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The Enemy Within (WHF Witch Hunter Quest)

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Nuts! said:
What are we dealing with? A ghoul, a spectre, a wight, or something else entirely? There's some inherent merit to kicking down the door and taking a look at what's inside before we start trying to rally the troops.
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The interesting thing here is, well, the Dwarves didn't find the door.

We did.

The people whose entire job is digging in rock and stone, somehow missed the door, and seem a bit unusually fearful. That is very intriguing to me.
 
They missed the door because there isn't a door there, in any physical sense - no hinges, no mechanism, no significant difference in material employed.

Anyway, I've made the relevant rolls and such for the next update (spoiler they made me very sad) but given the whole Christmas thing it'll be a few days before any update.
 
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XXXI - The Signal Tower
  • Threadmarks
    • [x] Crack it open

    Credit to @Nuts for writing the opening that I have used below.

    XXXI - The Signal Tower

    "We can either wait to ambush the creature, call for aid, or crack its lair open now," you announce to Isembeard, elaborating further on the options. "The choice is yours."

    In truth, it's no choice at all. Dwarves suspecting a Grudge to be avenged would rather shave their beards than stage an ambush or wait for manling reinforcements, so the forewoman immediately calls over several mud-caked diggers and a mason to survey the wall. Though disrupting magic is inherently risky, you'd rather face whatever lurks inside with Söll's chariot overhead rather than underneath Morrslieb's grin. Offering the illusion of choice to the forewoman also buys enthusiastic participation from both her and the workers, and avoids blame landing on you should things go awry. Though such underhanded tactics rankle your morals, you've a mission to complete and you'd rather not suffer a Grudge needlessly.

    You and Max prepare the ground while Elvya tends to the worst-off Dwarfs as best she can. At your direction the dwarves scrounge metal rods from the construction materials and drive them into the earth equidistant around the basalt rock, hopefully serving to ground a sudden wave of magic. A tiny stockade is constructed with dwarfen speed around the dock, sharpened stakes enclosing the camp's key supplies and hopefully providing both protection and a safe route to the barge should it be necessary. Two dwarfs clad in leather armor volunteer to breach the likely hiding-place with picks, trusting in their innate magical resistance to survive the backlash, while your team waits ten paces away in a hastily-dug ditch, each group surrounded by further metal stakes to ground harmful energies. Hopefully both you and they will resist the backlash well enough to face whatever lurks inside.

    Hopefully.

    "Are you ready?" you ask the two volunteers gravely. Neither is a warrior, but both face you with beards well-brushed and faces resolute. Though they hold mining picks, each has a hatchet at their belt and a small shield by their side.

    "Aye," the first says - Nain Grimbrow, if your memory serves. "If you're correct then this manling sorcery hides what killed my clanmate Errun. That's a debt what needs settling." The other dwarf merely grunts in concurrence, and you nod in turn before you and Max take your own places.

    "Let's see what we dig up."

    The dwarves set to work with grim expressions, cracking stone and leveraging open cracks with mechanical efficiency. With every stone-cracking blow and grunt of effort the air seems to grow thicker, a premonition of doom curdling like the sky before the storm, but if the dwarves notice it their work hardly shows it. On and on they go, implacable and unstoppable, until at last one of their picks hits something critical and the dam breaks in a howling flood of magical energy. Icy wind flings aside the remaining blocks and coats the ground in frost, but between your precautions and the mountain-folk's natural resistance to magic no great harm comes to anyone involved, and with a satisfied nod you draw your weapons and gesture for your comrades to gather.

    "No natural illumination," you note, frosted grass crunching beneath your feet as you approach the opening, peering into the darkness within, "No immediate sign of guardians either. We shall have to explore it carefully."

    "Aye. Lads, get the lanterns," Aynjulls Isembeard says with a brisk nod as she steps up next to you. "Only wide enough for two abreast, looks like, so the manlings and I will go in while you hold the rearguard."

