In which our friends make another enemy-of-my-enemy alliance, end the haunting of Pritzstock and uncover what was hidden.
Thursday, September 27th, 2512 (July 4th, 2023)
Skirmish at the camp
While Wernhart and Corporal Parzifal Tristan Ehrenberg kept watching their clearing from hiding, Aenlinn and Kethe lingered in the bushes some 20 yards from the newly discovered camp, trying to hear what was being said.
The red-haired Otto and the armoured warrior Gregor seemed to be the leaders of the group, saying something about “they must be after the same thing as us” and “we’ve seen four but now they’ve split up”. The group quickly got ready and started moving up the path together.
Aenlinn and Kethe tried to sneak up on them as they passed, but they were spotted and after they ignored Otto’s order to surrender a fight ensued. Several people shot and missed each other; Aenlinn managed to drop the horned mutant with a thrown dagger to the knee before engaging the armoured Gregor, who’d fired his pistol (but missed) and then drawn his longsword, and a goat-legged mutant with a long spear. Meanwhile, Kethe was facing the scaly scout and the dog-headed mutant, while Otto hung back muttering incantations.
The adventurers struggled on, but their more numerous enemies soon got the upper hand; Kethe caught a brutal axe blow, which failed to cut through her mail but did crack a couple of her ribs; and Aenlinn was tripped to the ground by an eye-watering blow to the shin. Once more Otto yelled at them to surrender, and finding themselves at a disadvantage they saw no option but to yield.
* * *
Wernhart and Parzifal, meanwhile, had heard the gunshots and mounted the horse together to ride to the rescue. They rode straight across the clearing; on the way Wernhart caught a glimpse of a crow flying out of the brush by the hillside.
A tense parlay
Meanwhile, Aenlinn and Kethe had been disarmed and escorted back to camp. Otto and Gregor wanted to know what they were doing in the forest. The adventurers explained that they were after the crows haunting Pritzstock and wanted to find out what was behind it. Gregor, in particular, was suspicious and believed they were obviously also “looking for the stone”. What stone? Eventually, Otto was convinced they didn’t actually know what Gregor was referring to and becames more thoughtful.
Just then, Wernhart and Parzifal appeared, but the cultists had heard them coming and a couple of the mutants stopped them; they were allowed to hang their weapons on the horse and accompany them unarmed to the camp. Wernhart also got to patch up the wounded.
The cultists, as it turned out, couldn’t care less about the haunting of the village but were looking for a bounty of wyrdstone they had reason to believe to be hidden in the cave. Aenlinn asked if Hans sent them. Otto shook his head, at first surprised and even more suspicious that she knew his name, but then he in turn seemed to realise who she was. “Of course,” he said to Gregor with a nasty grin. “She’s Hans’ little project.” Aenlinn spat on the ground; they dropped the subject and returned to what was going on in the woods.
The cultists had been watching the cave for some time and seen two people there. One of them, apparently some sort of magician, controlled the crows and regularly sent them out; the other, apparently his bodyguard, had to be the mercenary the adventurers saw go inside – he usually goes hunting for a couple of hours a day.
Despite their deep mutual suspicion, the groups agreed on a brief alliance to achieve their common goal of taking out the wizard in the cave. Gregor grunted unhappily about the adventurers wanting the wizard alive in order to find out why the village was targeted by his crows, but Otto agreed in exchange for the cultists having the pick of loot in the cave.
Parzifal seemed shocked by both the alliance and the adventurers’ level of familiarity with mutants and Chaos worshippers, but he seemed to realise the desperate situation and grimly aquiesced to the plan.
The wizard in the woods
The nine allies – the horned mutant got to stay in the camp with his wounded knee – returned to the clearing, a walk of maybe ten minutes.
As soon as the group began to advance into the clearing – the cultists taking the left flank and Parzifal staying on the far right – the screeches of the crows filled the air as they flew at the intruders, soon followed by great flocks of screeching birds from all directions. Several of the mutants and adventurers had lit torches to fend off the crows with; Aenlinn swept with her shield as earlier. The crows shied away somewhat from the torch fire, but it was still a tempest of ripping claws and pecking beaks.
