In which our friends investigate the boarded-up house on Pfeffergasse and visit the Windhund Haulage Company.
The night before Sunday, August 26th – Geheimnisnacht (February 17th, 2021)
The laboratory of Esther Lieberung
Beyond the secret door was a vaulted cellar containing a ruined and ransacked alchemical laboratory. No papers, books or ingredients remained; broken bottles and shards of glass littered the floor. The secret door would apparently be all but invisible when closed (and could be hidden by a tapestry when opened). Another broken-open door led on to another cellar.
It wasn’t Geheimnisnacht for nothing; Marike’s Second Sight caught a brief vision of the fully equipped and lit laboratory, and a woman looking very much like herself (though her face wasn’t seen) working there. It seemed they had found Esther Lieberung’s old laboratory, located in her neighbour’s cellar rather than her own.
Further up and further in
Moving on through an ordinary cellar they went on up to the ground floor, which was an abandoned cooper’s workshop – they were indeed in the sealed house on Pfeffergase II. There were some barrels, tools and materials left, but the workshop and office had been thoroughly searched and any papers and books were missing. An outside staircase at the back of the house led up to the upper storeys.
The doors to the upper storeys were also locked, but hadn’t been boarded up and Courage could pick the locks fairly easily. The first storey was the living quarters of the coopers, with nothing of interest there.
The letter from “G.”
As the door opened to the darkened third storey, where apparently Herr and Frau Borck lived, the light of the lanterns briefly reflected of what looked like the eyes of some animal… only a bit too high off the ground and too far apart. Kethe quickly advanced into the room, rapier drawn, but found no trace of any animal.
This storey too had been searched and emptied of papers, books and valuables, but the adventurers did make a couple of finds here. A broken chair turned out to have something looking like a magic circle painted on the underside of the seat, and under the empty drawers of a desk, Kethe found a letter which must have slipped down from the back of the drawers.
The letter read:
My dear friends,
In response to the requests (for I choose to interpret them in that fashion) in your latter, I will be happy to comply. It suits me and my friends very well that our society shall take no overt action in the immediate future, as this was already our plan. We shall, of course, continue our usual activities hidden from the public eye.
Your second request is also easy to grant. I am all in favour of it – for once it’s not my own colleagues being targeted! I shall speak sincerely in favour of the new order to any who should approach me, and will encourage all those whose ear I have to do likewise.
Hoping that this reply will prove satisfactory, and may prompt the beginnings of a mutually beneficial relationship, and with the best wishes,
G.
“Do we know anyone with a name starting with G?” Kethe wondered, prompting the others to recall Gotthard von Wittgenstein and the letter from him found in his sister Margrethe von Wittgenstein’s study – a letter that also implied he was in Middenheim and up to no good. They kept the letter, intending to compare it to the older one back at Baumgarten Haus.
The studio of Gustav Klöcker
The garret on top had been the apartment and studio of the artist, Gustav Klöcker. All the canvases and paintings were gone and the easels overturned, but several mirrors with candleholders mounted on them remained.
Coming in, Marike once more had a brief vision lasting just a few moments. She caught a glimpse of a well-lit room and a handsome man with long reddish-blonde hair and a beard – Klöcker? – painting a picture whilst muttering what sounded like incantations over it and dipping his brush into clear concoctions next to the paints. She couldn’t see what he was painting, but in the background was a half-finished painting: a frighteningly realistic scene of a beastman eating a man alive.
The vision reminded Marike of an alchemical discipline she knew about – but which was beyond her own mastery – where instead of creating elixirs and procedures to affect bodies and physical things, the alchemist creates works of art that will affect the mind of whoever perceives them. Perhaps Klöcker was such an alchemist, or even a sorcerer?
* * *
The house was starting to creep the adventurers out, especially being out on the Geheimnisnacht. They retreated the same way they came, locking the doors behind them as well as they could.
By the time they came back out in the street it was slightly after midnight, and now both moons were covered by clouds making the night very dark. They got back to the Baumgarten Haus, were let in by the night sentry and went to bed.
Nightmares – again
They didn’t get a very good night’s sleep, though. Everyone suffered nightmares similar to the night before. Marike also dreamed of a half-lit room where eight people in robes and masks were gathered around a table. One chair was empty and the others were pointing at it and saying something she couldn’t hear or understand.
Sunday, August 26th – Geheimnistag (February 17th, 2021)
Plans for Sunday
Over breakfast, the adventurers compared the letter they found with the one from Gotthard von Wittgenstein and found they did indeed appear to be written in the same hand.
