Episode 3: "That's 'World Class' Wrecking Crew, Thank You Very Much" Report

General Summary

Prequel to The Enemy Within Episode 03 - “That’s ‘World Class’ Wrecking Crew, Thank You Very Much” 3/17/2019 Post-Game Notes
Day 9 (sixth day in Ubersreik; third day on the job)
Before heading out for the morning beat, met at RMI by Rudi and Sergeant Lief Mair, a Watch investigator. An apprentice carpenter was murdered and left dis-armed outside the Crooked Hammer last night.

• Franz isn’t happy that the party is working for “Klumpencunt,” but as long as they keep him out of his bar, he’s okay.

Further investigation at the Hammer

• Murdered at the dock; arm ripped off, and then dragged behind the bar.
• Gert: Klauson had a gambling problem, but he hadn’t been here in a while. When he did surface, he was brandishing a lot of Bretonnian silver.
• This was not the Crosses. Not their style, and, like Gert said, Klauson hadn’t been in there recently enough to incur any serious debts.
• Gert drugs Rudi’s breakfast brew, allowing party time to do their own shit. Rudi tells them to report back on the morning’s rounds later, at The Raspy Raven.

Off to the Carpenter’s Guild to meet with Ernst Zimmerman

• Sweet Charm roll, bro:
• Admits that Klauson was working on a special project, and if the plans (designed by Zimmerman) could be recovered, he would be extremely grateful
• His employment contact (Sturgill) and apprentice (Klauson) both killed; party tells him they want to protect him
• Josef Schuptmann is a masterful carver; currently appraising wood for reclamation in Morganseite
• Wood is harder and harder to come by in Ubersreik (as much of the supply is being burned to offset the coal shortage), so they’re taking work (and wood) where and when they can get it

Back to RMI to change before heading to Dawihafen

• Taunted by a quartet of tavern drinkers
• Charming AF:
• Two nobles, Conrad Von Bruner and his cousin Engelbrecht Brandt, become honorary members of the World Class Wrecking Crew, and are challenged to steal a book from Christophe the Wizard’s library
• The two laborers, Erasmus and Seidel, are less impressed by the party, but they do enjoy the free drinks

Axe & Hammer

• Audience with a dwarven engineer who speaks for Grodni: 2GC now, 3GC later, for two devices designed to level the RMI
• Additionally, the party will be called upon to perform a service in the future involving some goings-on in the Khazalgirt
• Advised to get a time-keeper candle from Chandler’s Guild

Return to the Boatsmen’s Guild

• Karl poses as a brandy merchant, led into the Guild by his operations manager, the ever-able landsman, Kris Krowe
• So unbelievably Charming:
• There just might be a “special” boat that needs to head upriver, just outside of town, under cover of night, to take out some cargo and take on some smuggle-friendly brandy
• The brandy is all yours if you help build the final retrofits and sail it out to the rendezvous… pending agreement from the financier of this operation (undisclosed)
• While KH and KK are doing this, Beau busks a few shillings back at the RMI

Dimzad leads them to the Rookery, and Klauson’s hovel

• Arrive to see two halflings and an ogre ransacking the room. Party kills the ogre and one of the halflings; restrains the other.

Interlude:
While Kris and Beau stand over the putrid, leaking carcass of the ogre, marveling at the speed in which they dispatched the menacing mercenary, Karl and Godabert restrain the surviving halfling, who is growling, thrashing, and spitting.
They work on dragging the struggling prisoner back to the open window, as he snarls: "You stupid fucks! You stupid rotten manling fucks! You don't know who you're dealing with! Do you have any idea..."
Meanwhile Kris works on sawing off the ogre’s head, and Beau starts untying the massive cudgel from its left hand.
Karl and God shove the halfling’s miniature body out the window to show him what has become of his compatriot just in time to see numerous shadowed denizens of the Rookery swarm away from the now naked corpse. “Johnnycake... no."
The sobering sight of his cousin smashed on the cobblestones below, coupled with Kris’s impressive restraining knot, moves the interrogation through rage, anxiety, and into supplication.
“Fucking ogres! Can’t resist chowing down on every Phineas-damned scrap of meat in front of their flabby fucking faces! This is bad… this looks bad… hey, friends…”
The halfling is Tun Lowhaven, a low-ranking cousin in the notorious Lowhaven clan. He claims not to know anything about the nature of the plans that they were sent here to steal (and you believe him), only that they needed to be brought back to Mercy Lowhaven that night.
[Karl -- you have some ties to the Lowhavens of Auerswald. You once gathered information on local noble Ferdinand von Wallenstein at the behest of Aloysius the Butcher, who paid you handsomely for the intel, if memory serves.]
Those plans, and Tun’s safe return (along with the body of Johnnycake; “We’ll all say it was an accident”), are worth a LOT of money from Mercy. Surely we can work something out, right…? The party is an hour late making the rounds on their Teubrucke night beat, but they’ve got a bit of a situation to deal with here first. Good thing they’re an able and charming crew of quick-thinkers.

Rewards Granted

XP: Kris, Karl, Beau, and God: 80
Loot: 2 GC, 33 silver (22 of which was minted in Bretonnia), 8 brass Crossbow pistol and seven poison-tipped bolts Concealed pouch containing plans for retrofitting a river boat Custom metal hinges (disassembled) Two-handed scimitar Two-handed mace Drafting tools and some foolscap Gore-crusted round steel shield (large)

Character(s) interacted with

Locations scouted and NPC’s engaged: The Artisan’s Quarter Carpenter’s Guild

• Ernst Zimmerman

Wandiene Rookery

• Salome, disease-ridden hooker
• Gore Cattlebelly, ogre bodyguard
• Tun Lowhaven, halfling gangster
• Johnnycake Springstep, halfling gangster

Dawihafen Khazalgirt (name/rumor only)

Campaign

The Enemy Within

Protagonists

Report Date

19 Apr 2023

Related Characters

• Rudi Klumpenklug

Related Historical Events

• 2512
  Grisly Murder of an Apprentice Carpenter Shocks Teubrucke, Ubersreik