Retired city watch captain turned successful businesswoman Maria Addinell is celebrating her impending marriage to Christof Terrec. As part of the celebrations, her best man, Adrian Osmont is looking to hire a group of adventurers to stage a pretend kidnapping of the groom as part of the festivaties.

Geoffry Weathers - Dave H
Lady Rosemile - Chaos
Gina Weathers - Ellie H
Samantha Runes - Jessie

The party stage the fake kidnapping and lead the groom to be out in to some woods. However they are confronted by what appears to be some real kidnappers. Maria Addinell then hires them to track down who is responsible. This leads them to the rogue wayfinder, Aida, who tells them this was all part of a ruse to draw Maria out so she could kill her and make it look like an accident and that she is working on behalf of the True Council. The party trace the scheme back to a crime boss named Antony the Mountain and they discover, through some application of torture by the Weather siblings, that Maria is still working for the Watch gathering information on the True Council and has annoyed several prominent members of the crime faction. They return to Maria's home, where Christof suddenly turns on Maria, using consumption magic to turn himself in to a swarm of scorpians. The party kill the scorpians and save Maria's life, for which she pays them 60 acra. On further inspection of Christof's notes and correspondence Gina finds that he was secretly involved in the True Council long before the engagement and his letters mention Antony Mountain and Willie Alteri, amongst others.

The party give a full and frank report to the City Watch, who pay them a further twenty acra for bringing in some dangerous criminals. Samantha, who has become increasingly distraught, tries to hand herself in for being an accessory to torture but the Watch decide that since the victims were enemies of the City and it was done in the name of tracking down criminal elements that it is not worth their time pursuing. A record is however made and the Weathers are informed note of this will be kept on file. The party warn Maria that there may be ongoing danger to her life and although she can not reveal the exact nature of her investigation she tells them that she was aware she had made enemies in the True Council. Lady Rosemile drinks some tea out of a flux teapot.