Search for the Sacred Sword I

G.S and his party return to Pandragon and head to Fort Thunderdoom after Draupnir tells them where to find Lacid, talking over where the war goes from here along the way. At the fort, the newly-returned Paladin Zeke Stafford has already joined the fight alongside Lacid; G.S's party arrives and finds him on the battlefield, and together they finally drive the Imperial Army out.

Catching their breath at the watchtower, Lacid and G.S trade stories — while, from a distance, Crow watches how far Lacid has come with a faint, unspoken smile. Prompted by Draupnir's speculation, Lacid starts to grow suspicious of just who Crow really is.

Gishne and Robin turn up at the Pandragon allied forces' planning meeting, and the two sides trade information: learning that a powerful weapon can be found at Heaven's Castle changes Lacid's next destination entirely.

In a brief cutaway to the Empire, Beradin sets aside the news about the Tower of Magic to reprimand Koon and Karim at the Dark Castle — enough of a threat that Karim decides it's safest to stay put for now.

Lacid's party, shivering in an unexpected cold, arrives at Lake Alcheonia — where a suspicious Meltgel blocks the path of the already-struggling group.

This is the Empire's counter-campaign catching up with Silver Arrow: the Four Imperial Guardians had briefly retaken Thunderdoom after Pandragon Castle's fall, and this is where that ground gets fought back. Zeke Stafford's return as a Paladin here is the payoff of the thread flagged back in Chapter 21 — the mercenary-exiled knight finding his way back to Pandragon's side. "Brother" is a quiet but loaded scene once you know what the chapter doesn't say outright: Crow is Lacid's long-lost brother, Ice Pandragon, revealed back in Chapter 20 — so his distant, smiling appraisal of Lacid is a brother's pride he can't yet show directly, and it's this same unstated identity Lacid starts to suspect in the same breath.

Gishne and Robin's appearance sets up the search for the last of the Three Sacred Treasures, and the mention of a weapon at Heaven's Castle plants a seed that pays off much later, as the answer to Lacid's supply problem in the Chapter 27–28 desert campaign. The Beradin/Koon/Karim cutaway continues the Tower of Magic thread that's been running through the Karim/Koon dynamic since Chapter 8. And the Meltgel at Lake Alcheonia is a small callback of its own — Basi Meltgel, the paralysis-inducing slime that nearly broke the Paladin Order back in the Chapter 3 Bashi Cavern crisis, resurfacing as an obstacle on Lacid's search.