The party is walking together toward the front entrance of their bastion, a fortified stone structure with banners, lanterns, and an open arched doorway glowing warmly from within. The camera is behind and slightly below them, emphasizing scale, unity, and purpose as they approach.
Inside a cluttered arcane workshop, Tovin tests a newly crafted communication device designed for his animal forms. The device is a hybrid of druidic wood, glowing runes, and crystal reeds, softly pulsing with magic. A spectral animal voice visually manifests as floating sound-wave glyphs and tiny illusionary animal heads. Tovin looks both impressed and slightly concerned as the device crackles with imperfect translations.
A once-pristine garden has been fully converted into a mushroom cultivation site. Towering shelves of glowing fungi, spore clouds drifting like glittering dust, and thick mycelium crawling over stones and roots. Gemnar proudly stands at the center, hands on hips, as bioluminescent mushrooms illuminate the space in blues, purples, and greens. The scene feels productive but slightly unhinged. Expressive, playful fantasy tone.
Tovin finalizes the purchase of an adjacent property destined to become a treehouse sanctuary. A nervous real-estate official hands over a deed while massive ancient trees loom overhead. Blueprints float magically in the air, showing layered treehouses, rope bridges, and animal habitats woven into branches. Birds, squirrels, and forest creatures peek in approvingly. Lighthearted, hopeful mood.
A Citadel Solutions waste wagon is parked at the curb, actively picking up foul-smelling buckets that have been removed from sealed sewer grates. Workers in uniform load the buckets efficiently into the wagon. Greenish fumes curl upward from the buckets, unpleasant and unnatural. All sewer grates are sealed shut with metal plates and glowing ward-runes. No one enters the sewers.
Across the Radiant Citadel, citizens spray and wear elegant perfume bottles that emit shimmering pink mist. Beneath the pleasant glow, faint red infernal particles swirl—helldust dissolved within. Some citizens look relieved; others seem subtly dependent, reaching for more. In the background, the party watches from shadow, alarmed by what they now recognize.
Inside a stone chamber of the bastion, Erasmo carefully hands over a frozen cranium rat, preserved inside a clear block of ice. Frost curls off the surface, and the rat’s enlarged skull and faintly glowing brain are visible through the ice. The moment feels clinical, tense, and important. Erasmo stands slightly apart, arms extended as he presents the specimen, his expression serious and professional rather than sinister.