Recaps

Kairils left Ma Lou sleeping in the Wasteland and answered a summons to Winterhold’s Divine Hall, where the Lord of Winter and Contracts was expected to descend. The deity appeared before the gathered leaders, leaving Kairils kneeling among them.

• Kairils left Ma Lou asleep on a soft bed and went out into the freezing snow with the two men who had guided him.
• Kairils entered the Divine Hall, greeted Winterhold’s senior figures, and received the Red-Robed Archbishop’s concern about his injuries.
• Kairils took his place at the back of the hall as the leaders regarded him as a knight favored by the deity.
• The statue of the Lord of Winter and Contracts blazed with divine light, and everyone in the hall knelt in welcome.
• Wind and snow gathered on the Divine Throne and formed the Lord of Winter and Contracts, who surveyed the kneeling assembly.

The Lord of Winter and Contracts heard Kairils’s account of the Abyss branches’ ambush and considered Winterhold’s response. He ordered an attack on Black Forest first but chose a prolonged war of attrition against Bloodweeping Ridge rather than an overwhelming assault.

• Kairils recounted how the Black Forest and Blood-Weeping Ridge branches had ambushed his party and inflicted crippling losses.
• The Red-Robed Archbishop and the head of the Knight Order urged Winterhold to declare war and proposed attacking Blood-Weeping Ridge first, then Black Forest.
• The Lord of Winter and Contracts rejected their plan and ordered three Knight Order commanders to lead an attack that would uproot the Black Forest Branch.
• The deity ordered Winterhold to wage a prolonged war of attrition against the Bloodweeping Ridge Branch.