The members of the party continued to contemplate what we each wanted Odin to give us for our "wish." After a time, we had each expressed to Odin what we wished, and each wish was granted. Then, Odin announced that he had to leave, and he teleported away. So we were left with Arioch and a bunch of boisterous soldiers singing, "Happy, Happy, Joy, Joy."
Our job completed, Michele began leading us through shadow back to Cârnford by way of the Astral Plane. In the Astral Plane, we located the Silver Color Pool, which represented our home dimension. We were able to place the pool invisibly into the Prime Material Plane and look through it to survey the other side before going through.
We placed it in Michele and Drake's residence, which was unoccupied. We then moved it slowly back to look around a little. We saw soldiers in a nearby park. In fact, there were numerous encampments in the surrounding forest and woods. There were signs of damage to the city walls, but also signs of repair. There were ships just sitting around; mostly merchant ships, but also a few warships. We also saw shadows of sunken warships. It was winter.
Our survey complete, we returned the pool to Michele and Drake's house and went through. We went to a bar to get some information about what had occurred in our absence with little success. Then we proceeded to Christina's church, except for Shiolàn, who went off somewhere else.
We learned that it had been about 5 years, local time, since we had been in Cârnford. It appeared that the Dark Lord had made some sort of alliance with the Empire of Aquitaine, and they had started by attacking Aysgarth. About two months previously, the prince had gone missing, so the princess, his wife, was running things. He had been involved in a battle at the south side of the city--the group he was in was overrun, but his body was never found.
We made our way to the castle to seek an audience with the princess. We were almost immediately granted an audience, and ushered to the "front of the line." Trebor asked about the royal advisor, Anderval, and was led off to talk to him. The rest of us talked to the princess and offered her our support. During the audience with the princess, a raven flew in the window, landed on Jyfféer's shoulder, and gave him a sealed note. At some point during the audience, Christina and Mathos vanished. We later learned that they had gone off to attack one of the enemy warships.
Jyfféer took his leave of the princess, and got Christina to transport him back to his home. He appeared to be concerned, almost worried, about the contents of the note he had been given.
Meanwhile, Trebor told us what he had learned from Anderval. The two main facts he learned was that the city had been under seige for about 7 weeks and the Empire had been taken over by the Dark Lord.
Jyfféer returned a short time later, and revealed the contents of the note. It said, "Beware the Crawling Chaos! ...he is not alone. Utter not the name of the Unspeakable One."
Christina went up to Heaven and asked a Tome Archon that she knew about the Prince's fate. He was able to tell her that the Prince's soul had not gone to Heaven (which was its destined place).
Then, convinced that Agathon Dragutin was the Dark Lord, Christina convinced us to locate him interrogate him. We were able to locate him, and he said that he was not in fact the Dark Lord. We also asked him about the Prince, and he claimed to know nothing.