Tonight tied up some loose ends from previous sessions. We only had Clovis, Rook, and Tsafnur (and Mija and some helpless NPCs), with no magical backup, so they had to be careful to only pick fights where the odds were on their side. Ha ha, can you even imagine those three doing that? No, they went up against overwhelming odds, then they did it again.

Chameleon has been summoned to a druid convention, the Council of Rocks, which should only take a few minutes, but in rock time, so there is no telling when she will return. No one knows where Talisa has gotten to (and she has the False Chantrelle with her). And now Enkirash has disappeared too.

Clovis showed up with a cute leather-clad (but not much leather) Drow boy on a leash, who had wanted to be Dom’d by a Dwarf. His name is Francis and he is excited about their adventures.

The party had to choose whether to return Genesa to her father, try to take on Grumblesticks to rescue the Dwarf children, or stop the Thaumaturgy Crew from summoning a demon. They decided to go after the Crew first, left Genesa back at the “hotel” with Mija to guard her and went looking for clues. They found a thaumaturgy supply store, but didn’t get any useful information from the proprietor. On a hunch they searched for cheap diners nearby and found a meat pie diner (“All pies at least 50% genuine meat”). Inside they found the Crew packed into a booth that was too small for them. Tsafnur (with Clovis and Rook as backup singers) sang them a song about the dangers of demon summoning. Then they refused to leave until they got a tip. Winston, leader of the Crew, grabbed one of the others and dug a coin out of her pocket, threw it at Tsafnur and growled at them (through the mask that he wears to breath alchemical fumes) to get out of there.

Clovis jumped on a table and grabbed the same Crew member and took a heat ray to the back, while another Crew member (Toro) also jumped on the table with superhuman speed. Rook snuck under the table and almost managed to steal a book from under Winston’s clothes, when he caught her wrists. But he let go when Tsafnur cut the tube from his mask, releasing the alchemical fumes, so he could grab it and hold his mask together. Our intrepid heroes ran, and got out the door despite furniture turning over in their path and a couple of stray heat rays (one caught Francis and one made Clovis’ shiny helmet distinctly un-shiny).

Toro followed them out, staying on Clovis’ tail as the three took off in different directions, Clovis now carrying the wounded Francis. Rook doubled back and backstabbed Toro with a throwing dagger, staggering her. Toro had a vision that Clovis was already dead and wandered off as if nothing had happened.

Rook took the book to Madame Obelis, who discharged her debt of favour. On her way there, running with the book (which she had not yet confirmed was the guide to demon summoning, or even looked at), she passed the Lich Sorceress, who challenged her and made her justify her actions to her as an Enforcer of Market Law. While the party clearly broke Market Law, the Lich decided that the cause was worthy and gave Rook a warning to take it outside the market next time, but pardoning her for this infringement, with the caveat that there won’t be a second pardon.

Meanwhile, Tsafnur returned to the “hotel” to gather up Genesa and Mija and leave a note for the others if they should return. Clovis took Francis back to the Drow club she found him in and then went to the soup stall where they had all agreed to meet to leave a note for the others. Then they all met up near where Asterion had first led them out of the labyrinth near the Night Market.

From there they began trying to find their way back to the surface, choosing passageways that looked well-used and led generally up. Ahead they could see torchlight, which soon turned out to be an Elf nobleman holding a torch. Rook and Genesa recognized him as Genesa’s uncle. Genesa wanted to run away, but Mija and Tsafnur convinced her to remain calm(-ish). Clovis bellowed a challenge to the Elf and began to charge, when two lizardmen step up beside him and Clovis’s arms were seized from either side by unseen hands. The lizardmen charged with their spears, while the uncle strolled arrogantly toward her, but they were still too far away to see clearly when Clovis wrenched the chameleon women holding her from their feet and smashed them together hard enough to knock them both unconscious.

Clovis charged the lizardmen with a knife in one hand and her axe in the other, while Rook quietly killed the helpless chameleon women. Clovis batted the spears away with minimal damage and killed both lizardmen with her first blow. The uncle was looking around for the lizardwomen, saying to the darkness, “We had a deal.” Rook stood on top of one of the lizard women to show that they were dead, and he paled and ran. Rook shot him in the back, killing him. They looted the bodies, and continued on the path, hoping to get out of the catacombs.

Genesa’s uncle clearly cheaped out on how many of the lizard folk he hired. They themselves had no real interest in the party, since none of tonight’s characters had either the helm of tracking nor the False Chantarelle. Which means whoever has either of these things does have the interest of the chameleon women, and is likely in grave danger.

Thaumaturgy Crew, Grumblesticks, and the Lich Sorceress are all courtesy of Johnstone Metzger’s A Market in the Woods and the Chameleon Women and False Chantrelle come from Zak Sabbath and Patrick Stewart’s Maze of the Blue Medusa.