The adventurers interpreted the letter as the “Hand”, the society Esther Lieberung was a member of, having contacted another cult or secret society that Gotthard was part of (perhaps the “Inner Circle” mentioned in Gotthard’s first letter?). They also noted that once more the phrase “Our Lord granter of desires” in Gotthard’s first letter, one that also seemed associated with the cult led by Samuel Heintz.
The adventurers were going to have most of the day off, so they decided to follow up another clue: the Windhund Haulage Company, the apparent owners of the coach Zima and Dmitri had trailed all the way from Kemperbad to Middenheim. The plan was to try to find out more under the guise of asking to order a long-distance transport themselves.
After joining the Gräfin Marie-Ulrike and her retinue to hear mass in the Great Church in the late morning – a rather fancy affair, partly officiated by the High Shepherd himself, who also gave the Gräfin his blessing afterward – they walked through the city to the haulage company’s offices in the Wynd, the southeast corner of Middenheim. Marike dressed discreetly (by her own lights, at any rate) with a wide-brimmed floppy hat and a mourning veil, hoping to at least not be immediately recognized as “Esther Lieberung” by everyone seeing her.
The Windhund Haulage Company
Entering through a pair of great open gates in a tall fence, they found the haulage company premises took up a whole small block. Inside the gates where three stone stable wings around a large courtyard; in the near left-hand corner was also a warehouse with a lift and ramp. Horses, coachmen and grooms were milling about the courtyard; there were also a pair of water troughs, a few wagons, coaches and carts parked in the yard, and in the middle a two-storey stone building looking like an office.
Eventually they caught a groom’s attention and were directed to the carpeted office, the room dominated by a desk and a large map of the city on the wall. The cheerful, heavy-set clerk Gelfried greeted them and asked their errand; Aenlinn said she would like to discuss the costs of ordering a trip for her employer.
As they were discussing this, the head of the company, Theodor Glückstein, a severe-looking, bald, middle-aged gentleman, joined them. Seeing it was about a special order for an apparently rich customer, he took over the matter and took the adventurers on a tour of the haulage company. His manners, in contrast to the easygoing Gelfried, were strictly businesslike and professional.
Apart from the regular tours of the city done by its carts – mostly used to haul wares – and coaches, there was the option to pre-order a coach and coachman for specific trips; you could either order one of the ordinary small coaches for this, or one of a handful of special coaches. Normally, they would only do fares within the city or very nearby; they might send a carriage up to a day’s ride away but this would be very expensive.
Aenlinn innocently mentioned that she’d heard about one of the Windhund coaches transporting a party all the way from Kemperbad? Glückstein flatly denied this and did not appreciate followup questions about whether any coach might have been stolen. After finishing the tour he excused himself, referring them to Gelfried for information on prices. He greeted everyone politely and left; only now did he get a good look at Marike’s face and she sensed that he recognized her, though he didn’t comment.
Back in the office, Gelfried set up a price list for various arrangement, noting that they’d be very busy during the Carnivals and any fares for then would have to be booked in good time. Gelfried knew nothing of any stolen or long-traveling coaches either.
In the evening
The rest of the afternoon and evening was spent on everyone’s personal business; Marike managed to finish brewing two doses of the healing draught after the first batch failed, and Aenlinn got her new livery clothes in the Gräfin’s colours. The others were issued streamers in red and yellow to carry as a badge of the Gräfin’s party.
After dinner, the Gräfin summoned the adventurers to her study to brief them for the trial by combat tomorrow. Ordinarily, a trial like this between two nobles would have been held at the Palace, but since the Kurfürst is related to the dead Freiherr Otto, he had recused himself and the trial was instead to be held outside the town hall, with the three Law Lords as presiding judges, assisted by some of the city magistrates.
The duel itself was to begin at noon and the champions sworn in an hour earlier, but the Gräfin wanted the adventurers to go ahead to the town hall in the morning to keep an eye on preparations.
“We’ve seen how low Dammenblatz will stoop. He might try to bribe or threaten one of the judges, or tamper with the arena somehow, or – well, you would know better than I do. Just keep your eyes open and trust no one. And, above all —” she pointed to Aenlinn “— don’t let my new champion come to harm. It would not do at all to lose another champion on the very day of the trial.”
The Enemy Within: Remixed 
Couldn’t leave a comment on the GM’s notes, but I cheer your use of Citybook I from Flying Buffalo. That old series (I have them all),is a real idea mine.
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I would’ve thought they were pretty forgotten by now. 🙂 The first book was translated into Swedish in the mid-80s and I’ve still got my barely-together copy (though I’ve also tracked down a pdf of the original since). But yeah, it doesn’t look like much and some of the contents are just silly, but there is a surprising amount of useful stuff there.
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