In which our friends visit the opera, deal with a series of more and less serious incidents, and receive a disturbing letter.
Friday, August 31st
Going to the opera
The adventurers returned to the Baumgarten Haus just in time to get ready for the evening’s mission: to join Gräfin Marie-Ulrike‘s entourage as she accompanied her cousin Kurfürstin Annika-Elise to see the final performance of the Tilean opera Cleo and Elchano. The Countess, pleased with the adventurers’ handling of the disturbances at the trial, would like to have them around and alert in case of any more foul play on the part of Baron Eberhard von Dammenblatz.
Dressed to the best of their ability and discreetly armed, they headed to the opera in advance. The main entrance hadn’t opened yet, and the early arrivals – mostly servants of visitors with private boxes – were moving in through side doors.
Wernhart and Marike noticed they were being watched: a small, nondescript man was standing outside, occasionally taking notes. Was he spying, or perhaps working for a gossip newsletter?
Once inside, they were shown upstairs, where the Kurfurstin’s servants were tidying up her box and the antechamber outside it. A couple of opera lackeys carried in a large potted plant just as they arrived.
Preliminary mingling
At the stroke of seven, the lamps were lit, the gates opened and the adventurers went down to the lobby, where people had started to drop in drinks were already being served. The first visitor they recognized was Dean Edel Müller; she went on to help them identify a number of other visitors, such as Guildmaster Yannick Mencken of the Engineers’ Guild, who arrived with a number of colleagues. The engineers seemed to be in a foul mood, and the younger among them in particular not completely sober.
Kethe took up positions next to the sociable waitress Christa to pick up a little about what was known about the guests. Christa mentioned the engineers had been pissed off ever since the new taxes were introduced; their guild had lost privileges and been stuck with new levies.
The next significant guests to arrive were the Kurfurst’s first minister, Lord Chancellor Josef Speermann, accompanied by Councillor Gotthard Kepler, one of Middenheim’s four mayors – aka Gotthard von Wittgenstein, Marike’s half-brother and Samuel Heintz‘ son – and a couple of bodyguards. This was the first time the adventurers saw the two gentlemen in the flesh, but they recalled the sketch from a few days ago suggesting they were conspiring to introduce new unfair taxes and laws. They chatted a little, though Kepler seemed to do most of the talking, while Speerman seemed stiff and uncomfortable.
The Lord Chancellor and the mayor were soon joined by Law Lord Joachim Hoffmann, who came accompanied only by a servant; the adventurers recognised him from the trial. He only drank fruit punch; he’s known as a man of puritan habits, and (according to what Christa whispered to Kethe) it is said that the opera is his only known worldly vice.
About half an hour after the gates opened, the young Freiherrin Katarina Hohenfels, the (acknowledged) bastard daughter of the Kurfürst, arrived with a small entourage, including Hildegard Ziska, a somewhat fearsome-looking older lady, and the lady-in-waiting Manuela Baader, whom the adventurers met in the princess’ company earlier on. Christa mentioned to Kethe that the “Princess”, as she was called by some, was very popular with people in the city, and it seemed so: her ladies-in-waiting and a couple of knights had to do their best to keep the courting audience at a distance.
The mutterings from the party of engineers had been growing steadily louder, and the young apprentices Franz Waxmann and Luna Bonner begun to approach Lord Chancellor Speermann and Councillor Kepler, openly heckling them. Before things could escalate further, a couple of opera servants quickly threw the youngsters out.
Kethe followed the apprentices for a bit, hearing them drunkenly boasting about “showing them” somehow before disappearing down a side street. Doing this, she also noticed the entourage of Kurfürstin Annika-Elise and the Gräfin finally approaching.
Enter the Kurfürstin
The Kurfürstin made her entrance, dressed in a fanciful – but obviously very expensive – costume that looked like a courtly masquerade version of an “adventurer’s outfit”, revealing almost the full extent of her heraldically patterned hose; the Gräfin was somewaht more conservatively dressed. The Gräfin had brought Frau Odette, Captain Hölder, and a few guards and servants; the Kurfürstin was escorted by a group of armoured knights.
