Chris (Grool) finds himself running a touch late, so the rest of us hang out and gab until he appears. The rest of the gang includes all the usual suspects, among them Tim (Antok of the Storm Tribe), Chuck (Arnoux Urag), Paul (Marik) and Bruce.
The characters have only recently come screaming down from the roof of the Forward Gallery to land near the Zullkreftsskul Academy. They pick up the body of their companion Dojango Sangaree (killed by his fall from the top of the Gallery) and lift themselves up to a balcony on the 6th level to reclaim his various possessions. Surviving loot from the body includes:
Arnoux Urag takes the crossbow, eager to possess something that can inflict harm from a distance. The characters divide up the money and hold the rest as common goods until they can make up their minds what to do with it. Several characters suggest that the group should seek out Lijo Sangaree and return Dojango's body to her, in the hopes that she would be able to provide it with appropriate funerary rites.
Bauen is still with the group, though his recent experiences have left him terrified. Curious about the eventual uses the Red Tower will put their blue flowers to, they question him about their purpose. He is forced to admit that he has no knowledge of what they can be used for.
About this time, an oorthoi emerges from a tent near the back of the balcony. As is typical of his kind, he is ugly as sin. The characters explain that they are traveling magicians. The oorthoi clearly doesn't buy this, especially given that they are hovering over the body of a recently-dead demek. He explains that he pays good money (100 clavars every 30 days) for this balcony. When the characters comment on the high expense, he explains that he can afford it because he is a Lesser Journeyman of the Zullkreftsskul. He introduces himself as Rulbulben. Marik draws some quantity of cruel entertainment value from his name.
Rulbulben offers that the characters' departed comrade probably contains a good quantity of healthful meat, and that he would be delighted to partake. The characters aren't having any of this, and flatly refuse to allow him to include Dojango in his larder.
The conversation continues onto matters of politics. Rulbulben turns out to be something of a backer of Prince Gufteng, at least in part because the Masters of the Zullkreftsskul are allied with Gufteng. Antok of the Storm Tribe decides to try and poke some holes in the faultless image that Rulbulben has of Gufteng by telling him that the group has recently returned from Aeldrine, and that, "All the flying agents Gufteng sent out of boat have been swatted out of the air by huge giants." Rulbulben is clearly distraught to hear this, asking, "All of them?" Antok qualifies his point with the comment, "Well, 100% of the ones we saw were." He pointedly neglects to offer a specific count of flying agents.
Once everyone has had a chance to mark out their philosophical turf, Rulbulben tells the group that the knows someone they should meet, and leads them further into the Warren behind his balcony. They pass across a long corridor and into a larger gallery used as a marketplace by an array of traders and small craftsmen. He leads them into a corner, where a disconsolate demek is chewing upon a bone.
Rulbulben speaks to the demek, "Here are some more people. They had a dead demek with them."
The demek looks up from his bone and angrily tells Rulbulben, "I won't eat them. I keep telling you that."
The ensuing conversation is substantially more promising than it's beginnings would have led anyone to believe. The demek turns out to be Grool (pronounced, let there be no mistake, as "Gruul"). The local landlord has an ongoing dispute with the fellow because he doesn't have any money, and refuses to pay rent for the space he occupies.
Marik asks Grool if he is a good fighter, noting that he is tall and big for a demek, and is armed for bear. Grool points out that he is carrying an axe, a pick and a large knife, and is wearing heavy armor of gaurman design (it looks rather like Japanese lamellar armor). The characters prove strangely willing to let him join with them. Antok of the Storm Tribe, seeing that the strange demek is not going to be killed immediately, introduces himself simply as "Antok", visibly restraining himself from mentioning that he has no emotions. Grool accepts this, then turns to Marik and asks, "So, little rock person, what is your name?" Marik responds, doing his best to avoid looking sullen.
The characters mention that they are working for the Red Tower, which impresses Rulbulben and makes Grool ask if they are diseased. They explain that they are perfectly healthy, just very mercenary. This doesn't seem to upset Grool at all. In return, he mentions that he is hanging around with Rulbulben because he is an oorthoi-friend.