    You consider objecting, for the engineer is a civilian and this is not her trade, but you can well understand the leader's instinct to play a personal role in ending whatever has befallen her subordinates. Besides, the forewoman is carrying a rather intimidating looking rifle in her calloused hands, the barrel etched with dwarven script and the firing mechanism strangely bulky and overgrown, and you would be lying if you claimed the thought of such firepower was unwelcome. The rest of the work crew soon produce the desired lanterns, sturdy things that use a combination of sliding apertures and polished mirrors to direct the light in narrow beams ahead of you, and with a sword in one hand and a lantern in the other you lead the way into the tower's shadowy depths.

    You were right about that section being a door, it seems, for the space beyond is clearly some manner of entrance hall. Strange geometric patterns carved into wall, floor and ceiling seek to fool the eye and confuse the mind, and when you step across the threshold you could swear that the cold wind bears the distant echoes of a warning in it, but your will is a thing of steel and you allow none of this to disturb you. Your every step raises thick clouds of dust that dances fitfully in the lantern light, and through the dense gloom you manage to make out the shape of three doors.

    "Which way, boss?" Max says tersely, sticking close to your flank and keeping his heavy axe held ready in a tight grip. Elvyra and Aynjulls follow behind, the former carrying a lantern rather than any weapon and the latter inspecting the walls with a vaguely distasteful expression on her face.

    "Left," you decide after a moment, "Let's clear the flanks before we move any deeper."

    The door is a simple thing of polished wood, surprisingly intact despite the long years this place has clearly lain abandoned, and on the far side you find a long arcing room that follows the curve of the outer wall. The nature of the place is revealed by degrees as the light of your lanterns passes across it - stone benches piled high with glass beakers and strange brass contraptions, boxes filled with various kinds of glittering ore, and chalkboards covered in esoteric calculations all suggest a laboratory of some kind. Squinting at the nearest set of calculations, you are surprised to realise that you recognise them.

    "Tracking the path of Morrsleib?" you murmur thoughtfully, lifting the lantern higher so that the light illuminates more of the increasingly erratic script, "But why would an alchemist need to know such things?"

    You've made no great study of astronomy yourself, but a great many dark rituals and unhallowed magics are influenced by the path and proximity of the Chaos Moon, to say nothing of the cursed nights of Hexenstag and Geheimnisnacht. An unwholesome interest in its orbit is one of the traditional signs of corruption in the academic mind, but you see no other dark symbols or marks of forbidden worship here, only a relatively mundane laboratory. You turn to see Elvyra leafing through a heavy tome set on a griffon-claw pedestal, but when she sees you looking the apothecary merely shrugs.

    "Medical research, looks like," she says, slamming the cover of the book closed again and stepping away, "Handwritten in classical, so whoever owned this place was clearly educated, but it'd take me hours to pick apart the details."

    You nod, but before you can give any further instructions there is a sudden rattle and Max swears viciously. He's kneeling next to one of the stone benches, and in the focused light of your lantern you can see the dusty remnants of an old skeleton slumped against the workstation, its skull now lying several feet away.

    "Any sign of who it might have been?" you say quietly as you move up to join him, looking down at the skeleton for a moment. "The scholar who owned this place, perhaps?"

    "Could be," Max grunts, standing back up and shaking his head, "But I'll be honest, boss, it's the teeth marks that I care about. Something ate this poor fucker alive, right down to the marrow."

    That discovery puts an end to the idle curiosity, and with a hunter's focus you gather your team back up and press on. The laboratory follows the outer wall of the tower around until what must be roughly a third of the perimeter, where another wooden door grants access to a cramped library packed tight with row upon row of wooden shelves. There are hundreds of different books here, written in at least a dozen different languages with contents ranging from respected treatises on medicinal alchemy to compendiums of bizarrely specific pornography, but discovery of two more gnawed and broken corpses compels you to keep moving. Sure enough, the last third of the tower's perimeter plays host to another room, this one a comfortable looking study complete with wooden desks and high-backed leather armchairs, the walls decorated with a series of old fashioned oil paintings.

