Devilry Afoot: Terror in Kurtstein

The Terror in Kurtstein

This week saw intrepid heroes return to the horrors of the 30 years war in another remote game of Devilry Afoot. Introducing (L to R, top to bottom):

And a curious collection o' scallywags they were...

•       Curt (Saskatchewan, Canada) - our host and majordomo
•       Millsy (Sydney, Australia) as the grizzled veteran soldier Kasper Kessler
•       Reilly (Queensland, Australia) as demonologist Albrecht Braun, scholar
•       Paul (Washington DC) as nobleman Johann von Falkenburg, with his faithful man servant Jürg
•       Keith (Vancouver, Canada) as Dr Raymond the Lucky, physician

The Road to Kurtstein

Timor Domini principium sapientiae.

The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. (Proverbs 9:10)

A few weeks after Magdeburg, in a dining hall still smelling of the siege that had ended it, Giovanni Battista Seni had poured the wine himself. They were an odd company, assembled by design other than their own: a gentleman and the servant who followed him, a demonologist, a physician who wanted to dissect monsters, and an old campaigner who had learned that death found villainous and virtuous alike.

Count Wallenstein's astrologer watched them over the rim of his cup with the satisfaction of a man who had found precisely the goods he was promised. "Word travels strangely in this war," he said, "but it travels. Magdeburg has produced a remarkable number of reports. A child-preying entity banished, a spectral procession saved, churchyard horrors dispatched. Enough, at least, to convince my patron that the Empire has a problem larger than one ruined city. Your names have become useful to me. Not merely Falkenburg's. The physician, the demonologist, the old veteran soldier. Each of you has already demonstrated a particular talent."

"We've had luck," Falkenburg said, which was true as far as it went.

"You've had skill," Seni corrected, "which interests us a great deal more."

"Your former companions have gone their separate ways. Captain Reichenau remains in Magdeburg for the present, and the Franciscan has gone his own road."

Johann thought briefly of Chück, and wondered what he would have thought of the company Seni had assembled.

Seni continued, "The others have likewise found their destinations. Yours happens to be Kurtstein. I would not call this errand a test, precisely." He smiled, thin and dry. "I would only observe that Count Wallenstein watches how a man performs his first small commission before he offers him a larger one."

Braun, who had said little through the meal, set down his cup. "And how large a commission does the Count have in mind?"

"That depends a great deal on what you bring back, and in what condition. A smith whose iron does what the rumours claim is worth a great deal in a war... and you will not be the only ones who have heard of it. The Swedish crown keeps its own collectors of curious talents these days, and not every Imperial officer answers first to the Emperor's interests where a prize like this is concerned. Bring the man back safely and quickly, and you will have shown my patron what kind of instrument he has found in you."

Kessler, glass already refilled twice, broke the silence that followed. "And if we don't come back at all, Herr Seni?"

Seni did not answer at once. He turned his cup a quarter-turn on the table, the way a man turns a chart to catch better light, and studied them each in turn as though he were reading something off their faces that had nothing to do with the meal. "Mars still burns red over Magdeburg, they tell me," he said, almost to himself, "though I hear a Franciscan considered that Venus was already rising to answer it. Mercy following hard on the heels of Wrath. A tidy enough reading, if a man believes such things." He let the observation sit a moment before the smile returned. It was said that Count Wallenstein would not march an army without first consulting what Seni saw written in the stars.

The Astrologer Giovanni Battista Seni advises Count Albrecht Eusebius Wenzel Von Wallenstein 

That dinner had been three nights ago, since when the silence of the road to Kurtstein had been broken only by horses' hooves and a distant, directionless howling that might have been wolves. Count Wallenstein's coin sat heavy in Johann von Falkenburg's purse and heavier still on his conscience, for a man did not get rich in the Empire's thirteenth year of war without paying in more than mere silver.

They had ridden hard from camp. Falkenburg and his manservant Jörg were the vanguard, Falkenburg watching the road while Jörg watched his master, his hand resting easy on the silvered guard of the rapier that had been his grandfather's before it was his, the Falkenburg motto worn half-smooth beneath his thumb from years of the same habitual touch. Yet the company that had cleared the shrine at Magdeburg was not the one riding behind him now. Friar Chück had returned to his order and his studies, for now at least; the Prioress and the boy had been placed somewhere the war could not easily reach. In their place Dr Raymond "the Lucky" trailed behind with his satchel of powders and case-bottles clinking softly at every stride, occasionally checking the contents as though the road to Kurtstein were a laboratory rather than a road to somewhere men had stopped coming home from. Braun rode with the stillness of a man who had spent more nights reading of devils than sleeping, a crossbow across his saddle and a bundle of sharpened stakes beneath his cloak. Old Kaspar Kessler brought up the rear, halberd resting across his saddle-bow and his wineskin lighter than it had been at dawn.

Kurtstein's low stone gate rose out of the mist ahead of them, standing open, unchallenged by any watchman.

"Abandoned?" Jörg asked.

"Listen," said Braun, reining in short of the gate.

Beneath the wind: laughter. Thin, musical, threaded with something that raised the hair on every neck present, drifting towards them from somewhere down the high street.

"That is no watchman's call," Kessler muttered, and took a long pull from his wineskin.

They went in anyway, because the smith was in there somewhere.

Somewhere a dog gave one low whine and fell silent, as though it had thought better of it. The timber-framed houses leaned over the cobbles like conspirators sharing secrets. The cold had a taste here, flat and metallic, the way well water tastes of the pump it's drawn through. Every door was shut fast, more than one marked with a crude cross scratched at eye height, and above three separate lintels, wilted sprigs of wild rose and hawthorn, their protective virtue long since spent.

"Someone here knows what walks these streets," Braun said grimly, loosening the crossbow at his hip.

The faint laughter drifted and faded behind them as they turned off the high street, and for a time it seemed content to let them go.

The Daughters of the Night

Wer nachts pfeift, den holt der Teufel.

He who whistles in the night, the Devil fetches him. (German folk saying)

They kept to the shadow of the eaves as they crossed the town, following the cold, dark houses towards the smith's dwelling. They found it by its cold forge and shuttered windows, no different from its neighbours save for iron hinges that did not creak when Falkenburg's fist fell upon them. The man who opened it was broad through the shoulder in the way of his trade, a leather bundle already clutched to his chest as though he had been waiting all night for someone, anyone, to tell him it was time to run.

"You're the ones Count Wallenstein sent," the smith said. It was not a question.