Rulbulben claims that he knows how to make an unappetizing stew out of uru and old vegetables. He invites the characters to join him on his balcony and eat dinner. The characters agree, then wonder if they have made the right decision when they see him gather the stew water from a suspiciously-colored nearby "stream" (really a rectangular runnel cut into the floor of the corridor). The possible contents of the water brings fear to everyone except Rulbulben and Grool, so Antok uses Purify Water on it (explaining that his friends are from "daintier" cultures). Rulbulben starts the stew heating over an enchanted stone (it becomes hot when he murmurs words over it), then adds various vegetables of somewhat questionable ancestry. The characters offer to head out to the marketplace and purchase a more recent generation of ingredients for him.
Much of the group heads out into the marketplace to find vegetables. One of them hears a rumor that the Red Tower magician Gullug has been dealing with the bausker matriarch Calchithra, and that some of her daughters have been seen with a lot of money. They also hear that there have been more stack murders, with the victims found hanging from their own balconies. These slayings are even more disturbing because the victims were people of quality, holders of property (landlords), with servants and defenses. They were killed with knives, and then hung from their balconies. Grool suggests that they might have just been depressed. Several locals comment that the first murder happened before the recent violence between Prince Gufteng and the Sangorn at Sayoch Bounty broke out.
Over dinner, Rulbulben tells the characters that the Stone-Eater Brigade and the Seven Flags Brigade have moved from Jackman's Plenty into the Stacks behind Sayoch Bounty. The Sayoch Bounty net still stands, but he does not think it will stand for long.
Grool tries to take some account of who stands where. The Rao Anga are allied with Prince Gufteng. The Red Tower (who can spread diseases) are dealing with the little squirrel-things, and Antok thinks they might be dealing with more threatening entities from among the Created of Yaggo, possibly including the Bilge-dwelling saufling folk. Upon hearing this theory, Rulbulben comments that he heard that the oorthoi lost a boat in the Bilges ten days ago.
Taking account of the political situation and the ongoing paranoid of the Kupri living in Venda's Fount (a flying magician dies in midair during a swoop near the Venda's Fount net as Marik watches), the characters decide to go through the Warrens using a route pointed out by Rulbulben, bypassing Venda's Fount. They intend to travel through Doorway City to the Red Tower.
The characters are passing through a larger gallery shantytown within the Warrens, congratulating themselves on the otherwise uneventful nature of their trip, when things start to go downhill very fast. A frantic bausker, his fur matted with gouts of blood, plunges out of a side way into Grool's arms. He is swiftly pursued by a half-dozen Kupri alleybashers armed with the ajjun-knife and dalan-club combination of the chara discipline. Marik rushes over to cast healing magic upon the bausker, but he is not swift enough to reach the creature before it succumbs to it's wounds. Antok and Arnoux react with precisely-tuned violence, stabbing through two of the attackers before they can realize what has happened. Grool clubs two more to death as Marik turns to levitate one helplessly off the floor.
In the midst of the chaos, a thrown knife pierces the bausker's pouch, causing it to explode into a cascade of clavars. Money sprays out in a wide arc, drawing a swarm of impoverished locals eager to glean. Marik puts a swift stop to the frenzy by casting a Glue over a wide area of floor, catching most of the money, several of the locals, and a rather upset Grool in the process.
The whole encounter is over within seconds, leaving the characters in temporary control of the situation. They quickly loot the bausker's body, finding that the creature was also carrying a substantial hardbound book. Marik scans the book for long enough to determine that it is some sort of ledger book.
The characters surround the trapped locals and tell them to drop whatever money they're carrying. Once they are satisfied that the locals have complied, Marik drops the Glue and the rest of the group sends everyone packing. The remaining coins amount to some $30,000 clavars, though the characters don't have an accurate count for some time.
With the immediate situation dealt with, the characters turn to their captive. He looks very much like a typical lower-class Kupri alleybasher. He explains that his instructions were very simple: his boss told him and his friends that a bausker carrying a lot of money will be coming by. He was supposed to kill the bausker, take the money, and bring it to "Big Chungon" Surk. He doesn't even know what a ledger book is, let alone what it might contain. The characters quickly determine that the fellow doesn't know any more than that. They dump him on the ground and leave.
The characters head into a stack, passing through someone's residence, locking the door behind them with a red clavar. They continue deeper into the Warrens, spending 200 clavars locking and unlocking doors as they make their escape. They emerge on the other side of Venda's Fount, on the second level.
