Entering the mountain stronghold, the party discover a wide octagonal chamber with five pulsing portals on the walls and a thick glass wall on the far end, revealing another chamber with four portals. The floor of the room is dominated by magic circle. Several gnolls occupy the rooms and seem suprised of the party's arrival. During the fight, the party discovers the gnolls can travel between the rooms using the portals. After the fight, the party risks testing the portals and discovers the pattern of the randomness of the portals. When they travel through the portals, they finally arrive in a corridor.
Entering the first door opposite the door they used to exit the portal rooms, the party encounters more gnolls, this time on giant hyena mounts in a room filled stone gutters carrying water from a waterfall in the ceiling to drains in the floor. During the fight, the stone tiles shift and the aqueducts follow another path, pulling whoever is near with them. The party investigates another door showing strange signs. After translating the warning, the party decides to leave the room and return to the corridor and explore the complex in another direction.
After hearing sounds of combat from behind a double door, the party pushes through and enters a large training room. More gnolls are training here under the tutelage of a shadar-kai. The party defeats the gnolls but the shadar-kai can escape them. While they are recuperating from the fight, the party is surprised by another attack. This time Thorn, the mercenary they met before, climbs up from a trapdoor and summons four guardian animals to his side. Together they attack the party but the party can defeat them and reclaim the magical trinkets that summon the guardian animals.
