Having rescued Coilla and Haskeer, the band learned that an instrumentality could be in the possession of a centaur called Keppatawn and his clan in Drogan Forest.

Jennesta stepped up the hunt for the Wolverines, including more dragon patrols under the direction of her mistress of dragons, Glozellan. She also maintained telepathic contact with her brood sisters, Adpar and Sanara, queens of their own domains in different parts of Maras-Dantia. Adpar, ruler of the underwater nyadd realm, was making war against a neighbouring race, the merz. Jennesta offered her an alliance to help find the stars, promising to share their power. Not trusting her sister, Adpar refused. Enraged, Jennesta used sorcery to cast a harmful glamour on her sibling.

On their way to Drogan, the band several times encountered an enigmatic human called Serapheim, who warned them of approaching perils before disappearing, seemingly impossibly.

Entering Drogan forest, the band made contact with the centaur Keppatawn. A renowned armourer hampered by lameness, Keppatawn had a star which he stole from Adpar when he was a youth. But a spell cast by her left him crippled, and only the application of one of her tears could right him. Keppatawn declared that if the Wolverines brought him this bizarre trophy he would trade the star for it. Stryke agreed.

The orcs made their way to the nyadd's domain. Nyadds and merz were at war, and Adpar had slipped into a coma as a result of Jennesta's magical attack. Fighting their way to her private chambers, the Wolverines found the queen on her deathbed, abandoned by her courtiers. When the cause looked lost, she shed a single tear of self-pity, which Stryke caught in a phial. The tear healed Keppatawn's infirmity, and he gave up the instrumentality.

Stryke's visions continued, and intensified, and he became preoccupied by the notion that the stars were singing to him.