Between Adventures Session Following Episode 33

The Enemy Within: Concluding Enemy in Shadows Between Adventures Session following Episode 33 3/28/2023 Narrative Summary
Days 95 through 104: 13 through 22 Brauzeit (span of 1+ weeks)

• Event 1 (Kris): Accused Ally! Karl is locked up on spurious charges. (Three endeavors spent to release him and prevent an execution.) - see interlude for details
• Event 2 (Beau): Sticky Fingers! His purse is cut and he loses half his money
• Event 3 (God): Unexpected Esteem! - see interlude for details
• Event 4 (Karl): Malicious Malady! While in lockup, Karl avoids contracting the Bloody Flux despite several days and nights of decadent sodomy.

Shopping (prior to endeavors):

• God: durable (1) leather skullcap; rapier; 12 arrows; (sells sword and leather skullcap)
• Kris: a fine set of woodworking and carpentry tools
• Beau: a pet crow named Cameron
• Karl:
• As a group: invest 17GC into the “boat fund” (free endeavor)

Endeavors and Short-Term Ambitions

• Karl: trains Athletics +5
• Kris: levels up to Boatswain (Level 3) and trains Trade (Carpentry) +15
• God: trains Melee (Fencing) +4; trains Set Trap +1; achieves short-term ambition of making connection to Church of Ranald - see interlude for details
• Beau: trains Animal Training (Crow) +12

Interlude:
With a little over a week to kill, some newly acquired gold burning holes in their purses, and eager to enjoy a well-earned respite after months trekking the roads and rivers of the Reikland, the Crew members endeavor to explore the rich tapestry of treats and temptations offered up in the capital. Mrrrow… meow!

Godabert’s Tale

Godabert finds himself in the big city, with money to burn! The other guys will be fine–and frankly, he’s spent every day with them for weeks. Godabert needs a break from the constant companionship…
And the first thing he needs to do is spend all this cash he’s been collecting! He’s the richest he’s ever been, and he’s going on a shopping spree to celebrate!
First things first–Godabert strolls through the shopping district until he finds a solid, practical looking weapons shop. He presents his practically new, almost never used sword for sale, and manages to offload it for 10 ss (half price). He uses this as credit to trade in for a brand new Rapier, which he can’t really make use of, but he sure likes the way it looks! This sets him back 5 GC–more than half of his entire fortune…
And while he’s waiting in the checkout line, he sees 12 more arrows hacking on the rack next to the register, and can’t resist picking those up for 5 ss more… You never know when those might come in handy…
The next stop is the armor store. You can never have too much armor… Godabert always gets nervous around the guys–they love fighting just about everyone, and don’t seem to ever think about how fragile the human body is, even though they keep ending up with broken jaws and hips… He sells his old leather skullcap for 4 ss, and upgrades to a leather skullcap with the Durable 1 quality for 16 ss. An extra hit to the head is never a bad idea…

*

For a LONG time now, Godabert has been trying to make a connection in the church of Ranald. The group is always running so fast from place to place, though, that he never gets the chance. Godabert is a very religious man, and it bothers him that he hasn’t gotten much time to make his offerings to Ranald. Now that he’s got some free time in the biggest city in the Empire, he plans to finally fulfill his short term ambition, and meet with some priests.
Godabert heads for some of the more disreputable taverns and gambling dens and keeps his ears and eyes open. It would be easy to find members of The Crosses, as they run the gambling dens, but Godabert has always felt more at home in the order of the Crooked Fingers, and they’re liked a bit less by non-Ranaldians. People just don’t understand how important a liar is…
Eventually Godabert finds a lone hooded figure in a corner, with crosses worked into his cloak, who seems to command more respect from the riff raff in the bar than normal. Godabert heads over with a beer and a smile, and introduces himself as the renowned mystic, Godabert Tougan. He talks a bit about his recent adventures, and thanks Ranald for the incredible luck that has seen him get through them all relatively unharmed. The companion not-so-politely tells Godabert to fuck off before his fingers become crossed off and shoved down his throat. Caught in the middle of one of his classic never-know-when-to-shut-up retorts, and likely mere seconds from ingesting his own digits, Godabert is whisked away from the shadows by a massive figure. Spun around, God comes face-to-face with an old acquaintance, Gert Hunder, the bartender from the Crooked Hammer in Ubersreik. Turns out Gert is in Altdorf “on business,” and is both excited to see Godabert again and eager to repay him for his prior assistance.
At that point, Godabert mentions how grateful he is to Ranald for all the saves over the years, and assures his friend that if the order ever needs anything from him, he would be more than grateful to pay back a bit of his debt. The order of the Crooked Fingers has their ways of communicating across the land, and wherever Godabert goes, they’re more than welcome to seek him out if they need any help with anything.
“And one last thing–where’s the nearest Ranald shrine?” Godabert drops another wink. “Of course, we all know how much Ranald likes our praises and thanks, but he also needs a little more solid and dependable praise from the likes of us, eh?”
His friend gives a chuckle. “Shrine? Welcome to Altdorf, Godabert. You’re in for a treat.” Gert leads Godabert to the Wolftor district, a collection of buildings and narrow alleys clustered around the great northern gate of the city, and vouches for him at the infamous Temple of Ranald. “But, um… you’re going to have to leave all of your cats outside.”
The Temple is all things to all the god’s followers, but truly is more of a collection of adjacent buildings than a single structure. Although the various structures and rooms connect through a tortuous series of tunnels, passages, and hidden doors, no links are apparent to outsiders. Even careful observation and painstaking analysis of the city rolls cannot reveal how the faithful slip about within the complex.
The façade of the temple comprises the Cross Hands boarding house, the Black Cat tavern, a number of modest shops selling all sorts, and a few innocent-looking residences. All of these are functional in the way one would expect, but they also offer a way into the temple-proper for the initiated. The temple ensures only the faithful get in through a combination of passwords, calling cards, interrogation, and divine magic. The main hidden elements of the complex are the shrine, the casino, and the meeting hall. These are all just as insulated from each other as they are from the gateway establishments. If infiltrators compromised any given area, the rest would be safe.
The octagonal shrine is set out to resemble, very vaguely, a shrine to Sigmar. This is, they say, just a little joke rather than a blasphemous travesty. There is an altar with a gold cat sculpture, and a painted triptych showing three of Ranald’s aspects: the Night Prowler, the Protector, and the Gamester. The Gamester takes center stage here, as it does throughout most of the Temple. Groups more dedicated to the Night Prowler and the Deceiver are found elsewhere in the city.
The meeting hall is nothing of the sort, but actually a series of small, secure, secluded rooms discussing sensitive business without fear of discovery. The sanctity of these meeting places is absolute, and no one would dare to eavesdrop on any of the conversations going on here (fingers crossed).
The gambling den is the most popular haunt, and usually accessed through the Black Cat tavern, where bouncers demand passwords. Almost any game can be found here, and a good number of the clientele are open to new ones. Some are played for fun, but most are for money. Some surprisingly large amounts are won and lost.
Godabert offers up Ranald’s share of his profits with a little prayer. “Hmmm… 1 ss, 2 pennies short of a crown, eh? Well, best not to be stingy… I have been very lucky lately…” Godabert adds a bit more to the offering he had been saving up, and leaves Ranald with a shiny new GC.