"Gather what you can carry and no more," Falkenburg told him. "We haven't time for a return trip."

"I have had little enough to gather since their singing started," the smith said grimly, pulling the door shut behind him with a hand that shook only slightly. "Two nights now I've barred myself in and listened to it walk past my window. I had begun to wonder if anyone was coming at all."

"You'll wonder about warmer things soon enough," Kessler told him, not unkindly, and set off back the way they had come, the others falling into a loose, watchful ring around the smith. They had gone no more than six paces when the laughter changed pitch, sharpening as it found them, rising suddenly into words, sing-song and playful, pitched to carry.

"Come and see... come and see what waits within..."

Three women stood in the middle of the high street, bathed in a pale light that seemed to come from nowhere and everywhere, clinging to their skin like moonlight made solid. They wore only thin shifts, white linen translucent with damp, and their bare feet did not seem to feel the frost on the cobbles. They were young, impossibly young, and achingly beautiful in a way that made a man's reason falter.

Their mouths broke the spell first. Dark stains ran from each woman's lips to her chin, black in the moonlight but unmistakably not black at all. Blood, and beneath the cold night air a faint copper tang reached them even at this distance.

"Sweet travellers," one of them called, her voice like a bell struck underwater, "you have come such a long way. And found what you came for, I see." Her eyes slid to the smith at the centre of their ring, and her smile widened. "Won't you rest with us a while, before you carry him off?"

"Thralls," Braun breathed, low enough for only the others to hear. "Wine-drunk on their master's leavings. Don't look at their eyes! Don't answer them!"

"Fascinating," Raymond murmured, reaching for the small case at his belt where his grenades were carried.

"Later, Doktor," Kessler growled. "If God is kind, you'll get your chance to blow one of them to Hell before this night is through."

Falkenburg tore his gaze from the women and fixed it on the black slate roofs beyond, forcing his mind back to the matter at hand. They had the smith, now they had to keep him. If there were thralls walking the streets at the witching hour, something far worse was master of this town tonight; and whatever it was would want the smith just as badly as Wallenstein did.

"We get him to hallowed ground," Falkenburg said, low, urgent, "and we do it now."

"He is not for you," the first woman sang, drifting closer, close enough now that Falkenburg could see that her breath did not fog in the freezing air. "He is promised. You may come in all the same, sweet soldiers. But you may never leave."

Braun's hand closed hard around Falkenburg's arm. "The church," he said. "Now. Move!"

They moved: Falkenburg gesturing Jörg across the street, Kessler barking Raymond back into step, Braun walking backwards with the crossbow finally levelled, watching the pale shapes come on.

The women had closed half the distance already, bare feet skimming the frost-slick cobbles without a sound, and even as Falkenburg watched, the tallest vanished into the black gap between two houses. Her sisters continued after Raymond and Kessler, but Falkenburg knew the missing woman would be circling to close the trap from both ends at once.

"She's flanking," Kessler snapped. "Move straight across!"

"Jörg, with me!" Falkenburg cut a line diagonally across the high street towards the black bulk of the church tower rising beyond the square, Jörg a half-step behind him, driving a path through the open ground before the other two women could close it. Braun came next, one hand fisted in the smith's collar, half-dragging him across in their wake.

Behind them Dr Raymond had gone very still and Kessler remained by his side. He set his lantern down upon the cobbles and stood with a small clay grenade cradled in both palms, its fuse already lit from the lantern and spitting bright orange sparks into the dark. Its fuse hissed and spat like grease thrown upon a cook-fire. His eyes held the particular, unhealthy delight of a scholar finally given leave to test his theories on living subjects.

"Doktor." Kessler's voice, flat and wary. "You are holding that a mite close to your face."

"I am timing it," Raymond said, without looking up, tilting the grenade as though admiring the sparks. "The fuse burns unevenly. I've adjusted the mixture myself, less saltpetre and more-"

"I saw those things take a man's hand off in the opening engagements at Magdeburg," Kessler more briskly, backing away a step, his grip tightening on the halberd all the same, for he was not about to leave the man to face three hungry corpses alone. He took a long pull from his wineskin instead. "Half his arm, Doktor. Gone. Just so you understand."

"Then stand a little further back," Raymond suggested amiably, "and watch from there."

The grenade fizzled on as the women came on faster, and down the black gap between the houses, unseen and unheard, the third of them was already out of sight.

Dr Raymond and the "special fizzling grenade" token

Falkenburg had no path left to him but forward. The church tower stood black against the far rooftops beyond the town square; but the quickest way towards it lay through the tangle of yards behind the town's one inn. He led them through the inn's garden instead, boots crashing through a low hedge, towards the small stone shrine that stood among the trees there, their first waypoint on the way to the church proper.

He was three strides into the copse when she came around the corner of the inn's wall. All pale flesh, grinning mouth and teeth.

The thrall was on Falkenburg before his duellist's instincts could bring his rapier up to guard, her claws opening his shoulder. Jörg arrived a heartbeat later, lantern in one hand and hanger in the other, with his familiar blunderbuss slung across his back. Though his first stroke missed, it drew her attention long enough for Falkenburg to recover. Together they drove her back; Jörg's hanger finally found her arm, and when she turned towards him Falkenburg struck. The blow glanced away, but it exposed her flank. Jörg's next swing did not.

Her head left her shoulders and went sailing into the dark hedge beyond, and what remained of her folded to the frozen ground, already unmaking itself into something that no longer troubled to look like a woman at all.

Death amongst the Ducks...

For a moment neither man spoke. Then Jörg let out a shaking breath and turned to where Falkenburg stood swaying against a tree trunk, his left arm hanging dark with blood. Only then did Jörg realise that his own hands had gone numb around the hanger's grip. Whether from cold or from what he had just done with it, he could not have said.

"Can you walk?" Jörg asked.

"I can walk," Falkenburg said, through his teeth. "The others..."

"Are still coming, and so is her sister, most like, wondering why this one's gone quiet. The garden shrine first, to catch our breath. Then the church."

Back in the open street, Dr Raymond had eyes for nothing but the sizzling grenade in his hand. Its fuse hissed and spat, throwing a small, furious light across his face, and for one endless moment the death in his palm seemed the only true and interesting thing left in Kurtstein. Then the moment came, and he drew back his arm and threw.

The casing was slick with damp and oil and turned in his grip as he released it, and the grenade sailed long, missing the ground between the two advancing women entirely to strike the cobbles just behind the second of them.

