In which our friends dispel a baleful influence on their comrades and make some disturbing observations.
Not alone
As the sun was setting, Dmitri still guarding the mine entrance, Emmelinde suddenly smelled something on the air. She pointed silently up towards the hills, where three shapes were creeping closer between the trees. The adventurers caught a glimpse of one of them; he had legs and cloves like a goat, a face only vaguely human and short horns on his forehead. Beastmen?
The creatures – armed with spears and bows – moved slowly towards the mine, not having noticed the adventurers yet thanks to the favourable wind. The adventurers quickly retreated further into the woods. One of the beastmen seemed to be looking at something he was carrying – a map, or something else? After a while, they crept back up the hill and disappeared into the woods.
What happened to Dmitri?
While the others stayed hidden, Marike and Wernhart walked up to Dmitri. He recognized them, but seemed disoriented and not quite himself. Marike hugged him and asked how they ended up here. Dmitri’s memories were obviously blurred, but he still remembered that he and Zima made a temporary alliance with Hans, a sketchy fellow who was also an enemy of the Hand, and took part in a raid on the laboratory. It went poorly and they became prisoners instead, but eventually “our friend” Gustav Klöcker got them free and asked them to join him here and help. The expedition was apparently looking for some ancient treasure or similar in the mine. There was apparently something dangerous in the mine, and the others had gone back to prepare themselves to neutralize it. Skarabus certainly claimed that he has it all under control.
Marike was pretty sure that Dmitri was under some kind of unnatural influence, but not exactly what. Maybe he was drugged – possibly with something that has weakened his resilience to other influences? Maybe even enchanted.
Skirmish in the woods
Kethe noticed movement in the woods once more and quietly warned the others. The beastmen were apparently on the way back whence they came. Kethe, Courage, Emmelinde and Klaus hurried to intercept them and managed to catch them between their two groups and kill them after a quick and brutal fight; none of the adventurers was seriously hurt, but Courage only narrowly avoided being skewered by an arrow.
Two of the beastmen were human-like with goat-like legs and horns; the third was furry and hornless with a dog-like face. All three bore the mark of the Seeing Circle painted on their equipment or bodies. The adventurers hid the bodies; Emmelinde agreed to follow their tracks back to see if they were scouting for a larger group.
“For to Dispel a Baleful Influence”
Meanwhile, Marike and Wernhart had been getting nowhere with Dmitri. When Kethe and Courage returned and said they’d encountered scouts for the Seeing Circle, he perked up. “Were there any more of them? Did any get away?”
Wernhart managed to trick Dmitri into drinking a dose of the bluish elixir “For to Dispel a Baleful Influence and Balance Unhealthy Humours” (one of those looted from the laboratory). The huntsman first became nauseous, but then his head seemed to begin to clear. His memories were still blurred, be he confirmed that they were prisoners, that Klöcker freed them somehow, and that they had to help him with this mission before going their separate ways. The mission seemed to be about wyrdstone – at any rate Klöcker and his friends needed more of that.
Dmitri said his companions needed to be warned if enemies were nearby; the adventurers quickly offered to do so for him so he could stay on his post. As they were leaving, Marike looked back and noticed him pulling out something – about the size of a pocket watch – from a pouch, looking at it and then putting it back.
They went only to the crest of the wooded hill in between the mine and the village to look down on the latter. They could see various people moving about, including the visiting expedition.
As Etelka Herzen and Gustav Klöcker disappeared into a stable, Father Skarabus went into the church and left Zima on guard outside. The page and the two henchmen were moving through the village; the armored woman, Leutnant Schwerter, was pacing back and forth outside the stable.
The miniature portrait
They decided they had to neutralise Dmitri to truly free him from whatever was influencing him. Marike went back, talking about how worried they had been and hugged him once more, this time stabbing a sleeping dart into his neck. Not her proudest moment, but it was for his own good. The sleeping poison worked and the tall Kislevite collapsed.
Searching his pockets and pouches, they found the object he picked up earlier: a heavy wooden medallion containing a miniature portrait of Gustav Klöcker. Marike could sense nothing from the portrait now but suspected it had been enchanted – and/or alchemically treated – and already made its effect.
They tied up and gagged the unconscious Dmitri and carried him to a hidden cave Klaus had found earlier on. They set a fire and burned the portrait medallion in it; it burned brightly, with a heavy and oddly-coloured smoke.
