(Being a series of quick game notes trying to account for the events of many sessions of playing through The Enemy Within using the Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay 1e rules.)

Session 13

Death on the Reik

• Wilfried [Fence]
• Larry [Bodyguard]
• Martin [Scout]
• Talbberry Grumble [Scribe]
• Wilhelm [Wizard’s Apprentice]
• Othmar [Charlatan]
• Gottlieb [Bounty Hunter]
• Oscar Jager [Bodyguard]

Rooting through the riverboat (now covered in both dead river merchants as well as dead mutants – although the tentacled monstrosity and the winged mutant both ran off rather than continue to fight the highly skilled adventurers), they discover that the boat contains a large load of wool that they were shipping from the Schaffenfest.

They also found a single survivor hiding within the hold of the boat. Renate Hausler is a peddler from Grunburg who paid her way on the boat from Herzhald (a small town outside of Bogenhafen) to Weissbruck and hopefully to Altdorf.

She identified the bodies on the deck as being the owner of the boat (Fritz Segel) and his son (Albrecht) and daughter in law (Heidi). With the owner and his immediate next of kin so violently deceased, river salvage laws would make the party the rightful caretakers of the boat (and the cargo – 75 sacks each containing 250 Encumbrance Points of wool). Renate and Josef both encourage the group to take the boat to continue on their travels (and to help Renate get to where she’s going).

Arriving in Weissbruck, they are almost immediately accosted by a pair of peddlers who start engaging them with weird hand signs while trying to sell them pots and pans. One does all the talking while the other just stood there scratching the side of his nose with the little finger of his left hand, while inserting the thumb of his right hand into his right ear, fingers full extended.

In town, they report on the boat they salvaged (and acquire the ownership over it, pending one year of stewardship and returning to the local magistrate at the end of the year) and the mutants (where they discover that Emperor Karl-Franz has issued an edict declaring that there are no mutants in the Empire and the exile and slaughter of those with physical deformities is illegal and punishable by death).

They also discover the following:

• While there are still wanted posters for a Martin and Gottlieb around the region, the actual murderer of the noble has been caught and sentenced in Altdorf and they are no longer officially wanted or suspect.
• Crown Prince Hergard von Tesseninck (only son and heir of Grand Prince Hals of Ostland) has been killed during his expedition to the Grey Mountains.
• The Grand Prince of Ostland is blaming Grand Duke Gustav von Krieglitz of Talabecland for the death. An assassin working for the Grand Duke supposedly murdered his son.
• That assassin is said to be a Dwarf that joined the expedition at the last minute.

That evening Talbberry comes into the Inn and explains that the apothecary isn’t home, and there are distinct signs of a break inn and possibly kidnapping.
Investigation of the cottage just outside of town uncovers broken glass, fresh bloodstains, and a tattered warning note.

Finally, in a secret basement, they discover a young girl (Liza Sauber) who has been adopted by Elvyra after her parents died. She’s been hiding in the basement since yesterday when the men came and hit and kidnapped Elvyra.

In search of the eponymous “red barn”, they get seek out information in town and at the inn. Old Otto, the geriatric potman of the inn, recalls that there were three strangers staying at the inn until yesterday, who went outside of town for a short while every day they were in town, possibly towards Elvyra’s cottage, and that strangely enough haven’t been back since yesterday evening even though they had been saying that their boat out of town wasn’t arriving until tomorrow.

With a bit of coin and persuasion, he recalls that they left with a massive trunk in a wheelbarrow, over the Weissbruck Canal locks, and “that way”… (pointing to a decrepit farm that includes a barn with its doors long ago painted red).