As the Kurfürstin entered, the staff and dignitaries lined up to greet her. She and her stepdaughter Katarina Hohenfels exchanged stiff, brief greetings; the mood between them was decidedly chilly, and Katarina and her entourage swiftly repaired to the upper floor. Among others in the loyal throng, the adventurers noticed Junker Friedrich von Helstein, Hanna’s former lover whom they had saved from a savage beating at the Three Feathers, and his father, Freiherr Wolfgang von Helstein.
Suddenly, just as he stepped forward to pay his respects, Freiherr Wolfgang began grossly insulting the Kurfürstin to her face: still smiling, he exclaimed loudly – and in a different voice, come to think of it – that her shameless, frivolous lifestyle was disgracing both the Kurfürst and the state, and even suggested her son with the Kurfurst was not trueborn. As shocked silence spread, the Freiherr’s face suddenly became a mask of terror as he fell to his knees, blustering apologies.
The Kurfürstin let a few long moments pass in deadly silence before eventually smiling and gesturing for the grovelling Freiherr to rise. “Well, darling,” she said, “while I’m sure the view down there has much to merit it, there is no need to crawl.” She leaned in close and whispered something that appared to somewhat reassure the mortified Freiherr before sweeping upstairs with her entourage in tow. The nervous bystanders bowed in silence until she was out of sight, after which the lobby exploded in whispered gossip.
Marike was smelling a rat – she suspected someone used an alchemical elixir, or perhaps even sorcery, to “throw their voice” – and stayed in the lobby to look for clues, while Aenlinn and Wernhart joined the ladies’ entourage.
In the upstairs corridor to the ducal box, the Kurfürstin was raging at her staff. “Find me the bloody witch behind that farce,” she screeched, “and find them now! We’ll put a stop to this if we have to burn every one of them!” Then, suddenly shifting gears again and once more smiling sweetly, she turned to the Gräfin. “Sorry you had to see that, darling. I should have known something like this was going to happen again. Come, let’s sit down, watch this opera and not let this foolishness ruin the evening.”
Meanwhile, Marike and Kethe had noticed that Junker Friedrich and some of his entourage were also hanging around the lobby to “look around”; Friedrich showed no sign of recognising them. One of his men seemed to have discovered something but they couldn’t see what; However, Kethe notices that they seemed to suspect someone who had played pranks on them before.
The letter
At eight o’clock, the orchestra struck up the overture, the curtain rose and the show began. Kethe and Marike moved up to the box and noticed a man standing around in the corridor; he wasn’t dressed like an opera servant but didn’t really seem to be going anywhere either. They mentioned it to Captain Hölder and the Kurfürstin’s chief bodyguard, Ser Lucius von Harwitz. Hölder posted two of the Gräfin’s guards, Oskar and Wibeke, in the antechamber an told them to check the corridor from time to time.
Soon after, there was some noise from the antechamber. The adventurers looked out to find the door to the corridor open, Wibeke gone, and Oskar confusedly holding a letter.
He explained that a servant had just arrived bringing a letter for the Gräfin’s Champion “from a secret admirer”. The guards had gotten suspicious and taken the liberty to open the unsealed letter. It had hardly made any sense – perhaps it was written in a code? – but Wibeke had suddenly gotten acutely sick and rushed outside! While Kethe dashed after her, Aenlinn put on her gauntlets, then carefully took the letter and read it. It only said:
“Have you thought about it yet? We are waiting. Do not forget you are one of us.”
Underneath the message was a row of strange runes. As soon as Aenlinn read them, she felt a sudden, uncontrollable urge to unleash her secret powers and burn things up. She managed to contain most of it, but heated a coin enough to light the letter on fire in moments, burning it to ashes.
Hunters and prey
Out in the corridor, Kethe caught a glimpse of Wibeke disappearing around the corner, followed by the man who was hanging around the corridor. Kethe gave pursuit, chasing them both downstairs and into the street.
