Wednesday, October 28th, 1671
London, England

Searching the cave under the London streets, the heroes managed to find a secret passage that led up to the surface and into a seemingly abandoned livery. The building, although disused and dusty, had obviously new straw laid down on the floor, and more importantly was only a few scant blocks from Westminster Palace.

Regidiah deduced that the mer-creatures, as she called them, smuggled the gunpowder in water-tight barrels under the streets of the city as to not arouse suspicion, whereupon they would load it onto wagons and bring it into the palace. The only question remaining was if the barrels were disguised or if somebody in the palace was working for the creatures.

The heroes hurried towards the palace, and to a back-entrance that was closest to the livery. With the sun already setting, they would need to hurry; the plans they had previously recovered seemed to state that the gunpowder would be ignited during their own reward ceremony.

At the gates, the four were stopped by a pair of guards. Looking closely, Jack noticed that the 'guards' were actually more of the mer-creatures, who had used makeup to disguise their gills. He was about to strike out at them, when a shadowy figure appeared behind one and quickly slit its throat with a razor. The others took the initiative and struck at the other infiltrator, killing him before he could raise an alarm.

The stranger who had slain the first mer-creature cleaned the blood from his straight razor, and then bowed low towards them, introducing himself as Sweeney Todd, a barber on the run from the law. Todd told the heroes of his wife and the corrupt judge who had found him guilty of a crime he did not commit and sentenced him to indentured servitude in far-off Australia. Todd did not agree with the sentence and was able to escape the ship that carried him and return to London. He sought an audience with the king to plead his case, and expressed surprise when he discovered that the guard he killed wasn't human.

After hearing the heroes tales of Lichfield, the explosion at the docks and the gunpowder plot they had discovered, believed to be larger than the one dreamed up by Guy Fawkes some decades before, Todd agreed to pledge his razors to the heroes' cause and give the enemies of the king "a nice close shave".

The five then sneaked into the castle's depths, finding themselves fighting off a surprisingly large number of infiltrators, and some kind of strange, faceless drone that the mer-creatures had allied with, until they reached the basements and the gunpowder stores. It was there that they faced off against another faceless creature, who called himself Juno. This strange being cloaked himself in strange blue armor that looked like it was formed of otherworldly creatures.

The party fought well against Juno of the Faceless and both his powerful arsenal and his uncanny ability to read minds, despite Regidiah not being able to call upon the powers of cleansing fire in the gunpowder-filled room. In the end, the strange creature was destroyed and melted away into a fine, grey smoke.

With the infiltrators largely removed, Jack and Regidiah sought help from the true royal guard and exposed the gunpowder plot. Overjoyed at his safety, Charles II summoned the party before him to provide them with an additional reward for their actions that night. Just as he was about to though, fires erupted in the hallways.

As the guards struggled to contain the flames, a tall shadowy man emerged from thin air. Introducing himself as Kurtz Wielzhelm, he swore to kill the king and attacked suddenly. Not about to let their previous efforts be for naught, the heroes intercepted and struggled to protect the king from attack.

Kurtz struck back at the party with the same kind of eldritch blasts of magic that Nicholai used, but he also used some kind of strange language to alter the very reality around the party. The heroes fought back bravely, with Todd striking at the warlock viciously with his razors and Alphonze revealing that he wasn't quite human as he transformed into a dog-creature midway through the battle.

Finally Kurtz was forced to flee, as he disappeared in the same manner as he had arrived. Alphonze admitted to the king and his allies that he was actually half-Russian and half-Nipponese, and the descendant of a nature spirit that gave him the ability to take the form of a dog spirit. He apologized for not being forthcoming with his true nature, but was almost instantly forgiven, as his actions saved the lives of all around him.

It was Charles's turn to thank the party. He bestowed them with a small coffer of riches and after bestowing them with the title of 'Royal Ratcatcher', he hired them to kill one more rat: Kurtz Wielzhelm must die for his attempt on the king's life.