Elfo, Bilbo, Hooflepoof, and Karat go straight for the cultists; Nars steps back out the door to avoid the fray. Hooflepoof quickly kills one cultist, Bilbo and Karat each bring down one, and then Hooflepoof and Bilbo finish off the last two. Karat and Bilbo each take some damage, but nothing too threatening.

They step into the roadhouse and look around. They don't see anybody, but they can hear a little bit of activity in the burned-out areas, out of view. Elfo listens carefully, and hears a couple of whispered voices from somewhere in the darkness. "What's going on out there?" asks one, "What are they fighting about?"

"I don't know," says another, "should we just keep working?"

"Let's not get in the middle of it," says a third voice. "I'm staying hidden until things calm down."

Meanwhile, the captured Gourbain, Elbolin, and Barry are served a meager breakfast. Ardred enters the room, accompanied by two cultists, with three bowls of gruel and flasks of water, and sets them in front of the prisoners. Apparently only then he realizes that they won't be able to eat with their hands chained behind their backs. "Let one of their hands free," he instructs the cultists.

Elbolin had already managed to wriggle one hand free, so he tries to hide it and offer the other hand to the cultist manipulating his chains, but the cultist spots it. "Hey, one of this guy's hands is already free," he says. "Ok, then he can eat with that," says Ardred. They leave the prisoners to eat their gruel and water.