The Green Dragon Brotherhood finds itself attacked by Hele Tanner and six giant serpents conjured by the Serpent Girdle in the The Dead Chestnut in Millhaven.

Things...escalate...quickly.

Greer the Betrayer uses his Ring of Monster Summoning to call forth a Cockatrice from beyond the Veil, and it enters the fray, threatening to turn several serpents to stone, including the one that seizes and holds Shiv Drinkstep.

Kraz Formalhaut comes in blasting with his black powder blunderbuss, while Sooney-Crow of No Family leaps onto a table, dealing death from her infamous halberd. Cleansing Waters is punching left and right while Tanner screams at the Brotherhood for stealing from "her people." She transforms from her human form into a large, angry Rzzkart - a serpent person!

Several party members get bitten by the serpents, feeling a strange eldritch energy seep into their bones. Once bitten, the serpents vanish in a puff of black shimmering dots and the Veil ripples but doesn't break.

Eventually, Sooney blows Tanner away with a burst from her ray gun. There's nothing left of her but her shins and feet. The bar is momentarily on fire.

The last of the serpents are dispatched, and Shiv Drinkstep uses The Blade of Graxus to call to Tanner's soul before it slips away. They question her and learn what the already suspected - they are now marked so Ur-Balat can easily find them. Indeed - those that got bit by the serpents all have strange, green glowing circles around their hearts; beacons that call to the angry dragon.

Shiv releases Tanner's soul and momentarily sees though the Veil - a vision of the Order of the Iron God, with grey, lifeless eyes surrounding the Grey Guardian in Crow's Keep.

The party needs to get to ground quickly, and for a price, the dwarf barkeep is able to overcome her anger and send them to a contact she has in the underworld. As luck would have it, the party knows this contact - it's Gyles Hiley, who they've worked with and stolen from in the past!

Greer is able to charm him enough that he lets bygones be bygones, and he and Kraz Formalhaut start to geek out, artificer to artificer. They use Kraz's X-Ray Spex as a starting place and come up with a device that should block the signal to Ur-Balat while the party hides out, rests, and recovers (and levels up - huzzah!).

Sooney - not being marked - does take the opportunity to play a set at the Dead Chestnut, where she absolutely crushes it. The new song is a hit, and between her following, the infamy of the serpent fight, and Greer's carefully-seeded rumors, they should be in good shape for raising a fighting force and marching on Crow's Keep.

They just need to figure out what to do about that damn dragon first...