    "The work of our absent owner, perhaps, or simply a hobby?" you wonder, studying the portraits in the flickering light of the lanterns. Each is an individual portrait of a man or woman in antiquated clothing, marked out as family by the common traits of their shared blood - aquiline noses, bushy eyebrows and high foreheads prone to balding predominate, but there are no names or family heraldry anywhere to be found.

    "This just leads back to the entryway," Aynjulls calls out, propping open the final door and exchanging a few words with the dwarves she left behind outside, "Nothing went past my lads, so if there's anything in here, it must be further in."

    "A study, a library and a laboratory," Elvyra muses, chewing at her bottom lip as she pokes at the old wooden desk, "No sign of anywhere to live, though. Might have been on the upper levels before they collapsed, I suppose?"

    "What I want to know is why they build it out here," Max frowns suspiciously at the portraits, as if trying to judge their intent from the shapes left in oiled paint and polished wood, "Must have cost a pretty pfenning to build this place, but we're nowhere near any real town, and we're too close to the river to hide from view."

    You nod at that, for Max's thoughts match the direction of your own. There is, of course, one obvious answer. "Mistress Isembeard - in your estimation, how old is this place?"

    "Hard to say, what with half of it missing," the dwarf grunts, propping her rifle up on one shoulder so that her free hand can toy with one of her braids, "But at least three centuries, maybe four."

    "Pre-Magnus, then," you nod, your suspicions confirmed, "Most likely, the master of this tower was a witch born to nobility or among their favoured servants. It would not surprise me to learn that they chose to build their scion a retreat such as this, hoping to use arcane power in war with their neighbour - Reikland and Talabecland were often at odds, and this tower would have placed the witch right on the border."

    You have no way to know for sure if your theory is correct, but it would explain the unusual location and the lack of identifying heraldry on the portraits. That said, Reikland was ever the heartland of Sigmar's faith, and consequently far more dangerous to a prospective witch than some of the other warring states of the time; Talabecland and Middenland would both have been safer, if such was all that mattered. Perhaps your mysterious arcanist was a patriot of some form, willing to dare even the templar's pyre in defence of their homeland? Stranger things have happened.

    In any case there seems little point in delaying, and a few moments later you and your companions have returned to the entry hall and opened the door to the inner ring of the tower. Strangely, there are no rooms beyond, only a single circular corridor bare of any decoration or portal that you explore in full in a matter of moments. It is only when you stop to consider what you have clearly missed that the true nature of the tower becomes clear.

    "This isn't brick," Aynjulls says with a frown, rapping her knuckles against the inner wall of the corridor and listening intently to the sound it makes, "Not all the way through. There is steel in here, it sounds like, a good inch or two at least."

    "A steel column?" you blink, trying to speculate for a moment on the cost of so much metal and coming up blank, "For structural support?"

    "Nay," the dwarf shakes her head, her plaits swinging with the motion, and sets her hand flat against the wall. "Here, push against it. Feel how it moves? There are hinges in there, a counterweight mechanism - the whole thing is meant to turn. And, aye, see those gaps? Places for a lever, I reckon."

    You have no idea what technological wizardry could permit a two-inch-thick column of steel to move without the aid of a whole team of ogres, but Aynjulls is the engineer here and you defer to her authority. Sure enough, a few moments spent rigging up a crude lever to fit into the opening provides a way for even a pair of hands to set the whole thing to turning, and out of an abundance of caution you set your lantern down on the floor and draw your pistols as you watch the wall slide past you with eerily silent grace. A few moments later something clunks in the darkness and the rotation comes to a halt, revealing an arched opening in the wall before you that was clearly not there before.

    Beyond is another chamber, a single hollow space that occupies the very core of the tower, dimly lit in scarlet hues by a faintly glowing hexagram etched into the floor. The light is dim and flickering, sufficient in the main only to turn darkness into shadows and illuminate in part the vast slumbering bulk that lies resting in a pile atop the rune. It might have been human once, you think, but something else has grown up inside it, stretching the once-recognisable limbs and torso into a thin mesh over a new and more terrible form, one packed with heaving muscle and punctured by spines of broken bone. Thin membranes of flesh stretch from torso to claw-tipped limbs, and patches of mangy fur erupt like blisters in clusters around the neck and thighs.