Whatever the failings of aim, the blast that followed was spectacular in every other respect: a booming crack that threw light and stone dust the length of the high street. The thrall it caught did not so much fall as come apart, flung into ruin in a dozen directions, and where a laughing young woman had stood a heartbeat before there was now only wreckage and the stink of black powder.

Her sister's scream tore through the wreckage's echo, and it was a scream of sisterly rage. She closed the distance to Raymond before he had even registered that the grenade had worked, claws raking in to catch him across the forearm and chest, and the doctor went down onto one knee with blood welling black through his sleeve as she leaned in for what would plainly have been the finishing stroke.

Then Kessler's halberd came in low and level, driven forward with the full weight of an old soldier's charge, seeking to spit her on the blade.

But she was not there to receive it. She twisted aside with a speed that mocked the blade meant for her, the point passing harmlessly down her flank. She turned towards Kessler, tongue running slow over blood-slicked lips, and smiled the smile of a woman who did not believe an old soldier with a pole-arm was worth her trouble, before turning back to finish what she had started with Raymond.

That was her mistake. Kessler recovered the halberd and swept it around in a practised arc. This time the blade found her throat, and she folded down beside the doctor in a heap of white linen gone suddenly, finally still.

Kessler stood over the both of them a moment, breathing hard. Then he reached for his wineskin, found his hand shaking too badly to trust it, and thought better of the idea.

"On your feet, Doktor," he said instead, hauling Raymond up. "And next time you feel the urge to test your theories, do it somewhere I'm not standing downwind."

Kessler permitted himself one more pull from the wineskin before he corked it.

The Master

Media nocte clamor factus est.

At midnight there arose a cry. (Matthew 25:6, Vulgate)

The thralls were dead. Creatures that had traded their souls for a taste of eternity, their bodies finally committed to the grave. For a moment the party allowed themselves to believe the worst of the night was behind them. Braun and the smith came stumbling up from the garden to find the others gathering by the little shrine, breath heaving white in the cold, tallying what the night had cost them.

The laughter came in that one unguarded moment of relief.

It rolled out across the rooftops of Kurtstein from no single direction any of them could name, deep and slow and utterly without mirth, a sound that seemed to come up through the cobbles rather than down through the air. This was not the tittering, girlish laughter that had drawn them into the high street an hour before. This was older. Heavier. The laugh of something that had watched three of its own fall and found the spectacle, at most, mildly diverting.

The Master comes...

The temperature seemed to drop as the sound faded, sharply enough that every man felt it in his lungs. Somewhere above them, something that was not the wind stirred the night air, and a dread settled over them that had nothing to do with wounds or exhaustion.

Falkenburg first broke the silence, hefting a rapier that was not quite steady. "That," he said quietly, "was not one of those ladies."

"No," Braun agreed, turning the smith bodily back towards the garden. "That was what sent them. Move, all of you. We are not nearly done with this night!"

Raymond needed no second telling. He snatched his lantern up and set off at a dead sprint towards the shrine, his wounded arm clutched to his chest and forgotten in the simple, animal urgency of putting distance between himself and whatever had just laughed.

The little shrine offered nothing but a scrap of carved stone and a name half-worn from its plinth; paltry protection against whatever had just laughed its way across the rooftops of Kurtstein. Real sanctuary, hallowed by a Bishop's hand, lay only in the consecrated ground of the Church proper, across the square. To linger here was to delay a reckoning that would find them regardless.

"I'll lead," Falkenburg said, before anyone else could claim the honour, despite the blood soaking his sleeve. "Whatever comes at us, we protect the smith." Jörg fell in at his shoulder, the hanger bare in his hand. Braun took the rear, crossbow raised, watching the hedgerow with the steady vigilance of a man who understood exactly what walked these streets tonight. It was he, watching the wrong direction for half a heartbeat too long, who never saw it come.

It came over the garden's hedge without a sound and was on Braun before the crossbow in his hands could do him any good. Claws raked his chest and shoulder, tearing through cloak and doublet both, and Braun's own cry joined Falkenburg's from earlier in the night as he staggered back against the hedge with blood spreading dark across his front.

There was no space to bring the crossbow to bear; the thing was too close, too fast. He let the weapon fall and his free hand found instead the glass vial of holy water at his belt, carried through every hour for precisely such a night as this. He smashed it against the creature's flank without ceremony, with the raw certainty of a demonologist who had run out of cleverer options.

The spray caught it full across the shoulder and neck, and the effect was violent. A thin, steaming mist rose hissing from the creature's hide, carrying with it a smell like a snuffed match. And the scream that tore from it bore no resemblance to anything a man might make in pain. High and utterly inhuman. It recoiled in a convulsive lurch and danced back into the shadow of the hedge.

"It recoiled from the water. Good. The old protections still hold!" Braun yelled to the others.

The shapeless dark gathered and resolved, for the first time, into something Braun could name. A wolf's shape, black and huge and wrong in ways the moonlight would not quite let him fix in his mind, its hide still smoking where the water had touched it, though nothing about it had truly been born a wolf. Its eyes fixed on Braun with a hatred that had nothing of an animal's simplicity in it. Whatever wore that shape had not been born to it. It had chosen it, as a witch might choose the form of a beast when the Devil granted such a thing.

Falkenburg saw the creature's retreat for what it was; a moment, and no more than a moment, in which the rest of the party might yet win the open ground between the garden and the church unmolested.

"To the church, all of you, now!" He turned as he shouted it, rapier drawn, his ruined shoulder forgotten in the same rush of desperate resolve that had put him at the front of the line. He went after the retreating shape alone, driving it towards the garden's far wall and buying whatever ground the others needed.

He broke from the garden's far side into the open square with the church's dark bulk rising before him at last. There, the shape stopped its retreat and turned.

Its eyes locked onto him, red and burning with the hatred of something that remembered exactly who had scalded it with holy water. The shadow that had worn a wolf's shape began to unmake itself, limbs lengthening, the black hide drawing upward into something that stood on two legs. By the time it closed the distance, it was very much a man, save for the teeth: long, yellow-white and slick with blood not its own.

Johann's rapier found only air. The creature slipped inside his guard, and then the claws were everywhere. His buff coat offered no protection. Falkenburg felt his strength depart with his blood and fell to his knees. The church tower swam above. And darkness took him.

von Falkenburg's stand against Darkness 

Jörg's shout, when it came, was pure fury.