Wibeke disappeared into a dead end while the man, though he appeared to have seen her, continued on down the street. Kethe followed him at a distance; a few blocks away, he met up with a group of people including one she had seen before: the witch-hunter Matthäus Hübkind. Kethe rushed back to the alleyway and found the terrified Wibeke hiding there, now sporting gray scales over half her face and one hand. Kethe managed to hide her in an empty loft upstairs and hurried back after Wernhart.
* * *
Only Marike and Wernhart had seen the letter ignite; Marike knew it was supposedly possible to bind a curse in writing to affect whoever read it. But why did it not affect both guards? And was it the curse that ignited the letter?
Kethe came back, met Wernhart in the corridor and told him about Wibeke and the witch-hunters. Two of the Kurfürstin’s knights came out of the antechamber and asked if they’d seen the missing guard. They denied it, and while the knights marched out to look Wernhart snuck out another way, snatching a coat and a cup of wine, and found Wibeke. Hidden by his coat and sprinkled with wine, he lead her through the Great Park and the Freiburg to Professor Bletzen’s quarters at the university campus to get her to safety there.
Wibeke didn’t understand what happened to her, but admitted she had had a small spot of scaly skin for years, but it hadn’t been spreading until now.
Meanwhile, at the opera…
Marike had helped Aenlinn recover from the shock, leading her out into the gallery and finding a drink and a place to sit down. Aenlinn said that she read the letter, felt strange and then the letter suddenly started to burn. Marike suspected that she wasn’t telling the whole truth but didn’t pressure her further.
They were interrupted by Kethe returning to warn them: the witch-hunter and his henchmen were on their way! They returned to the ducal box.
Intermission
The first act concluded and the curtain was lowered to thunderous applause. The audience begins to swarm out into the gallery and lobby, while the Gräfin and Kurfürstin went out to their antechamber to receive visits. Marike and Kethe moved outwards towards the salons, while Aenlinn and Courage stayed with the Gräfin.
Following Friedrich von Helstein and a couple of his father’s soldiers into a side corridor, Kethe found they had caught a man, one “Herr Schau”, that they apparently recognized and blamed for the ventriloquism prank. Friedrich was going to have the man thrown out the window (10 yards down to the stone pavement), but Kethe managed to talk him down from it, and instead his men dragged Schau out with them.
Marike, who had gone down to the lobby, saw the previously ejected engineer-apprentices Franz and Luna sneak back in; one of them also seemed to have something hidden under their coat. They looked very self-conscious when greeted, but she didn’t push them and they slipped into the auditorium.
The bowl in the potted plant
Some opera lackeys came into the antechamber to serve refreshments and light candles. Aenlinn noticed something odd about a potted plant in the corner and examined it discreetly. There turned out to be a hollow pit dug in it, in which a small bowl with some kind of herb mixture was smouldering. Its fumes had a faint sweetish scent that could only be smelled up close, but Aenlinn got slightly dizzy from smelling it – looks like someone was trying to drug them! She put out the mixture and opened a window.
The bomb scare
A gong announced the end of the interval, and five minutes later the curtain rose for the second act.
Not long after the start of the act, during a quiet passage after a big song number, the engineer-apprentices suddenly gave a loud shout and threw something looking much like a spherical bomb with a lit fuse at Lord Chancellor Speerman’s box. Their aim was off; it bounced off the railing and fell back into the auditorium. Chaos erupted as people begun to panic. The fuse burned out… but the “bomb” didn’t explode: instead, multicoloured firworks shot out through the touch-hole, going off in all direction.
The damage had been done, though; panic was sweeping the audience. The Kurfürstin got to her feet and, in a surprisingly robust voice, stilled the crowd, urging them to remain calm and reassuring them it was all an idiotic but harmless prank. “The culprits will be arrested and punished, rest assured. But now, we have an opera to enjoy, and I intend to finish watching it.” As she motioned to the audience to sit, they did so. She nodded to the conductor in the orchestra pit, who responded with a low bow and tapped his baton. The music swelled, and the performance resumed.
The Enemy Within: Remixed 
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