In the bushes at the hillside, they caught a glimpse of a man in a long dark red coat with long, matted hair and beard and madly staring eyes. He muttered and gestured, and suddenly the scaly mutant dropped his crossbow and fell to his knees, clutching his head in agony. The bodyguard charged out of the bushes and went at him with his poleaxe, but he managed to desperately dodge the blow.
Otto spat out an incantation and made a gesture as if throwing something at the man in red, who threw his head back and staggered backwards as if struck on the forehead by an invisible projectile.
The bodyguard, who had started to look around and realise just how outnumbered he and his master were, threw his poleaxe to the ground and backed away with raised hands. The man in red wasn’t giving up so easily; despite appearing half stunned, he drew a rapier and its blade burst into flames. But it didn’t get to do him much good; Aenlinn rushed him with her shield in front of her and knocked him to the ground. As he was overpowered, she ripped a strange necklace – perhaps a magical amulet – off him.
The cave and what they found there
The murders of crows had dispersed and the battle was over. The adventurers tied up the two men; Otto and his men were not interested in them but wanted to investigate the cave at once, and the adventurers, preferring to keep an eye on them, followed inside while Parzifal guarded the prisoners outside.
Otto led the way into the winding cave passage. He pointed out a skull with a candle on it that was surely an alarm at least, maybe a trap; they all prudently gave it a wide berth.
In the cave was a pair of makeshift beds, stores of iron rations and water barrels, and a larger chamber where a dozen or so crows in various stages of decay were laid out in a strange pattern. Otto and his henchmen started rummaging around and apparently found some fragments of warpstone in the pits under the crows. They carefully collected all of it they could find, and then took their leave and went off with their loot. The adventurers weren’t sorry to be rid of them, but couldn’t help but wonder if their getting away with this prize might mean trouble in the future… and if so, for whom.
Aenlinn asked Wernhart if he recognised the symbol on the amulet. He wasn’t sure; it looked like an alchemical symbol, perhaps connected to the element of fire. They’d have to let Marike have a look at it later; for now, Wernhart got to keep it and put it away.
The questioning
The man in red refused to answer any questions, or even say his name, merely staring sullenly at the ground. His bodyguard, Kurt Schultz, was more cooperative and offered to tell the adventurers all he knew in exchange for walking off free. He told them that:
- The man in red was named Dieter and was some sort of academic from Middenheim (and apparently also a wizard).
- Dieter hired him to be his bodyguard, forage for food and generally make himself useful during the expedition.
- The crows were already in the cave when they got there. Kurt claimed to have no idea what they were doing away from the cave.
- Dieter was a bit of a nutter, and had been getting weirder every day.
Kethe suspected Kurt wasn’t telling them all he knew, and she and Aenlinn pressed him further: what he had told them wasn’t enough, so they should probably let him explain it to the magistrate in Middenheim instead. After some further back and forth, he folded and revealed that Dieter was using the crows as part of some kind of vendetta against Pritzstock – or rather, against the richest farmer there (that must mean Henri-Philippe Rocheteau). Apparently he wanted to avenge his brother’s death. The adventurers settled for that and released Kurt, who quickly packed his things and left.
The adventurers settled down for a lunch break; they also fed Dieter and again tried to pry some answers out of him. They had begun to suspect that his brother and the missing wine merchant Stefan Maranauer might be one and the same, and when Aenlinn brought Stefan’s name up Dieter flew into a rage. He wouldn’t give any coherent explanation but ranted wildly about how his brother “died slowly in agony”, “he speaks to me”, and that he knew Rocheteau was to blame.
Back to Pritzstock
The adventurers and Parzifal returned to Pritzstock with their prisoner. They decided to keep their discovery quiet for now; when they arrived night was falling, and under cover of darkness they took Dieter to Parzifal’s farm on the outskirts of the village. Parzifal gathered a couple of his militiamen to keep the prisoner under guard; one of them observed that Dieter looked an awful lot like Stefan. Aenlinn emphasised that the prisoner had to be kept absolutely secret until they had figured out what was going on here.
* * *
Parzifal stayed with the prisoner and the adventurers return to their loft at Rocheteau’s farm, where Marike was still working at her field laboratory. They filled her and Courage in on what had happened and held a council of war.
