The next morning, the players have a day to waste before meeting for the auction.

They mainly go shopping.

Inter-spaced with shopping activity:

Tyrella and Cavindel check out the meeting place, and move some barrels so they can easily gen on various roofs and put caltrops down on one of the alleyways.

They also discover that Salaman Singh's men have some sort of 4 foot long fire breathing lizard in the warehouse by the hearth (its a Geckamand, but they have no clue), deciding this could be a threat, they report its presence to the Manniocs-Quinsh. They are asked to steal the creature while Salaman's men are distracted by the battle.

Markus (and therefore his bodyguard Heidi) decides to investigate the "Z" symbol left by the Chaos Cultists who attacked Karl. Visiting the Temple of Sigmar they are offered relics for sale by Josef Peek and decides they really should should sell the Branding Iron from the smithy as a relic as it may well fetch a fortune, unfortunately none of them wrote down on their character sheets that they had picked it up, scuppering the plan. They discover that the Grand Theogonist Esmar has organised a 'crusade' where Sigmar Reborn (Karl) and his followers (mainly refugees from the Storm of Chaos) are going to march to Altdorf and force Volkmar to stand down. Ten the crusade will continue on the Praag where Sigmar will vanquish the forces of Chaos.

Meeting with a Warrior Priest, they are told that the scholar Ernst Goffman of Paleisbuurt may know more. Visiting him he tells them that the "Z" rune is associated with a cult of the "Blood God", who held a small fortification somewhere near the city. They pay him to research where this fortification is.

Meeting up later, Goffman has found where the fortification - which he is now calling a "Temple" is and has dropped of directions for them at the Three Barrels, it is about three days travel to the north-west, along the Old Coast Road.

Later, they go to the Auction, deciding to arrive slightly after nightfall. Cavindel splits of from the rest and heads up onto the roofs to take up a sniping position. When they arrive four groups of bidders are already there. Salaman Singh including is pet Geckamand and also a turban wearing Ogre; Captain Darhak and his Slayer pirates; A woman clad in black with boatman guards whose name they never asked for; and a lone man dressed all in black - including black cloth wrapped around his head.

Tyrella, Markus and Heidi chat to the other bidders. They discover that the lizard is called a Geckamand. Te Black Clad woman tells Markus he is 'tainted by chaos', Markus desides that this is probably because he is carrying around the "Z" medallion of the chaos cult...

Andries 'The Fish' arrived with his men and the goods, he looks a bit pit out as he was expecting less people to have brought pet fire-breathing lizards. He makes his way to the centre to sell the goods and all hell breaks lose.

Cassidy appears with his two ogre henchmen and four goloms of driftwood and other dockside muck that arise around the square (Urban Fenbeasts). Singh's men attack the fenbeasts, setting on on fire. The black clad man mugs Andries and takes the 'Eye and flees, non of the PCs notice. Tyrella does notice that next to Cavindel up on the roofs there is a Skaven with a Warplock Jazzail (they both failed to spot one another) which she shoots while shouting about Skaven. The Skaven shoots her in return. Some of the Slayer Pirates shoot at the Skaven and then throw grenades (which is bad news for Cavindel). The Skaven flee chased by Cavandel who gets the leader down to zero wounds and then promptly fails to hit despite his huge Ballistic Skill for two rounds. Due to their successful escape (down a nearby well that the Elves had already discovered on the morning) with no-one (important) being maimed, Clan Scruten claims victory! No-one cares.

Meanwhile, Tyrella remembers she is supposed to be summoning the Manniocs-Quinsh with her Scrimshaw Whistle. She does so and they sail into view on their barge. The Black Clad woman seems to be using some sorcery to unbind the Fenbeasts while the Geckamand has killed another. The Indic Ogre is locked in combat with one of Cassidy's guards aided by his Indic fellows. Cassidy and the Other Guard are chasing Markus - who they assume has the eye. When Cassidy casts illusions (which he does a bit) a single glowing eye appears in the middle of his pointy copper mask.

Andres and his men have started retreating in their boats by this point.

The Sea Elves open fire with their Eagle Claw bolt thrower, covering the wharf-side with arrows. They hit a lot of the Indic guys, the Black clad Woman's Boatmen and the Slayer Pirates. The Slayer Pirates (who have killed a Fenbeast in the meantime) fire back. This essentially take the Sea Elves and Slayer Pirates into the their own little battle, ending when the Slayer Pirates sink the Sea Elves Barge with Grenades and the Sea Elves swim off. The Slayer Pirates claim victory. No one cares.

The Indic Ogre and his helpers finally kills the other Ogre he is fighting. On death it turns into a huge one-eyed lizard with a tail. The final Fen beast is dismissed by the black clad woman, Cassidy and his other Ogre guard vanish. With only the Black Clad Woman, the Indics and the dwarves left on Candle Wharf, the fighting comes to an end.

Tyrella and Cavindel have been making their way east to follow Andres, whose men have made port a couple of Wharf's down to patch themselves up. They find out the black-clad guy mugged Andreis and took the gem, they try and pursue but he has long gone. However, Cavindel remembers that he saw the guy working as a doorman at the Golden Lotus Dreaming House. The two elves head to Three Penny Bridge and set up an ambush.

Markus and Heidi chat to the remaining bidders, the Black Clad Woman and the Slayer Pirates have a bit of an argument about ethics when the Slayers tell people that the plan was to use to the 'Eye' to summon a greater daemon so they could fight it and die in glorious battle...

Markus and Heidi loot the Fimir's chain shirt and bellyplate, (and later sell the belly plate to an Ogre at Sander Monnik's School for Pit Fighters). they then head to the Three Barrels.

At Three Penny Bridge the Black Clad man turns up around two hours later, and the elves pepper him with arrows. Unfortunately, despite there devastating accuracy, they now cannot roll above a 2 on a damage die, allowing him to dice over the side of the bridge and escape, but not before lobbing a Black Lotus Bomb at Cavindel. The Black Clad man elegantly dives into the Riek (a fucked up an agility roll and he fell off) and uses the current to move to safety (he gets dragged away). A Purple Robed Indic man emerges from the Golden lotus to confront them, they tell them that the black clad man robbed them, the Purple clad guy invites them inside for compensation, but as Cavindel is now on 1 wound, with a -30% penalty to Ws, BS, Ag and Int, they decide to retreat back to the Three Barrels instead. Where the Light Wizards provide healing and a room.

Notes:

The huge battle may well have been better done in some other form than narrative, but I think it went ok. The PCs did not hugely get involved in much of it, I probably could have done with them having clearer objectives. (Although one of the objective the Elves where given they simply chose to ignore anyway).

Net session a month away, so plenty of prep time.

Due to one player moving to Leeds and another being on semi-permanent night shifts the game is now officially on hold.