(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 35

Power Behind the Throne

• Wilhelm [Wizard] – I 55
• Wilfried [Forger] – I 53
• Larry [Mercenary] – I 48
• Gottlieb [Assassin] – I 43
• Othmar [Spy] – I 46
• Brother Nate [Cleric] – I44

Wellentag

At the Chapel of Morr in Morrspark we learn that this park is the site where the dwarves first managed to tunnel up to the top of the rock that is now Middenheim and some of the old dwarven tunnels are still used as crypts for the richest families in town.

Unfortunately, according to Albrecht Zimmerman, the senior priest of the unadorned black stone shrine, members of the Todbringer family are not buried here, but are instead placed in crypts under the floor of the church of Ulric – so there is no way to investigate the body of Anika-Elise Nikse without somehow sneaking her body out of the floor of the busiest church in town.

As they leave the shrine, they see two people also leaving the Morrspark with what must be assumed to be a wrapped body between them. They head into the Westgate-Sudgarten slums and evidently know their way through back alleys as they skirt south and east through Southgate-Oswald until they finish off at a haulage company in the Wynd near the Chapel of Grungni. Along the way they are accosted by a mugger or other slum-dweller whom they pay off and continue on their way.

The mugger (one Alwin Reubke) is browbeaten into admitting that he shook them down for money and is convinced to head to the shrine of Morr tomorrow evening in order to receive his reward for reporting necromancy.

Meanwhile, the presumed body is dropped off through the back door of The Windhund Haulage Company where it immediately disappears from sight. Oddly there were workers sweeping and cleaning the loading yard in the middle of the night, but shortly after the delivery, they went inside.

When accosted by the party, the grave robbers (Waldo the Weasel and Manny the Maggot) described a highly volatile market in corpses this year – with extremely high demand and strict supply issues (because of all those nasty Nurgle cults eating the best ones) bringing the price up to 100 crowns a body. Supposedly there are necromancers also buying them up at that rate, but being good civic minded folks, Waldo and Manny have only been dealing with the local doctors who seek bodies for medical tests. The worry is of course that the number of disappearances in the poor quarters will increase as less successful grave robbers than these two take to murder instead; and if the Nurgle cults figure out that bodies are being sold to necromancers, there could be a whole escalation of underworld violence that might overflow into the city proper.

The group keeps tabs on the two robbers, putting them up in their rooms, as they sleep through the early part of the day. They have a plan to have Larry fight in the Minotaur fights today so the betting is good before people see him fight Dieter – which they hope to do on Aubentag morn. They are also hoping to deliver a fairly serious blow to Dieter during the fight, in order to get him in the same room as Doctor Pavarotti who can then check him for hypnotic controls.

The fight with the Minotaur goes pretty much exactly as expected. With a tiny bit of illicit magical assistance from Wilhelm, Larry is able to beat it to unconsciousness in a stunning flurry of strikes, take home the purse of 300 crowns, and win a much larger sum from the bookies at the event.

That night is unlike any other they’ve experienced in Middenheim – the city just keeps going as if the sun hadn’t set. Parties are being held in all the inns and the five pavilion tents in the park, drunks wander the streets, and they head back to Morrspark to hunt down these Nurgle cultists…