I recruited all of the guys, yes. The spearman, axeman, and archer you can get are all in my party. After I beat them all I went back to the black market woman and got the sword, but now she wants me to come back later and now I'm stuck. Is not getting a new quest a known bug? I really don't want to restart completely so any solution would be cool.
Wait, the bunny bar quest lowers your stats? is this after a certain about of times doing the quest, or does serving specific girls lower specific stats, this seems like something the game should tell us.
Come back later should mean do or redo another quest. Once done, redo the Serpent's Gaze and see a group of people also scammed and the shop keeper has run off with your cash. You will get revenge and your money back later.
As you keep doing the Bunny Bar quest, she will offer more money to do it in a chastity device, then holds the key ransom, then offers sex acts instead of your pay. Somewhere in there, you lose stats for submitting. If you interact whereing some other gimp wear, you will lose stats or levels depending. I think some other special grabs can do so as well, but unsure.
You could try grinding until you can beat the Charlette quest, Buy up many potions and set two choke points on the stairs with PC/archer and Spear dude. Use potions as needed, ferry them from the storage your PC has to the other choke and you beat the elite guards. Sacrifice doesn't make permadeath, so spear is you main damage, arrow for chip damage, ax is mostly to Kneel and deactivate her grab state. Don't surround, she can double grab. It's best to "fight honorable" like a chump and send in dudes one at a time.
As for progressing to the next missions, I don't know at this point. You beat all the bosses in each stage, not just retreated in Sally Forth or timed out the retreating green dudes in Terror Gorge. The ruin in the forest of Terror Gorge just gives an item, it shouldn't hold you up....I don't know dude, maybe save your file, transfer the save somewhere. Re-download, and see if that does it? Or maybe the Serpent's gaze is holding you up because it only completes in Act 1 so it needs to finish. Redo a mission and try Serpent again, maybe that does it.