Session Three

Sunday 12th August 2012

Knowing Baer had been known to hang out in the Sewers beneath the Dookanaal District, and having his map, the Team decided to look for the Burndt Bakery...

Finding their way into the Sewers (by now a maze of sewer tunnels and sunken rooms as houses had started to collapse and sink into the ground) they fought their way through Ghouls and rescued battered wives locked in Cellars until they got to the "X" on the map - a doorway guarded by a giant slug monster thing, which they managed to defeat.

It had been guarding a series of three rooms, but the only thing in those rooms was a filthy, crazy old man eating a rat.  He was full of crazy talk:

"The streets fill with blood! Blood and pus! It could not wash down the sewer so the people looked down and laughed!  Beetle and fly had a race - how did beetle win?  Beetles cheat! I dreamed I had no bones and could not move and lay in filth and sores - glorious!" 

Asking him who he was, he declared himself to be Ruben, and that he was a professor at the University... when they asked hum about Baer, his eyes lit up and he said, "Jurgen!. Jurgen Baer - he did not kill me! He's my friend!" and then pushed a scrap of paper into the Elfs hands.

The team made their was back to Marienburg proper (after losing their way in the sewers slightly and falling through some rotten floorboards due to the Elf guiding them...) and met with Wilhelm Schmidt at his office, who sent them after the Crusade now that they know a Nurgle Cultist has infiltrated.  Because the team are all wanted criminals, Wilhelm gives them some documentation to keep them safe from arrest so long as they stay on the Altdorf Road.  The are to give the letter to a nobleman named Lord Frederick once they arrive in Altdorf.

On the way to Alltdorf, the team notice plenty of Wanted posters with their pictures on them, and not three days out of Marienburg they are surrounded by a militia of noblemen with crossbows from a town named Pfiefeldorf.  They cannot accept the letter the team have from Wilhelm without having it checked out, and want the team to allow one of their members, a very depressed nobleman named Wendell Ott, to arrest them and bring them to the town - which the team sort of agree to (the town is on their way anyway, they are horribly outnumbered - but they won't be tied up or surrender their weapons or be polite to any of these people). Wendell is a moaning git, and the rest of the militia (who call themselves the Blauesblut, and are all younger sons of nobles who are pissed off that the oldest sons inherit everything while the younger siblings get nowt - they are, in fact, obsessed with how unfair this is!)

Arriving in the town, they are told that the paperwork will have to be checked for authenticity, and that would take a couple of days (by pigeon!) - but the Town steward, one Zecharius Lauer, makes them an offer - they can either be put in the town stocks until their credentials are checked out, or they can do him a favour and investigate a heinous crime...

A chicken has gone missing and its owner, a "beautiful young woman" named Frau Gertrudt, has been demanding something be done - if the team could find the chicken thief he would be very grateful, and the team would be allowed the run of the town (the Blauesblut patrol the surrounding forests and any attempts to leave town will, of course, be met with lethal force...)

The team agree to investigate this shocking crime, and the Steward gives them a map of the town and a Dwarf scribe to follow them around reporting on everything they do.

The "Beautiful young woman" obviously turned out to be a huge ogre of a woman, demanding to know who the hell these strangers were.  When told that they were here to investigate the missing chicken, she's no more polite (Can you see her? Look! Gone! My Greta ain't bloody there!") so the team barely speak to her.

Examining the chicken coop reveals flies congregating around a blood stain, and a trail of blood from the coop ends at a fence leading to next door's garden, which belongs to Old Man Eysen.

On a jagged bit of fence there they notice some purple cloth fibres, but the trail does seem to end there.

Visiting Eysen is a little bit frustrating - he's practically blind and mostly deaf - ("Have you seen the chicken?" "Who wants lickin?", etc) - and there are whip scars on his back which are just beginning to heal - he seems vaguely insane (he's planting rocks, when asked about this he says he's not planting socks at all...) - the team do notice a piece of purple cloth in his pocket and steal it from him (some of the townsfolk spot this and complain), but he can't remember where he found it. It is a torn piece of purple cloth, looks quite good quality, with a gold Lion rampant print.  Clearly a heraldic crest, but none of the PC's were able to identify the crest.

Eysen declares that maybe he would be able to remember where he got the cloth from, if he had a pie from Francince Arouer's at the Wet Whistle...

The Halfling is sent on this mission.  Francine, complete with 'Allo 'Allo style Brettonian accent, basically agrees to give them some pie if they will do her a small favour...

She wants them to borrow a specific book on Empire History from Johannes Gephardt - a local scholar with a big library.  He won't let Francine borrow it.

The session ends with Johannes agreeing to lend the PC's the book, so long as they leave a deposit - anything worth about 30 Gold Crowns will do - to be returned to them when they return the book...