My players came up from the Pit and faced Zayifid, 2 unchosen, 4 gnoll archers and 4 mounted carron guards. Oh yeah, Thkot tal also. The scroll was delivered to Zayifid after he gave a convincing speech about his superior knowledge and ability to keep Jhavul trapped with the aid of the scroll. Now that the pcs no longer have the scroll how should I proceed with the rest of the adventure path? Have the Moldspeaker realize the mistake and catch up with Z in Kelmarane? On the way to or in Katapesh? Any suggestions would be welcome.
You're in quite the pickle! Logically, Zayifid should activate the scroll more-or-less as soon as he gets it. This sucks him (and anyone else present) into Kakishon, and releases Jhavhul. Thus, the PCs get to proceed directly from House of the Beast to The Final Wish.
In other words, logically, EEESH.
Obviously, we don't want the logical end result to actually happen, but at this point--dunno. I've been tap-dancing with my own players to keep anything like this happening.
Wow, that is kind of the worst case scenario for that module. If you want to get the train back on the tracks, you could do two things.
1) As suggested above, let Zayifid activate the scroll, but have him do so in the presence of the PCs. That way, you're only skipping 'The Jackal's Price' and you can use Zayifid as an additional villianous presence in Kakishon. You'll probably have to increase the number of encounters and sidequests to get everyone to the appropraite level, but the pocket dimension is pretty easy to flush out for this purpose.
2) Allow a gnoll priest of Rovagug to somehow subude Zayifid and take the scroll for himself. This would be pretty hard to pull off with Zayifid's Plane Shift ability, but maybe the magics of the artifact require that he be on the Prime Material plane to work. The gnoll priest and his tribe would then have to be tracked down, possibly with the aid of the traitorous Zayifid one last time. There's a bunch on info on likely candidates for this purpose in the "Pale Mountain Region" article in that very module. Having to lead a group of heroes into the White Canyons and facing down gnoll hordes might be fun.
Thanks for the input Rakshaka. Those are two excellent options for consideration. I'll likely go with a variation on the second. The pcs are likely headed to the lair of the salamanders where I'll conveniently place Zayifid. His presence will be explained, if questioned, by a need to confer with one of Jhavul's original though lesser generals, Thratnias. Hopefully, with some timely advice from Vardishal via the Moldspeaker, the pcs will once again hold the Scroll of Kakishon. I hope I can salvage this. Legacy of Fire has been the best adventure path since Age of Worms!