The party is Level 7, allied with the Ghost of March, and racing an assassin overland to the one woman who can cripple the Haseki Sultan. Behind them they have left a city full of loose ends — a half-freed serpent, an escaped mage, a mole in the palace, a vendetta waiting to catch fire. This is the ledger of everything still in play.
State of play
The Cabal (Level 7): Gizem Faruki (dervish monk), Miray (druid), Jean-Zera Mongé (bard), Sidra al-Najjar — now a djinn-master warlock since her djinn Faravi was torn loose. Alliance: the Ghost of March / Alemdar.
The main quest — Find Mira
- The decrypted journal named Mira, Bergüzar's sister and a diviner whose living presence nullifies Bergüzar's full power — the effect swelling the nearer she draws. The inciting disturbance at the dig was a rebound of Mira's own magic.
- Location: a farm near the Trojan dig site. As of Night 18 the party has crossed by ship and is closing overland — having just driven off an ambush by Aziz Sefa and the Bostanji Guard, who are racing to kill her first.
- The alignment fork: because the party sided with the Ghost, the path is to protect Mira or bring her toward the city to pressure Bergüzar — not to kill her (the Palace path). The Shahmeran lobbied to keep her alive: she "does not want another Theodora."
- Convergence warning: the farm overlaps the Ophidian Door at Troy, the serpent and red eggs, and Schliemann's dig. The cipher and dig-site books stolen from Osman's library point at the same place — A Certain Community may already be there.
The Lodge of Byzantia (unused)
Osman signed his letter Loremaster of the Lodge of Byzantia. The party has the Lodge's address, its new-moon meeting time, and — through Faravi, who was summoned by a Lodge ritual — two of its secret gestures. They hold a credential and a way in they have not yet spent.
Loose dangers
Things left alive, loose, or unresolved that can resurface:
- The half-freed Shahmeran. Two of four chains broken; mobile in her cell and able to cast, her "obligation" declared fulfilled. Contact runs through Faravi — an ancient serpentess now has a line into Sidra's own bond.
- The escaped mage. The recruited prisoner who cast Cone of Cold, turned invisible, and fled — a powerful caster who knows the Sublime Porte's methods, and no one is tracking him.
- The palace mole. An unnamed official fled the peace talks after Kavalan's murder of Hamit; both the party and Mejid noticed.
- Kavalan's leverage. He killed Hamit publicly and cast Speak with Dead — putting Jean-Zera's description on record and implicating the palace. Talks continue, strained.
- The snake-eyed vizier left alive in the cistern (believes he serves Mehmed the Conqueror); Baghatur, the Khazarian trapped in a scroll; and the Medusa Arcadia, the petrified guardian in the exit path — a tragic figure per Petrus Gyllius's diary. Any of the three can return.
- Eve the Unchained. Seeded, not yet met: a half-elf fostered by the elf druid Greenhat, gathering followers to eat "the fruit in chains" from the Garden of Eden, tied to the sick cats and red eggs. The Ghost views her as a ticking threat. Byzas, the tiefling who warned of her by a Sending, was found poisoned at the Lake of Sukut — his poisoning knotted to the red-egg thread.
- Alexander's vendetta. He knows Ahra killed his wife Nadia for using magic. Set aside for now, but a powder keg under the Janissary–Sekban mediation the Ghost wants.
- Kore's true nature — a Darkness-weaving shade — remains unknown to most of the party.
Faction pressure
- The Ghost / Alemdar wants the party to broker Sekban–Janissary unity through Ahra while keeping up the appearance of enmity. Not yet acted on — and Ahra's kill-the-casters creed cuts against the pluralist alliance he wants. How this mediation goes shapes whether Act Four's last fight is against Ahra alone or against Alemdar himself.
- A Certain Community / Aziz Sefa is the live antagonist: entangled with the party from Yedikule, implicated in the library-looting, and now openly hunting Mira. Aziz fog-ringed away from the Night 18 ambush and will try again.
Side errands still open
- Crown of Sargon — claimed (Nights 17–18); it remade Sidra and commanded the dragon Yutba off. Its ties to the Ninth Life and the sick-cats web remain.
- Alexander & Shehrazat — Alexander agreed to tutor Shehrazat if hidden from both Ahra and Alemdar; his short-term lodging at Papa Mert's has likely lapsed and needs a longer arrangement. Shehrazat was also told to seek Dr. Feuerbach at the Pera Palace Hotel for her unstable magic, but cannot go above ground herself.
- The Spectral Hippodrome — Susanna and Chique Manu's race-fixing; a promised new race pending; the Blue Rider's departure has destabilized the Blue/Green balance.
- The sick cats & red eggs — Sharif's unanswered request, knotted to Eve, the Ninth Life, and the Crown.
- Giannis the smuggler — expects further treasure-brokering; Jean-Zera's tie to him is publicly burned.
- Miray's druid network — Deniz, a druid known only in goat form who stewards an Undercity oasis, remains unvisited — a possible source of nature-lore on the red eggs and Eve's followers.
- The Ermeydani — the Undercity's no-weapons fighting arena with heavy betting; mapped in Sidra's survey but never visited, a venue for coin, a test of skill, or overheard rumour.
Where it all points
The near arc is fixed: reach Mira before Aziz, decide whether to extract, shield, or relocate her, then face The Grand Negotiation — where the succession is decided and the party sets the endgame table. From there the module drives toward The Eyes of Suleiman: the Ghost's plan is to sever Mejid from the Harem by removing Bergüzar, but her visions give the party the chance to propose sparing her instead — the campaign's moral hinge. Then the Lunar Eclipse and one of the three finales (see The Acts). On the current alliance, that means clearing the Janissary Remnants and, at the very last, a reckoning with Alemdar — unless the mediation with Ahra, or a change of heart, rewrites the ending.
Sources
Live state from outstanding_plot_threads.md / plot_threads.html (current to Session 16), advanced with the events of Nights 17–18; endgame from campaign-overview.lore and scene_seeds.md.