Kintani arrives near Count Cagliostro and asks if Cagliostro would
like to attend a formal function.  Cagliostro inquires as to more
detail, and finds that this is the event that everyone else has gone
to.

Cagliostro declines to attend on two counts:
1) The probability of another attack on the assembled forces
2) The possibility of encountering enemies that he doesn't remember making

Kintani agrees that this makes sense, and asks for release to attend
the function himself.  Cagliostro grants it. 

Kintani recalls just how many times he almost died during the attacks
on the last party, and decides to stay with Cagliostro anyway. Orm
Embar is more than happy to represent the Dragon Council at the
function (since he's already invited and was already planning on
attending).

Kintai settles down to ensure nothing out of the ordinary happens to
Cagliostro.  Cagliostro realizes he hasn't slept since his "son"
arrived, and decides to get some sleep.

------

Retconnish: Cagliostro, Caelin, and Natasha are inside the defenses of
what appears to be a very well defended city.  Caelin has put up a
field to jam outgoing teleports and magical gates.

Caelin has unraveled some complex looking spells by pulling power out
of them.  It's very easy for him to pull power out, since there's
something inside him that misses the power.

A bottle of a design familiar to Cagliostro is inside some sort of
warding or binding.  Cagliostro puts an additional ward around the
bottle and starts working on the internal ward.

Caelin is being attacked, but is draining the attacks as they come
in. Cagliostro wants to know where the people who were pretending to
be his son are. "Who's in charge" seems to be distributed - the person
in charge of "Attacking Caelin" is not in charge of anything else,
like defending the room.

Caelin's power level is increasing as he pulls in the power being
thrown at him.  Caelin notices the bottle, and comments on it to
Cagliostro.  Cagliostro asks him to unravel the internal ward, which
he does (draining Cagliostro's wards twice on the way, because
Cagliostro is  keeps putting the wards back up).

There is purple smoke. A demon of a familiar form sticks his head out
of the bottle. The demon looks around, notices Cagliostro and Caelin,
and produces a pad of paper.  The demon writes "HELP!" on the pad and
shows it to Cagliostro.

Cagliostro considers putting a Solomon seal around the bottle,
realizes it wasn't a really effective binding anyway, and just drops
the inward-facing wards.

The demon pours himself out over Cagliostro's shoulder and bows as
servant to master.  Caelin recognizes the bow as specifically "I owe
you a lot from a long time ago" - he sees a lot of people give it to
his grandmother.  Caelin makes a note.

Cagliostro asks Caelin to scry for people like the demon.  Caelin
scries simultaneously for house markings, form, etc. There is
resistance - so Caelin asks Cagliostro for the okay to push.

Cagliostro gives the okay, and Caelin pushes.  

About thirty defenders keel over, dead and drained of life energy.
Caelin realizes they were backstopping the defense of the spell with
their life energy, which he considers unwise for just this reason.
The scrying now succeeds, and Caelin reports that about twenty-five of
the demons are imprisoned about forty meters away.

Cagliostro considers how to get to them, and decides the easiest
method is to deconjure a tunnel through the rock.  This is somewhat
easier said than done - a large part of the intervening area is molten
rock.  

The defenders are less than happy about the tunnel.  Two of them run
to defend the mouth of the tunnel. Cagliostro conjures knockout gas,
and they fall to the ground.  "Oh, right."  Cagliostro conjures
knockout gas around the other defenders. Most of them fall over, but a
few were breathing out and manage to conjure gas masks or something
similar.

One defender managed to trigger an alarm - there is an audible alarm,
but it is not present in the room.

A large number of spells start falling apart and radiating power
outward.  Briefly.  And then Caelin drains them.

Cagliostro continues deconjuring the tunnel, warding any molten rock
or metal.  The wards have to be stiffened more than normal to handle
what is apparently melted rock that really -wants- to fill the hole
(as if it's designed to, it's part of the structure of the universe).

The room becomes more stable, as if there was a spell hung to
destabilize it and that spell has been cancelled. 

Caelin checks the person for familiar signatures - he doesn't
match. Cagliostro asks if the surrenderee knows who he is - "Not a
clue." "Good, good.  And you are called?"  "I am called Slate."