He dropped sword and lantern both, crouching over Falkenburg's fallen shape to snatch the vial of holy water still hanging at his master's belt, and was on his feet throwing before the thing had so much as turned to meet him. The vial shattered against it dead centre, and the creature recoiled into a shapeless mass of smoke, shrieking as it fled for the deeper dark across the square.

Behind them, Braun struggled in the dark to load a sharpened wooden bolt into the crossbow's groove, cursing each time the bolt slipped free. Dr Raymond had broken from the garden entirely, moving fast up the open road with his lantern held before him, searching for any gap that might let them through to the church. Some distance behind him was Kessler, with halberd hefted over his shoulder and following on legs that no longer quite answered him.

The creature recovered quickly. It returned to the square in man-shape, stalking rather than charging, with eyes fixed on Jörg with an intent that needed no words. It meant to answer, in full, for the holy water that had scalded it twice over in one night.

As it came, its eyes changed. Something shifting in their depths that did not merely reflect lantern-light, and Jörg felt himself drawn despite himself, a traitorous curiosity rising unbidden. His footing loosened beneath that gaze, his anger softening into something far more dangerous than fear. Then he thought of Falkenburg, crumpled and bleeding on the cobbles behind him, and the softness burned away in an instant.

"No!" The scream tore out of him raw and absolute, and whatever hold the creature's eyes had begun to close around him broke apart under the force of it. The thing recoiled from the refusal in his voice, and turned instead towards easier prey, drifting sideways across the square to where Dr Raymond stood alone with lantern extended in one hand.

It came for him from the shadows, overconfident and certain of an easy kill. Raymond swayed back from the raking swipe and the claws parting nothing but night air. Before the creature could correct itself his own blade was already coming up and in, biting deep along its flank in a stroke cleaner than anything he had managed with his grenade.

The creature's back was to Jörg now, wholly given over to the doctor before it, and Jörg did not waste the gift. He came in from behind with a scream of no words in it, swinging his blunderbuss as a two-handed club and furiously drove the stock into the creature's shoulder. He wedged himself in beside Raymond as the blow landed, the two of them boxing the thing between them, and for one desperate moment it seemed almost possible that they might keep it too busy to kill either one of them before help arrived.

It was Braun, watching from the hedge line, who saw what the others could not: that the creature's whole attention was fixed on Raymond and Jörg both, and that the ground between the garden and the church door stood, for this one narrow moment, entirely clear. A fleeting chance at best, but a chance nonetheless. The smith had crouched behind the garden wall, too terrified to move until Braun saw the path to the church clear.

With Dr Rayond and Jürg engaged with the Master, Braun spies a chance as Kessler staggers down the road

"Run now!" he bellowed at the smith, who broke into a dead run across the open square. His bundle of tools clutched to his chest, and sincere but half-remembered prayers tumbling out with every stride.

The creature's eyes found Raymond again, wary now where they had been overconfident before. Its gaze had gone bottomless, twin pits that seemed to draw the doctor's whole mind down into them, his sword arm slackening, his feet forgetting, for one terrible heartbeat, that they had anywhere left to run to at all.

Braun did not hesitate. He dropped the crossbow and instead closed both fists around the missile: no bolt now, just sharpened wood and a demonologist's desperate faith behind it. He came up out of the garden at a dead sprint, vaulted the hedge without breaking stride, and drove every last ounce of that momentum down through his arms. Into the creature's left eye.

The natural 10 Reilly rolled to trigger his Demonologist skill and critically wound the Master Vampire!

The agonised scream was the worst sound any of them had heard in their lives: a shriek that seemed to come from somewhere far larger than the body it was torn from. Smoke boiled up from the creature's frame and it staggered backwards five stumbling steps before its shape came apart entirely, unravelling into shadow and a final, fading scream that swallowed itself somewhere in the black streets beyond the square. There was no body; only smoke, silence, and gore splattered cobblestones.

For the first time since they had passed through Kurtstein's gate, the night was simply quiet.

None celebrated. They knew too well how much else might still be listening in that town's darkness. Jörg hefted Falkenburg's unconscious weight from the cobbles, Braun took up the rear with the stake still clutched white-knuckled in one fist, and together the party crossed the last of the open ground to the church doors with their prize past the threshold and into the candle-scented confines within.

The doors were iron-bound heavy oak, and were slammed shut with hands that had not yet stopped shaking. There would be no sleep for any before dawn. But for the first time since the laughter had first found them at the gate, they were safe.

The Morning After

Der Morgen ist klüger als der Abend.

The morning is wiser than the evening. (German proverb)

Morning came to Kurtstein the way it comes to towns that have survived something they were not certain they would. Slowly, and with a great deal of caution.

Shutters opened one at a time, and doors followed. Hesitant at first, then all at once until the high street filled instead with the citizens of Kurtstein, staring at the wreckage strewn across their cobbles, the strangers, and the familiar smith who stood bruised and bloodied and, against every reasonable expectation, alive.

Word ran through the town faster than any of the party could have accounted for: the smith had been kept safe, the pale-faced women would trouble no one again, and whatever dark thing had ruled Kurtstein's nights was, at last, unmade. Grateful hands pressed coin into the party's own, fistfuls of worn silver offered by people who had little enough to spare and gave it anyway. Others brought linen and salves and clean well-water, and it was these that Raymond seized upon with far more genuine relief than he had shown for any grenade, setting briskly to the work of treating the party's wounds and above all, Falkenburg's.

Falkenburg's injuries were grave. Raymond worked over them for many an hour, and for a long while even he would offer no certainty. Eventually he declared that Falkenburg would keep his arm, and his life, though the scars would remain for the rest of his days. Jörg did not stir from his master's side the entire while, crouching at Falkenburg's shoulder through every stitch, holding a bowl of clean water when Raymond needed one, and Falkenburg's good hand when he did not.

Kessler said little that morning, unusual enough that Raymond remarked upon it once and did not again. The old soldier sat apart with his halberd across his knees, turning his wineskin over in his hands without drinking.

The smith, once his own hurts were seen to, made his offer without much ceremony. To each of them, he said, he owed a debt no coin from Wallenstein could properly settle, and he meant to see it paid in the only currency that was truly his own: honest work from his own hands, before the winter roads closed. Falkenburg he named first, promising to reset the old rapier in a new scabbard chased with silver, the family motto picked out fresh where years of handling had worn it thin. For Jörg he proposed a stouter lock for the blunderbuss, one that would not fail twice in a single night; for Kessler, a halberd-head that would hold its edge through a hundred such nights as this one; for Raymond, a case for his grenades built so the casings would never again slip a damp and desperate hand. To Braun he said nothing at first, only studied him a moment too long, as though uncertain what a man who dealt in devils might want made for him.