The spell is broken
As the adventurers watched from hiding, the Hand’s expedition returned to the mine, carrying mining equipment and a couple of heavy boxes. They noticed Dmitri was gone and briefly looked around for him, but eventually disappeared into the mine (they seemed to be in a hurry) – except for Zima, whom they left on guard outside! She circled around the mine entrance, apparently looking for Dmitri.
Marike and Wernhart came out to approach her. They didn’t dare try to repeat the drink trick, so Marike had to go straight for the sleeping-dart maneouver. Zima was suspicious, but not enough to prevent being put to sleep. They carried her back to the cave, burned the similar miniature portrait she was carrying and tied her up.
Finally, Dmitri woke up. He was appalled to learn about the enchanted portrait – that was, indeed, what hade made him and Zima believe Klöcker to be their friend. He was very relieved to hear it had been destroyed and seemed to be regaining his senses.
Zima also woke up eventually and they got her to drink. When she was back to her own self, she was very unhappy being deceived and bewitched. She didn’t know much more than Dmitri but could confirm that Skarabus was not a real priest – “not even a Curian” – but a sorcerer doing his rituals to summon spirits and bind them to service. Klöcker and Etelka had set up a temporary laboratory in a stable; neither Dmitri nor Zima had been allowed in there, but the alchemists had spent a lot of time in there preparing something.
Zima got to her feet, her hand on her rapier-hilt, muttering about how it seemed to have fallen upon her once more, as it had now and then, to ease various evil men of their lives… but then her knees folded and she collapsed again. Both she and Dmitri seemed to be exhausted and in shock after the sorcery was lifted.
The enemy is coming
Emmelinde came back and reported: yes, there were quite a lot more of them – several dozen at least, both beastmen of various kinds and some humans, many of them bearing the mark of the Seeing Circle. They were camped in a large cave a couple of hours’ march away, but they seemed ready to move on soon. The adventurers wondered if Hans may have been involved, but if he was, Emmelinde hadn’t seen him – she didn’t recognize his description. The apparent leader was a tall human in heavy armour and a horned helmet – but oddly enough with bare arms. This sounded like Harjolf Skoll, the Chaos warrior that the adventurers had met and briefly allied with in Castle Wittgenstein.
Into the village
Kethe, Courage and Marike went to the village to investigate the laboratory and to warn the villagers about the incoming horde. Meanwhile, Wernhart stayed with Dmitri and Zima in the cave while Emmelinde and Klaus watched the mine and path for approaching enemies.
Getting into the village unseen was pretty much impossible, so they headed straight in. They warned the first person they met – a small skinny old man – about the beastmen on the way, and he wanted them to come and tell everyone. Marike stayed a few steps behind in the hope of being forgotten and unseen in the semi-darkness.
They got to meet the mine-owner Johann Mulderbreck, a thoughtful, gray-bearded gentleman – the expedition’s host and the apparent leader of the village. Kethe warned them that a herd of beastmen was on its way to the village and the mine – perhaps as close as two hours away.
Mulderbreck explained the village itself was vulnerable, especially with all the non-combatants, but they had a defensible refuge some way up in the hills they could fall back to. A miner was sent to warn thmoved belongings for the evacuation into the hills.
The laboratory in the stable
Meanwhile, Marike and Courage slipped away towards the stable. Courage quickly picked the padlock placed on the door and they crept inside.
In the otherwise disused stable, a temporary field laboratory had been set up with a large brazier, lanterns and two tables of instruments and ingredients. There was also an easel in the corner, and on a table next to it a stack of unsorted papers, apparently a mixture of notes and sketches.
Marike curiously started leafing through the sketches. One of them was going to be a big panoramic picture of a great city, with some kind of giant creature resting underneath it and seeming to start moving and waking up – or was it perhaps shackled and starting to break free? The sketch was too rough to see clearly, but Marike still got an unpleasant feeling from it.
Even more unpleasant was the most detailed sketch. It depicted, in highly realistic detail, a beast that looked like a mixture of a bat’s and a human’s skeleton; it reminded both Marike and Courage unpleasantly of the appearance the demon Gideon had briefly assumed in Bogenhafen, before being driven off. There were also scribbled notes on the back of the paper:
“Dreamed about him again. Who is he? Different faces, but the same eyes, the same smile…”
The Enemy Within: Remixed 
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