Elisabet’s secret
With Marike’s help, they managed to get a chance to talk privately to Elisabet Rocheteau, Henri-Philippe’s wife. When Aenlinn asked her about Stefan, she flinched, then neutrally confirmed that she and her husband knew Stefan Maranauer, who was a popular visitor in the village. However, she was noticeably upset, and after some patient, gentle coaxing, she admitted she and Stefan had a love affair a few years ago, until when he suddenly disappeared.
Did her husband know about it? No, she didn’t think so… or she didn’t know. He never confronted her about it, but he did become noticeably colder and more bitter towards her after Stefan disappeared. Maybe he knew anyway.
The night before Friday, September 28th
Rocheteau’s cellar
That night, Aenlinn and Kethe snuck down into Rocheteau’s wine cellar. Behind one of the large wine barrels, they discovered a section of fairly recent brickwork. Kethe dashed off to get Parzifal, while Aenlinn settled down to wait and lit a cigar.
They hadn’t managed to stay completely quiet, and soon a wide-awake and rather irate Henri-Philippe cames down inquiring what they were doing in his cellar in the middle of the night. Aenlinn answered with a counter-question: was that wall section newly built? The vintner replied that yes, he had to seal off an alcove the other year because of damp in the cellar, but what did that have to do with anything? He asked her, politely but testily, to leave his basement immediately. Aenlinn, who saw no sign of damp in the cellar, refused: this was part of their investigation. Cursing in Bretonnian, Henri-Philippe stormed back up the stairs.
Kethe returned bringing Parzifal, a sledgehammer and a pickaxe. She sent him down to Aenlinn with the tools, staying in the stable herself in order to forestall any sudden escapes.
Rocheteau met Parzifal at the door and angrily demanded that he eject “this crazy woman” from his wine cellar. Parzifal calmly replied that he would investigate and deal with the matter, and went downstairs. With joint efforts, he and Aenlinn managed to move the wine barrel and demolish the recently-built wall.
Inside the sealed alcove, they found a desiccated corpse with one hand chained to the wall, next to a wine barrel – a cask of Pritzstock Riesling, the local wine – and a ladle. No facial features were recognisable any more, but the skull still has a shock of blonde hair, not unlike Dieter’s.
After the fervently protesting Henri-Philippe had been put in manacles, they examined the remains more closely. In their pockets they found a letter, partially destroyed by mold but partially readable.
“My dearest Stefan,
How much I have missed you! How much longer can keep up the pretence? One day we will surely be uncovered. I hardly dare look at you when you visit, for fear that my eyes will betray my heart. Can you not see the way I tremble when our hands meet in greeting? Do my eyes not follow you when “
Just then, Elisabet came down to the cellar and screamed upon seeing the corpse. “Stefan!” The adventurers had to stop her from furiously flying at her handcuffed husband.
Parzifal led Henri-Philippe away to another room and Elisabet calmed down somewhat. When she was told there was another prisoner and that he was Stefan’s brother, she demanded to see him. When she saw Dieter, she blanched as though she’d seen a ghost. He was the spitting image of Stefan; apparently they were twin brothers.
Friday, September 28th
All’s well that ends well?
The next day, the adventurers gathered the villagers and assured them that the danger was over and the harvest could be safely continued, letting Parzifal take most of the credit and glory in public. Parzifal, in turn, undertook to take the imprisoned Dieter and Henri-Philippe to Middenheim to stand trial there. The adventurers also sent with him a short report to give to Marshal von Genscher.
Elisabet happily paid out the generous bonus her husband promised the adventurers and explained that they were welcome to stay as her guests for as long as they wished.
While Kethe did need some rest to heal her cracked ribs, she wasn’t in too poor shape to ride, and the adventurers agreed they’d prefer to take a longer rest in the next proper town. So they gratefully accepted Elisabet’s bonus, politely declined her offer to stay longer, and with the Pritzstock mystery solved and settled, rode east once more. They should make Krudenwald by Mittherbst, a few days from now.
Next: Carrion Call
The Enemy Within: Remixed 
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