I actually came here to make the same post. Yes, the animancy hearings naturally halt the game's progression. My party retired to Caed Nua until the duc held the hearings in which my characters were scheduled to appear. Kana encouraged the exploration of the dungeons below, in the meantime, until discovering Gabrannos' tomb, at which point he, so disconsolate over those troubling findings, returned above ground. This fortuitously means that my party avoids the brutal fight at the end of Level 7, too, a nice side effect when doing TC. And so they sit, in this narrative, until venturing to White