In Journey Along the Anduin, quest stage 2b has the effect of skipping the encounter step, and the players can only optionally engage an enemy. Once 2b is completed, 3b has the quest effect to skip the staging step of the questing phase.

Does the quest effect from 2b stay in effect? So, would enemies in the staging area stay there until optionally engaged; or would they perform encounter checks and engage players as they would in other quests (because stage 2b is now competed)?

Thank you for your help!

The effect only stays in play when the card is in play....

So on stage 2b you skip encounter step but on 3b you don't