    The beast shifts slowly, disturbed from slumber by your arrival, regarding you with eyes of burning coal. Its great maw opens in a lazy yawn, and as it moves a strand of ragged meat falls from between great yellowed fangs.

    Markus tests Lore (Chaos)! Skill is 35, roll is 96. Critical failure.

    You have no idea what this thing is, but it has to die.

    "Left side, beneath the shoulder," Elvyra snaps out even as the rest of you raise your weapons, "An old wound, see it?"

    You spot the weakness a moment later, a stretch of the beast's flank turned grey and necrotic. It makes for as good a target as any other, and from this range you can hardly hope to miss. Your pistols roar and Aynjulls' rifle barks, the combined sound horrific in this confined space, and your bullets tear into the beast's flank in great explosions of soupy blood. It reels back, screeching in pain and terror as the noise batters its canine ears and the bullets shatter bone, and a moment later doubles over to vomit blood and half-digested meat across the ground. What strength its twisted form grants seems to abandon it at that and the beast slumps to the ground, but Aynjulls Isembeard is not content. She pulls a small lever on the back of her rifle and fires again, twice and then thrice, putting bullets through each of the creature's burning eyes and then its heart before stopping to reload.

    "That was for my crew," she growls, spitting on the ground and shaking her head in disgust.

    "It isn't dead," Elvyra says, though she has to speak up to be heard over the ringing in your ears, "See, the wounds are already healing, like a troll."

    The apothecary is right, you see immediately. The broken ruin that you have made of the creature's chest is already starting to knit itself back together, and as you stand there you see one of the bullets pop free of its lupine skull and rattle across the ground. Aynjulls is not dispirited, however, merely nodding with businesslike calm.

    "Like a troll, you say? Well, we know how to deal with that," she says grimly, stepping back towards the entrance corridor, "Lads, get the ropes and a clamp! We've got a beastie to put to flame!"

    You keep a careful watch over the monster, Max's axe and your blessed sword held ready in case it manages to regain consciousness in time, but you need not have worried. The dwarves are as efficient in this as they are in everything else, and soon the great monster is a burning ruin on the barren hillside, leaving you free to return to the hidden chamber it was guarding.

    "Huh," Max mutters, kneeling down to poke at something on the ground, "looks like it was sleeping on this."

    The object of his attention is a strange looking key, a slim hexagonal column about the size of one finger tipped with a skull for a head. You don't recognise the metal it is made out of, some strange grey-blue alloy that seems to prickle your skin when you get close, but you are reasonably sure that not only was the beast sleeping on it, it was the necrotic section of its chest that was closest.

    "Best to keep this one in a casket, I think," you frown, studying the glowing hexagram laid out on the floor. Sure enough, at two of the apex points you can see an opening clearly designed to hold the rod as a door might hold a key, "The other one too, if we can find it."

    You could set the dwarves to work carving this barrier open as well, you suppose, but even standing near the glowing rune makes your skin tingle with the sheer concentration of magical energy flowing through it. You have no idea what would happen if it was breached incautiously, but with the monstrous beast slain there seems little point in putting that to the test without appropriate precautions in place.

    "You reckon it was a guard dog, then?" Max frowns, looking over the pattern and rubbing his jaw, "I don't get it. Why set a dog to guard something that will kill it? Or, well, make it rot. Same difference."

    On instinct you retrieve the lantern and train its light on the ceiling overhead. Sure enough, there is a section there where the stone has been pulled laboriously aside to create an opening wide enough for even the oversized beast to crawl through, but above it the planks that make up the floor of the upper level are still intact. Whatever else you can say about this beast, it was clearly smart enough to keep the entrance to its lair hidden, replacing the planks whenever it returned with food from its nightly hunts. Which, you suspect, means it wasn't a beast at all.

