Star & Scale #12

Star and Scale met with Tenevor, the mayor of Lantern Light to discuss the people inciting a riot against the Hemlock Bastille guards only to discover no one by the group's description lived in the city

The group investigated the mill from the previous night to find the ashes of the dead giants but a distinct lack of a trail for all the people that must have been there

• However, while investigating the mill, Gift found a purple feather stuck in the cracks of the floor

Tracking a fey creature to the western gate through Zeb's awareness, they found a creature calling itself Snuffler, who the people of Lantern Light seemed to regard as a pest and allowed to toll the Windkept Bridge outside of town

• Snuffler seemed to have a talent for detecting magic items and in exchange for Zeb's arrow blocking shield, which he sent to "his queen" through some teleportation magics, he identified the purple feather as belonging to a magical garment he could "smell" on the other side of town

Snuffler lead the group to a wagon escaping Lantern Light to the east and left them there

Star and Scale approached the wagon to find a woman named Tula Darako, a puppeteer, stage performer, and skilled illusionist

• Tula wasted no time in explaining she'd been hired by Nefaria to create the illusion of a riotous group in Lantern Light with the expectation some do-gooders would warn Hemlock Bastille, emptying it to make a prison break easier for Omnia

• Unfortunately for Nefaria, Star and Scale knew how devious Omnia was from May and expected trickery, and instead convinced the Bastille to reinforce and expect a prison break

The group took their new friend Tula back to town to get new horses, having cut hers free in their attack, and returned to find Tula's cart had been set ablaze and the culprits riding away at speed

The group gave chase and eventually caught up through Gift becoming a Chocobo and sprinting ahead, allowing Zeb, who was riding Gift, to trip up the enemy horses

• The riders ahead turned out to be Farrow Foncé and the Consulate

• Farrow immediately killed the horses and set Ezekiel's nightmare on fire while the Consulate raised the dead bodied of three horses and the nightmare to fight alongside them

Star and Scale readied to face off against half of Nefaria, though without May and with Ezekiel struggling with injuries from his dead Nightmare