It is into the wee hours of the morning, when Kathmandu, Jing-Li (formerly known as "Vixa") and Rose leap through the magical pool - and at that same time, back near the alchemist's hut, Voltage and Ferrari hop into another magical pool, hoping to find out what happened to everyone else.

Across Dungeonworld, at the Flaming Abyss, several heroes burst out of a bubbling magical pool - and find themselves surrounded by demonic-looking beings. There's a moment of confusion: Voltage, Ferrari (and Delilah) don't recognize Jing-Li's new look, or the giant bird she's riding. Kathmandu, Rose and Jing-Li don't recognize Voltage's new look, as she has spent the day crafting a pair of mechanical wings for herself. But nonetheless, all of them are able to tell that these demonic entities around them are hostile, and that taking a dip in the pits of lava would be a very bad idea.

Despite the momentary confusion, Kathmandu and Ferrari at least recognize each other. Gesturing to their unpleasant surroundings, Ferrari exclaims, "See? That's why I don't wear pants! 'Cause we come to places like this, where it's hot!"

"But not as hot as you!" Kathmandu says back. They continue flirting back and forth like this for a bit, which makes Delilah frown. And then the demons attack.

The battle goes poorly for our heroes. Fireman comes through the pool mere moments later, to find the battle going on, and then the magical pool shifts destinations again - as the other heroes who were going to come through get redirected somewhere else instead. Fireman starts hosing down flaming spirits, to keep them at bay. Voltage takes to the air, and tries bluffing at being an angel, and while she briefly manages to impress them with her crackling "holy aura", gaining the attention of the imps also means that she's the target of many of their attacks.

Rose casts a spell from the Tome of Roses to levitate herself into the air, but this isn't nearly so useful as it would have been against opponents who happen to have wings - and the ability to fly about under their own volition. So, she is suspended in the air, as imps fly up and slash at her - and she finds that she can't voluntarily end the spell to get back on the ground again and leap away.

Poe transforms into his hybrid raven-man form, and tries to lead some of the imps away, but this doesn't work as intended: they rather stubbornly attack whatever enemy is closest, unless otherwise directed by the Overlord Demon that directs them - and once Rose manages to get in a strike against the Overlord Demon with her roses, he directs his minions to kill Rose first - then the "angel" ... and then everybody else while they're at it.

Voltage does her best to draw attacks away from Rose, and she zaps at several of the imps with her electrical powers, but she's the focus of far too many attacks. She gets buffeted about, and finally gets knocked unconscious ... whereupon she falls right into the magical pool, and vanishes from the scene. Poe tries using his Magic Confusion power to get some of the enemies to fall into the pool, but most of them are resistant to his enchantment. Nonetheless, he manages to compel a powerful demon to plunge into the pool, taking that one out of the fight.

By this point, our heroes have made little headway against the imps, and things just get worse when the Overlord Demon casts an "Enthrall" spell to bring Delilah under his sway. Ferrari zips out of combat to dive into the pool. Fireman bravely sprays at the demons and flaming spirits with his fire hose to try to cover the retreat of the others. Jing Li tries to get Huang Feng - her giant bird mount - to get out of combat and into the pool, but the creature is pinned in from too many directions. At last, she leaps off of the creature's back and dives into the pool - and her sudden absence has the side effect of dispelling the enchantment that conjured Huang Feng in the first place, so it vanishes as well. Kathmandu clobbers several demons and wraiths, and it looks like he could very well hold his own against most of the opponents - but with the number of heroes quickly decreasing, it's evident that soon he'll be drawing the attention of the "heavy hitters" among the opposition - and Rose isn't doing too well, either. Rose calls out to Poe for help, so, at her request, he uses his powers to force her into the pool - and then Kathmandu (covered by Fireman) leaps in as well. Next, while Fireman keeps spraying back the demons - and taking multiple attacks from those who evade the firehose - Poe forces Delilah (now turning against Fireman) into the pool. Fireman urges Poe to head on through next, but a large demonic "nightsteed" is bearing down on Fireman, so Poe first plunges that beast into the magic pool - and then dives in on his own.

This leaves Fireman, all by himself, with all those demons. Things don't look good! So, Fireman summons up the last of his strength, wrenches himself away from the clawing grasp of demons and conjured undead, and hurls himself into the magical pool.

