(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 68

Something Rotten in Kislev

• Nate [Witch Hunter] – I 64
• Gottlieb [Witch Hunter] – I 63
• Larry [Mercenary Captain] – I 58
• Othmar [Assassin] – I 56
• Wilfried [Templar] – I 53
• Karl [Artillerist] – I 45

Now fairly late into the night, the group is alone on the windswept streets of Bolgasgrad and knocking on the door of one Alexsandr Gapon’s Surgery.

Gapon is a cheerful and strange fellow – a vet turned doctor and zombie repairman. Not a really skilled physician, but good enough by rural standards. When they arrive he is working on a zombie with a shattered leg – not so much attempting to heal it, but to see what kind of reinforcements he can mount to the leg to make it functional again. He is fascinated by how much he has learned about human anatomy since the undead became a major part of the city’s infrastructure. “One day I’ll write it all up in a book – could be invaluable to physicians everywhere.”

He natters away as he works, discussing the health of the various Chokin princes (Alexis I died of pretty natural causes… he was quite old and hung on longer than anyone expected, but is quite dead and cold now, and one of the few who has not been reanimated into the workforce; Alexis II is fit as a fiddle, for a man in his 70s – if he takes care of himself he’s got a decade or so left in him; Alexis III hasn’t been seen since he took his vows and retired to the Temple of the Ancient Allies – as a non-temple member himself, he hasn’t seen the younger prince since.)

And on the topic of Julius Olvaga (mentioning him by name, much to everyone’s surprise) “He’s had some kind of seizure. Hard to tell. He’s in a bad way. I can seldom make out what he’s saying – if he’s saying anything at all. Could hang on for a bit, could be gone tomorrow… you never know in these cases. His sister is taking care of him, but I don’t expect for long.“

With it being the wee hours of the night, they retreat to the Stork and Stoat to visit Olvaga’s house in the morning.

They push their way in to her home with various stories of taxation, making sure that Olvaga is still alive, being old acquaintances, and general lines of orcshit. Julius came to Bolgasgrad 50 years ago as a merchant’s clerk and engaged in his hobbies of history, languages, and document filing by working at the temples of Ulric and Taal-Rhya as their chief authority on their collections of religious texts and historical records.

When the Temple of the Ancient Allies took over and the old cults were kicked out, Julius joined the Temple of the Ancient Allies in order to keep his access to the library. Sometime after this point is when he became an agent of the Tsar.

However, when trying to talk to the dying Olvega, his sister begins to freak out – when they refuse to desist, she screams for the watch. As the watch pushes in to remove the party (who don’t resist), Olvaga croaks out “Uhnn … passages … secret passages .. . false closet … robes …w here’s my map? … wall … not right, not right.” when pressed about the map, he points down and one of the group grabs his hand scrawled map from between the thin mattresses of his bed.

And as the sun begins warming the streets of the city, they head up the western hill to the Temple of the Ancient Allies. While Larry & Karl go in the front door to distract the staff and ascertain the accuracy of the map, Nathander, Gottlieb and Wilfried go hunting for the secret door by the kitchens.

After about ten minutes of searching they find the knee-height stones that trigger the secret door – except that when it opens it topples a pile of wooden boxes that have been leaned up against it from the inside. Ducking in after the boxes they immediately close the door – quickly enough that the kitchen staff who come out to see what the noise was don’t find them.

Within this dusty secret chamber they find the crates held old temple chronicles dating back before the arrival of the Temple of the Ancient Allies. Further they find what appears to be an old altar to some unknown chaos forces – obscure enough that even Nathander has only heard of one of them, Zuvassin the Undoer, and then still with no lore beyond the name.

The secret passages continue into the building as marked on the map – with one side door leading into a closet in the outer temple, and the final one leading into the quiet library.

A cursory search of the library turns up lots of older texts, but nothing of interest regarding the Ancient Allies. The main index of the library documents was definitely penned by the now deceased Olvaga.

Declining to open the door into the temple proper (where they can hear Karl still going on and on with his long distraction story), they then go into the storage room behind the library. While mostly full of dusty old robes and extra tables for events, the floor has been kept well-swept of dust, and they find one chest at the back wall is mounted to the floor and when opened it exposes a staircase down beneath the temple…