The devil was loose in the compound. The defenses were up. Being trapped inside with a honked-off she-devil is not healthy. However, the devil trapped itself in Zhaunil's labs. Ahriman and Zarathustriel prepared a binding enchantment in the temple.
Xora fearlessly entered the labs and spoke to the devil, making her come to the entrance. Meanwhile, MatronNemalzhi, Zhe'raen and Velve arrived at the lab entrance to try and draw the devil out into the temple. The two groups collided. The devil tried to use Xora and Zhaunil's shadow dragon as hostages, but because of its impatient nature, the bluff failed, and the situation decorated into a free-for-all. (There could be a lot of more detail on this fight, but honestly, I didn't follow it too closely since Xora wasn't involved. Please expand if you can./ StarFox) It ended with the devil escaping into the main stairwell, but when the family members went out after it, it charged Xora with a cry of Traitor!, mortally wounding her but opening itself to a series of counterattacks. In the end, it was tricked into the temple and bound into the DevilSword by Ahriman and Zarathustriel.
The wards went down and peace was restored. MatronNemalzhi healed Xora and all seemed well. Ahriman was properly punished for his transgression.
Velve managed to find some ElfSlaves destined for sacrifice on the matron of the 23:rd house's birthday, and used Zhaunil to intimidate the merchant house into offering them to us as gifts. This ended their favor from the 23:rd house and forced them to accept some of our protection. On the way back, Zhaunil had one of her accidental meeting with MatronGlavil. Then and there, MatronGlavil declared that she would be attending the inauguration ceremony for the new compound.
The next thing to do was to properly establish us as 50:th house, and MatronNemalzhi asked her three daughters to submit proposals for expansion of the fortress. In the end, Zarathustriel designed the temple, Zhaunil the court, Xora the inner compound, and Zhe'raen the outer compound. As an afterthought, provisions were made for a mercantile compound because of contacts brought by Velve. Of course, it was Ahriman who would actually have to put all of this into effect.
Everybody knew that if MatronGlavil showed up, the other great houses would do so too, so the ceremony just had to be perfect. Sadly, neither Xora (in charge of the ceremony) nor Velve could produce the needed materials. In the end, we had to use some devil blood to bargain for the services of a legion of minor devils.
The ceremony itself was a hit. Zhe'raen was as usual the main feature of the party, and a large quarrel among the junior priestesses had to be broken up by the MatronMothers.