Back outside the alchemist's hut, Voltage stirs herself awake. It would be dark out here, except for the light of nearby flames. She looks up to realize that there's a huge demon standing beside the pool ... and, next to that, a nightmarish bat-winged horse with a flaming mane. She tries zapping the demon with her electrical field, but to no avail - so she tries the next best thing, and runs away, diving into the hut.

The others rouse themselves after coming through the magic pool. Rose and Kathmandu notice that they're back outside the alchemist's hut, and furthermore that all the warding talismans set up at the perimeter of the alchemist's clearing are glowing brightly. They both come to the same conclusion - that since the wards are meant to protect against monsters, they must have been triggered by the sudden arrival of several monsters here!

So, what does Rose do when she sees the huge nightmarish horse with the flaming mane?

She cries, "Pony!" and leaps on its back.

The nightsteed immediately tries to twist its head around to bite at Rose, but its body is wracked by crackling energy and it scream/whinnies angrily. Rose grins wickedly: the alchemist's wards prevent these interloping monsters from attacking, and their only course of action - once they regain enough strength to do so - is to leave. But for now - she has a pony!

Kathmandu reverts to his human form, and checks on Delilah. "Delilah, how are you feeling?"

Delilah pouts and says, "I'm feeling ... naughty."

"Ah. Hey, she's back to normal!" Kathmandu declares.

Once it's clear that all the demon can do is treat itself to all sorts of wracking pain if it tries to attack, Fireman decides that this is a fine time to talk to the minions of "Hell" about the importance of fire safety. (After all, he has a captive audience.) The demon makes various threats and curses, but our heroes just stand around and mock the demon. (Ferrari is able to mock it more quickly than most.) Voltage (having come out of the hut), plays up the role of an "angel", by "preaching" to the demons, while Fireman tries to persuade the flaming Nightsteed to "stop, drop and roll". (The Nightsteed would gladly comply, but attempting to do so - while it has Rose on its back - just prompts it to get another blast from the wards.)

Kathmandu starts to get an idea, and he goes into the alchemist's hut, to dig around through his considerable library of books to find if there's anything on binding demons and such. Amazingly, on his very first try, he finds one. He comes back out and reveals to Rose that it's actually possible that she could keep her new "pony" ... though it will cost her some of her "life force", in the same sort of arrangement that Ferrari has with Delilah.

"You mean, he'll have to kiss me?" Rose wonders.

No, as it turns out, the horse will get to bite her once a day. Just a little.

Rose carefully ponders this, and then decides, after much deliberation, that even if it means getting bitten once a day, she'd like to have her own hell-spawn pony, so she agrees. So, she makes a deal with the "pony", and it is freed from the binds of the ward - only to be subject to Rose's every command. (For now, she's just content to ride her new "pony" around.) Rose asks the "pony" what it would like to be called, and it comes up with the name of "Soulrender" - so she decides to leave it at that.

Voltage eventually wakes up Wu Lung, the alchemist, by turning off his heating chair. He's a big groggy and grumpy at being roused at such an unholy hour, but when he sees what the heroes have "caught", he wakes up the rest of the way rather quickly. Voltage offers the captured demon as a gift - and Wu Lung sets about gathering up all his equipment, and before long, the demon has a new career, walking on a treadmill and heating up Wu Lung's new chair.

Finally, our heroes get some sleep (despite the frequent grumbling of the foul-tempered demon), and then, in the morning, Wu Lung provides them all with some provisions - and Ferrari cooks up "chaircakes" for breakfast (using Wu Lung's hot-chair, cranked up a bit, to do the job). Wu Lung is so impressed with the "chaircakes" that he buys the recipe off of Ferrari. He also buys her "Arch-Deviled Eggs" recipe. Fireman suggests that they should make "Demonic Grilled Cheese Sandwiches" with the magical Dwarven Waybread and Gnomish Cheese that they got from Wu Lung, but they never get around to it.

So, our heroes buy a few more items and curios from Wu Lung, and then head along down the road toward the Clockwork Tower, with the Turtle Ninjas and the others in tow. (It turns out that they had gotten back to the hut without being detoured to the Abyss, by simple luck of the pool changing "destinations" right after Fireman hopped through.)

