "Ok," says the berzerker, "that's cool. Let's just find Zokar, and he'll find a job for you guys."

They all settle in the barracks, finding various beds and chairs to sit on, while the berzerker sends one of the cultists to find Zokar. Hooflepoof asks to use the bathroom, and they direct him to such a chamber just adjacent to the barracks, which Hooflepoof uses gleefully.