With a mysterious scythe now in her possession, Tilkaz and Rolwaz journey east to the city of lights, Telhoken to try and find things related to lichdom. Along the way, she finds a cave with some cultists, and a trapped dragon that its attendant kobolds refer to as Zhalhuda, or "Troublemaker". After freeing and then traveling with the kobolds back above ground, they run into a doppelganger, knock the fight out of him, and then they tread deeper underground, uncovering a dusty undercroft to the cultist lair. There, they find a wight with one glowing red eye, calling himself "Selephus", loyal adherent of Lanika, a halfling necromancer seeking to become a lich. Though Lanika had vanished many centuries ago, her adherent had apparently been endlessly toiling, and when Tilkaz arrives, he had completed the receptacle for her heart. Whether out of pity, or a grim acceptance that his friend, and master, would never return, he hands the receptacle to the gnoll, and wishes her well.
From there, Tilkaz journeys east, leaving the kobolds to live with the catfolk of Direfeld. Eventually, the duo arrives at the city of lights, and immediately starts to prod around for rite reagents. A mysterious elf, with a strange pair of creatures, in the park, detours them for a moment, but not for long.