Milk death save 3 

Molo*

Everyone may act. Combat is paused. Molo is awake now.
Kelnan and Katernin may choose how far they want to retreat before they drop their spells (or let them time out.)
Katernin may choose whether to try to lug Fianna's body out, or whether to retreat without said encumbrance, or whether to retreat at all. 

“Well, that were a fine mess.  We lost the lass,” Dain’s eyes drop as he says this.  He puts Molo gently down on his foot (!). “What does we do next?  I’m not one fer running away but it seems ta me that we’d per’aps be better off heading home and taking stock?  We still has that box to deliver and this place gives me the creeps.”

Kelnan

As the party clears the area, Kelnan points his wand down the stairway and a bolt of chaotic energy streams down to the base of the stairs at no one in particular before slamming the door closed. Might buy us some time, let's see what fortune does for us this time.

40. And a dense bed of grass begins to sprout, spreading up the stairs.

Then he encourages the others to retreat to the cover of brush and trees to discuss plans.

The burned doors were blasted from their hinges, but the strange grass grows in a sixty-foot radius around the smashed doorway. It does not impede passage but it is shockingly green in this dead, winter landscape.

There are hillocks and shallow depressions in the sandy moors covered with tall dead grass and occasional scrub and stunted trees, but the nearest substantial thickets offering real cover are about 500 feet away.

But both Katernin's wind wall and Kelnan's stinking cloud are seconds away from expiration.

"If you care to explain to me how we're going to get home?" Katernin asks, holding is barely concelled rage as they walk. "I'm all ears."

The party continues their retreat from the blasted, burned stairwell, as Katernin's and Kelnan's spells expire below. No immediate pursuit is obvious.

You trek through the crusty snow through dormant fields. The wind is bitter cold, the sky dark and overcast.

The party hears the loud cry of a bird of prey to the east. Looking in that direction, you spot a bulky, dark-skinned man of average height standing at the edge of the distant line of brush. He gives a large wave to signal you over. Upon his shoulder sits a hawk, presumably the bird that made the call. 

Katernin stops, watching the man with distrust

The party is about 200 feet from the ruined stairwell, and some 300 feet from the thicket where the man and his pet beckon you. He wears what seems to be a common sailor's outfit, although it is torn and stained.

"Im not the only one who finds that highly suspicious am I?" Katernin asks.

“What? You don’t like birds?” Molo goes walking up to the man. “Oi! You! What do you want?” 

Dain follows Molo, supporting him and ready to step in front at a moments notice if needed.

"Yes, because we should trust strange people waving us over after a near death experience," Katernin says. "Get back here!" She calls after them as they start to walk over.

     Once at least one of them is close enough for a “hushed holler,” the stranger cups his hands around his mouth and calls out “Unless you kill them all you must hurry!  We must take cover!”  With another couple furious waves trying to draw you all near, while the falcon on his shoulder takes flight and flies high into the air above and beyond the group, back the way you came from.

     The man reaches out to put a hand on a tree to either side of him and seems momentarily… shaky? Feeble?  Something about him seems to slump.  If any are close enough they may be able to perceive the color of his eyes fade until they are pure white, pupils and all.  “I do not see them following.  Not yet,” he again says as hushed as he can while still wanting to be heard.  “Did you kill them??  They seemed so powerful…”

     As the falcon cries out once more from far behind you, the man seems to shake and come back to himself.  He has ebony skin and stands an average 5’8” though he has strength to him.  He’s bald but there is a line of scars that run up from his shirt, across the center of his face and presumably up over his skull and down his back.  He stands with his hands out to his sides, palms out and open.  It is part welcoming gesture and part signal that he holds no arms…  Though hanging from his sides you can spy a flail on one hip and what seems to be a sling hanging from the other.

     “Come, come my friends!  We should seek cover unless you did indeed best them all?” His voice is hopeful, dubious, and heavily accented. His clothes seem similar enough to what you may see and sailor or deckhand wear but they are most definitely torn, weathered and have seen better days.  Except, perhaps, what appears to be a fine metal shirt peeking out from beneath his cloth one.  Despite the condition of the rest of him, the bit you can see if that still gleams…

As you converse with this newcomer in the brush, a pair of heads - the scraggly-bearded guard and the dapper swordsman? - can be seen peering over a ruined wall near the stairwell. The cultists are clearly monitoring the party from afar.

A large stand of stunted trees and thick scrub lay before you in a shallow depression – thorns, dead huckleberry, and unidentified pointy scrub. The small woodland is hundreds of feet wide and appears to reach almost to the edge of the cliffs to the east.

Uncertain what else to do, Molo gives him a high five in one of his open palms. 

     The high five is returned with a laugh and a smile.  “Very good, friend!  But the others must hurry, we must away!”

Dain will growl suspiciously at the newcomer but will allow himself to be led away. He stays close to Molo like a guardian angel.  

The cold wind continues to gust and occasionally blow drifting ice crystals against your exposed skin. The thicket where the newcomer stands does not look like it offers much comfort, but perhaps some cover. The drifts are somewhat deeper in the scrub, at least in places. You can see his footprints emerging from the thicket, composed of stunted trees less than 15 feet high, but covering a relatively broad area.

Meanwhile, the cultists watch you motionlessly from the cover of their ruins several hundred feet to the northwest.

“So… this island and pretty much everything else are horrible. What are you doing here?” Molo breaks the ice with the stranger