The Two Lord Velmonts

In the hidden basement of Velmont's house, Faerah, Wisp, and Roark battled the stone golem, shattering the four gems projecting the anti-magic field. Wisp got word to Redgrave: they had found a second Lord Caldris Velmont, chained beneath his own home. At the Athenaeum, Redgrave and Professor Gousse put their Velmont to the test, asking him to enchant a ring — he made excuse after excuse, and when Redgrave attempted a Geas, the spell slid off him entirely. The impostor stormed out: a doppelganger. Professor Gousse opened a portal, and Redgrave joined the fight just as the golem's blows broke the real Velmont's chains. The councilman tried to teleport away — Wisp counterspelled — then fled on foot, only for Wisp to Dimension Door himself and Faerah into his path and take him captive. After several more foiled escapes, Velmont relented: the Silent Ascendency had captured him and set up the magical-item smuggling operation, and just days ago the cult had grown excited, sharply increasing the flow of smuggled items — why, he couldn't say. He directed the party to papers and reagents that could reverse the Feeblemind trap branded on him; alongside them, they found a dagger of unknown power. Faerah returned to the institute to fetch Professor Gousse — and found the doppelganger wearing his face. Nyxia's detect magic exposed the impostor, but it slipped away into a crowd wearing a new form. That night at the Boar's Head tavern, the party gathered with the real Professor Gousse, Mistress Lyssandra Veil, and a squad of guards, and laid their plan: every member of the Umbral Athenaeum would be required to cast magic, to flush the doppelganger out.