    "It wasn't by choice, I think," you shake your head, feeling a strange sense of pity for the man that monster might have once been swell in your breast, "It kept one of the keys, but I'm willing to bet you need two to leave this place, as well as to get to whatever is underground here. It's a common security measure in bank vaults. Most of the staff here died, but that one was… changed. Magic does that, if you stay near it for long enough."

    You wonder if that was part of the security measures - if the family that built this place did not entirely trust their tainted scion, as well they should not, it would make a certain kind of sense to set things up so that they could only leave with the assistance of an outside keyholder. Did they deliberately abandon their kin to death and madness, you wonder, or did some other fate befall them?

    You conduct a more thorough search with the aid of the others over the rest of the day, placing lanterns throughout the structure and having the bodies removed for some kind of burial, but as you half expected there is no sign of the second key or any evidence of who owned the tower. In the end the best you can do is relay your findings to Forewoman Isembeard, who nods once in grim-faced agreement.

    "We're still under contract for the signal tower, so we'll keep on working all the same. It ought to take a week or two, to shore up the damage and get the rest of it built, so long as everything stays on the level, " she says after a few moments of thought, "But I'll send word back to Altdorf of what we found here, let them know to send a couple of priests and maybe a wizard before whatever poor bugger they get to garrison it."

    "If you have parchment, I will affix my name and seal to the report," you nod in satisfaction, "I have my own mission to attend to, but I shall make sure to stop by on my return visit, and perhaps follow up with the archives at the Great Cathedral in Altdorf. If anywhere has a record of who built this place or where the other key may be found, it is there."

    Isembeard nods, casting a baleful glance over at the smouldering heap of melted flesh and blackened bone that was once the monster that feasted upon her crew. "Aye, sounds workable. Past that… I owe you for this one, Templar, and so do the clans of them you helped avenge. You're not a merchant, are you? Or got kin that work in the trades?"

    "No to both," you shake your head, "My family, the von Bruners, are a noble line from Ubersreik, but given their involvement in the disputed succession there it would not be right to drag you into the conflict."

    "A commission, then," Isembeard nods, "My clan are engineers and craftsmen in Altdorf, reckon we can produce near anything you could make use of. No runes, though - Thugni's kin never left the mountains. It'll take a while to make, but it will be worth it."

    Article:
    Aynjulls Isembeard owes you a debt for your assistance in this matter, and has decided to provide you with a free commission by way of repayment. Choose one of the following options, or suggest one of your own:

    [ ] Repeating Handgun
    A new evolution of an old design, if not one that would ever be approved of by those dwarves that remain in the mountains, this rifle can fire up to three times before needing to reload.

    [ ] Drakefire Pistol
    Closer to a one-handed blunderbuss than anything, this pistol fires specialist charges that detonate upon impact, setting the target and anything within three yards of it ablaze. Perfect for trolls.

    [ ] Plate and Chain
    A custom-made set of dwarf-forged armour is the gold standard for knights everywhere, and for good reason. This set is designed to be worn with your customary long leather coat, and bears the twin-tailed comet upon the chest.

    In addition, a decision must be made on what to do with the contents of the tower now that the beast that made its lair within has been slain. Choose one of the following options:

    [ ] Burn it
    An ancient witch's retreat abandoned for centuries will yield only the most tainted kind of treasure. Burn it all.

    [ ] Sell it
    There is always a market for books and alchemical supplies, and Josef will be happy to help you find it. You will, of course, remove any suspect items first, but bonuses for your team will go a long way.

    [ ] Leave It
    Isembeard's message will summon representatives from the Cult of Sigmar and the Colleges of Magic, both of whom will want to inspect the contents. At that point, the decision will be out of your hands.


    In the centre of the old tower, Markus and his team have encountered a vile monster of unknown nature.

    Markus and his team start with four points of advantage, for outnumbering and the advantage of surprise. The monster starts with three advantage by sheer dint of the threat it poses.

