After the previous session filled with investigation, this session had a bit more action, even if it took us two hours of discussion to get there. Their investigation had clearly identified a prime suspect, Reed Macbannin, mayor of the Nettles quarter of Flint. And their boss had provided them with a search warrant for Macbannin's manor, so the path forward was very clear. But two of the players just wanted to avoid any direct confrontation.

So the group first talked again to Julien Lebrix, head of security of the Danoran consulate. Lebrix had previously been prevented by the consul himself of pursuing his investigation further. Asked whether he knew who was behind this, Lebrix could only speculate that it might have to do with the person who had been visiting the consul that morning, and who had shot Nilasa (a fact that Lebrix had tried to conceal at their first visit on order of the consul). That visitor was Cillian Creed, and Eldion remembered that name as being Macbannin's butler.

So after a long discussion and having run out of other clues to follow up, the group finally went up Cauldron Hill to search Macbannin's manor. They were greeted by the mayor himself in a friendly fashion, but there were quite a lot of Macbannin's staff around. While the constables were still discussing with Macbannin, suddenly there was an earthquake. The city had experienced minor earthquakes in the days before, but this was a bigger one. At that point the group and Macbannin were in the garden of the manor, and at a random location in that garden a sinkhole opened up and started to fill with witchoil. Macbannin shouted to Creed to "check the reservoir", while he himself and his staff turned to attack the constables.

Now Macbannin was using a form of black magic which linked his life to the lives of his staff. For every 11 points of damage he took, one member of his staff died, while he remained unharmed. The staff was otherwise not too dangerous, just throwing bricks and using makeshift weapons, although during one turn in which the dice rolls for the staff attacks were unusually high, that ended up doing noticeable damage. Besides Macbannin there were two of Lorcan Kell's gangsters disguised as gardeners.

The fight was made more interesting by the earthquake: At the start of each round another sinkhole opened up in the area where the group was fighting. At one point a sinkhole opened up right in the middle of the group, with 4 group members falling in. But they all managed to get out before the hole filled with witchoil and started to damage them. Macbannin was casting rather nasty black magic curses on James, but between saving throws and Eldion dispelling the black magic with religious chants the curses were countered. After killing the two gardeners and all the staff, Aria asked the mayor to surrender, and he did. As it was already rather late at that point, we stopped the session there.