Terror in Talabheim - Session Three

Session 3
Sunday, 25th Aug 13

The PCs have managed to gain entrance to one of the great cities of the Empire - a city sealed due to plague concerns, the very same plague some of them are carrying - and some of them don't have papers allowing them into the City.  Getting caught is not a very good idea. 

The marks the disease causes are readily covered by any clothing that covers the neck, but the coughing and shivering it brings are harder to disguise.  They need papers, they need somewhere to hole up, and they need a cure.

They find themselves in the cramped “avenues” of the Ratholds - actually located within the walls of the Taalbaston itself. Scattered throughout the massive cliff face are holes, tunnels, and warrens carved into the living rock of the crater wall. It was once said that any poor man with a pickaxe and determination could make himself a home in Talabheim. Some of these cave-homes are surprisingly large three- or four-room affairs, having wood flooring and even plaster, but these are rare. Most of these homes are little more than caves branching off from the crude tunnel-alleys that riddle the upper wall side near the Wizard’s Way.

Some legitimate businesses occupy the caves, such as tanneries and dye works. These foul industries only add to the miasmic atmosphere in the caves. There are various tunnels and pathways used by criminal gangs to smuggle goods and people inside the city. Although the City Watch makes frequent attempts to close these down, they seldom keep them shut for long. 

Few watchmen are comfortable going into the reeking dark of these tunnels, so a special squad of Halflings and Dwarves (alongside a few short humans) roam the numerous tunnels and warrens within the walls of the crater itself.  Though officially known as the Taalbaston Tunnel Brigade, most (including themselves) call these guardsmen “the Terriers” for their mission is to “find and kill the rats in the walls.” The PC's encounter a squad of Halfling Terriers in the Ratholds, who recommend their brother's place as a good place to buy the passes half the PC's need to get anywhere beyond the slums in the City.  The PC's go there and buy some very convincing looking ID, and manage to leave the Ratholds and Tallows area and into the Merchant's District.

Threeapples Inn 
Situated immediately across from the main gate, Threeapples Inn is a three-story building crafted from dark wood, with wide, open rooms that can fit almost a hundred people at a time. The owner, a Halfling named Wanda Threeapples, prides herself on welcoming everyone into her business, regardless of station, ethnicity, or race.  This is where the PC's decide to stay - for the first night in a common room, and thereafter in private rooms when they realised they were probably spreading the plague some of them were suffering from...

The PC's who were healthy explored the City a little whilst the rest coughed and spluttered their guts up in their room at the Threeapples (trying to make lucky charms to sell to people out of mattress straw, and not doing very well)

The Apothecary Daubler
When they located Daubler and got to speak to him, he sold them a cure for the Galloping Trots.  They then mentioned Nierhaus and give him Widenhotf's notes. 

“Do you know that the Captain is dead?” He rapidly scans over Widenhoft’s notes before saying, “This is Gotthard’s hand. Where did you come by these?” The scholar’s death takes him aback. “Gotthard was murdered? Ach, this is terrible. Who would do such a thing?” He agrees that Skaven did it “I think the vermin have tried this before, many times in fact. The history of our Empire is rife with plagues that come unexpectedly and weaken us at the worst possible time. I fear the rat folk have set their sights on Talabheim.” He agrees to work on a cure for the Grey Ague, telling them that the book they brought, The Plague & the Principality,  will help him immensely.  He tells them the Shallyans are working on a religious cure - and when they check this out, they discover that the Shallyans are relying on Holy water that they think may be contaminated, and they convince the Shallyans and the Judges in the Law Quarter to not use the water - and to only drink imported booze... the Judges agree to remove the Cup Tax on imported beers and spirits, to help the effort against the plague...

Daubler sets to work and the PC's set themselves to trying to live through the disease...