Where our adventurers find an unpleasant surprise lurking in the darkened corners of Bögenhafen's labyrinthine sewers.. THE RAT PACK The rats swarmed around and on Baroon and the surrounding platform as they poured forth from the sewer pipe. Dronk loosed a crossbow bolt, impaling two of the vermin, while Baroon attempted to shake them from his armor while protecting himself. Cornelius dashed forward, his arms outstretched, the words of power sprouting from his lips. As he passed Drake - just as he threw a javelin, killing several more of the sewer rats - he turned to face the furry tide threatening to consume Baroon. With a thunderous clap, he smashed his hands together, and a wave of power blasted forth. The noise was deafening and the effect immediate. The swarm was blasted against the walls and thrown about the sewer. Dozens of rats were killed outright, and the smell of burnt fur filled the air, above the stench of the river of liquid excrement flowing past. What rats remained scuttled into the dark, or leapt into the river and swam away. Baroon smiled - Sigmar was still with him, he thought. Not a single vermin's diseased claws or jagged teeth had left a mark. The party resumed their travel, with Dronk again leading and quickly picking up the trail of their quarry - the missing three legged goblin, a rather distinctive trail indeed. The group crossed another junction, carefully leaping across the 5 foot gap and over the stinking flow of waste. Dronk seemed completely unfazed, smiling even, despite the odor being enough to turn the stomach of a goat. The others had retched at one point or another, their senses overpowered by the foul air. A LIGHT AT THE END Dronk, in the lead, was the first to spot the light visible as he rounded a corner section of sewer. From a distance, he could see it was a door, and the light was coming from the top section, where a small barred opening was cut. He whispered to the others, then crept silently forward. As he approached, he could see a greenish ichor on the door itself, and that the goblin trail leading directly to it. Grinning, he grabbed the door and lifted himself so that he could see through. It appeared to be a cellar. The light was coming from a torch that sputtered in the corner, and a iron bound, solid looking cabinet in the opposite corner immediately drew Dronks attention - as the type of box you stored valuable things in - and he couldn't help but grin. The rest of the room was bathed in a pool of shadow. As he was looking, Drake and Hugo had approached, with Corenlius and Baroon further behind. The party, knowing their prize had entered the room, decided to break the door down, having found it to be locked. Hugo first attempted to smash at the handle, but when that was unsuccessful Drake and Hugo together gave the door a good kicking. After a few boots, it began to splinter and crack around the bolt locking it from the inside, and then smashed open. The light of the lantern flooded into the room, revealing the floor, where glints reflected back the light. A large pentagram made of thick copper that had been laid onto the floor. At each of the cardinal points, a candlestick holding a single, unlit black candle had been placed. In the middle of the pentacle, some words appeared written in some arcane language. THE LURKING GUARDIAN The group hardly had time to see this, when a thick, black smoke began to issue from each of the unlit candles. It quickly gathered in the center of the pentagram and coalesced into a solid form. Standing before the group was a creature, nearly 7 feet tall, with huge horns protruding from its forehead. A pair of bat-like wings wrapped around it's shoulders and long jagged talons. It looked directly at Hugo and Drake, the first and only people to have entered the room. Dronk and Baroon watched from the door, and Baroon turned to Cornelius to tell him to hurry for only one thought was going through his mind..'Daemon!' He found Cornelius slumped against the sewer wall, foaming at the mouth, his eyes rolled back into his skull. Cornelius was somewhere else. Somewhere, sometime far, far away. But to Baroon, he was merely incapacitated, and he couldn't suppress the tinge of fear he felt - to face the daemon without his aid - but he steeled himself. He was a warrior-priest of Sigmar - or so he aspiried to be. Before anyone could react, though, the daemon surprised everyone as he spoke..in a deep, sonorous, gentle voice.He addressed himself to Drake, who was standing closest. "You really must go, you know. I tried to tell that little goblin