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The Keepers of the Immaculate Flame are descended from the ideals of Emperor Eledain's dragon-worshipping empire. That empire once ruled this land. It fell long ago, pushed back by orcs, the Nightking, and worse. Outskirt sits on its bones. The vandalized statue in the square still wears Eledain's horned crown.

Alfilia bears their emblem, a refined form of the sign Igorrr once wore. Igorrr had been one of them. Alfilia hinted he had grown soft in recent years, based on his squire choices. Dark things were rising in the Vale again. She would not say more in the inn.

Astara summoned Igorrr into the Vale, unsure who else in Outskirt could be trusted. Alfilia took word of Annabella seriously and promised to follow up. She hinted at a place among the Keepers for Shanna, should she wish it.

On the morning of the 31st of Ashfall, Alfilia was gone from Outskirt. Cultists later dragged her, barely clothed and chained, northwest from the Temple of the Purple Flame toward Mirror Lake. Her Keepers full plate turned up in Quasimund's barn, in a chest with coin, chains, and manacles.

Alfilia spoke of "misguided knights", the Heirs, who would use everything in their path to reach their ends.

The Heirs of the Immaculate Flame serve under Serenya. They do not see eye to eye with Alfilia, though news of her capture would not please their leader.

Alfilia called them misguided knights who would use everything in their path to reach their ends: to rid the world of the lich Azrahel Koth with the sword of Eledain and restore the days of the Dragon Empire.

In Outskirt, Serenya spoke carefully with travelers at the edges of the Three Stags' common room. Chainmail under her cloak. A blue glove on her left hand. Talk of smoking cultists out of town. Before the week was out she left, a broadsword across her back.

Toman saw Bela with a woman in one blue glove before she left. Serenya wears a blue glove.

Tylos rides as an armored knight of the Heirs. He took Iliel by force after she refused to translate elf writing for him. The party freed her while Tylos was away. Rotlaug then destroyed Fort Malus and killed Niklion, one of the knights left behind.

Cultists in the Vale work under the mark of Sathmog, a brand. Quasimund wore it on his left forearm. The Temple of the Purple Flame holds branding sticks with the same mark, and living quarters around a demon-and-dragon altar. The two twisted figures beside the portal altar bore it. Dennis, found there with them, showed no mark.

Dennis named the Truth Society a cult. Annabella had given his party work in Outskirt and introduced them to it. Years later they were invited to the temple to pledge to Sathmog. Dennis refused to be branded. They pushed him into the portal.

Annabella worked the Three Stags as a front. She paid for genuine statue pieces, kept bats, and watched newcomers. A note in her room said to keep watching, and that the wolf may be useful. Voices in Quasimund's barn spoke of a package leaving the temple toward an isle, and asked why the armor was still there.

Annabella killed Quasimund and fled south. Six cultists covered her retreat from the gate. On the road to the temple, ragged deserters said they left because the priestess had come back raging mad, thrown one of them down a pit, and left again. That was Annabella. She is still out there.

Annabella claimed she had worked with Master Weatherman, that a lead near the pass cost Weatherman's life, and that her group paid for genuine pieces. A dead courier in Drakmar Pass carried a note naming her and a bundle with a statue base. Astara later called that base a fresh fraud.

Quasimund ran tax and intimidation in town with his bullies.

Ossiar approached the party outside Fort Malus, claiming to seek his captured travel companion Blutuld. After learning that Blutuld was dead, he fled when Arcturus demanded that his arm be checked for tattoos. Arcturus killed him, and the party found Sathmog's mark on his forearm.

Vrek led a goblin warband at Riddermound. He sent a runner with word of the mound, and said to seek Maladûk, the orc chieftain dwelling in the dwarven mines to the southwest. Grub is a goblin of that world.

In Blackridge, Ukka was waiting to die. She took a bargain from Ix. Her axe changed. On the road toward Outskirt, a trapper named Branik was found with his chest split and his head taken by a clean axe stroke. Grub went quiet, then left.

Grub later warned Outskirt: Maladûk is dead. Ukka killed her. Ukka is gathering what remains of the clans, not to fight cultists, not to find the statue. She wants the old ways back: the days before the mist, before the monsters, before kin. She means to take the Tower of Sighs first. To get there, she has to go through Outskirt. As soon as the snow melts, the troops move. Some orcs will listen to the new orders, some will not. Expect no mercy. Cultists, travelers, explorers, all are in her way. Grub and those with him would not be part of it.

Winter only buys Outskirt a little time.

The Crimson Deep is a gang in Arkand, the city of waves and flames. They brand people as property: an octopus, red, scorched into the skin. Grimm Silvertooth wears that mark below his left shoulder blade. They used him in the pits for coin and spectacle. He left. He climbed into a cart at Arkand's North Gate and went north.

The same shape of mark has been seen since. In a vision at the tree line before Fort Malus, three men stood at a farm barn with Da. Fresh red octopus tattoos on their arms. A knife hilt in the sun. They had not looked toward the boy behind the woodpile. Whether those men and the Crimson Deep are the same has not been proved.