The party defeats rabid vampires while escaping the guano cave, but Aeris contracts vampirism. They return to Hollin and find that Krill has returned to accuse Burns of witchcraft, causing a split in the Admiralty and fighting throughout the city. Seizing on the chaos to start his revenge on Hollin, Aeris kidnaps the parents who abandoned him. He horrifies them with his magic implement - his brother's skull in a burlap bag.
After Game 24 I asked Keith, Kelly, and Steve to make temporary evil characters for a mysterious thread that could start this game. They created Kane, Treasach Miller, and Bane, respectively, and they're introduced briefly below.
At the end of Game 24, Beowolf and the party were trying to reclaim an abandoned guano cave for the Inkeri, and discovered that it was infested with vampires, some rabid. But outside the cave, Beowolf's Inkeri allies turned on him and blocked the exits. Beowolf's new vampire ally, Desmod, volunteered to take the party out by another, secret exit.
Desmod's secret route wound through the harem where they'd been talking with him, then entered another bat cave. In the bat cave, they were attacked by rabid vampires, led by the vampire Diamus.
In addition, Diamus had the power Fear.
Diamus and a second vampire Ludvik carried silver daggers they'd taken from beaten vampire hunters. One was a +2 parrying dagger.
The party beat Diamus and the others, but Aeris contracted vampirism and rabies. They continued to Desmod's secret exit, and made their way from there to the Welkin settlement Albrecht. Aeris found a mundane cure for rabies at an apothecary there, but he opted to remain a vampire.
With the party clearly outnumbered by the Inkeri traitors, Beowolf decided to return to Hollin to plan.
The trip back took several weeks, and when they reached Hollin and Braddock, they were shocked to find the city in chaos.
The characters return to Braddock to find the waterfront burning, and many gunships blasting at each other on the river. Marines are fighting over buildings on the waterfront, like the Admiralty buildings. Powder stores have exploded causing huge damage in the city. Prisoners have been loosed in the city, and rumors say they include the Hobnail leader Horst. Even the press gangs are split.
They discover that Krill came back to Hollin on the Pell-Mell and accused Burns of witchcraft, splitting the Admiralty and causing a giant war.
In past games, Aeris's eyebrow-raising comments about life and death suggested a dark, unspoken agenda. Now the chaos in Hollin spurred Aeris to action, and he put that agenda into motion.
Aeris and his brother Jaris were abandoned by their parents as children, and Jaris starved within a few days. Aeris believed they'd been abandoned because society forced their parents into poverty, and he longed for revenge on society, meaning Hollin. His plan for revenge was horrific: he would become a lich, raise an undead army to kill everyone in Hollin, and rule over the resulting necropolis forever.
He'd long assumed his parents were dead, but now he discovered they were still living in their fishing village near Hollin. He wanted revenge on them too, and decided that he could best torment them by making them watch his plan unfold. He kidnapped them and took them to the apartment where he'd put up the lich Ishild, who horrified them. Aeris revealed his identity to them there and further terrified them with the magic orb implement he'd been carrying in his burlap bag - his brother's skull.
While at Ishild's apartment, Aeris proposed that Ishild help make him a lich. In return, Ishild would be given the Hollin Grimoire and become Aeris's lieutenant in the future necropolis. Ishild agreed.
Aeris knew that the other party members, Beowolf, Kasskar, and Ord, wouldn't knowingly help him, so he decided to raise his own evil party. With Kasskar's half-knowing, half-unwitting help, Aeris recruited two evil friends from among Kasskar's street contacts, the corrupt box Treasach Miller and the mercenary Kane.
Ishild also suggested Aeris recruit a prisoner from Dule Tree Prison, Bane. Treasach, Kane, and Kasskar agreed to help him break Bane out in the next game.
The +2 silver parrying dagger that Diamus and Ludvik had was intended for Kasskar, who had just gained the feat "Weapon Proficiency - Parrying Dagger" and was carrying a +1 parrying dagger. But, it seems Kasskar never claimed it: his final character sheet still shows the +1 dagger.
Steve's original name for Bane was Pendragon.