The Tien exploration party wandered homeward through the Bleak Hills, rushing through hostile Impala territory again where Pachala sent a hurried message to the Unseen Arrow clan's khan about the shrine. A bad spirit wind blew through camp at night, assaulting people with powerful spiritual gusts, so you moved to shelter until it passed. Some people began feeling the effects of heat exhaustion even though water was not too scarce.
You camped on what seemed to be a nice campsite but it turned out to be haunted. First a wave of fear, violence, and pain spirits plus some ghosts attacked, one possessing Dorgon (fear; left him demoralized with visions of a Chaos storm), and then a ghost of a brave named Last Stand warned you that Chaos was coming to reenact an ancient battle that was fought here. A few of you stayed while the Lunars and Dorgon relocated. The chaos came in the form of twisted chaos wolves that were fearsome foes with saliva that rendered even small wounds painfully incapacitated for hours (or days, in the case of Tarranyr) later. The battle was close at times; Arcus was mortally wounded but saved by Chingua and Pachala, and Tarranyr was pinned and helpless but saved again by combined efforts.
Later you ran across a bison shaman guarded by a spiritual sword (his fetch) as his spirit must have been wandering the Spirit Plane. You waited a while for him to awaken but he did not. You marched onward thru Vulture Country and made it past Condor Crags to an old ruin called Stone Tower, which the Lunars said was an EWF necromancer's hideout, now a Lunar watchpost. There you ended your mission with the Survey team and there was a nice feast with a terse discussion of previous events. The Lunars agreed that they would tell Duke Raus of Muriah's weakness.
You left southwest as they went north to Pavis. Along the way a spider swarm scampered through your camp but no one was greatly harmed. The storm bulls went to Pachala's clan for the holy day where Dorgon tried to get a shaman to rid him of the possession; no luck so he rushed to the Zola Fel HHD. Caernak talked him (and a very reluctant Tarranyr) into waiting until next season to initiate because a demoralized Dorgon and non-warrior Tarranyr would have a hard time completing the Cleansed One initiation quest (GM was also not fully ready for that). The ceremony went as described and Caernak's oration was generally well received. Although the implications about the Lunars were met with many grumblings, people later came to him and offered their assistance in any way.
You waited for a couple weeks in fly-infested Corflu, sampling the local culture (hah) and strange outlander sailors (especially Elohwyn). Finally you ran into the Wolf Pirates, represented by a human first mate named Frel (very tough swordsman), newtling triplets in heavy armor, a SIZ 32 lizard man called a Slarge, nicknamed The Muscle, and a few other tough sailors from the western isles of Ygg and such. You negotiated a deal for a ride to the island and set off. Turns out the captain's spirit, Bastur Blueeyes, is bound in the wolflike prow of the ship and protects it with freezing winds and other magics. Frel's cunning ship tactics easily evaded a Lunar pursuit and you had a couple quiet days at sea to get to know the grimey crew. Elohwyn sure seemed to get along with Frel.
As you approached the locale of the island the crew hauled a dead Ludoch aboard, he was brusied all over... very disturbing. A large Ludoch war band surrounded the vessel soon and issued threats that were calmed when Caernak blew his friendship conch. Frel negotiated some deal with them in return for some nice pearls, you would go to the isle which was causing terrible problems in the ocean and do your best to stop it. Tarranyr got the sense that Frel was screwing you out of many pearls so he confronted him, the situation became very tense until Tarranyr backed off a little.
You saw the isle the next day, much smaller than expected: a 20m diameter, 30m tall shell (like a conch or snail) floating in the ocean, playing eerie tunes as the wind blew gusts through holes in the shell. You approached a rickety wooden hut attached to the base of the shell and the waters became rough and unpredictable, upsetting many of your stomachs. The isle's song became nasty, splitting your heads with unnatural notes even when you plugged your ears. Frel cautiously drew the ship Icewind close enough for you to get off at the hut. Elohwyn (followed by the others) dashed inside a door where a bent old man stood behind a counter, humming along to the haunting melody of the island and rummaging around behind the counter. Inside the hut you were insulated from the evil song, and Frel quickly moved Icewind away.
You got the old man to respond to Seshnegi and Tradetalk, and amidst humming he remembered enough to speak with you a little, but got nervous when Elohwyn and Dorgon crossed the counter and fussed with a mechanical door behind him. The door swooshed open and he ran through, pursued into a short corridor by the two. A casual observer who did not know better would have been appaled by the next sight: Elohwyn cut him down with a nasty head wound (would have decapitated an average man, but he lived) as he fled toward the next door, clumsily trying to run through the speedy Vingan. An impaling spear from Dorgon just bounced off, but then a few more blows to his prone body killed him. You found papers on him and a neat 3-part crystal (red, white, and black parts) set into the flesh of his chest, which you cut out as others explored the chamber beyond.
In the chamber there was a narrow, steep slide leading down into the shell, and also a 2m diameter silvery sphere that floated around and shot mean harpoons at Pachala. Eventually Pachala downed it with a glorious leaping critical spear attack. It wheezed, screeched, smoked, and crashed down to the floor, glancing off Pachala. Arcus threw a Lantern-lit coin down the slide, which continued steeply down 3m and then turned out of view. We stopped there.