We last left our heros having recovered Ashaurok’s spare spellbook. With her backup book returned to her Ashaurok was able to teleport the entire party to her tower to attempt to recover her main spellbook. Of course her tower was watched and the fearless heros had to protect her as she attempted to solve the puzzle that guarded her spellbook. It was an ingenious device made out to look like artwork of some ships on the wall, but the ships had to be arranged in a specific order to unlock. To make this even tougher the puzzle changed itself every time, so Ashaurok always has to solve it again. While she is solving the puzzle the battle rages on, a tough fight in which Ashaurok and Solist almost die. Barely surviving the encounter, the party teleports out, returning to Ashaurok’s safehouse, in a small village a couple days journey away.

Once again safe the party decides to help clean out the cave in which Ashaurok had hidden her backup spellbook. It took a few days, and on the final day of cleaning and repairing the cave to be a place for the townsfolk to retreat to if they are in trouble, devils teleport in seemingly without warning, although Solist had gotten a strong sense of danger from his magic amulet just moments before. In a brutal fight the party is victorious, only barely avoiding having townsfolk killed in the fight. The next night Solist wakes in the middle of the night, shouts for the party to get ready, and casts a protective spell right before the wall of the inn is blown off. Once more devils have come for the heros, and again they have caught them almost totally unaware. The leader of the devils casts a magic rope at Solist, which entangles him grappling him and dragging him to her. There she removes Solist’s magic amulet before vanishing while the other devils kept Findail, Shun, and Smoth busy fighting for their lives.

His amulet gone, Solist is a broken man. He rarely talks and is constantly staring at the ground in a distracted silence, a glazed look covering his unfocused eyes. Only when repeatedly and rigorously addressed does he return to the active world for brief moments before once again staring at the ground. Sadly he is no longer in a condition to adventure. The party has no choice but to leave him with Ashaurok under her care. With Solist safe, the party decides to head north to discover what Killingsworth is like,the only contender for the throne that the party has no idea about. While traveling there the group notices a ravaged countryside. Stopping in one of the villages our heros find out giants from the east have been terrorizing the populace because Killingsworth recalled all his troops at the request of his wife. With this troubling news the party heads to Istivin to speak with Killingsworth and offer their services to stop the giants.