fellow, but he simply wouldn't listen." Drake, taken aback, started to reply, as he reached for his greatsword, still strapped to his back. As he did so, the daemon spoke again "I would'nt do that, if I were you. I would be forced to summon more of my kind for a nice picnic." The thing smiled, revealing a mouth full of dagger-sharp teeth, and drew itself up, suddenly becoming even larger, black smoke pouring from its eyes as it emanated an aura of pure menace. Hugo readied his warhammer, his two handed maul back at the inn. He felt naked without it, in the face of this abomination. Dronk, from the shadows by the door, silently readied his crossbow, as Baroon began to murmur a prayer to Sigmar. Cornelius remained incapacitated, his hands trembling and legs jerking on the slimy sewer platform. As the daemon began to mockingly speak again, Drake surged forward screaming 'For Sigmar I smite thee, foul daemon!" and brought his greatsword down in a mighty sweep. The daemon turned to avoid the strike, but not in time, and as it cleaved into his iron-hard shoulder, Drake chanted a prayer to Sigmar and felt the power of the god of Men flow through him. The daemon howled in rage and pain as the sword bit deep, and where it touched the flesh of the daemon seemed to melt. The daemon, reeling from the power of Drake's strike, slashed its claws against Drakes shoulder, cutting a deep wound and causing blood to splatter the floor. At this, Dronk fired - his bolt hitting, but only barely digging into the daemons flesh. Hugo rushed forward and tried to smash the daemon, but the creature moved like lightning and he smashed only the rock of the flooring, cracking it. Baroon rushed into the room, finishing his prayer to Sigmar, who answered the call of his faithful servant, blessing Hugo, Drake and Dronk with divine power. Drake, bleeding all over the floor, pulled his blade from the creature's flesh and swung again, but this time he missed and the blade sent forth sparks as it scraped against the rock of the floor. In retaliation the daemon lashed out with its rending talons, cutting a jagged wound through Drake's chain armor, ripping metal and flesh as though it were paper. Drake felt the warm rush of blood and began to feel light-headed. The daemon leaned forward to bite his head, but Drake was saved as he quickly twisted out of the way, moments before the jaws snapped shut. Dronk fired again, the bolt digging deeper, striking almost immediately next to the first one. The daemon howled in rage as Dronk prepared another bolt. Baroon moved to the severly injured Drake and called on Sigmar to heal his faithful servant. The wounds made a slobbering sound as they began to pull together, and Drake felt strength returning. UP IN SMOKE The daemon was covered in ichor from the deep wound in its shoulder. Hugo swung again, his hammer striking the daemon in the chest. It felt like hitting an iron anvil. Dronk again fired his crossbow, this time catching the daemon in a vulnerable area beside the knee. Drake chanted again for Sigmar to guide his hand as he brought his greatsword down and his blade bit deep - the jet-black blood of the daemon spurted out in a fountain. The creature seemed mortally wounded, and slashed blindly with its claws as it turned to try to bite Hugo. As it did so, Hugo swung his warhammer with all his might and hitting it square in the face. The foul face of the thing seemed to collapse inwards as it screamed in a voice hateful of the world and all things within it. As it fell to the ground, it exploded into a cloud of black, oily smoke. There was silence, then cheers and prayers of thanks. They had done it! They had slain the daemon! Drake found his wounds nearly completely healed through the power of Sigmar - though, unusually, the wounds had left scars, twisted lines crisscrossing his chest. His chain armor was also damaged, with many chainlinks broken by the daemons claws. Cornelius emerged from his trance just in time to see the daemonic entity die and found himself wondering what had happened. He tried to remember.. Dronk moved to open the iron-bound cabinet that had caught his eye earlier and found it locked. Despite the combined efforts of the party, they couldnt open the heavy chest. Cornelius found that it radiated a powerful magical field, probably some kind of lock spell, he guessed. Dronk also found, next to the cabinet, a silken hankerchief with the initals F.S. monogrammed on it, in an elaborate way. That of a nobleman or merchant, he thought, probably worth a pretty penny, before showing it to