So Guy goes to Ekstrom's office to have a chat with him. In the midst of this, Crummy stabs himself in the ass cheeks with 2 paper clips. Armoured guards from the green faction escort the rest of the party to join Guy. Richard tries to be a sneaky sort and takes a novel from the office and hides it in his backpack. Ekstrom walks in and says: "You can keep that." with not much enthusiasm. He explains that Dario from the blue faction is a heavy gambler and owes Ekstrom a large amount of cash. Dario agrees to throw the race and let Ekstrom win in order to cancel the debt but now Dario has fled and Ekstrom wants the party to find him and get back the 400,000 GP that he owes Ekstrom. The party would in turn be rewarded a measly 20,000GP. Dario, it seems, has the money and wants to leave it as inheritance for his son. Ekstrom passes Cierra a slip of paper with the address written on it while Crummy pulls out the paper clips from his ass cheeks.

So the party sends forth the rogue Crummy to investigate the place and note down the layout. Sensing nothing amiss, the rest of the group head into the house via the front door (Guy accidentally knocks him out by use of the door). They reach the second floor and find a huge blob aka Tavario, Dario's son, lying in bed, who just so happens to have a very sick habit involving wooden dolls. Daria is Tavario's sister who doesn't seem to be in the house at the time. While talking to Tavario, guards come in and he falsely proclaims that the group is trying to assasinate him (ROLL FOR INITIATIVE!). It seems that Tavario is not totally helpless and horror of horrors, he CAN get bigger. Eventually, 2 guards escape but Jon loses his right leg just above the knee. Battered and tired, the "heroes" return to Cierra's house where they relate the story to her and Jesse. They get healed and meet Rayne; a friend of Cierra's. Guy and Richard decide to go back to Ekstrom's office to see if they can dig up more information. They find out that Daria is a practicing druid (has a pet owl ) and her mentor who lives in the woods is Ovario. Dario's 2nd in command and close friend is Reza. Cierra says that Daria has been kidnapped, in fact, a few days ago. Rayne and Crummy head to the "ITE" and steal the blueprints of Dario's house, successfully. Guy, Richard and Cierra head to the woods to find Ovario while Rayne and Jon go to the upper halves of the teal faction. Jesse and Crummy take the lower halves. Guy, Richard and Cierra meet a travelling merchant along the way (HE HAS EVERYTHIIIINNGG!). They get a red velvet rifle bag, a javelin of truth, and a toy monkey that clashes its cymbals. The 3 finally meet up with Ovario and relate the bad news to him while sharing food by the fire side. He also has a pet bear named Bubba. Before leaving, he commands Bubba to stay behind and calls to him 2 wolves; Til and Gan. Having done this, they head back to the city.

Jesse (and Alechem) and Crummy walk around and get stared at. They even get followed by a guy. The couple pass by The Golden Grape and notice several professional-looking armed men. The 2 backtrack and leave the area hurriedly. They all meet back at Cierra's guesthouse and decide to travel together. Upon reaching Dario's house (to check out the murderhole), they find the place to be heavily guarded. They try to gather info from one of the guards and it turns out Tavario along ith several girls (not the wooden kind) got murdered. At the gentleman's club, The Red Ruby, the group have trouble getting in thanks to a half-giant in a tux. Rayne, Jesse and Cierra enter from the back easily because they look like strippers. Crummy sneakily hides in Cierra's backpack during this ordeal. With nothing to do, Jon, Guy, Richard and blind man Ovario wait outside and play dice in the alley to pass the time. Inside, Jesse manages to get a dossier on Dario while Crummy distracted an employee. They all haul ass back to the guesthouse and go over the the contents of the file. It seems that Dario had had a gambling debt for over 15 years but has since settled it and was banned from The Red Ruby for awhile. He hasn't gone there very often in the last 6 months and also has a holiday villa in Corrin.