Episode 35: The Signal Tower Report

General Summary

The Enemy Within: Death on the Reik Episode 35 - “The Signal Tower” 4/18/23 Post-Game Notes
Day 106 - Konistag 24 Brauzeit, 2512 IC
Picks up as Ball pulls into Fielbach harbor.

• Crew gets some firsthand perspective on how Altdorf wealth and a military presence has helped to elevate what would otherwise have been a small fishing town. Nobles have been building weekend houses/hunting lodges because of proximity to the Reikwald; Imperial Ostlanders have a garrison here where they overwinter between expeditions.
• 
  Crew, minus the convalescing Godabert, check out the Goat & Baby tavern. A traveling merchant, Aldy “The Quartermaster” Summerfield, along with his hired muscle, Arnulf Dorfmann, have posted up outside and the pedlar is holding court among a number of gathered soldiers and merchants to discuss his wares.
• While Beau chats up the bodyguard, Kris and Karl pop in for a drink and socializing. Using Saif as a conversation-starter, Kris flirts with an Ostlander cartographer, Kirsa Spiegel, who finds herself succumbing to the “privateer’s” charms. Interesting items of note, maybe in the future when the Crew is a bit more flush with gold, are some impressive sabres and genuine sealskin coats.
• Beau finds a merchant willing to buy their cargo of copper, but decides to hold out until Kemperbad. After returning to the tavern with the cat-head statue, Beau gets Emmaretta’s attention. She soon realizes that Godabert’s allure was due to an artificial enchantment and, as a result, she becomes disenchanted with the chatty mystic.
• Karl gets into it with the locals who are all abuzz with talk around the Emperor being hidden away for weeks, supposedly sick, and the crown prince still locked up in Reiksguard.
• Kris and Karl meet Kirsa’s commanding officer, Sergeant Sebastian Kresinger, and after several drinks and a steady assault of signature Wrecking Crew charm, they hear rumors about war brewing between Ostland and Talabecland as the ruler of the former has accused the ruler of the latter of having the Crown Prince of Ostland assassinated! Official story is that he was killed during an expedition to the Grey Mountains… survivors reporting nonsensical stories about beastman with blackpowder weapons fighting alongside mutants. Please.
• After a few more drinks, Kris and Karl also hear disturbing rumors about an Orc warchief from the Badlands, Vorgaz Ironjaw, raiding into the Border Princes with an ever-increasing army.

Day 107 - Angestag 25 Brauzeit, 2512 IC
Good tailwind and able sailing means good time through the Reiker marshes.
Ball passes by Castle Reiksguard high up on the cliffs upriver from Nadjagard.
Sometime in the late afternoon, they get their closest look at one of the Emperor’s signal towers, this one still under construction.
Crew gets flagged down by a pair of dwarfs on a jetty near the tower, waving a bag of money and begging for a ride.

The two bleary-eyed dwarfs, Thingrim and Belegol, would like to get to Nuln, and while the Crew discusses among themselves about how far they’d like to transport these two, their boss, master artisan Aynjulls Isembeard, huffs and puffs down the hill and shames them into returning to work. She sticks around to apologize to the crew and explain her problem.

• Work has stalled on the construction of this tower, despite finding the ideal site: an elevated hill with good visibility to towers up and down the chain, and the ruins of some ancient tower to use as a pre-existing foundation. But almost immediately weird accidents and sicknesses befell her crew of twelve strong, capable dwarven engineers. Then, five days ago, the disappearances started. Two more vanished just last night… and now the remaining six dwarves are demanding hazard pay and whispering about a cursed elven burial mound.
• Godabert offers up the Crew’s investigative talents, and Aynjulls agrees to pay them six gold if they can get to the bottom of this mystery.
• At the site, in a temporary building that houses the work crew, the gang meets the other dwarven builders: Kardak, Gudrun, Guzul, and Minak. Turns out all of the disappearances were dwarves that had been assigned overnight guard duty in the signal tower itself.

Crew spends several hours interviewing the dwarfs, scouting the area around the site, up and into the treeline just south of the tower. They finally resign themselves to staking out the room in the tower – the location of the disappearances – overnight. Karl impresses the engineers with a jerry-rigged alert-bell system that employs the unfinished pylon for the signal flame.
Crew positions themselves at the four points of the compass and waits. Godabert tries out his fortune-telling abilities, but catastrophically, and altogether ominously, his dice crumble to dust.
At half-past midnight, all start to nod off except Beau, who goes over to Kris to rouse him. As he does so, quite suddenly and in eerie silence, wooden planks at the south end of the chamber hinge outward like pieces of a jigsaw puzzle and a massive ghoul, seemingly cobbled and stitched together from a variety of massive humans, is pulled into the room by a metal rod worn around its neck on a leather strap.

