As Zod flew down the hole into some sort of strange, demonic scrying ritual, Alain Fu thought he was done for. Luckily for him, seconds later, Christophe came screaming down the pit after him, planting his blade straight through the demon's skull, killing him dead. After battling some demon seers, they examined the scrying bowl on the lower level. Dropping a sacrifice of blood into the bowl, Fu summoned a smokey image of himself leading a demonic host to battle across an unnamed plain, flanked by Blind Varlets. With suspicious and concerned faces, the party finally cleared out Conrad's Point, and the treasures therein.
Upon returning to Khare, they were almost immediately confronted by Pavel Flind, the doyen of the Court of Jakob. Rather upset at the party trying to play the Court against the other gangs, Pavel demanded a substantial financial offering to 'let it slide'. Fresh from battle, the party characteristically declined the offer, and found themselves in a brawl with Flind and his swordsmen. The swordsmen, despite their skill, where soon dispatched, and Flind soon found himself dead with Sarah's axe buried in his skull.
They soon reached Sapphoro's shop where, underneath a poster advertising Khare's Smelliest Griffon, Hanged Men doyen Bad Krum was waiting for them. Upon hearing about the demons at Conrad's Point, he told the party that demons had been reported all over the city since the Eclipse appeared in the sky. However, exuberant at the thought of Pavel Flind being dead, Krum declared Gang War, and feverishly gave the party the location of Forkiz Geung's (Orrind's kidnapper) secret domain: a decommissioned sewer underneath the Flowers In A Cursed Land brothel that could be access at midnight.
Before they went after Orrind, they had some old business to attend to. Remembering Dogbone's revelation about Suzzarn having a secret house in the river district, they set out to check it out. They arrived at small shack guarded by a nervous looking teenage streetboy. Toying with wither killing or turning him into a gas, Christophe chose to adopt his old 'drunken Lord Melchior' rountine, and tricked the lad into drinking wine laced with sleeping draught. Inside they found numerous clues that:
1) Outed Suzzarn as a potential member of the Blind Varlet cult.
2) Spoke more of the Eclipse - a ritual to be undertaken at nearby Mount Shareat, that required the Cyrinishad, and an entity referred to as 'the Annointed One'.
3) That a doppelganger and some trickery was involved in the party's dealings with Baba Yaga in the Dire Woods.
Leaving everything as they found it, the party crept away from the shack. On their way home, they found themselves cornered by soldiers of Bane, who dragged them to the Palace of Lord Azzur. Inside they were given an audience with Suzzarn, who turned out to be a courtier of Azzur. Suzzarn made a few veiled threats about the Cyrinishad and Shareat, and the party managed to leave unscathed. On their way out, the Banites attacked the party under Suzzarn's orders, exclaiming "Take what the paladin is carrying, take the wizard alive!" The party dispatched the soldiers and fled the scene to the brothel.
Hiding out in the brothel until midnight, the party indulged in the local product before entering the sewers to rescue Orrind. Not before long, they ran into an old friend - the Drow bounty hunter Tinve Aleaza'baen, who seemed rather jittery and troubled. After Christophe convinced her of the party's good intentions, she told them her and her men were en route to kill her master, Forkiz Geung, but they could not get past the Balhannoth, an Underdarkien beast that lived in the tunnels. The party finally took the Balhannoth out, and they and Tinve both assailed the House of Pale Lanterns.
In the cellar they found a beleaguered Nelson and Forkiz, who informed them that Orrind had just been sold - sickeningly to Suzzarn, supposedly as 'leverage'. Nelson and his master pleaded the party to help them flee the city, but it was an offer that fell on deaf ears, and the two were left to die at Tinve's blade.
Now, faced with foes unknown, the party has some tough times ahead of it....
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