In which our friends continue investigating the mysterious haunting of Pritzstock, secure an odd sort of compass, and come upon some strange people in the woods.
Wednesday, September 26th (June 12th, 2023)
The field lab
Marike decided that if they were likely to be stuck here for a few days, she might as well go ahead and rig up her field lab properly so she could prepare a few new batches of the necessary elixirs. She busied herself with this for the evening and much of the next day.
Supper at Rocheteau’s
In the evening, the adventurers supped with the Rocheteaus; they were served a sort of smoked-fish casserole, a little odd but not untasty at all. Henri-Philippe Rocheteau asked whether they’d discovered something already; he, like the others, had heard about the dead crow Aenlinn shot down.
While Marike was charming Henri-Philippe and keeping him distracted, Aenlinn chatted with his wife Elisabet. Was she from this village? And how did she meet the vintner?
Elisabet told them she grew up in the neighbouring village of Grubentreich, where her parents were farmers. Henri-Philippe came here as a merchant, but when he found the land here promising for cultivation, he bought some land in the area and settled down, and that’s when they got married. She was subdued and reserved, and Aenlinn and Kethe got the impression that she was depressed.
She also told them a little more about who lived in the village:
- The oldest villagers – who might remember more of the stories about old battlefields and graves – were Justus Kallmann, widow Julie Klop and old mother Semmelweiss, all in their 70s.
- The village idiot Wuder came here as a migrant worker ten years ago and stayed on as a farm hand, but a few years ago he turned “strange”. Elisabet seemed uncomfortable talking more about him.
Gossip and speculation
After supper, Kethe, Aenlinn and Wernhart took a walk around the village and ran into Elene Surhardt, Elisabet’s sister. Aenlinn bluntly asked her how her sister was really doing; Elene invited them to talk more privately. Aenlinn and Wernhart followed her inside while Kethe continued on.
Elene told them that Elisabet hadn’t been happy for a long time. She used to travel quite a bit on her own in the past, but it hadn’t happened in years now. Elene didn’t really know how much it mattered that Elisabet and Henri-Philippe didn’t have any children. The marriage was happy in the beginning, but in later years things seemed to have soured between them.
Elene’s husband Oli joined in and the conversation drifted on to rumours and theories about the strange events going on now.
- Some believed that the dead had been disturbed by the settling of new farmland and woodland-burning going on near Holzbek.
- Before Henri-Philippe came here and started the wine-growing, villagers here mostly did subsistence farming.
- Rocheteau buying part of the village didn’t seem to have caused any bad blood, especially since he was willing to settle in the village himself. The wine-growin has made Pritzstock much wealthier than before.
- On the whole, this has been a very peaceful area for years. The most dramatic event Oli could recall in recent years was when Stefan Maranauer, another handsome wine merchant, paid a visit and then just vanished on the road from the village. His horse was found on the road the morning after, but his body was never found.
The fortunate Wuder
Meanwhile, Kethe scouted around. The fields were quiet, with no crows to be seen or heard. In the southern parts of the village, she met the village idiot Wuder, wandering aimlessly by himself. He quickly became friendly when offered a piece of sausage, and they chatted for a bit. Kethe asked if he wasn’t afraid to be out late so close to the woods? Wuder shook his head; he wasn’t afraid of the woods – or of anything, really. He was always lucky, see, since that one time he got lost in the woods and found “a thing” that brought him good fortune. Kethe tried to get him to talk more about it, but he just winked knowingly with his good eye, thanked her for the sausage and went on his way.
Night falls
The adventurers reconvened in their night quarters and exchanged information. They suspected that Wuder’s mysterious finding might have something to do with the odd occurrences. Perhaps they could get him drunk and search his pockets? Or maybe ask hem where he got lost and found his “thing”?
Marike, meanwhile, had analysed the crow carcass and found small traces of warpstone on it. It had been a long day, and everyone went to bed.
Thursday, September 27th
The last witnesses
The next morning brought a mild autumn rain. After a solid breakfast at the Rocheteaus’, Marike returned to the laboratory while Kethe, Aenlinn and Wernhart headed to the Kallmann farm to speak to the farmhand Knud Gräber, one of the witnesses they haven’t questioned yet.
He told them that he and his colleague Sigismund Halsbret were in the woods gathering firewood when they saw the “skeleton bird” for the first time, eleven days ago. Then he thought he saw it again when a whole flock of crows flew straight at them when they were last out in the fields two days ago.
Knud was surprised to find Sigismund gone. Sigismund was apparently “from the city”, so when Kethe asked if he has any idea where his comrade has gone, Knud supposed he’d just gone home.
* * *
At the Baldurich farm, farmer Nicolas Baldurich greeted the party and sent for his son Seel. The boy told them that a few weeks ago, when he was out playing at the edge of the woods south of the village, he saw a bird with a skull as its head, howling and screaming. The adventurers noted that this seemed to be the only time anyone had seen the birds south of the village, otherwise they all appeared to have come from the north.
Aenlinn also took the opportunity to chat a little with the farmer’s old mother Susanna, who had her own little cottage on the farm. Without looking up much from her knitting, she remarked that it wouldn’t surprise her if this haunting is a punishment for some undiscovered sin or wickedness in the village. “Things like that will out sooner or later, and it only gets worse if you don’t take care of them yourself.” Kethe, apropos of nothing, mentioned the missing wine merchant Stefan. Mother Susanna remembered him well, she chuckled: he was a handsome fellow, popular with the younger ladies in particular. “And he had the sense not to outstay his welcome.”