*

A couple days go by with Godabert swinging his new rapier in his room and failing to hit anything even more than usual…
“Nothing for it… I still have a couple crowns left, and I’m never going to learn this thing without any help…”
Godabert makes his way back to the Temple, and, thanks to his new contacts, spends a few days learning the ins and outs of stabbing someone with a rapier.
Something else has been bothering Godabert for a while now… And that’s the group's lack of ability to deal with traps. Wandering around in caves full of monsters is already dangerous enough – what if they encounter a trap protecting a treasure room or something? And it would also be able to set up traps for hunting… You never know when you’ll find yourself out in the wilderness and need to find something to eat…
Back to the Temple, and Godabert hires a fellow Ranaldan to teach him a few tricks. The tutor advises Godabert on the types of signs to look out for when trapping – likely spots to find animals, and how to hide the traps.
Godabert hints that as an adventurer, he may need to worry about trapping BIGGER game… And of course, there’s always the concern that some orc or goblin might set a trap for him… The tutor drops a few curses, and then goes into a long story about discovering some goblins in some woods he was hunting, and the crude traps they used to try to catch prey.

*

It’s almost time for the meeting, and Godabert realizes that almost all his money is gone… He had been planning to throw another GC or two to Ranald, but somehow all the partying, drinking, and feasting has left him almost penniless… Well, Ranald will probably understand. Everyone needs to have a good time now and then!

* * *

Beau’s Tale

Beau wastes no time boasting and bragging among all his newfound friends – the laborers, Fish-gangers, and assorted ne’er-do-wells in Dockland – about the Crew’s various deeds. He also not-so-subtly drops hints that the Crew has space aboard The Wrecking Ball if anyone needs to move cargo.
Eventually, Beau gets introduced to Earnest Erich, the large, burly Fish ganger who holds court outside The Broken Barrel in the Old Docks district. Erich prefers to give out jobs to the workers he knows to be loyal to him and to the Fish, but he’s not averse to trying out new talents to test their potential.
Erich doesn’t take Beau very seriously at first, but he does take notice of how big Beau is, not to mention his unbridled enthusiasm. Erich ends up hiring Beau as protection for another smuggler who is set to load some cargo on a ship the following day. Mostly the job entails standing around to make sure no one steals the stuff until they get the merchandise on the ship and the ship leaves Altdorf.
The gig goes off without a hitch, and on the way back to the docks, Beau accompanies this charismatic smuggler, Hans Ohloe, who oozes swagger and spouts philosophical one-liners nonstop. Beau eats it up. He spends the day inquiring about that smuggling life, feeding Hans’s ego all the while. Beau is particularly impressed with Hans’s pet crow, a well-trained shoulder pet who performs tricks, laughs at Hans’s jokes, and knows to alert his master when someone’s coming around the corner. “No better friend on a river than a crow, Beau.”
Hans points Beau in the direction of Nestie Schlupwinkel, a peculiar old lady on the docks who sells and trains crows and pigeons. Beau spends the better part of his week with her, learning how to care for and train crows. When he rejoins the Crew, he does so with a fat black bird perched on his shoulder.
“Squaaawwwk!”
“Mrrrooooooow!”

