Episode 29: Fumbles, Frame-ups, and a Foolproof Plan Report

General Summary

The Enemy Within: Enemy in Shadows Episode 29 - “Fumbles, Frame-ups, and a Foolproof Plan” 8/20/22 Post-Game Notes   Day 84 - Festag 2 Brauzeit, 2512 IC   Picks up as the party leaves the Kleinwald social.

• PC’s brief each other on some of the more interesting bits of gossip and interaction from their time at the party, while making for town center to scope out the Steinhager offices.
• Morrslieb is particularly full and suspiciously evil tonight, hanging so low it appears to scrape the roofs of the tallest buildings. Greenish reflections of the sinister moon in puddles and shiny cobblestones appear to be animated expressions of glee.

The Crew heads over to the Steinhager Offices to sneak in, using the unlatched shutter jerry-rigged by Godabert earlier in the day.

• Kris fumbles his ingress and bangs the shutter against the interior casement, attracting the attention of the porter, Matthias, and his guard dog, Bach.
• As a distraction, Beau pretends to be a roving drunk and bangs on the front door. While Matthias deals with Beau, God and Kris situate themselves in the meeting room and scope out the adjoining reception area.

Kris proposes a “foolproof plan” to occupy Matthias and the dog while he and God sneak across the courtyard to break into Franz Steinhager’s office.

• He ties a leg of the meeting table to a rope, and, from outside, Beau drags the furniture noisily across the floor. Meanwhile, Kris and God crouch next door.
• Matthias and Bach come running and barking, and Beau silences the poor mutt with a mace to the jowl. When Beau tries to do the same to the dagger-wielding porter, he fumbles his mace-grip and the weapon flies out of his hand, through the window, and skitters across the interior of the room.
• Matthias starts yelling for the watch while cutting the rope loose with his dagger. Karl, on lookout, becomes concerned.

Kris and God dart across the courtyard during the confusion. Franz’s office: locked. God: no problem. He whips out his shiny new lockpicking tools for their virgin voyage and promptly fumbles the attempt, snapping off a pick within the lock.   Beau has now fully entered the meeting room and intimidates Matthias into silence while darkening the lantern.   Karl is alarmed: the watch are coming! Karl kicks into scampering gear and lures three constables down an alleyway towards the Bergstrasse. A fourth officer shines a light into the meeting room and calls out.

• Beau, pretending to be Matthias, tells the officer to come around to the front door. There’s been an attempted break-in.
• The front door? Oh shit! In a panic, Kris and God enter two nearby offices with unlocked doors.

Godabert finds himself in an office room seemingly occupied by junior clerks. He looks at various papers, stupefied by the scribbles, and cheeses it out the window onto the opposite alleyway.   Kris finds himself in the office of Heinrich Steinhager, Franz’s jealous younger brother (and the devious chap with whom the Crew was preparing to meet the next day regarding some incriminating intel on the older brother).

• There’s a man sitting in a chair. Kris grabs him. He’s dead. Kris yelps.
• The man, Heinrich, has eyes bulging out of a face that has swollen and taken on a distinct purplish hue. His tongue is engorged, lolling out of his mouth.
• Kris grabs an unintelligible letter from Heinrich’s desk and likewise cheeses it out the window (later decoded by the literate half of the Crew: a letter to a Herr Schultz in Altdorf, expressing disgust at Franz’s running of the business and bemoaning Heinrich’s bad luck at being born two years later).

  Karl takes one persistent watchman on a merry chase through the streets before finally losing him in the crowd along the Bergstrasse.   Beau waits for the coast to clear and bolts.   The Crew reconvenes at the Journey’s End.   Day 85 - Wellentag 3 Brauzeit, 2512 IC   First thing in the morning, Godabert rolls his eyes back and tosses the dice.

• Murder, wine, bleeding heart, and colorful flames in the sky. Should be fine.

A hooded taproom patient who is revealed to be Guildmaster Magirius asks the Crew to speak privately.

• Magirius is shaken. He tells the Crew all he knows about Teugen and the origins of the Ordo, and what he once believed were innocent intentions to influence the economy of Bogenhafen by means of sorcery.
• The emergency meeting was called last night because the Crew had found the Ordo’s consecrated temple, and a new location needs to be blessed and prepared. Magirius now knows that the consecration involves a human sacrifice, and that’s a step too far. He asks the Crew to intervene.
• He shows the Crew a letter he stole from Teugen’s last night, indicating the provenance of the magical scroll that will be used in tonight’s ritual. The author, Etelka Herzen, is from the Black Peaks and she makes reference to mutual tutelage under the “High Master.”
• Magirius will go about his business, and send word to the Crew once he knows the new location of the ritual. For now, they can’t be seen together. Teugen is very suspicious of the party.

  Beau and Karl decide to tail Magirius; Kris is going to market; Godabert is going to hang back at the tavern and drink his fair share of complimentary water.   Kris first checks in with Master Lukas at the Vermilion Pawn to see if he completed his evaluation of the elven necklace.

• It’s a legendary Necklace of Tain-Ella, a 2nd-century elven merchant prince said to have perished in the Sea of Claws (there’s a monument to her in Marienburg). It’s considered a religious artifact, related to the worship of the Cadai. A Hadri (elven god of ships and navigation) rune on the necklace activates a spell Lens of the Sky once per day. Worth up to 300 GC in Marienburg; Lukas offers 150. Kris opts to keep it for now.
• Kris then checks in on the Steinhager office. Sounds like there was a break-in and possible murder? Oh dear!
• Kris buys a new rope.

