The session picks up in the dead of night at the party's camp, with Gemma standing over the sealed jewelry box from Khel Kuldir — meant for delivery to Ruby Tinbottom — which has somehow migrated to her feet while she slept. Willa stirs beside her, and the whispering Gemma had been hearing falls instantly silent. The two talk it over quietly: Gemma heard something she couldn't make out and felt pain when she reached out with her empathic sense. They agree to leave the box sealed for now. After Willa drifts back to sleep, Gemma probes once more — the pain is still there, subdued but present. Something inside that box is waiting.

During his watch, Forge slips away from camp to commune with Moradin. Kneeling with his shield before him and a small offering of incense and holy water, he poses three questions to his god and receives three divine answers.

Am I on the correct path? — Yes.

Are my friends Tuck, Lucky, and Scales still alive? — Only one.

Can the voice in my dreams — the one claiming to be Sardior — be trusted? — No. The warmth in Forge's fingers surges to a burning heat at that last answer before the connection fades entirely. He returns to his post still and watchful on the outside, quietly troubled within.

Over breakfast, Forge shares what Moradin told him: he's on the right path, but two of his three friends are almost certainly gone. Gemma offers the use of the Eardrop, and Forge sends a heartfelt message to the friend he hopes survived. The reply comes quickly, in a familiar voice: "Hey, mate. They've got me in Ironhelm. Please come quick. Badly injured, all alone." Relief. His friend is alive, and Ironhelm sits right on the road to the volcano. Vault first, Ironhelm after.

While the camp is being packed up, Gemma receives an unexpected message of her own: her sister Daena, back in New Domaar, has taken down another Dark Agent of the Empire and is continuing to build the resistance. It's only twenty-five words, but it's enough to move Gemma to tears. She shares the news with Willa, explaining that Daena is fighting to protect magic users from the Empire's purges. One of the bravest people she knows.

The two captured Cindersworn cultists — the half-elf pyromancer Elorin and the human Raf — have spent the night under the influence of Gemma's suggestion spell, and it shows. Both are sincere in wanting to walk away from the cult and go home. Before releasing them, the party wrings out what intelligence they can: the Spider Lily operates primarily out of Melkurdor but uses Ironhelm as a regular stop, and her grip on the city is total — the town master is little more than a puppet. Forge's friend, they suspect, is being held in the dungeon beneath the town master's estate.

The party cuts them loose, sends them off with rations and some spare clothing in place of their cult robes, and Anton makes clear — in slightly more diplomatic terms than his first instinct — that betrayal would be unwise. Willa offers Moradin's blessing. The two former cultists disappear into the hills.

One horse short, Forge uses the fabricate spell to shape a felled log and spare tools into a functional wooden cart. It creaks alarmingly under his armored weight but holds. Gemma takes the reins — she has the proficiency for it and makes no effort to hide her enthusiasm — and the party rolls out.

The day's travel is mostly uneventful, broken only by a dried-up streambed and the scorched husk of a ruined caravan along the road. Eventually the trail brings them to the Vault of the Oath-Forged: a cavernous entrance set into a rocky hill, flanked by two colossal dwarven warrior statues holding the hillside aloft.

Inside, a great circular hall rises nearly eighty feet to its pillared ceiling. Five detailed statues ring a central circle overgrown with vines. Anton clears the runic inscription at the center and reads it aloud in Dwarvish:

The five statues each bear a plaque naming the heroes: Miralar Elderlight, elven paladin who pierced the Red Wyrm's throat; Dhoren Stoutbrand, cleric of Moradin who sealed the dragon away with divine magic; Kaelen Trueborn, a wizard who defended the weak with arcane power; Soren Vael, a dragonborn sorcerer who cast doubt in the minds of evil doers; and Wyrdda Stonehide, a dwarven warrior who shackled the Red Wyrm. Five heroes. A paladin, a cleric, a wizard, a sorcerer, a warrior. The party exchanges a look. The resemblance to their own group is hard to ignore.

From research at the Scribe's Guild, Anton knows how to open the vault: two stone disc-cogs on the back of Miralar’s statue, each bearing half a sword image, rotate to align. A hidden stone door grinds upward, revealing a staircase descending into the dark. "I read about it in a book," Anton tells Forge, and leads the way down.

The stairs open into a vast underground chamber — its ceiling long since collapsed, open to the sky, a roaring waterfall feeding a deep pool below. The party crosses a ten-foot gap to a central platform: Willa leaps it easily with her Ring of Jumping with Gemma on her back, Anton jumps on his own, and Forge is carried across in a dignified princess carry that no one brings up again.

Anton steps onto a star-shaped platform and immediately triggers a radiant magic trap, taking a burst of energy to the chest. His armor absorbs most of it. "Found the trap," he reports, dusting himself off.

The blast disturbs the water. The pool ripples, and an enormous dragon eel rises from the depths, its head towering above the party. Willa feels a rush of monster-hunter's instinct and has to actively fight it down. Anton steps forward and speaks calmly. The creature replies in clear Common. It is Mauganax — "just call me Maug" — and it has lived in this pool for many years, never with guests. It welcomes them to explore freely, mentions a mural and a sealed door in the chamber beyond, and when Anton asks about the Moonblade, Maug grants them permission to take it. Asked if it's hungry, Maug dives, resurfaces with a mouthful of fresh fish deposited at their feet, bows, and disappears below the surface.

Beyond a stone threshold, the party finds a square chamber with a faded mural: an elven warrior holding a blade split cleanly down the middle, flanked by two doors — one carved with a crescent moon, one with a blazing sun. They pull the lever beside the moon door without much debate. It's a Moonblade they're after, and Sehanine’s touch is all over this place.

Inside: a cool, star-decorated room with two stone tables, each bearing a removable crescent-moon-shaped piece of metal. Touching them reveals glowing Elvish script that Gemma reads aloud:

The two pieces, when brought together, repel each other like opposing magnets.

The sun door has two crescent-shaped impressions — exactly the right shape — but the pieces refuse to stay when placed one at a time, each repelling and falling loose. A closer inspection of the mural, however, reveals something Gemma hadn't noticed before: faceless figures in the background, hands raised toward one another in a gesture of shared effort. Cooperation.

Anton and Forge each take one crescent piece, press their free hands together between them, and on a count of three, place both pieces into the sun door simultaneously.

They slide home. The door flashes with silver-white light and unlocks.

Whatever lies on the other side — and whatever it means for the Moonblade — will have to wait until next time. The Vault of the Oath-Forged has given up another secret, and the Soul Survivors are standing at the threshold.