* * *

Kris’s Tale

The last time Kris had this much of an opportunity to enjoy himself, he was plucking lute strings and rousing bar patrons in the relative cultural desert that is Ubersreik. But now… he’s in Altdorf! And the first chance he gets, he dresses in clothes befitting a well-off boat captain and buys himself a ticket to the theatre.
On his way to the ritzy Mauerblumchen district, he passes through the western gardens, where nobles speak loudly in Bretonnian whenever passing by lower-class citizens.
Inside that storied auditorium, on a stage that has debuted dramas from such luminaries as Detlef Sierck and Allessandro D’Inverno, Kris is held transfixed by one of the most incredible, awe-inspiring sights to which he’d ever bore witness… the magical, monumental set designs of Svenrina “The Grey” Hallovadottir.
After the performance, a rather trite rendition of “The Battle of Nuln,” which surely must be more well received in the Wissenland, most of the throng assembles in the lobby and entrance to congratulate the actors and musicians. But not Kris. He sneaks backstage, follows a string of Khazalid curses, and enters the basement workshop of Svenrina. Kris assures her that he in the right place, doing his best job communicating in her native tongue, and soon a smile cracks across the dwarf’s creased face.
Kris spends the better part of a week learning from the master artisan, spending most of his coin on lessons and much of his time regaling Svenrina of the Crew’s adventures.

* * *

Karl’s Tale

“I keep telling you, I wasn’t part of any warehouse robbery! I’ve never even heard of the Jack-o-Lantern Society! Karl pleads as the towering brute of a guard drags him through the city dungeon.
“It’s Jack-a-BLADE Society, scumbag.” The watchman replies. “Nice trick, pretending not to even know the name of your own gang. Fortunately, the Watch isn’t as stupid as you and your thieving buddies. Don’t worry, we’ve already rounded up plenty of them so you can keep each other company.” He adds, fishing the cell key ring out of his pouch with his free hand as he tightens his grip on Karl’s coat.
“Listen, you mindless idiot. I’m a brandy merchant in Altdorf for trade.” Karl protests, a bit too sharply for his own good. “I don’t even live in this city. How could I be a member of some local street gang? If you strained that tiny brain of yours just a bit you might see how illogical-“
*THWAP*
Karl’s outburst is swiftly cut off with a vicious blow to the head from the butt of the watchman’s club, his patience exhausted.
“Save your talk for the magistrate, brigand.” The brute warns, unlocking the door to a large cell already filled with four other dozen criminals. “You and your associates will have plenty of time over the next few days to get your stories straight.” Shoving Karl through the doorway and locking it behind him, he adds with a laugh “Although it doesn’t look they’re really in a talking mood right now.”
As Karl regains his senses, his nose begins to register one of the most horrid stenches he’s ever experienced in his life. Focusing his eyes in the dimly-lit cell, he sees two similarly-dressed men lying unconscious on the stone floor, their faces covered in sweat and their trousers soiled in urine and excrement. Just beyond them against the back wall, two more men are alternately vomiting and defecating into slop buckets, barely even registering Karl’s presence.
“Well, shit………..”
(Endeavor)
Karl spends half a week in a dingy jail cell, dodging the bloody flux – quite literally. The sickness causes his new companions to spend most of their limited waking hours expelling various foul humours from both ends of their bodies, often with considerable velocity and little warning. Given their relatively cramped quarters, Karl quickly becomes adept at evading cones of projectile vomit, streams of piss, and clumsily-emptied, shit-filled chamber pots. By the end of his confinement, he has become noticeably more spry and light on his feet. (+5 Athletics)
(Three days later)
“Alright Karlson, you’re free to go.” The watchman sighs boredly, turning the key and opening the cell door with an ear-piercing squeak of rusted metal. It’s early morning and Karl had only fallen asleep an hour prior, curled upright against the cage on the one part of the floor not covered in human waste.
“Wha- what?” Karl replies groggily. “What day is it?”
“Bezahltag. Come on, let’s go.” He adds impatiently.
“Am I to see the magistrate?” Karl says weakly, his voice hoarse with thirst.
“He already ordered your release.” The watchman explains. “Supposedly some business associates of yours came looking for you yesterday and vouched for your little ‘merchant’ story. Sounds like bullshit to me – probably just more of your gang cronies covering for you. But orders are orders, so off you go.”
Karl clambers awkwardly to his feet, his muscles cramped from days on the stone floor, and limps after the guard down the dungeon hallway. Climbing the short staircase to the surface, his eyes slowly adjust to the blinding morning sun.

* * *
The day of the meeting at Mezzo’s finally arrives, and none too soon. The Crew had been wearing out their welcome at Mannan’s Dock, and Herr Zucker was ready to see some return on his investment in the adventurers. He was, however, pleased with how the great influx of cats around the warehouse has had a significant impact on the rat population. * * *

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