The demonologist Braun noticed it, crouched beside the smith to help bind a graze along his forearm that none of them recalled him taking in the night's fighting. The wound was old, half-healed, silvered with scar tissue, shaped in a way that struck Braun's eye like a struck bell: a ring of small puncture marks, evenly spaced, the kind no blade or claw left behind. He had seen its like once before, sketched in the margin of a confiscated grimoire, beside a passage on binding and branding he had not, at the time, believed literal.

He said nothing of it, just glanced up to find the man watching him with an expression that was very carefully still. Whatever else Kurtstein's blacksmith might be, Braun thought as he finished the binding, he was not merely a craftsman who had been lucky enough to survive a bad night.

He was, in some fashion, already spoken for.

---------------

Post game:

Johann von Falkenburg did not initially survive his encounter with a master Vampire but the presence of a physician with the party allows a reroll and he survived, albeit with 'horrific scars". Phew! All other wounded characters recovered from their injuries.

The party was rewarded with 100 silver coins by the grateful citizens of Kurtstein, which they chose to split evenly. More interestingly, the smith offered to craft a special item for each of the characters, suited their particular talents.

As we play infrequently we play that every survivor acquires a new skill after a Mission (but not followers, sorry oh faithful Jürg). Falkenburg took the Duellist skill, and has requested that the smith craft him a special main gauche parrying dagger.

Maybe it has silvered edge to help combat the beasts of darkness? Or it could be one of those clever tri-blade sword catching ones...

I took this pic in Castel San'Angelo in Rome, so its legit!

Devilry Afoot: The Shrine of St Curtis

Recently Curt treated me to another online game, along with his mate Doug (also in Canada)- this time it was Devilry Afoot. I bought the rules a year ago but haven't had the chance to play so was excited to try them. 

As ever, Curt cooked up a wonderful scenario embedded in the real history of the 30 years war.

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The Siege of Magdeburg (1631) by Peeter Meulener

Magdeburg, 1631. A Devil's playground of death, destruction and misery at the hands of the rampaging Catholic League. Many were the sins of Man, with 4 in 5 inhabitants killed; 20,000 dead of the 25,000 population. A census the following year in 1632 listed a mere 450 inhabitants. Much of the city was still rubble by at least 1720. Vestra maxima culpa.

The Task

"Your party has been in refuge during the siege, with their friend Otto von Guericke, who opened his home to them when the Imperialists began their siege of the city.

Otto von Guericke. German scientist, inventor, mathematician

(physics of the vacuum, atmospheric pressure, electrostatic repulsion)

This is a historical, though perhaps apocryphal, account of an event that occurred during the city’s sack. As the Catholic Imperial troops breached the Protestant city’s defences, frightened children formed a desperate procession and marched across the marketplace singing hymns for mercy. Many were put to the sword while others were thrown directly into the flames by soldiers.

Your friend Guerike’s son, Jakob, lost several friends in the ‘march’ and is literally being haunted by them.

The mission is to escort the spirits of the dead to a nearby church ruin, whose holy icon, it is reported, has not been desecrated. There they will consecrate it and hope that the spirits can find peace. Nonetheless, nearby is a small encampment of soldiers, and rumours of revenants in the area abound…"

The Characters

Johann von Falkenburg  - a noble’s ne’er-do-well son

Jörg - faithful servant of Johann

Friar Chück - Lutheran Friar accompanied by his loyal dog 

The second son of a minor Protestant noble house, Johann von Falkenburg was dispatched to Leipzig University to study law and restore the family's reputation after an indiscretion with a village girl threatened to become a scandal. Blessed with a generous allowance and more charm than discipline, he proved an enthusiastic student of fencing, duelling and taverns, but a notably indifferent scholar, despite the earnest efforts of his friend, Otto von Guericke.

As the years passed, his allowance dwindled in proportion to his academic progress. Bitter at the prospect of inheriting little beyond his name, Johann drifted into ever poorer company, driven by an increasing need to prove that he was second to no man. Debts mounted, tempers shortened, and rumours of further romantic indiscretions followed wherever he went.

Concerned but never wholly disappointed in his younger son, the Baron von Falkenburg sent Johann's boyhood companion and the family's steadfast gamekeeper, Jörg, to watch over him. More servant than retainer, more elder brother than servant, Jörg has spent years quietly steering his young master away from disaster; sometimes successfully.

Now, with Magdeburg reduced to a smoking ruin, Johann finds himself sheltering in the home of Otto von Guericke alongside Jörg and their companion, Friar Chück (played by Doug), formerly of the Franciscan Order before embracing the Lutheran confession. Though the monastery that had once been his home was long since dissolved, the title 'Friar' had remained with him. His fervent faith is matched only by his fascination with the stars, which he insists reveal the order and majesty of God's creation. He is zealous in his quotation of scripture, surprisingly quick on his feet and accompanied by his beloved dog of inquisitive disposition (and indeterminate breed).

As they escort the restless spirits of murdered children through the ashes of a city abandoned to slaughter, Johann's skill with a rapier may prove of less value than the courage to confront the man he has become. God willing, perhaps together they can negotiate the evils of this tormented city and release the tormented from their purgatory.

The Tale...

"Observe Mars, my sons. Even now it burns crimson in its ascent through the eastern skies. Men imagine they make war; I suspect the heavens merely permit it," Friar Chück observed, his eyes lingering upon the stars as he leaned upon his halberd. A curious weapon for a cleric, but none had yet ventured to mention it.

"Perhaps another time, Reverend," Johann von Falkenburg replied with a thin smile, his gloved hand on the hilt of his rapier. "We have darker business afoot this night, devilry lurks in every shadow."

The Prioress drew Jakob a little closer, the boy's grip tight. "The priory lies along this road, beyond the next corner," she said softly. "We first pass the churchyard, then the Shrine of Saint Curtis. I first came as an aspirant, and lived nearby as a novice before taking my vows. The shrine escaped desecration and if we make the proper benedictions upon its consecrated ground, these poor souls may finally find rest."

No one spoke for several moments.

