We go around and around a few more times. What are we going to do with this ritual? Create an item? Return the power to the family? Give it to someone else? Mummy Dalish? Disapate it? Can we even do any of that? Can we do anything besides give it back to Great Grandpa Bones?

There’s a quick sidebar when we realize Dalish has been communicating with Rictus fairly regularly. Remy asks he not inform Rictus that he’s alive, since when Rictus tried to clone him, he shot himself in the head to stop him. I ask him not to tell Rictus about all the fae and god-stuff we’ve been into. Fortunately, he finds leaving things out of his report easier now, as he gives up more and more of his humanity. Ugh! Well, at least he promised not to tell.

We get back on track and Klyce gets everyone to quiet down. He asks Nat what she wants to do. She thinks the best plan right now is to bring Great Grandpa back, then have a good talking to him about what he’s done, and how he can make up for it to the people of the town. It’s her family, so we agree and set about performing the ritual.

It works. Screaming spirits stream back into the skull and his eyes light up once more. The cave feels empty once more, as Nat and the skull head into a catch up conversation. He still thinks it’s three years ago. She catches him up on clearing the mines then, and then what has been happening lately. She tells him she knows he sacrificed his own sister to the Green Witch, and that she came back and murdered townsfolk for revenge. He claims it was all to save the family because no one else could take care of the mines, no one was powerful enough.

He asks that we don’t tell Nat’s parents or siblings. The burden is heavy, and he doesn’t want them to bear it. We tell him that Stephen already knows, and then have another whole conversation about what happened with Stephen and his undeath. We all agree to keep it between us, and head back to the castle to get drunk and forget everything else for the night.

The next morning is the Harvest Festival. No one is in a very festive mood. It’s starting to hit me, as I get up for my morning prayers to the Dawnmother, that she’s probably very upset with me for what I did. I just, it doesn’t seem fair, they’ve had him locked up for centuries. I hated being locked up for a year and a half. I couldn’t just leave the door closed. We promised.

Before I get too far down the rabbit hole, the others wake up and join me down by the Green Witch. What are we going to do about the body? Well, we can’t take her out, but perhaps, the cremation could be part of the ceremony tonight? Nat agrees to talk to the family about that, and I stay by her side for the day, stuck in my cloud of self-doubt.

About midday, Marybeth brings me some pie and a cup of wine. Nat and Remy come with her. Nat says the family has agreed to making it a funeral rite for Beatrice. I remember that Remy went to check on Dalish and ask where he is. Remy tells me that Dalish stayed behind to work on his ritual, and poisoned himself on purpose as part of it. This has apparently left him temporarily paralyzed (we hope), but it was one of the better outcomes? Oh dear.

Then folks start going off about the gods and the primes and how we’re touched. I don’t really follow the conversation, until Marybeth starts shouting at Remy about the phrase “your gods.” Exasperated, I ask if he could please, for the sake of peace, just use the phrase “the gods.” He grudgingly agrees, but who knows how long he’ll remember it. I then turn the conversation back to wine and pie. Unfortunately, I make a random comment to Remy about his nobility and it turns into a lecture on his family history in the royalist nation.

Eventually, people wander off and leave me in peace until the evening ceremony. I had a quick trip up to the castle to change my green dress to a red one for the burning, but I leave on the green mask. Nat has dressed in proper funeral attire for her part, as well.

Nearly the entire town gathers for the burning of the Green Witch. Nat gives a wonderful speech about the troubled times, and the losses they have suffered. She explains a bit about the vengeful spirit, in vague terms, and our defeat of it. She then turns to speak of the strength of the community. She encourages them to remember the lives of the fallen. To celebrate them. This town has survived so much, and will continue to endure. It is time to celebrate the town, their friends, and the people they have lost. She then performs the funeral rites and lights the pyre.

As if on cue, the clouds part and stars shine down upon the bright burning blaze. There is even a moonbow across the square. The Green Witch is pleased as we all watch the fire burn. Then, the biggest celebration this town has seen in quite a long time begins. And continues well into the early hours of the morning.

The next day, Nat fires up a telepathic bond with the whole group so we can talk to Dalish. He tells us that Rictus sent him a message that we’re to return to New Gnosis for a new assignment within three weeks. Oh man! UGH! Dalish also tells us he doesn’t kow how long he’s going to be paralyzed for.

Well, we have three weeks to find the door and get back home then. We start pondering strategies. Scry? Marybeth’s Library? Remy Sends to Hank, who says he’s really bad and we shouldn’t release him. Remy thinks they’ll stand against us in what we hope to do. Well, what else is new? Klyce brings up logical thinking as an option. Where would they have put the door? In the temple below us? Or in Stephen’s old place where the Eye was found?

Wait, we have a quick spell. I ask Nat to scry before we go running off in all directions. She tries, but gets nothing. Okay fine, but it was worth trying. Next easiest is below the mines. So, we head down there. Klyce gives us all waterbreathing because we flooded it last time we were here. Nothing has changed, unfortunately, and Stephen’s is too far away to check. We say hi to Great Grandpa on the way out, and remind Nat to tell her parents we fixed things with him.

After that, Marybeth takes Nat and Remy to the Library in her necklace while I stand guard. Against what, I don’t know, but I always do that when she goes inside. When they pop back out, I ask what they learned. That the knowledge is forbidden, and there are tentacle monsters guarding it. Oh, okay, great. Well, makes sense the gods wouldn’t want us to know how to undo what they did. Remy wants to go back in and fight an army of tentacle monsters and demand answers, but we tell him he’d be on his own.

The rest of the guys are ready to give up and just let the door find us. Trouble usually does, and we don’t have a timeline on our promise. Can’t we just take it easy for a little while. I’m afraid of what the gods will do if we give them time, though, and we still have easy options. Or at least, Nat does. I ask her to do her Contact Other Planes thing, so she does. While she’s in her trance, the group goes into another argument about gods and power, and I tune out, mostly, watching Nat.

When she wakes up, she has some news, none super helpful, but it’s more than we knew before. The Door is deep and on Earth. But the nation or city is is beneath is unclear. If we are successful in opening it, we will create a “singularity” in reality which will crush into a single truth and then explode back out into many paths. I’m not sure what that means, but that’s what Nat said. At least it won’t end everything and send us all to Oblivion. That’s a good thing, right? Well, none of that points us anywhere, maybe something popped up on Rictus’ radar, and that’s why we’re recalled. We’ll have to wait and see, I guess.