The beginning of arc 10 depicts the wrapping up of the Cassomir arc. Kori keeps seeing
strange dreams which hint at the origins of his powers; Pepper grows wings to become a cat-dragon; Cob gets a flying rock companion by developing his psionic talent; Sirim makes his case before the priest the Princess called to raise Saenar; Gorok communes with his ancestors to reject the ways of old and requests Lord-Governor to give him the right to settle the swamps near Cassomir; and all of them raid House Basri to pre-empt the political retaliation against Eutropia. Then it is time for them to deposit their wealth in the bank and leave for Cheliax to pick up Gorok's tribe and help them move to Taldor.
The party teleports to Augustana to use it as a transit point, and finds themselves wanted men. Apparently, Aspis didn't take the loss of adamantine and their operative well, and called for a manhunt. They conduct their business under false identities and come to Eshe River Runner -- the Arclord whose house they barged in in Arc 6 -- for a rare scroll to help run a magic ship. It is hard to say who is surprised more, Eshe for seeing the 'burglars' again, or the party for being asked to take care of Eshe's daughter, Anippe. There is a Gebbite Bloodlord after her, and Eshe is busy with a project that makes her unable to leave; there is also a prophecy that says her daughter will only be safe if she is set 'with the first unbidden guests to come to through door heading west'. That very day the party is attacked by a vampire, and they take it as their cue to leave, teleporting once again in the middle of Gorok's people.
The tribe packs up quickly and heads for the shore. They see something is wrong with the town of Longacre burning in the distance, but make no stops to find out. The party picks up a drunk survivor who swears up and down something made his countrymen act weird, and his words are soon proven true as the procession of lizardmen is pursued by a host of villagers working as a hivemind. A conversation reveals it to be a mind-fungus
invested with the fragment of Aroden's angel, stuck in the lands of devil-worshippers it considers its foes. After a brief consideration, the party shows it the way to Cauldron, thinking that it may have seen stranger guests.
Meanwhile, the vampire is back, and reveals his true purpose by challenging Sirim to a fight in the name of the Black Triune. He backs it up by stealing several lizardmen hatchlings, and the party has no choice but to acquiesce, adding Zon Kuthon to the roster of deities whose unholy champions they have slain. No one harasses them as they reach the seashore and summon the
Tipsy Slurk, the ship meant to transport the tribe across the sea.
In the sea, they come across a vessel ravaged by a storm, and find it transporting an unusual prisoner, a Thuvian princess turned into a hag against her will, and has to wear a mask to hide her face. The princess, Serina, is bitter at the hand she was dealt, as she was betrayed by her hag mother she had to kill, and then by her brother who sent her to rot in Chelish prison. A coven of sea hags called a storm to sink the ship and pick up their new sister, and with the party interfering their wrath fell on the
Tipsy Slurk. Serina does not want to surrender to her nature, and she joins in repelling the assault from a submarine full of undead sailors. However, the submarine is in hot pursuit, and the
Tipsy Slurk can't afford to make a stop in Augustana to give Anippe back to Eshe. Trying to contact Eshe proves futile as well, and the party assumes she is being held captive in the Refuge of Nex, a demiplane creacted by the Archmage himself.
The rest of the trip passes in relative peace, and the party reaches Cassomir without further interruptions. A divination shows the Azlanti survivors have reached Taldor's capital of Oppara, and are
looking into old maps, presumably to reclaim their vaults. Serina is introduced to the Lord-Governor, offering her services as a spymaster, while Gorok is given the title of the Baron and swears fealty to the Crown. The party splits up; with Kori, Gorok and Cob helping resettle the new Blackscale Barony, and Mina, Sirim and Anippe staying behind to study ways of getting Eshe back. Gorok's party encounters a pair of smugglers along the way, who warn them of the keep that has all kinds of spooky stories about it. They find the keep in ruins, with only the library surviving the ravages of time, and stay the night despite the smugglers' counsel. They are attacked by bog mummies led by an ancient mummy lord in an unwilling thrall of some malicious force. They free the undead from their shackles, if temporarily, to learn
the story of how they freed the blight that was once the punishment of oathbreakers, and in doing so became ones themselves. Whatever curse ails the land, it lurks somewhere in the keep's library, and it is Gorok's job as the Baron to deal with it.
Back in Cassomir, a working hypothesis is proposed to reach the Refuge. Anippe has a blood connection to people who were once granted access to the demiplane, so if she were to be unmoored from the Material plane and then banished, she would naturally gravitate towards it. The problem is that she might have a stronger connection to other planes, which can potentially sent her anywhere from Elysium to Hell. A ritual is conducted to untether her from most common planes, which involves summoning a lesser planar entity from each one. One of the summons, a Cassisian named Oriel, recognizes Aroden's blade from his dreams and asks to join the party on their quest.
Once the ritual is cast, the party find themselves in the Refuge of Nex. The demiplane got wacky after several millenia of disrepair. Its mimics got talkative, the garden fey took to domesticating swallows, witchcrows occupied a section of the mage tower, parrots started a blood cult, and a recent invasion by an ancient lich with a small army of undead has made matters worse. After a few encounters with local denizens, the party got access to the underground tunnels connecting various parts of the Refuge and being maintained by clockwork servitors. A passing patrol identified Anippe as a 'traitor', and the party surrendered themselves, reasoning they would have better chances to figure everything out from the inside. They get thrown in a prison, stage an escape from their cells, get caught, and stage another one. After a series of bizzarre encounters with the bound xorn, a crew of clockwork pirates, and an undead dragon they finally come face to face with the lich and slay him. It is revealed they are dealing with Anippe's grand-grand-father, a familial lich using bodies of its kin as a phylactery, but the girl resists his attempt at possession, which causes him to look for the next of kin... Eshe. The party proceed to the core of the mage tower, take over the control nexus, and secure Eshe, but put her to sleep to slow down her descent into lichdom.
