After the initial shock of being greeted by a giant four-armed troll on the other side of the teleportation circle, we followed it to the Hunting Lodge while trying to formulate a plan. We would claim to be double agents, sent by Severin to kill Talis the White. We supposedly had a change of heart and decided to tell her instead. At the lodge, Talis and some of her minions already awaited us. She claimed that she had sent for us - not sure if there was a Mixup but we went through with our plan.
Talis was not surprised, which confirmed to us that she was indeed disloyal. She was upset that the White Dragon Mask was taken from her and given to a dwarf instead. She now wants to claim leadership from Severin, for which she required our help: We are to go to the village of Parnast and intercept the Cloud Castle there. By losing the castle and the loot in it, Talis hopes to weaken Severin’s position. She said she does not care what happens to the castle, which made the group immediately even more interested. To get into the castle, she equipped us with the passphrase: “Tiamat, our mother and strength” plus a banner. There also seems to be a white dragon in the castle, named “Cloudchaser”, of which Talis was pretty fond.
Chatting with her afterwards, we learned more about the other two leaders of the cult who may be disloyal:
We also learned that all masks together can raise Tiamat. We better watch that black mask of ours (apparently it cannot be easily destroyed). After a while Talis got weary of our obviously simple questions and we decided to end the conversation and retire to our chambers.
Fynn goes invisible and sneaks into Talis chamber, where he finds her writing something in draconic, while trapping himself in the room with her. Kaiya meanwhile turns into a bat and explores around the castle from the outside. She senses Fynns misfortune and, after returning to the castle in humanoid form, sends up for tea for Talis, so that a servant would open the door to her chamber. Ever the gambler, Fynn grabs some papers from Talis desk and barely, barely slips out the door thanks to his lucky feat.
Posmet angrily translates the notes as part of a set of instructions to reconfigure teleportation circles before storming out to sleep somewhere else. He is upset with Fynn for taking such risks. Fynn thus tries to return the papers before their absence catches Talis eye, but it is too late. When you have a hammer, every problem is a nail, they say. Fynn, in an effort to distract her, decides Talis is another nail for him to hammer.