Episode 0.6: Slaughter in Spittlefield Report

General Summary

Spin-offs & Sidequests One-shot - “Slaughter in Spittlefeld” July 25, 2020 Post-Game Notes   PC’s JeHan Schuster, Sleuth (Andy) Egon Rothenstein, Boat-Hand (Josh) Fritz Lander, Apprentice Artist (Sergio)   Geheimnistag, 2512 I.C.   The night before the adventure, 33 Vorgeheim, novice sleuth JeHan and his partner-in-shadows Egon have a drink with a potential client to discuss a job. The foppish and friendly Fritz, recently arrived from Stimmigen, is on the trail of a dwarf by the name of Thurgrim. This naughty dwarf apparently absconded from a jobsite with a great deal of money and is likely now in Ubersreik. The last thing any of the adventurers remember before waking up the next morning is having drinks at The Docker’s Arms along the riverfront…   The trio wake up with heads pounding -- both from a drug-induced hangover, and the sound of nails getting hammered into wooden boards. They wake up on the floor of a flophouse in Spittlefeld, a decaying five-story tenement in Ubersreik’s rookery.   A massive ogre, Gino, is among a crowd in the lobby yelling at the people outside the building who are barricading up the tenement.

• Voices outside suggest that this building is the epicenter of some sort of plague, and a cordon sanitaire has been established to prevent its spread (likely ending with the death of all inside).
• When Gino sees the PC’s, he comes over and demands 5d apiece for letting them sleep here and not eating them. Apparently they were dumped here last night by two dwarves.

Fritz starts passing around his pipe and some weirdroot, and the trio make some new friends.   A resident named Nikolas (who is enamored of Fritz’s boots) reveals details about this plague, answers some questions, and suggests that the dwarves who brought them here, Srelum and Srulec, are criminals.

• If they attempt to leave the building, they will get cut down by crossbows.
• The sickness comes on quick: fever, neck bruising, death. An average of four people/day contract it.
• Gino is especially fond of the orphans on the second and third floors, and will protect them at all costs (even though he can’t himself get up and down the stairs).

Another denizen, a young boy named Dimzad, had been eyeballing the PC’s. When he moves to leave the common room, JeHan waylays him.

• He was paid a shilling to make sure the trio didn’t leave the building, and was asked to alert the dwarves when the PC’s woke up.
• Tells PC’s first to die was Argus Finkel, four weeks ago.

A third denizen, a woman named Bella (who also digs Fritz’s boots), joins the group with some additional information.

• Srelum was screaming at some elf who lives on the top floor this morning… saying he was going to kill him.
• The young Tilean doctor who came to investigate the plague is now sick herself.

  Dimzad takes the PC’s to see Doktor Alexandra Giliani, barely conscious in her room. Her skin is pale, her neck bruised, and a horrible wheezing sound emanates from her chest.

• JeHan gets the short straw and enters her room. She calls him over and rasps out something about her diary containing the answer… before falling unconscious.
• JeHan searches the room and finds her doctor bag, already rummaged through, but no diary.
• Dimzad suspects that one of the orphans, a little sticky-fingered shit named Trinity, stole it.
• Bella confirms that the doktor was always scribbling away in that notebook.

  PC’s decide that the only way to survive this alive is to solve the riddle of the plague, so they head to the orphanage to see about finding the diary.

• Dimzad introduces them to Annika, who runs the two floors of orphanage.
• None of her kids have the plague, but a number of them are sick. With the quarantine, she can’t get medicine. But those shady dwarves have some… Bring her some medicine, and she’ll help find the diary.

  Dimzad was trying to tell the dwarves on the fourth floor that the PC’s were awake, but seems nervous.

• 
  Fritz knocks loudly, and he is greeted by a loaded blunderbus.
• Sreluc, the older brother, is looking for his younger brother Srulem. Suspects the PC’s of being agents of the Dawihafen.
• Confirms that Sreluc and Srulem were at the Docker’s Arms last night, and when they heard these three talking about Thurgrim, they drugged them and brought them back here to interrogate. Then the quarantine happened and they had other things to worry about..
• Fritz turns on the charm: might have been a misunderstanding. The brothers are part of a disgraced dwarven family -- a disgrace brought upon by their father, named Thurgrim, squandering the family’s fortune on a misguided venture with an Ubersreik family named Stiegler.
• Sreluc agrees to provide analgesic if they help find his brother.