Godabert refills his water. Asks for bread.   Beau and Karl are accosted by a pair of stevedore thugs while attempting to tail Magirius. Powerless against the verbal battery (“Fancy pants! Hey fancy pants!”), the duo duck into an alley to confront the thugs.

• The thugs prove hardier than expected, but despite taking some bruises (significant bruises, in Karl’s case), the heroes prevail in a protracted melee. Karl robs them of a shilling and two pennies and Beau snatches their guild necklaces. Magirius, however, is gone.

  While regrouping at the End later that afternoon, a servant boy in Magirius’ livery shows up with a note: a request to come to Magirius’ townhouse in the Adel Ring immediately.   The Crew is suspicious, but ultimately decides that this needs to be investigated. What this calls for is a patsy.   They head back to the Golden Trout where Conrad von Bruner is just preparing to head back to Ubersreik. The Crew successfully enlists him in a caper. While walking towards the Ring, they fill him in (up to a point).   While the Crew hides behind a hedgerow, CvB knocks on Magirius’s front door. After a second knock, and some time, the door creaks open and Magirius peers out. Conrad is beckoned inside. Seems okay then?

• 
  Conrad reappears after a few minutes from around the corner, and he leads the Crew around the back of the house to the garden entrance where the servant boy awaits them. “Magirius is expecting you upstairs in his study.”
• The Crew enters an apparently deserted study dominated by a heavy wooden desk with an overturned chair behind it. Under the desk lies the body of Friedrich Magirius. His throat has been cut and a widening pool of blood soaks into the carpet. There is a scrawl of dried blood on the side of the desk where Magirius tried to leave a last, desperate message: “WHSE 13 (or 17?)”
• There is a cry of “Help! Help! Murder!” from the front of the house. Looking out the study window, and the Crew already many of the locally stationed watchman rushing towards the scene.
• The servant boy suddenly appears in the room, and in a demonic voice that seems to emanate more from the air around him than the boy’s own mouth, says “You know, you really should have minded your own business.” Then he disappears. Conrad shrieks.
• The watch are barrelling into the home; the only way out is back through the garden door and over the 10-foot stone wall.
• Conrad is first over, and he doesn’t wait for anyone.
• The four PC’s struggle to gain purchase to the top of the wall, and, soon, the officers spot them and make for the garden.
• Godabert finally gets to the top and helps Kris and then Karl. Beau stumbles and fumbles, but God has a helluva time pulling the mighty bounty hunter to the parapet. A watchman’s glove is inches from Beau’s boot before Karl kicks the hand away. Success! The heroes clamber over and run into the Kaufman Strasse.

Interlude:   “Where’s Conrad?” Karl starts running in no particular direction, head swiveling up and down the strasse.   “Long gone, no doubt. He was bootprints before my hand even touched the top of the wall.” Godabert is wheezing. “We need to get out of sight. Fast.”   “Think they saw us?” Kris grimaces, knowing the answer as he asks the question.   “Muhfforse dey deed! Muvverfuvvers wuv awl ova us!” Beau grabs Karl by the collar and leads the group down the nearest alley. Whistles and calls for alarm resound throughout the Adel Ring.   “They may have seen us, but that doesn’t mean they know who we are. If we head back to the End, and hole up until nightfall, we can use darkness to more easily stake out the docks…” Godabert pokes his head down an alley off the Gottenplatz. “Something else seems to be going on down Nulner though.”   They smell the burning building before they see the smoke. They hear the clamor approaching before they’re able to make out the figure running down the main street, heading straight for them. The Crew, poking their heads out onto the Weg, see a structure fire to the southeast and an angry mob running down the street in their direction. And out in front of the mob, running right for the mouth of the alley, is Karl!   “Not again.” Real Karl sighs.   “Stop! Fire-raisers! String them up!” More than a dozen townsfolk are now within thirty yards of the alley. Fake Karl turns to flash a smile at his pursuers before literally disappearing within the darkened alley, mere feet in front of the Crew.   “Ahm gunna kell daf fuvver.” Beau has his mace at the ready and starts to backpedal.   “Looks like we may need to hang by the docks earlier than expected.” Kris turns and starts running back to the platz.   “But where are we going to go? The watch will be swarming the city, and it’s not like we can suddenly check into a dockside inn.” Godabert follows suit, right behind Kris.   Karl may be last to turn tail and run, but he soon outpaces his comrades. “We know a guy!” * * *

Rewards Granted

XP:

• 15 for infiltrating the Steinhager warehouse, recovering documents, and discovering Heinrich’s body (God and Kris)
• 15 for occupying Matthias, Bach, and the watchman (Beau)
• 15 for luring away the other three watchmen (Karl)
• 15 for landing on Johannes Teugen’s Most Wanted List (all)
• 20 for narrowly escaping the frame-up at Magirius’s townhouse (plus an additional 5 for expecting foul play from the onset) (all)
• 35 for a helluva sesh, despite one 00 roll after another

 

• Godabert: 90
• Beau: 90
• Karl: 90
• Kris: 90

  Loot:

• Evaluation of the ancient Elvish necklace: see above.
• 1 shilling, two pennies
• A new rope

Character(s) interacted with

Locations scouted and new NPC’s engaged:   Magirius’s Townhouse

• Magirius’s “servant”