Outside a cabin in the woods...
"I see..." Sigmund says, rather discouraged from attempting muscle in on some crazy hermit if said crazy hermit may have some form of horrible death in store for any trespassers, as one always expected hermits to have, "...then we could probably get back to Eckledun if we follow that trail there."
This reasonable conclusion seems palatable to both Kevin and Art, so off the group goes without even attempting to investigate the cabin for fear of the cannibal demon army that no doubt lives within. Following the trail, they eventually find themselves... not in civilization. Rather, they appear to have come to a clearing in the woods, one that appears to have been excavated to a significant degree not too long ago - down below one can see what looks like some sort of stairwell leading down into darkness. There are no signs of life around the excavation, but there are sounds audible from the stairwell. They sound a bit like whistling, actually.
In the dining room of Castle Melville...
Not very happy about Scott's rather unsubtle attempts at convincing Lady Melville to go the city of gub, Morton intervenes to not let the situation deteriorate further.
"Good sir Scott, if good Lady Melville doesn't wish to go we shall not make her, it is of her wish and she's made it clear. We cannot confirm she's of a magical nature, but whether good Lady Melville possesses magical talents is irrelevant without her consent in the matter," he says. "But yes, our task is to locate and see if we can convince those of magical talent to move residence into that of the town at the word of good group Gub. They wish to rebuild the town, I believe, and they believe that magical talent would aid in the endeavor. I'm of no knowledge about such magical matters, but I believe such a task would probably take much time and energy. It may be wise to look more into the matter however, before we take rash action."
Turning to Justine, he asks her to use her talent once more. "Good mage Justine, could you please perhaps give us insight into the matter of what happened to Mothdale?"
"The picture I am getting from all this is that somebody killed Jurgen Melville, some kind of third party, it seems like, and then transmuted the city to host the gub - this was probably the work of the mages of the Black Circle, and it seems like the gub were installed there rather than moving in of their own accord, though they seemed very pleased about the matter. The process of taking over the town was seemingly very violent, but I'm not getting a feeling of direct gub involvement there. I... don't think I can get more specific than that without running the risk of getting the details wrong," Justine replies after a moment of thought.
"Divination does tend to be better with space than time, if I remember it right," Lady Melville remarks, and Justine nods. "It does very much confirm my suspicions of a plot at work, rather than the mere aggression of sea beasts. Jurgen could very safely deal with those."