The characters find a quiet balcony up on the third level and spend some time regaining their senses. Marik examines the ledger very carefully. It includes listings of expenditures of millions of clavars, starting four or five Voyages ago, on a variety of military hardware and materiel. He isn't exactly able to figure out who it belongs to until Grool finally looks at the book and tells Marik that the icons next to each account correspond to various units in Prince Gufteng's army, including the Stone-Eaters and the Seven Flags.
With the mystery of the ledger book at least partially solved, Marik spends four and a half hours working Yaggo's rituals to combine the money into smaller numbers of higher-value clavars. It is at this point that the characters are able to get an accurate count of their newfound fortune. Combining it with the money they are already carrying and dividing four ways, each character gets eight white clavars, two blue, three green, three yellow, four orange and no red.
A wave of magical Panic breaks over the entire group, except for the resilient Marik. Antok leaps from the balcony into the marketplace below and runs for the walls of Doorway City. Grool and Arnoux both run into the Warrens, screaming as they go. Bauen howls in fright and rushes down a side passage.
Marik finds himself utterly alone. He cast Levitation and heads outside to see what is going on. He finds two Zatulph magicians clinging to the stack wall, looking back at him. One of them starts a spell, so he responds by whacking the guy in the chops with his Dispelling Staff. The magician looks surprised as his Wallwalking fades and he falls to his death. The second sorcerer swiftly surrounds himself with a cloud of Darkness and makes good his escape, leaving Marik to fruitlessly attempt Levitating the fellow away from the wall.
Antok finds himself pursued by three winged assassins who harry him with javelins. Even in his frantic state he is able to evade their throws, avoiding damage until one of them passes too close to the Venda's Fount net and suddenly dies with an aggrieved squawk. The surviving two fliers flap their way into the distance.
Arnoux and Grool rush down a corridors towards a Warren gallery. Two splay-nostriled Zatulph step out and shoot at them with crossbows, wounding them but not stopping them. In their panic, the two characters simply run past their attackers, heedless of everything but the need to escape.
By the time the characters manage to regain their senses and return to their refuge, they find that Marik has already taken stock of the damage. Most of the characters' goods are still there, with the obvious exception of the ledger book. The only sign that remains of it are four pages Marik had torn out of it and placed in his pocket earlier.
Bauen never makes it back to the group.
Listening closely to Antok's description, Marik says that he seen similar flying creatures before. They are flelling, from the world of Firesky. He tells the other characters they eat bugs and hang upside down at night, even though he knows this isn't true.
The characters swiftly make their way to Doorway City, passing through the gates claiming that they're traveling through to visit the Red Tower. The guards seem uninclined to stop them.
Along the way, they decide to do some shopping. Their first stop is at the Zullkreftsskul shop on the Market Plaza, where they talk to a Sangorn clerk. He tells them that he is pretty much out of stock of everything due to the ongoing demands of Prince Gufteng's forces.
The characters' next stop is at the shop of Leffman Gul, a copyist who sells magical texts. Marik purchases three magical books from him.
Leffman Gul has a total of 1d-3 books available (minimum 1). Each book may contain 1d-3 spells (minimum 1) with no more than one prerequisite. A book may contain a spell with two or three prerequisites, but each such spell counts for two spells. Each book costs 200 clavars, plus another 200 clavars for each spell.
The next stop is at the workshop of the weaponsmith Ulgutulgun. He is a bausker who does commission work for the Zullkreftsskul. The characters give him quite a bit of business, with Grool explaining that he has a lot of money because his mother just died. Ulgutulgun is curious as to why Grool isn't committing suicide, until Grool explains that his grandmother is still alive.
The characters' orders include a fine axe (500 clavars), a fine mace (150 clavars) and a ST 15 crossbow with 40 bolts for Grool; and a fine saber with some ornamentation (2048 clavars) for Arnoux. Ulgutulgun tells them that each weapon will take 10 days to produce, so the whole lot will be ready for them in 30 days. Grool hands Ulgutulgun an extra green clavar for a fancy carrying rig for the crossbow.
Antok finishes out the shopping spree by buying several interesting magical items: the Talking Doll, the Traveling Bag, the Flensing Knife, and Ogango's Hound, as described below.
The characters end their day by stopping at Jomon and Maratelle's townhouse, where they are able to stay the night. Each character gains three experience points. Antok spends all that and more to buy a point of Willpower.