Cagliostro tries to read Slate's mind, but fails - it's as if the mind
keeps moving away.  Cagliostro talks to him for a bit - he was
enslaved with his family held hostage for good behavior.  (He hasn't
seen his family in three hundred years, though, and isn't sure they're
still alive.)  He's not interested in applying for any new positions.

Natasha and Cagliostro go through the tunnel and Natasha breaks
through into the chamber beyond.  Cagliostro belatedly warns her not
to touch the ward with the magic-eating axe.

The demons are bound to various torture devices by various magical and
physical restraints.  One of the demons looks very familiar.  There is
also a corpse, who also looks very familiar.  The corpse is not
pretty.

Cagliostro deconjures some physical traps, Natasha hits magical traps
with her magic-eating axe, and various steps are taken to deal with
unknown but suspicious-looking traps.  After the chamber is detrapped,
Cagliostro and Natasha begin to free the demons.

When freed, one of the demons gets a glazed look in his eyes and
screams and leaps at Cagliostro.  He is wrestled to the ground by the
other demons, who seemed to be expecting this.

There are various mechanical noises coming from nearby, as if large
and elaborate locks are being opened.  Cagliostro calculates that he
can get everyone freed and down before the door opens.  Caelin and
Cagliostro yell at each other a bit through the tunnel about the
demons, as the demons troop down the tunnel and most of them head back
into the bottle.

Cagliostro creates a knockout gas dispenser with fans, pointing at the
door. He wards the dispenser.  They wait, and discuss the chemical
formula of the knockout gas. The room gets much colder, approximately
five degrees colder a second.  Cagliostro conjures some very volatile
explosives in a "knockout gas cannister" and leaves it next to the
dispenser, triggered to explode when the dispenser is disturbed.

He wards the top of the tunnel lightly, then they return to the
central lab. As they slide down the tunnel, there is a crackling noise
in the prison, as of water condensing out of the air. Cagliostro asks
Caelin if there is a spell cooling it down; Caelin says it's not a
spell, it's just returning to its equilibrium temperature.

The door into the lab opens, and two people in environment suits rush
in.  One of them stabs at the bomb with a sharp and pointy thing.
There is now more rubble than room.

Cagliostro asks the remaining demons for more information - all they
can say is that there are people who are -really- good at torturing
there.  The idea of notifying the torturer's guild is suggested by one
of the demons, who almost immediately asks people to forget what he
said and heads into the bottle so he can't hear the discussion.

Caelin opens a place gate to the last place he saw Durog, the only
member of the Torturer's guild he knows.  There is a gentleman on the
beach, holding a tuning fork that has ridges on it.  He is holding a
conversation with someone who does not want to be having the
conversation with Durog.

Cagliostro is introduced to Durog, and steps through to talk to
him. Durog puts his client in some kind of suspended animation and
comes through the gate.

Cagliostro talks to Slate - he can't describe his family specifically
enough for scrying purposes.  Cagliostor then asks a demon (the one
pinning the influenced demon) to describe one of its torturers.  The
demon casts a quick illusion that specifies the physical and magical
qualities of one of the torturers. Caelin is impressed at how
effective a key this illusion is.

Caelin scries on the illusion and quickly determines where the
torturer is - in some kind of sleeping room, three to a queen-size
bed, with the beds stacked five or six high.  Caelin opens a gate to
the room, and Durog goes through, challenges the sleepers, and begins
the interview process. (Apparently, Durgon considers bypassing all of
their defenses to be sufficient introduction.) Eventually, he produces
an assistant through some method and begins to dictate notes on the
interviewees he's goaded into attacking him.

Cagliostro starts to read the memories of the unconscious defenders.
He finds it very slow going because of how intensely the locals feel
things - even unconscious, they are aware of the coolness and taste of
the floor.  It takes perhaps four to five minutes for Cagliostro to
process one minute of sensation. Fortunately, the locals speak Thari.

Cagliostro asks Slate about the leadership, and finds the person who
was in charge of the physical defenses.  Cagliostro starts to read his
memories, and skips around to read brief areas, trying to find areas
of interest.