We made our way out of the Betrayer's Rise, and studied the tablets Aloysia had left behind - teleportation to Ank'Harel. We spent an evening "sailing our ships", then Question introduced us to Prawlix, a member of Allegiance of Allsight who could get us to Ank'Harel, where Question also needed to report in.
In Ank'Harel, we met Kartharr, the kobold receptionist. He and Yora had an enlightening and thought-provoking conversation regarding the similarities and differences between lizardfolk and kobolds, and we left on quite friendly terms.
Then we met Jamil A'alithiya, head of the Cobalt Soul. He offered us help in exchange for performing some jobs for his organization, starting with a test.
We tailed a suspected cultist back to his home, then Fanfare and Zora knocked on the door with a pie to welcome him to the neighborhood. After convincing him to let us in and hinting that we were also cultists of Zaheer, he acknowledged his own membership in the cult, and Zora turned him into a snail for easy transport to the nearest cops.
Jamil then handed us over to Iwo, a half-orc, for our next mission. They told us about a baker in town who was believed to be smuggling stolen magic items. We were instructed to confirm these suspicions, capture him, and confiscate any magic items.
We posed as buyers to get in, where he showed us a ruidium-enhanced sword and told us he didn't have anything else and the auction was in an hour. Zora cast Hold Person on him, but before we could leave, a trio of his potential buyers caught us. However, Yora strong-armed two of them into submission (with some help from Diassa) and Fanfare and Zora blasted the third to pieces with spells.
Iwo informed us that the sword was a valuable find and paid us handsomely. The next day, Jamil told us that it was possible evidence against the Consortium of the Vermilion Dream, who were doing research into ruidium. Our next assignment: to investigate their headquarters.