  JeHan’s tracking skills kick in, and they find Srulem in an empty apartment, barely conscious and with neck bruising (but no fever)

• They also find a box with a mirror, comb, and two vials of similarly colored liquid
• Srulem claims to have been attacked; Sreluc goes nuts and stomps up the stairs to kill ol’ “knife-ears.”
• PC’s bring Srulem back to his apartment and try to get more information from him
• Sreluc returns (despite an attempt at locking him out) and, as promised, he turns over some medicine.

  A grateful Annika receives the medicine and produces the diary.

• It may or may not have been in Trinity’s possession… He’s really a good boy, you see…
• The diary is written in Tilean. Who can translate? Probably that weird elf in the penthouse.

  Elf finally admits the PC’s, after being assured that they are not in the company of the dwarves.

• Eluharath Wavecrest appears to be a curiously ancient elf who at various points in his life traveled all over the Old World… and his home is a dusty, disheveled collection of curiosities from every corner of the map.
• Fritz charm again: sure, let me peruse this diary. And join me in a drink while we’re waiting.
• When he comes to the last few pages of the diary, the elf blanches in horror and starts shoving away the PC’s. He starts looking for weapons to defend himself.
• The plague is common blood rot. Normally not easily transmitted, but, in this case…
• It’s being spread by a vampire.
• The vampire must be living in the basement and hunting through the tenement via the crawlspace.

  PC’s get zero help from the other tenants as they try to rally troops to search the basement. They do have two lanterns (and an extra tin of lamp oil), and they enter the labyrinthine basement…

• JeHan takes point and tries to pick up the vampire’s trail.
• PC’s spring a room full of rat traps. Fritz someone bounds clear.
• JeHan cracks open a hole in the floorboards, but they all avoid falling.
• A “wall” turns out to be a moldy mattress that nearly incapacitates the PC’s with its spore cloud.
• They find an old decomposing victim.
• They find a box of stolen (?) cutlery, probably silver. Egon and Fritz each take one of the steak knives.
• JeHan picks up the trail...
• and they run right into the vampire woman, dressed in what used to be nice clothes, as she is hunting for rats. She screams, runs up and through a wall…
• Time for the showdown.

  The PC’s corner the vampire in a dark part of the basement and engage:

• 
  Note to selves: vampires regenerate
• Vampires are fast and fierce, and can run up walls when cornered
• The silver knives, when used as improvised weapons, prevent regeneration
• Egon gets his ear ripped off by the vamp
• She is distracted by the blood and tries to feed
• JeHan and Fritz take advantage and attack
• After knocking her down, Egon goes in for the killing blow:
• He completely cuts off her bicep and is showered in tarrish blood
• When he tries to avoid the bloodbath, he somehow stumbles directly into the spray and takes it all over this face. In his mouth, his eyes, in his nose. What’s left of his ears, even.
• While Egon saws off the vampire head and stuffs it in an old grain sack, Fritz and JeHan search around a bit.
• There’s an excavated passageway in the back that leads to some tunnels… and another hidden passage back into the basement… and a jail cell? A mystery for another day, perhaps.

  The PC’s convince the guards outside that they’ve solved the plague and have proof: severed vamp head, diary…

• A masked plague doctor approaches with armed guards to verify.
• The tenement is saved!
• Egon definitely has blood rot.

  Aftermath:   The combination of Fritz’s charm, JeHan’s tracking, and Egon’s bravery (not to mention bodily sacrifice) prevails!   Egon spends three days convalescing and will recover.   Fritz has to decide whether to keep looking for Thurgrim or to go back to his original plan of trying to find an artistic patron in the big city.   JeHan wants to build off his successful investigative effort at Spittlefeld and garner some new sleuthing work.

Rewards Granted

XP: JeHan: 150 Egon: 150 Fritz: 150   25 points for securing medicine and helping Annika’s orphans 25 points for finding Srulem and diffusing situation with Eluharath 50 points for killing the vampire 50 points for good role-playing

Character(s) interacted with

Locations scouted and NPC’s engaged:   The Spittlefled Tenement

• Nikolas, layabout
• Bella, laundress
• Dimzad, urchin
• Gino, ogre flophouse manager
• Annika, runs orphanage
• Srulem, dwarf criminal
• Sreluc, dwarf criminal and Srulem’s older brother
• Eluharath Wavecrest, retired elf explorer