Along the way, Rose waves her wand several times to ward off "wandering monsters" - but then, a woman with feline features appears on the road, and apparently merely warding off "wandering monsters" doesn't do a thing against her. She points at Kathmandu and declares that if he is to take the Scroll of the White Tiger, he must first beat the White Tiger Champion - and at that, she transforms into a huge white tiger-striped creature. Kathmandu transforms into his werecat form to accept the challenge - and then there are two explosions of smoke, as both of the oversized cats vanish from the road.

Voltage and the others spend quite some time searching around, splitting up into two parties to do so, but they don't find any trace of Kathmandu. While they're split up, Rose flies along on the back of Soulrender, alongside Voltage, and they talk about various things. In particular Rose tells Voltage about her misadventures with trying to conjure up the spirit of Nathan Blake - who apparently now is treated as some sort of "demon" by the system. Rose has a theory that, somehow, during the course of these "séances" and other fiddling about with supernatural things, they're actually "hacking" the virtual system unawares. She wonders if there is some way to discover how to intentionally hack into the system to get desired effects - but she suspects that these attempts at "hacking" are what is drawing the Guardians' attention.

Their talk is interrupted when the partial party encounters a group of hostile faeries. The lead faerie casts a spell to animate several trees to start attacking Jing-Li, Fireman, Ferrari and Delilah. Fireman takes up a defensive position next to the newly re-conjured Huang Feng (Jing-Li's oversized bird mount), and he starts hosing down faerie folk to stop them from casting spells on the party. Ferrari whips from tree to tree, taking them down with her flurries of blows, while Voltage soars about, harassing the flying faeries, and taking on a particularly pesky Phooka. Some of the faeries have healing abilities, and they keep helping their fellow faerie-folk and animated trees - much to the chagrin of our heroes. Rose flies in on the back of Soulrender to do battle against the lead faerie, but the lead faerie has so many protective enchantments that it's impossible to lay a blow on her - and even when one is about to, she just nimbly dodges out of the way.

However, the lead faerie starts to get a little overconfident, when it's evident that her lackeys are being taken out by most of the heroes, and she herself is just about untouchable. She pushes herself to attack Soulrender, hurting him badly enough that he is demoralized and flies away (to Rose's frowning disappointment, as she finds a new perch in a nearby tree) - and this leaves her just ever-so-slightly weakened in her defenses. Her companion faerie tries to use healing magic to bring her back up to full strength again - but fails - and then Fireman joins in with more blasts of his firehose to keep the healing faeries occupied while his buddies take down the opposition.

Rose unleashes several rose attacks on the lead faerie, and then Voltage joins in by launching feathers from her mechanical wings. The lead faerie tries to cast another destructive spell, but it's too late: she falls to the forest floor.

Suddenly, the battle turns even more quickly against the remaining faeries, to the point that most of them are breaking for the woods. Voltage and Ferrari end up doing a short game of "Rock-Paper-Scissors" to decide who will go after the last fleeing faerie, and Ferrari wins; she runs up, sucker-punches the faerie, then grins as some silver pieces magically materialize in her pocket.

After the battle, our heroes check the area, picking up an extra spellbook, finding several potions and other useful items - and, of course, new silver coins for all their victories over the "monsters". Fireman and Ferrari start talking about the possibility of chopping the wings off of the faeries as some sort of grisly trophy (or, perhaps, to try to find some way to fly with them), but it seems that during the course of all their hunting around, the faeries vanish while they're not looking. (Maybe the faeries crawled away. Maybe they disappeared in puffs of faerie dust. Who knows?) Rose, meanwhile, chases down Soulrender, once he's recovered from his unfortunate encounter with the faeries.a

Ferrari, impressed by Voltage's performance, starts talking excitedly about how neat it would be if she had her own rocket pack or rocket boots or wings or what-have-you. Voltage starts pondering this - and given how badly the party has gotten split up, she considers a trip back to the alchemist's hut to regroup and recover, while the fliers in the group hunt around for their missing party members. And, back there, Voltage could perhaps work on a new invention, of course....

So, what has become of Kathmandu? Will our heroes make it to the Clockwork Tower? To find out the answers to this and more, check out the next session of ... Superior City!