The path to the priory, with the characters entering from the top

Johann settled his rapier in its baldrick, his thumb brushing the silvered guard where the Falkenburg family motto caught the pale moonlight. Beside him, Jörg shifted the weight of his heavy blunderbuss onto his shoulder. Its flared muzzle looked comical by daylight; here amid the dark ruins, it promised dreadful finality.

Magdeburg burned behind them. The glow upon the horizon turned the low clouds the colour of fresh blood, great pillars of smoke climbing into the night sky. Yet no bells rang, no voices cried out. Only the distant crackle and the occasional collapse of some unseen roof.

And behind the little company, the spectral children followed. Hand in hand. Silent with their innocent faces contorted in pain.

"Go to the shrine directly, Sister” the Friar bowed his farewell to the nun as she ran back to safety. “We shall clear the path before you. May the Lord watch over you both," bowing this time to his fighting companions and started down the road, hound at his heels. They were swift and silent in the gloom.

Johann followed with measured steps, Jörg lumbering after them beneath the weight of his blunderbuss.

As they rounded the corner, the scene before them emerged from the gloom. A campfire with three men about it. Armed men. Hard-looking men. The sort that war breeds in abundance: deserters, cutthroats, and worse. A gibbet swung nearby, a shadowy figure hanging motionless within.

The heavy tread of Jörg hurrying to close the distance carried farther than anyone would have wished.

The outlaws reacted instinctively. One snatched up a matchlock and brought it smoothly to his shoulder. A flash split the darkness and half a heartbeat later Jörg's broad-brimmed hat spun into the night, torn clean from his head but leaving him miraculously unharmed.

"A curse upon it!" he spat at the wasted shot.

Another brigand drew a sword and leapt before Jörg could bring the weighty blunderbuss to bear. The blade slashed across his shoulder, drawing a crimson arc through the night. Pivoting on his leading foot, the outlaw reversed the cut in a vicious backhand meant to finish the wounded man.

Steel rang as the stroke met the iron banded shaft of Friar Chück's halberd. The cleric stood firm, his expression stern and unyielding as he caught the blow and forced the sword aside with surprising strength.

The second outlaw rushed in, his discharged matchlock gripped by the barrel and wielded like a great cudgel. He raised it high to smash the friar from his feet, but the blow never fell. The outlaw's eyes widened in astonishment as the polished point of an expensive rapier burst through his chest. For a heartbeat he simply stood there, staring down at the slender blade protruding from his blood-soaked doublet, scarcely believing what had happened. Then slid to the ground dead.

Across the narrow trail, Friar Chück wasted not a moment. With a practised twist of his wrists, he turned aside the first outlaw's blade and drove his halberd's long spear-point clean through him. The outlaw gasped, staggered a pace, and found himself pinned upon the cleric's polearm.

"Go to Satan" Chück hissed, his voice low and utterly devoid of anger, "and writhe in the fires of damnation." With a savage wrench he tore the blade free, letting the body collapse at his feet.

--------

Four score paces from the fight, two solitary figures paced forward. 

"Be brave, Jakob. We must reach the church quickly," the Prioress whispered as she guided the boy between the ancient yews, keeping the trees between themselves and the distant clash of steel. The weathered headstones of the churchyard loomed ahead, pale in the moonlight. Behind them drifted the spectral procession, the ghostly children gliding silently amongst the trunks, neither hastening nor falling behind.

The smell of spent gunpowder and blood hung upon the night air now, overwhelming even the acrid smoke that still rolled from burning Magdeburg. It was the scent of violent death. An odour that summoned the servants of Darkness. From the deepest shadows, where moonlight dared not trespass, a pair of crimson eyes opened.

They watched the Prioress and the boy with a hunger older than memory, and utterly beyond the ken of mankind.

Then the thing began to move.

Not with a charge, nor even a prowl, but with dreadful patience, as though time itself held no dominion over it. Its outline seemed almost human beneath tattered rags, yet every step carried it from one pool of darkness to the next with unnatural silence, light as falling ash.

Jakob saw it first and stopped walking. "Schwester..."

The Prioress turned and for the briefest instant her composure faltered. A tremor passed through her hand, not enough for Jakob to notice, but enough for her to feel. Then, drawing the boy behind her, she raised one trembling hand and traced the Sign of the Cross before her.

"In nomine Patris, et Filii, et Spiritus Sancti." The creature halted. Its burning gaze remained fixed upon them. It recoiled not from the woman herself, but from the ancient words that clothed her in an authority it hated. The Prioress straightened, her fear mastered by faith.

Her voice gathered strength with every word. "'The Lord is my light and my salvation; of whom shall I fear? The Lord is the strength of my life; of whom shall I be afraid?'"

For a long moment neither moved. Then the creature drew back a single pace. Then another. Its eyes narrowed, not in pain, but in wary calculation. Without a rustle it retreated amongst the leaning headstones, the darkness enveloping it like a funeral shroud. The Prioress did not lower her hand until even those terrible eyes had slipped from sight.

"Come Jakob," she whispered, though her voice betrayed the effort it cost her to remain calm. "Faith has stayed its hand, but not its hunger." Together they hurried towards the ruined church, acutely aware that amongst the graves something still paced them in silence.

-------

For several long moments, the three men remained silent as they peered into the darkness beyond the campfire, straining to catch the slightest movement. Smoke drifted lazily between the trees, and every shifting shadow seemed to promise another assailant.

"That's two down, but there were three," Johann said quietly. "Where is the last?" Only silence answered him, and he glanced back along the road towards the churchyard.

"The Sister." His decision was made before the words had fully left his lips. "I'll see them safely to the shrine."

Friar Chück gave a curt nod. "Go. God goes with you."

Johann flicked the blood from his rapier’s blade and set off at a run, disappearing into the darkness.

Jörg winced as he hefted the great blunderbuss once more, blood soaking steadily through his torn sleeve of his wounded shoulder. With a practised motion he thumbed back the dog and searched the darkness beyond the fire.

A figure detached itself from the night. The last outlaw had been lurking there all along.  He stalked forward with measured steps, matchlock levelled, his face little more than a pale smear beneath a battered hat. Jörg fired.

The blunderbuss bellowed like a culverin's roar as it belched flame and a storm of lead tore branches from the yews and sent splinters flying into the night. And when the smoke parted, the outlaw stood unharmed.

"A pox upon it!" Jörg cursed, fumbling for powder and ball, his scarred hands working by long habit even as he cursed.