    Initiative order is:
    • Elvyra (59)
    • Max Ernst (45)
    • Markus (40)
    • Aynjulls Isembeard (38)
    • Monster (30)

    Round One
    • Elvyra
      • Elvyra rolls Cool to resist Terror. She has a skill of 74 and rolls 11, so manages to resist terror, but the beast still causes fear.
      • Not having a weapon that could assist here, Elvyra decides to perform a Lore (Medicine) test to assess the creature. She has a skill of 80 and rolls 63, generating two points of advantage, bringing the team up to six total.
    • Max
      • Max tests Cool to resist Terror. He has a skill of 65 and rolls 40, which allows him to avoid fleeing. Rather than approach the beast, he elects to take up a defensive stance, gaining a +20 on defensive tests.
    • Markus
      • Markus tests his Cool of 70 to resist terror and rolls 66, passing his test to avoid fleeing.
      • He draws his two pistols and fires them both. He has a base skill of 58, gets +20 due to the target's size, and another +20 because it is at half range. He also elects to spend the team's entire stockpile of six advantage for a mighty +50, and so is rolling against a total of 148. He rolls 46.
      • This generates a total of 10 (base roll) +1 (dual wielder) +4 (every 10 points above 100) -1 (fear) = 14 success levels on his attack. The pistol has a base damage of 9, so the hit does 23 damage.
      • He then reverses the dice for his second, dual wielding attack, and so does 21 damage with that hit.
      • The monster has one point of armour, which is ignored by the Penetrating quality of the bullets, so it resists the hits with its toughness bonus of 5. Markus inflicts 18 and then 16 wounds to the monster for a total of 34. This is, somehow, not enough to kill it.
    • Aynjulls Isembeard
      • Aynjulls tests her cool of 57 and rolls 20, allowing her to stand her ground.
      • She levels her repeater handgun and fires. She has a skill of 52 and is also benefiting from +40 due to size and range, for a total of 92. She rolls 88, a critical hit.
      • Normally this would be 0SL, due to the penalty from fear, but the damaging quality allows Aynjulls to substitute her units dice of 8 for the purposes of calculating damage. Her damage is thus 10+8= 18, reduced by 5 toughness bonus to mean 13 more wounds inflicted. This pushes the monster to an effective -5 wounds.
      • Aynjulls inflicts two critical wounds as a result of this, both inflicted (with a roll) on the body. The first is a result of 21 from the double, a gut blow, inflicting a stunned condition. The second gets a +50 bonus from knocking the target into negative wounds and gets a 101 for Broken Collar Bone. The creature is unconscious until it receives medical attention.
    • The Monster
      • Thoroughly regretting only having 30 initiative, the monster is currently prone (from hitting zero wounds), stunned (from the gut wound) and unconscious (from the broken collar bone). It needs an 8+ to regenerate when at zero wounds and rolls a 6, staying down. The fight is therefore effectively over.
      • RIP my boss monsters. The people who play in my weekly wfrp game can relay the suffering this causes me.
     
  • Threadmarks
    • A Vargheist, that's what this was, right? How queer.
    [X] Plate and Chain
    I do think the plate-and-chain is cool, adding even more immaculate vibes to Marcus. Undecided on the tower.
     
    [X] Plate and Chain
    [X] Leave It

    I'd love to get the repeating rifle or the Drakegun but armor is more likely to be used than either of the guns, as for the magic stuff selling it would be good money wise but it would be better if the priests and wizards sorted it out instead.
     
    [X] Drakefire Pistol

    Drakefire pistols are insanely good weapons. A reliable on-demand AoE attack with the range of a full pistol is very good, and it lights people on fire too! If we had that kind of weapon in Bogenhafen, it would've trivialised the final fight, and likely also that time we got ambushed by the thugs. By comparison, the extra 2 AP from platemail would be good, but it'd scarcely be any kind of gamechanger.

    [X] Sell it

    If Markus is making sure to keep the unwholesome stuff, we'll want to sell what we can. A single book is worth a gold coin or more, and we've found dozens, to say nothing of expensive laboratory equipment. We'd make a crap-ton of dosh here and that'd make our future activities so much easier.
     
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