Titanius, Mashito, Arabal, and Thestil head outside the next day, reaching a pub by dusk in the small village of Blackstone. While the others settle in, Thestil sneaks into a home that in one room has a painting of a wolf on a hill, baying at a full moon. A silver knife lays on the hearth. The owner, Gregor, wakes up, turns into a werewolf, and attacks Thestil.
Everyone is drawn to the commotion at Gregor’s hut next to the village graveyard. The party fight many dire werewolves until all forces ally to kill the undead rising from their graves. The wolves withdraw, taking the slain body of Gregor, and our party goes to the pub, facing off against the barkeep, Siggrün, and some hostile villagers.
The steading indeed has a zombie problem. Siggrün tells them to visit the castle up the hill, owned by Nadras, a solitary old man. Mashito climbs a rope to scale the outer walls while Arabal and Titanius deal with a lawyer who leaves by coach and horses. The front door of the castle makes a strange creaking sound.
The building is made of finely chiseled stone blocks. A flash of purple lightning brings Gunther through a portal into this world; the group trade stories. One room contains a display of a large metal gauntlet and an oversized sword. Arabal puts his hand in the gauntlet, which shrinks inside to fit him tightly, but is very heavy and he cannot remove it from his right hand. A finger of the guantlet seems to slice through stone like hot butter. Titanius manages to remove the large sword from the iron rings in the display, and takes this giant’s weapon with him. The party descends a spiral staircase winding a long way downwards into darkness.
At the bottom of the stairs, they move forward into a dank, earthy tunnel. They step around and over the bones of an extremely large creature buried in the ground. There are long thick green tendrils and vines growing from the ground, swaying a bit and moving silently upwards from the ground inside the skull. Mashito gets ensnared and fights back with her sword; Thestil is grappled by a zombie coming out of the earthen wall. The party fight their way out, clambering to the top of the pit into open air and setting the plants on fire. Soon the entire hole is consumed with an unnaturally large and long-burning fire. It is morning in the village of Blackstone, and our adventurers head to the pub.
Siggrün is further perplexed by the visitors after they wreck his pub (again), grow trees in the fields with the wooden faerie staff, and kill a fire-giant who came from the castle amidst molten lava and claimed the large gauntlet and sword for himself. The castle, viewed from afar, is on fire and partially crumbled down the side of the hill. The graveyard in Blackstone has a huge flaming pit in its center, but the zombies seem to have ceased rising from their graves.