The outlaw answered in kind and his matchlock flashed. The ball hissed through the smoke with an angry whine, clipping bark from an ancient yew before vanishing into the darkness. Neither man had found his mark.

"Keep him off me!" Jörg barked to the Friar, who strode forward with his halberd held low.

"Gladly"

The outlaw cast aside his empty matchlock and drew a short hanger, circling the priest warily. Steel rang as the outlaw hacked wildly at the halberd's shaft, seeking an opening. Chück yielded not an inch and turned each cut with economical precision, before the brigand lunged.

The friar slipped the point with a deft twist and answered with a sweeping upstroke that forced the man back another pace. From behind came the unmistakable click of a cocked firearm.

"Stand clear, Reverend", and Friar Chück stepped aside without hesitation.

The outlaw had only enough time to turn his head before the blunderbuss erupted again. The blast struck him squarely in the chest. Buff coat, ribs, flesh, neck and head all vanished in a crimson cloud, the force hurling him backwards to crumple lifeless beside the dying campfire.

Jörg lowered the smoking weapon and nodded once, content as though it were but a day’s sport in the woods. "I've always preferred to let them come a little closer."

Friar Chück glanced at the ruin of the unrepentant sinner. "A sentiment," he replied dryly, "I shall remember."

Jörg stooped with a weary grunt, muttering "Let's see what manner of wolves we've slain.” He methodically stripped the slain of powder and purse, his wounded shoulder bleeding steadily.

Friar Chück, meanwhile, cast his gaze towards the lonely campfire.  "A prudent man assumes there is always one more," he said quietly.

Halberd held at the ready, he advanced towards the camp, his hound ranging ahead with nose low to the ground. The beast paused now and again, sniffing suspiciously.

The camp proved a miserable affair; three bedrolls scattered about the fire, a blackened cooking pot and small keg of ale. The fire crackled and somewhere an owl called, but nothing answered. His hound gave a low growl nonetheless. Then came a sound that did not belong to the night. A low, muffled groan. Friar Chück turned towards the gibbet as the figure within stirred.

The occupant was bruised and bloodied; his once-fine buff coat torn and stained with mud and blood, yet enough remained to reveal the grubby white sash and gorget of an Imperial Army Officer. Friar Chück lifted a water flask to the prisoner's mouth, who drank greedily before coughing violently.

"My thanks," he rasped. "I had thought... God Himself had forgotten this place. I am Captain Matthias Reichenau, Imperial Army. They..." he nodded at the three new corpses beside the fire, "were once of my company."

He closed his eyes for a moment before continuing.  "When Magdeburg fell, discipline died with it. There was plunder enough to satisfy any soldier, yet these men wanted more. They butchered women, children... old men who could scarcely stand. I tried to control them and they answered with mutiny. Now they answer to God".

At length the captain spoke again. "If you release me to return to the Army, I shall see you rewarded. I still possess credit enough for that." He swallowed painfully. "More than enough to purchase your goodwill."

Friar Chück regarded him for several moments, searching his face as though weighing not merely the man, but his soul. "Silver is a poor reason to perform Charity, but the coin shall ease suffering in Magdeberg. Widows shall eat and orphans shall find succour."

The Imperial officer smiled without bitterness. "I can think of no worthier purpose."

Friar Chück raised his halberd, hooked the cage's rusted fastening with its beak, and gave a powerful wrench. The old iron groaned, the lock yielded and with a crash of rusted metal, the prisoner's cage swung open.

-----

As steel rang elsewhere in the night, the Prioress felt the darkness tighten about her, but she finally caught sight of the shrine.

Though battered by shot and blackened with soot, the little stone and wood sanctuary yet stood. Its weathered crucifix remained untouched above the archway, a beacon of hope. She quickened her pace.

"Only a little farther, Jakob," she whispered, "only a little farther."

The creature kept pace, remaining within the churchyard. She could not always see its form amongst the headstones but its burning gaze never left them. They drifted silently through the darkness, always abreast of the Prioress and the boy, never drawing nearer, never falling behind, as though some unseen boundary confined its hunt.

Behind her came the sharp crack of musketry. Then another. The sounds echoed across the shattered city but she did not look back. Whether the reports marked victory or death for Johann and his companions, she neither knew nor could afford to know.

Ahead lay the shrine. Behind came the dead.

The spectral children followed in solemn procession, gliding over broken graves and fallen masonry with quiet purpose. To the Prioress they came in perfect silence, but Jakob heard them all. Their pale faces were frozen in screams no other living ear could hear, their empty mouths crying futilely for mothers, for mercy. Jakob clapped hands over his ears, whimpering, though the terrible chorus only grew louder.

The rites of consecration could brook no delay. The Prioress reached the worn stone steps of the shrine, drew a steadying breath, and made the Sign of the Cross.

"Lord," she murmured, "grant that we are not too late."

The sudden sound of running footsteps shattered the stillness. The Prioress started and turned in alarm, one hand shielding Jakob as a figure burst from the darkness. She feared the worst but the moonlight caught polished steel and the familiar outline of a gentleman's hat and cloak. "Johann!" she gasped.

He slowed only long enough to take in the scene with a sweeping glance.

Jakob said nothing, merely lifted one trembling hand to point at the crimson eyes and Johann gave a nod. Without a word his blade whispered from its scabbard and he stepped forward until he stood between the shrine and the graves. Between the living and whatever watched them from the darkness.

His stance was that of a practiced duellist, weight balanced on the balls of his feet, the slender point of the rapier unwavering despite the apprehension knotted in his chest.

"If it would trespass, it must first reckon with my steel" he said quietly, never taking his eyes from the darkness

The Prioress regarded him, then inclined her head. "May God reward your courage, Herr von Falkenburg."

From within the folds of her habit she withdrew a small, well-worn Bible, its leather binding stained from use. Kneeling before the weathered shrine, she opened it with reverent hands and began to read in a low, unwavering voice.

"Adjutorium nostrum in nomine Domini..."  Our help is in the name of the Lord...

The Latin rose softly into the night, each measured phrase seeming to settle upon the ancient stones like falling dew. Behind her, the spectral children approached the shrine in perfect silence. Before her, Johann stood alone with naked steel. And beyond the headstones, the crimson eyes watched without blinking.

---------

Hunger. The fresh blood upon the night air was rich now, warm and intoxicating, drowning even the smoke of the ruined city. Life stood before it; defiant, radiant, hateful in its warmth. The living had no place amongst the dominion of the dead.

