The previous session ended with the Favorites of Selune handing over their weapons peacefully to the ruffians guarding the euphemistically named seamstresses' guild (I had expected that they would be bored at that point and start a fight). So this session starts with them meeting Madame Emerine, the guild mistress (and brothel madam). They manage to convince her that it wasn't them who killed Belina, and get their weapons back. What Madame Emerine knows is that since recently Belina had a special secret client, whose identity she doesn't know. But Belina's brother Irv acted as a go-between and thus should have that information. Only problem is that Irv believes that the sorceress in the group is responsible for the dark magic that killed his sister. To help finding the boy and convincing him otherwise, the group hires Beatrice, the scarred woman who is the protectrice of the guild to escort them for three days.

They find Irv near the tavern at the market, but he is afraid of the group and tries to run away. [I handle that as a skill challenge. Not my favorite part of 4E, but at least players get to roll some dice in a session otherwise having only role-playing.] They catch Irv and with some sweets and diplomacy manage to persuade him that they only want to help finding Belina's killer. Irv reveals that Belina's lover is Prince Ular, commander of the guard, whom the group already met in the previous session. The prince even wanted to set Belina up as his mistress in a house somewhere.

The Favorites of Selune then interviewed some other potential witnesses: One couple that had dined in the tavern at the time they arrived, but as they hadn't stayed the night they knew nothing. So they visit another local couple, who had stayed the night due to renovation work in their home, Master Dynrod the leatherworker and his wife. They find Master Dynrod in his workshop where he is making a bellows, but he and his wife didn't hear anything that night either.

So finally the group goes to the palace, where they have an appointment to make a formal statement. They are treated not very friendly, left waiting for an hour before being led to the guard commander, Prince Ular. The prince clearly suspects them, and interviews them for a long time in a hostile tone. The group offers to use a raise dead ritual on the dead girl [something I hadn't planned for, so I improvised here], but the prince said that this ritual was already being cast, and that there would be a line-up tomorrow. While the interview is dragging on, the door opens and a guard announces the prince's sister, Princess Taidra. Taidra is a very beautiful woman with long blond hair, and very charming to the adventurers. She demands of her brother to let them go, as she is convinced that it was "the Underdark menace" who killed the tavern wench. As the prince only has suspicions and no evidence, he has to let the Favorites of Selune go.

So the group returns to the tavern, where in light of the events of the previous night they set up a guard rotation this night. In the early hours of the morning the guard suddenly sees a black cloud appearing in the room, but falls unconscious before he can raise an alarm. Waking up a bit later, each player [I took them aside one by one] sees the following: His friends are gone, and the character now finds himself alone in the room with five dark-skinned gnomes. In fact all six players have been transformed into svirfneblin, but don't realize their own transformation at first, only seeing the other five group members in that form. Having asked each player individually for his first reaction, we rolled initiative. I was lucky, the two players who *didn't* just call out rolled the highest initiative. So we got the hunter firing two arrows at the warrior, while the druid jumps out of the window while calling for help. [Very fun scene.]

Finally the adventurers realize what happened, and they also are immediately aware that with all that talk of the Underdark menace, they wouldn't be very welcome in the city, and risk being attacked on sight. They call back the fleeing druid, and while looking out of the window find a bellows outside, with its nozzle pointing inside the room through a hole in the wall. They take that bellows, and find a maker's mark from Master Dyson, and residue of a greyish powder. As the druid already called for help, they hurry to grab their things and flee through the tunnel they discovered in the previous session in the cellar, leading out of town. Having been awoken by the druid's call for help, the innkeeper is awake downstairs. He adds to the chaos by now also calling for help, shouting that there is "an invasion from the Underdark". The group reaches the cellar, and flees town before any guards arrive.

The druid of the group remembers that there is a higher level druid living in a forest to the south of the city. And as druids know about transformations, they decide to head there. When the sun goes up they notice that as dark gnomes the sun hurts their eyes. They also have lost many of their racial abilities, them having been replaced by the racial abilities of svirfneblin. Reaching the shade of the forest is better for their eyes, but after a while in the forest they come across a group of kobold shepherds with the flock of drakes, who immediately attack. As it was getting late, we decided to do that combat in the next session.