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The Enemy Within (WHF Witch Hunter Quest)

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Maugan Ra said:
Something prickles at your awareness as you and Max reach the waterfront, and without a moment's pause you turn on your heel and draw the pistol from your belt. Sure enough, the pair of stevedores following you freeze at the sight of the readied weapon, the heavy boat hooks in their hands hanging awkwardly as they try to decide how to respond.
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Yep, that Nose for Trouble really came through this time. Getting jumped on by 9 thugs is bad enough, but a surprise attack would probably be the end of us.
Maugan Ra said:
They break and flee, sprinting away as fast as their legs can take them, and with a slow sigh you lower your blades and allow them to run.
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After that bad fight, despite heavy odds in their favour due to numbers and because of the loss of their cocky leader right off the bat, they will think thrice before ever trying their luck against a Witch Hunter again. That reputation is well deserved as they have found out.
Maugan Ra said:
"Shut your trap, you blithering idiot, and be glad none of them got properly severed," Elvyra clucks her tongue, "I can give you something for the pain, but you're on bedrest for at least the next month, assuming you ever want to move again."
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Well crap. Poor Max, being out for a whole month. Sure, he's a thug by nature, but he has his uses and is surprisingly streetwise. Still, he had a reputation beforehand in the back alleys of Altdorf, therefore not having his support against the forces of Chaos (again...) is a bummer. I hope he sticks around after he gets back into shape, there is always more evil to fight. Instead of being a legbreaker, he will be known as a backbreaker now. :V
Maugan Ra said:
"They'll live," the alchemist sniffs, "They won't enjoy it, but another day or so will purge the last of the infection from their system, with a little help from my own remedies. They'll be up and about again after that."
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That's good. At least they will survive, despite the bad odds we heard about before. I doubt they will want to have anything to do with us later, though. Their thirst for excitement was met with a smelly reality check.
Maugan Ra said:
"If I have to, I'll find a festival crowd and whip up a lynch mob," you say darkly, in no mood for her needling questions now, "It will be ugly and the High Priest will be very upset, but better that than human sacrifice and forbidden magic go unopposed."
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Tobias Schnapps will gladly lead the charge! For Sigmar and a bottle of rum!
 
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Maugan Ra said:
"Right, right, but what if I happen to meet some sweet young thing en route," Max says gamely, "And she's offering to take me out for a nice time somewhere with a little privacy…"

Not for the first time, you consider shooting everyone in this room. A shame you only have two pistols.
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Got caught up in the vote that I forgot to mention this, but I remembered after a reread. The banter at the breakfast table was incredibly charming. I didn't like Max at the start and voted against him since I thought he'd stab us in the back, but he's really grown on me. It's almost a shame we can't keep Spätin around the party too since the two make for a fun contrast to Markus who's as grim as a Witch Hunter should be.
 
bookwyrm said:
it is so fucking funny that like 3/4ths of the glue holding the Ordo together and most of what it practices is just get-rich-quick self-help book shit manifesting success. It's just their (willfully ignorant) misfortune to get the actual daemonic influence instead of merely an unlicensed Magicker and Colleges dropout or a Ranaldian grift-cult or even just a good old fashioned snake oil alchemist as the purported rainmaker.
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Markus is so fucking mad. All the other witch hunters get the cool cults, the ones with a little gravitas, and he has to deal with multi-level marketers who kill people instead.
 
[x] Confront the Watch
Spatin might have some trick that would let us both escape, but Markus' skill set is way more aligned with confronting the watch.
 
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Maugan Ra said:
Markus is so fucking mad. All the other witch hunters get the cool cults, the ones with a little gravitas, and he has to deal with multi-level marketers who kill people instead.
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"There are two novels that can change a bookish fourteen-year old's life: The Lord of the Rings and Atlas Shrugged. One is a childish fantasy that often engenders a lifelong obsession with its unbelievable heroes, leading to an emotionally stunted, socially crippled adulthood, unable to deal with the real world. The other, of course, involves orcs."

John Rogers
 
Thanks for another great quest, Maugan Ra!

Seems like a mistake to rely on our ability to browbeat the cops into working for us. We're one person without any significant local back-up. Their masters are some of the most powerful and wealthy people in their world and they are probably only being asked to arrest us and slow us down, not to fight us.

Let's just escape and come back with more reliable forces. Then we will be in a stronger position to either persuade or force them out of our way.

[x] Flee the Scene

And I don't think we need to worry about a trial. We're going to either catch these guys red-handed and then there will be nothing they can do against us, or they complete their ritual and it probably does something a lot more dramatic than they thought, in which case our authority and credibility is also increased.
 
Draz said:
Seems like a mistake to rely on our ability to browbeat the cops into working for us. We're one person without any significant local back-up. Their masters are some of the most powerful and wealthy people in their world and they are probably only being asked to arrest us and slow us down, not to fight us.

Let's just escape and come back with more reliable forces. Then we will be in a stronger position to either persuade or force them out of our way.
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A lot of people vote to confront the watch because they're not confident in Markus' ability to actually escape without getting caught.

His skills in the art of stealth are... Not good. His ability to work around the law and work up a crowd, on the other hand, are quite well practiced.

Of course, both paths can go horribly wrong if the dice decide they don't like us.
 
[X] Confront the Watch

"You dare accuse ME of a crime? A templar of the Cult of Sigmar who can trace his ancestry back to Magnus the Pious IN the male line? My Father the Grand Theogonist will hear of this, Potter!"
 
[x] Flee the Scene

All the Watch except for the ones mentioned by the good Father are deep in the pockets of the merchants who are running this Chaos MLM scheme, fucking LEG IT.
 
Omegahugger said:
A lot of people vote to confront the watch because they're not confident in Markus' ability to actually escape without getting caught.
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The text of the story says that Markus thinks they can escape:

Maugan Ra said:
If you run now, you can likely make it out the back door and escape over the wall before the watch arrive, but… will adding the appearance of guilt to your name really make things any better? Either way, you need to make a decision, now.
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We will probably be seen, but I don't think that really matters.
 
Sarpedon said:
[x] Flee the Scene

All the Watch except for the ones mentioned by the good Father are deep in the pockets of the merchants who are running this Chaos MLM scheme, fucking LEG IT.
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Normally I'd agree that confronting the Watch is pointless. But in this case we've got several things going for us.

Markus isn't some level 1 herbalist, pit fighter or clerk. He's a Witch Hunter Inquisitor and a noble one at that. Would a commoner career have a chance in hell doing this? Not really. But Markus pretty much dances on the line of a max level Silver and a low level Gold and that means something in imperial society.

Watch Sergeants are only Silver 3 IIRC meaning they get a -10 debuff in a social confrontation (charm) with Markus while he gets a +10. (double that if they just so happen to be a strict adherent of the social classes, none if they are an outliner and dismiss them). Markus also gets a +10 when intimidating someone of lower status. (Again double if they are particularly strict about this)

Combined with the written, signed and sealed confession of a chaos cult being about? That might get us the opening we need to flip the Watch patrol. Because bribes are one thing, but the Empire is superstitious as heck. And that might just work in our favor here.
 
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