Ten men and women known to the arch-mage as knights accompanied us back to the castle, through a teleportation circle, and what we found was disappointing. Almost all evidence of the cult was gone. Every trace of the crystalline object had been removed and the portal had been disintegrated. The only life we found at first was a draconic creature that had been reduced to a skeletal form, which swooped from the ceiling and attacked. It did not take long to subdue it, and we discovered that its form was an illusion. Somehow, all but its skeleton had been made invisible.
In the round room, the Empty Hand found two hundred dead prisoners. Though I am not totally without compassion, this was a great relief to me. If they killed the prisoners, it meant either that the artifact truly was destroyed, or that it would take too long to repair to be worth keeping the prisoners alive. It was only afterward I realized that, with two hundred dead and a hundred safe, nearly four hundred prisoners were unaccounted for. The dragon creature couldn't tell us much of use, except that the remaining prisoners had probably been sold, and that the artifact was destroyed. It also had heard something about boats and a keep. Its own purpose there was not as a trap as I had suspected, but merely to wait for food.
When the woman stopped the samurai from killing the creature, he was quite upset. I believe he was the most disturbed by the two hundred deaths, to the point that the Empty Hand worried about him killing himself. For my part, it did not come at a surprise at all that our Enemy would condone such an act.
The knights searched the castle, and found no remnant of the cult, but they did find an undead elf-like creature who claimed to be the guardian of the city. He had been captured, but had in the mean time learned something about the cult. First, he assured us that the artifact was indeed destroyed, or at least that the cult could not repair it themselves. Then he told us where the slaves had been taken. Five days previously, the group had been split in half, and two hundred sold to each of two buyers. The discussion then became which group of slaves to track down first.
At this point, I believed it was time to discuss our plans seriously, so I took the Infiltrator and the Empty Hand away from the knights and the undead creature, and told them that it was time to head east. Our Enemy has made his position obvious, so we are at an advantage, but only by being close to him can we decide when and how to strike. The others agreed that this was a wiser course than to return to the city and get involved in a war against giants. However, the Empty Hand insisted that we track down one group of prisoners first, since they were in our general path anyway.
Late at night, I approached the samurai as I had promised, but my words had no effect. I told him of our history and our present intentions, and our importance in the world of man, and yet he refused to join us, insisting that he had to return to the city to serve in an army. What effect can an army have against the Enemy's forces? Only a focused attack can succeed, one that circumvents the three hundred thousand soldiers. Perhaps it takes someone who has grown up knowing only eight other people to understand the magnitude of the number three hundred thousand.
Thinking back, the meeting was worse than wasteful. The samurai assures me that he will die before revealing our quest to anyone, but magic can go a step beyond what questioning and torture can do. With the priest's magic and my own, we have been able to extract answers from anyone we wish. If the same spells are used against the samurai, I fear he will betray us without knowing what he is doing, and whether he kills himself afterward to fulfill his promise will mean nothing. The samurai assured me that he would help if he could, but I fear that at this point, he can only hurt our mission.
After telling the others of the samurai's decision, I spent the rest of the night searching the castle from top to bottom for anything the cultists may have carelessly left behind, but found nothing.