Another attack
The conversation was interrupted by cries of alarm from the north end of the village. The farmer Ansgar Bleuler had been attacked by a large flock of crows; the birds were flying off to the north just as help was arriving. He was bloodied and shocked, but has escaped with minor injuries; Wernhart quickly and efficiently patched him up.
Corporal Parzifal Tristan Ehrenberg, who arrived breathlessly at the same time as the adventurers, cursed the fleeing enemy in frustration. Taking a long look at the forested hills north of the village, he wondered aloud to himself whether it might be a good idea to pursue them. Not a bad idea, the adventurers thought, but they wanted to gather a little more intelligence first. Aenlinn and Wernhart picked up some food and went to look for Wuder.
They soon found him, joined him sheltering from the rain in a barn and tried to pry more information out of him. He didn’t seem to recognise the crows from before; it was probably on the north side of the village that he got lost. Could he find the place where he found his “luck” again? “Oh, I could, but it’s a secret. Can’t show it to just anyone, you know.” They tried in vain to persuade him, but he was adamant and they had to give it up for now.
The expedition north
The adventurers nevertheless decided to make an expedition north into the woods and see what they could find; if they got up on the highest hilltop, some six miles north of the village, they should at least have a good view of the area and be able to see things that couldn’t be seen from here – maybe even an old ruin or two? Parzifal eagerly agreed to go along; his four militia guards weren’t as keen on the idea, so he left them to posted around the village. The party packed a couple of horses and set off north into the forest.
When they first move into the woods, Kethe thought she glimpsed something red high in the trees. They saw nothing more, but after a while they sensed something flapping behind them. Were they being followed?
Bird catchers
The adventurers decided to try to lure the suspected bird into attacking and hopefully get a chance to capture it “alive”. Kethe left the group and went down to a stream as if to drink, while the others stayed ready and as hidden as possible.
Something landed in a nearby tree. Kethe discreetly signalled to the others, trying to appear very busy with something she found on the ground. Aenlinn tried to sneak forward, but the forest was full of branches to step on. The crow took off from the branch swooped down at Kethe, who managed to catch it and herself up in her cloak, as dozens of more crows came flying from all directions. As Aenlinn and Parzifal fought off the swarm of crows as best they could, Kethe held the captured red-eyed crow, still wrapped up in her cloak. Finally it stopped moving and, like before, the flock of crows quickly dispersed and flew off in different directions.
The crow compass
Kethe carefully picked up the captured crow, half of whose head was a bare skull. The red glow in its eye sockets had gone out, and it was completely still… no, wait, it was wriggling a bit! As she moved, she noticed it seemed to be turning in a consistent direction like a compass needle, roughly in the direction up the hill. Did it want to “go home”, perhaps?
Following the crow like a compass seemed as good an idea as any, so they set off again following where its beak pointed. The woods were heavy and sometimes pathless, but soon they were moving steadily up the highest hill.
The clearing at the hilltop
Finally, after a few hours, they reached a flat clearing in front of a steep rocky knoll near the crest of the great hill they’d been climbing. In front of the knoll was a row of heavy bushes, and the crow’s beak was pointing straight at them. Could there be a hidden entrance or something?
As the adventurers were getting ready to tie up their horses and advance, they sensed that they weren’t alone in the woods. Kethe heard someone moving from the east, and Aenlinn caught a glimpse of someone in the woods a little way to the northwest – it looked like a human figure standing almost motionless. Someone else spying on the place?
Aenlinn began moving through the edge of the forest towards the figure. Apparently sensing they’d been discovered, they suddenly turned and scurried off further into the woods. “Watch right,” Kethe whispered and then set off, joining Aenlinn in pursuit. Wernhart and Parzifal ducked down by their horses behind some bushes and spruce trees and kept watch.
Soon the sounds of footsteps and broken branches were louder, and a heavily-armed man, a mercenary by the look of it, came out of the woods carrying a couple of snared rabbits over his shoulder. He looked around and then disappeared into the bushes in front of the rocky knoll. Parzifal wanted to follow him but Wernhart helds him back. “Unless you happen to be a hero from some legend, we should probably wait for our hardened veteran to come back first.” Parzifal reluctantly agreed to continue to lie low and scout.
The game is afoot
Aenlinn and Kethe pursued the retreating scout through the woods. Now they saw it was a man with a crossbow, and as Kethe tripped on a tree root and loudly crashed into Aenlinn, he turned and glances at them – to their astonishment, they saw the man’s face and hands appeared to be covered in grey-greenish scales. He took off at a full sprint; Aenlinn and Kethe gave chase, but they didn’t have a chance to keep up with the mutant, who seems to be quite at home in these woods.
Although they couldn’t catch up and eventually lose sight of him, they could follow his trail. They noticed a thin streak of smoke from the other side of a ridge, slowed down and crept slowly up towards the crest. On the other side of the hill they saw a small camp with a few tents in a clearing.
In the camp, they saw several armed men – they counted to six – who appeared to be getting ready for battle. A red-haired man in a fine fur-brimmed coat appeared to be the one giving orders; standing next to him was a heavily-armed warrior in a brigandine and sallet. The other four men were armed but unarmoured, and all had visible mutations – apart from the scaly scout, one of them was covered in short fur with a dog-like head, one had a pointed horn-like bony thing growing out of the top of his head, and one had small horns on his forehead and goat-like legs and cloven hooves. With a choked curse, Aenlinn realised she had seen some of these mutants before – in the Seeing Circle’s expedition to Oberholzbek.
The Enemy Within: Remixed 
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