Back to the Stormcall Road

Point Pringle did not give the party closure. PP5 confirmed what the temple had already suggested: Grease Tooth was gone. The Exiles had hit another piece of the operation and found the same kind of aftermath the party had found, but not the person at the center of it. Grease Tooth was two steps ahead, already somewhere else, already turning the next plan into someone else's emergency. The goblin conflict had also become too tangled for a clean victory. There were bombers. There were robotic or void-tech goblins. There were anti-construct and anti-forged currents bleeding in from Flesh and Lawful cruelty. There were chaotic promises about Dragon heaven and self-sacrifice. There was Evil, Enemy, Solar, and the Maine-variant network behind all of it. Ash named the hard truth first: their involvement might not solve Point Pringle. It might only choose one terrible force over another without understanding enough to make the choice clean. So the Ex Force returned to the original assignment. Stormcall still had construct murders. Tallulah Murn, the Tallyman, still mattered. Von Queef University had sent them north for that reason before Grease Tooth, Solar, and the Exiles pulled them sideways. PP5 showed them the Pringle auto wagon, battered but functional, and warned that the road had changed. Some shops along the route were Lawful-stamped. Others were outlaw. Either could be dangerous depending on the day, the mood, and who was asking. He gave them the ignition crystals. The party left Point Pringle without resolving it, which felt wrong and honest at the same time. Some threats would have to remain active while the road pulled them north.