the group. They noted there was no apparent exit from the room, despite the door having been bolted from the inside. Despite extensive searching no hidden doors or passages could be found. Before leaving, Hugo, Drake and Baroon used their weapons to smash the copper pentacle into pieces, rendering it unusable for foul rituals in the future. They also took the skeleton they found, picked clean of any flesh or blood - the perfect skeleton of a three-legged goblin. As the group made their way back through the stinking sewers, they retrieved the corpse of Gottri, finally deciding for Drake to carry the heartless, armless, pantless dwarf corpse back to the surface. It was a long, dirty and uneventful hike back through the darkened sewers to the manhole where they had left the ladder. They tied a rope around Gottri and hoisted him through the hole. THERE AND BACK AGAIN They had been underground for most of the day, it now being late afternoon. A crowd formed around them as they emerged, some gasping as they saw Gottri's mutilated body. A group of watchmen approached and Hugo instructed them to call Richter, the town magistrate from the Festival Court. After a short wait he appeared with more men-at-arms. The group excitedly told the story of the sewers to the magistrate, who interrupted them midway to call for the Mourner's Guild to take the body away, then informed them that the goblin had been reported crushed under a heavy crate in a warehouse. The group were flabbergasted - this was not possible! After all, they had the skeleton of the goblin, which they produced. Dronk also showed the magistrate the monogrammed handkerchief he had found. He informed them that indeed it was the insignia of one Franz Steinhauger, one of two brothers prominent in the House of Steinhauger - a merchant family, the very ones Josef had sold his wine to. The magistrate appeared troubled when confronted with the evidence, then seemed to dismiss it. "I'm afraid these are very bold claims, gentlemen" - he said, before saying the town had withdrawn the reward as the goblin had already been killed. To the party's protests, he said they would need to go to the Town Hall if they wanted to be paid, as he was not authorized to give any money. He promised if they visited him later he would consider their evidence further, and possibly send men into the sewers to check on their claims, but that he was a busy man and there was a backlog of cases back at the Schaffenfest. He turned and left unceremoniously, accompanied by the men-at-arms. The group was frustrated - and also covered in filth, demon ichor and the blood of men, dwarves and rats. Tired and hungry, they returned to the Traveller's Inn, where they ate a light meal and rested briefly, cleaning their filthy clothes (and selves) as best as possible. THE LIGHT OF SIGMAR Baroon and Drake headed to the Temple of Sigmar where they met with Witold, the head Priest of Sigmar. He was in the process of apparently blessing several animals in the back offices of the church. When they entered the room, he looked directly at Baroon, his eyes wide. A strange light appeared around him as he said "You! You're our only hope! You can save us from-" and then he grimaced in pain, collapsing to the floor. Baroon rushed forwards, praying to his god as he did so to save his faithful servant - but was too late. Witold was stone dead, his hands clutched inwards, and his face frozen in a mask of pain. There were gasps from the other priests and a flurry of activity as they covered the body. Another priest approached and led them out of the room. Meanwhile, as Cornelius studied an iron-bound book that was apparently blank, Dronk slipped out the back with the skeleton of the goblin, and returned to the Schaffenfest where he found Doctor Malthusius, who welcomed him into his wagon and offered hum brandy and pipe-weed. When told of the story he initially seemed skeptical, until Dronk produced the skeleton from his bags. The pipe fell right out of the Doctor's mouth, but he quickly recovered his composure. They haggled over the price but the Doctor eventually paid 20 gold crowns for the skeleton of his prize exhibit, and informed the dwarf that he was leaving Bogenhafen and that if he were smart he would too. There was something sinister going on, and he wasn't going to stick around to find out what it was..
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The WizardIn time, you will come to know the tragic extent of my failings... Past Journals
September 2017
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