Beneath the earth, something stirred. Then another. Things that remembered the taste of blood. Ancient appetites, their hunger unbearable. 

The living had trespassed too long amongst the dead. With a sound somewhere between a hiss and a growl, the creature abandoned all patience and burst from the shadows, racing towards the shrine with impossible speed.

---------

The crimson eyes vanished and for the briefest instant, Johann thought the creature had withdrawn. Then the darkness itself exploded towards him.

It crossed the churchyard in a blur, clearing fallen headstones with impossible grace, jaws gaping impossibly wide with yellow fangs glistening beneath the moon.

Johann had fought duels. He had crossed blades with students, officers and noblemen, each contest governed by measure, timing and reason. He had also fought less gentlemanly duels outside taverns that were barely more than a brawl. This was neither.

Instinct alone saved him. He threw himself aside as claws swept past, the creature striking stone with terrible force before wheeling back. Johann stumbled, rapier rising by reflex, the polished point wavering as the fiend circled.

Behind him, the Prioress’s voice carried steady scripture, each line a bulwark against the encroaching dark. Each phrase binding the shrine against the night.

The revenant lunged. Johann’s blade found its chest, then its throat, then its eye.

The creature screamed. Not in pain, but in fury. Black blood poured, yet it fought on. Fear remained in Johann, but habit proved the stronger master and his fencing masters’ lessons returned. He pressed forward, abandoning elegance for survival, hacking until sinew parted.

At last the fiend lay stilled. Johann stood over the corpse, scarce believing it unmoving, tasting iron in his mouth as he realised he had held his breath.

And behind him, the Prioress had never faltered, her voice continued to rise and fall with unwavering resolve. "Libera animas fidelium defunctorum..."

The spectral children had gathered before the shrine, their pale faces turned toward the ancient crucifix. Waiting.

The silence lasted but a heartbeat, before another shriek split the night. From deep within the churchyard, another savage, inhuman cry seemed to rise from the earth itself as more hate filled eyes burst from the graveyard.

It struck Johann with terrible speed, claws screeching against his guard, jaws snapping inches from his face. He twisted free, lungs burning, cloak shredded, his rapier flashing in desperate parries.

The creature pressed hard, each swipe tearing cloth and flesh, yet Johann yielded only a pace, turning its rush aside and driving his point into shoulder and chest. Still it fought, putrid gore spilling without end.

Behind him, the Prioress’s voice rose in scripture, calm and unwavering: “Adjutorium nostrum in nomine Domini…” Her words bound the shrine like a wall of faith.

Then Johann heard another voice. Deeper. Male. Strong with conviction. Friar Chück.

His latin joined the Prioress's like a second bell answering the first, each phrase strengthening the next until they rolled across the ruined churchyard with solemn authority.

Strengthened by their prayer, Johann no longer sought victory, but to deny passage. Every heartbeat bought another line of consecration, every parry another breath of grace. And so the duel continued beneath the blood-red light of Mars.

At last, as the rites reached their climax, Johann met the revenant head‑on. His blade struck with fierce resolve, and the fiend fell stilled upon the shrine steps.

As the blade struck true, the prayers behind him rose like a bulwark of faith, coming to a crescendo, and Friar Chück exclaimed "The Holy Rites are complete!"

"Come, my children!" The prioress said, gesturing with her hands as she pulled Jokob away from the Shrine. "End your suffering! Ever-lasting happiness awaits you!"

The ghostly children stirred as one. Slowly, almost timidly at first, they turned toward the shrine. The ancient crucifix no longer reflected the moonlight but shone with a gentle radiance of its own.

The creature hurled itself forward one final time, driven now by blind hunger rather than cunning. Johann did not retreat. Stepping inside its reach, he put every remaining ounce of strength behind a sweeping cut. The keen edge sheared through rotten flesh and brittle vertebrae alike. The head tumbled free, rolling between the ancient gravestones before coming to rest face upward, its crimson eyes fading at last into darkness.

Johann was left panting, his clothes rent and his energy all but spent. Then, on the far side of the ruined church, another pair of baleful eyes opened. And then another.

Knowing he did not have the stamina to defeat these new foes, Johann nonetheless raised his rapier and prepared to fight. 

The Prioress's booming voice close behind surprised him. "In the Name of Jesus Christ our Lord, begone spawn of Satan!" Her tone was strong and confident, buoyed by the success of reconsecrating the shrine, and the thing immediately fled back into the churchyard.

Johann turned to thank her but what he saw stole the words from his lips. The spectral children were walking into the Shrine and dissipating. Their faces were no longer silently screaming but smiling and serene. Some were holding hands, some were skipping. All were moving to the Shrine, and soon they were all gone.

As the last child faded into the shrine, the Prioress bowed her head and pressed the worn Bible to her chest. A quiet sigh escaped as she whispered “Lord grant I proved not unworthy”

Jakob lowered his hands from his ears. For the first time since the city had fallen, he heard only silence.

"God be praised' Johann said, softly and reverently.

The crucifix glow had faded, leaving only moonlight upon weathered stone. Even the ashen pall from burning Magdeburg seemed held at bay for a single, blessed moment. Johann lowered his bloodied rapier and removed his hat. Around the little shrine, for the first time since the city had fallen, there was peace.

"Observe, my friends," Chück said quietly, his eyes once again upon the brightening eastern sky. "Mars's hour wanes and now Venus has risen. Thus does the Lord declare that Mercy shall always outshine Wrath."

-------

A really gripping and immersive gaming experience, thanks again Curt and Doug! It had a little bit of everything including a Cleric's successful "Turn Undead" like from D&D! All figs and terrain from Curt’s fabulous collection.

To round out this tale:

Jakob, freed now from the haunting, went home to his grateful father while the Prioress returned to Magdeburg to help tend the injured and the suffering.

Johann recovered a slightly used but serviceable Buff coat from the outlaws and a obtained purse full of shillings. He gained 6 Exp XP to give him a +1 to shooting skill, so some of that money is going toward the acquisition of a wheellock or snaphaunce pistol.

Jörg recovered fully from his shoulder wound, and took the sword that made it in payment (companions don't skill up in this game so he gets no XP).

Friar Chück similarly walked away with a purse filled with shillings but what secret is he hiding? Doug will have to provide additional details.

And finally, Captain Matthias Reichenau was last seen departing the priory to return to the Imperial Army, but I suspect we have not seen the last of him...

Thanks for a fabulous game GM and host Curt, and follow player Doug!