• 
  Beau is afraid. Luckily his crossbow had already been loaded. He looses a bolt into the creature’s arm, which punctures but draws no blood. It closes in, its lolling tongue dripping with some foul venom.
• Kris screams and leaps into the fray. With a deft stroke of Saif, he detaches the strange rod from its thong, sending it clattering across the room to land near Godabert, who has been abruptly jolted awake. “Grab that and get it out of here!”
• Godabert, who never has to be told twice to run away from danger, collects the rod and runs down the stone stairs. As he reaches the base of the structure, and prepares to hurl the rod from the cliffside, he feels it warm up in his hand and watches as a previously invisible door along the mineral face begins to rumble and reveal itself.
• The ghoul closes in on Beau, who finally steels himself to the assault. Beau defends himself, and in signature Beau fashion, bludgeons the monstrosity back into non-existence.
• Karl spits into his hands, rubs them together, and prepares to ring the “Hungus Alarm,” when Godbert bursts back into the chamber and calls for a sidebar.

The Crew, torches lit, investigate the secret rooms within the ruins… Godabert discovers that the magic rod also unlocks interior doors. Beau opens the first door, an old study replete with texts, maps, and hung portraits. Oh, and two rotting zombies.

• Despite still being fear-stricken, Beau makes short work of the first shambling undead creature. The second one trips, cracks its neck, spinning its skull around. Godabert puts an arrow into its brain to finish it off.

Crew searches the study: in the locked desk is a battered old notebook written in an indecipherable language. In the plans chest are several antique maps showing various parts of the Empire - the Reikland and western marches of Talabecland in particular. Many of the maps have intersecting lines drawn on them. The portraits are unlabeled, but all share a familial similarity. In the corner of the study is an ornate carved staff (Godabert: “Yes, magical. Zombie control, maybe?”)

Interlude:
“Hey look at this,” Kris leans over one of the dead zombies and slices a leather band around its neck. “These guys have those same magical metal rods around their necks.”
Godabert approaches the other crumbled creature and bends down to examine its accessory. “Hm. Not quite the same.” He lifts up the new rod to compare to the one taken from the ghoul. “Look, the cross-section of the larger rod is a six-pointed star. This one on the smaller monster is five-pointed.”
Kris, five-star rod in hand, walks cautiously towards the locked door at the far end of the study. “Well, regardless, I think…” He waves the rod towards the door and an audible clacking of bolts loosening resonates in the small stone chamber. “...they have the same effect. If that staff does what you think it does, maybe you need to go first…”
* * *

Rewards Granted

XP:

• 15 for delivering Emmaretta to Fielbach (all)
• 10 for ingratiating themselves with the Imperial Ostlanders and getting some juicy intel (Kris, Karl)
• 15 for taking the missing dwarfs case (all)
• 10 for impressing the dwarfs with some ad hoc engineering skill (Karl)
• 15 for killing the ghoul champion (Beau, Kris)
• 10 for discovering how the key rod works (God)
• 10 for recovering clues in the secret study, including two new key rods (all)
• 35 for a fun session!

• Godabert: 85
• Beau: 90
• Karl: 95
• Kris: 100

Loot:

• Notebook written in an unknown language
• Several maps of the Empire, most of which feature intersecting lines
• A magical staff that has some sort of effect on tower zombies
• A metal rod with a six-pointed star cross-section
• Two (2) metal rods with a five-pointed star cross-section

Character(s) interacted with

Locations scouted and new NPC’s engaged:
Goat & Baby, Fielbach

• Aldy Summerfield, halfling merchant
• Arnulf Dorfmann, Aldy’s bodyguard
• Kirsa Spiegel, cartographer in the Imperial Ostlander regiment
• Sergeant Sebastien Kresinger, Imperial Ostlander regiment

Signal Tower south of Reiksguard along the Reik

• Aynjulls Isembeard, master artisan and foreman of the signal tower construction

Campaign

The Enemy Within

Protagonists

Godabert

Report Date

04 May 2023

Related Historical Events

• 2512
  Crew Departs Altdorf for Kemperbad