On our way to the sword and flail tavern in the Neumarkt district (in the northeast part of the city). This part of town has been somewhat ravaged from the battle, but we do find the tavern by the conspicuous sword and flail on the placard — and it’s in a bit better shape than the surrounding buildings.
We walk inside and find a lot of rough-and-tumble characters in there, heavily armed and armored. Some of them appear to be off-duty town watchmen. There’s no table or stools in here that might need to be replaced in a bar fight. The guy behind the bar is greasy and balding, with scars on his face. He’s behind the bar and everyone else is standing around drinking. There’s a door to the right.
Amendel buys a round of drinks for the party, he pours us some crappy beer. We debate how to get into the door that we presume leads down to the cellar… Lily starts rambling on about Pie Beer as a distraction as Mal-ren passes out his fliers. Meanwhile, Rugnar, Thorgrim, and Amendel sneak towards the cellar door. Although not terribly sneaky, they don’t get noticed by the bartender or patrons, thoroughly distracted (and kind of drunk already).
The sneaking party finds a stairway going up and down and of course heads down, pistols out. There’s a lot of crates and barrels down here, and they notice that one area of the floor is unusually clean — moving the barrels around, they find a trap door and an iron-rung ladder.
Rugnar, as soon as his foot hits the ground, gets rushed by two guys — one of them with a bestial face and big massive teeth, the other is humanoid and bald but with long claws on each hand — both with red skulls tattooed on their faces. Rugnar shoots them both with pistols, and Amendel shoots at the both of them from the ladder. This dude’s face is shattered and also the other guy dies.
Meanwhile, upstairs, Lily and Mal-ren hear some muffled gunshots — but pretty much nobody in the bar notices because they’re so smashed. Lily tells the enthralled patrons that she thinks her friend has a sample of pie beer that she’ll go grab for them and manages to sneak away down to the cellar door, and Amendel likewise sneaks away. They meet up at the iron ladder and smell gunpowder.
Downstairs, we find an altar made of stacked-up skulls and the reddish-brown stain of blood all around the floor and running down the skulls. Next to that is a lecturn, with a chain hanging from it. The chain is hacked off about even level with a big bite mark in the altar. Around the corner, we find an iron cage with a bound and whimpering man inside. Barholomaeus picks the lock and starts babbling, “Thank Ulrich and Sigmar that you found us, the other man must have sent you. I only caught a glimpse of him, but he fought like a tiger, and nearly fought the cultists back.” Realizing he is a witness who could help us out in a trial, we tell him we are going to sneak him out through the tavern but he must pretend to just be drunk.
We put him in a cloak and head back up. Lily drops some pie in the beer keg, mixes it up, and goes back up to resume her distraction while the rest of the group sneaks out the prisoner witness (Johann Opfour).
After getting out of the thing, we get back to the church, still surrounded by an angry mob (although we know the secret way in). We meet with High Priest Stoltz and present him with our witness. Stoltz says that Johann will be a surprise witness and asks us to bring him to the trial and serve as his bodyguard until then. The next morning at the Square of Marshalls in front of the palace, it looks like all of Middenheim has turned out for the trial, packed tight with tons of people. Watchmen are posted every few yards to make sure nobody crosses into the trial area, the judges and commander of the watch are there, as is a woman in a white robe and three men in judge’s robes. Bauer is there, in chains, with two large watchmen with swords and spears, his clothing bloodstained, but he holds his head high. The crowd throws poo and fruit at him, and a stake and pile of wood is there in the event of a guilty verdict. Amongst the crowd we see Werner Stoltz of the temple of Sigmar and Claus Liebniz of the temple of Ulrich.
A herald lists Bauer’s alleged crimes; Bauer says nothing and ignores the taunts from the crowd, as the herald announces the law lords and the members of the court. We position ourselves close to get ourselves in through elbowing and intimidation, working our way through the crowd, pistols in their face.
Leibniz presents his argument that Bauer is guilty of consorting with Chaos, and his possession of the tome Lieber Chaotis, a forbidden tome. His second argument is that his position as witch hunter is the perfect cover for involvement with Chaos. Stoltz, acting as Bauer’s defense, cites his years of loyal service in Ordo Fidelius, and offers us and his companions in O.F. as character witnesses; his possession of a forbidden book could be easily explained as part of his job as a witch hunter.
They call witnesses to the stand, including Bauer himself, the people who arrested him, one of us (who tells of the wells and the beast men); at that point, Stoltz calls Johann Opfour to the stand. Opfour tells of how he was snatched and imprisoned, and how Bauer fought his way into the cult hideout; he found the book chained to a lecturn — all cultists wore the mark of the red skull and told him he was to be a sacrifice to the “Blood God.”
Liebniz then calls Stoltz himself to the stand, and brings up the stolen icon. Liebniz goes over to his desk and presents an icon — Stoltz confirms that it was, indeed, the stolen icon. On the back of the icon is a symbol of Korn, chanting “further proof that the temple of sigmar has been infiltrated by heretics!” The crowd goes crazy trying to get at the Sigmariets. The crowd goes insane and starts to mob the stand. Those people as part of the trial (including us, as we are witnesses) are being shuffled into the Palace as a retreat.
As we’re being shuffled towards the palace, we notice Opfour has just disappeared from under our noses.
—–
Once shuffled into the palace, we feel a very (understandably) tense air. Stoltz yells out, “It can’t be!”, and asks if we saw it on the icon before we delivered it. We never saw the back of the icon as we never took it out of the frame, so we can’t confirm. Ivena darts an accusation at Liebniz — “Even if proven to be false, it could tear the Empire apart.” Liebniz, condescending, says that the wolves (Ulrich) will guard the Empire. Stoltz wrings his hands around Liebniz’s neck. One of the watch commanders tells us that rooms are being prepared for us and this dispute shall be concluded the following day.
We are escorted to nice rooms, discussing things amongst each other, when we hear a knock at the door. Pistols ready, Rugnar asks who it is — Father Randolph answers and asks to speak to us as it is very urgent. He has a large something bundled in cloth, unwraps it to reveal that it is the chest with the skull inside it. It must be destroyed. He directs us to the Collegium Theologica and Albrecht Weinstein, who ought to know what to do with this vile thing. He would take it himself, but must keep the peace at the palace. He knew Leibniz was intense but did not realize he was such an extremist.
Leaving the palace will be difficult as the entire city is under curfew and nobody is supposed to leave the palace and also we are carrying an incredibly evil artifact. Rugnar rigs himself up a suicide bomb with gunpowder and a metal cigar box.
Watching the guard patrols Mal-ren figures there is a 25-second window during which we can sneak out. We creep out the window, sneak out one by one, and Rugnar has the case. Mal-ren, then Lily, and Thorgrim, Barholomaeus, and Reinhardt all sneak out past the guards. Reinhard has removed all items identifying himself as a Sigmarite. We hop over the wall and run like hell.
Down the street we see a watch patrol breaking up a fight between a couple groups, we use the scuffle as cover, figure out a route. We fly around the corner, but then skit to a halt as we see carts being wheeled around, crates and barrels stacked around — a bunch of steely-eyed dwarves with muskets and crossbows pointing at us, telling us that there’s no passage this way. Rugnar points the pistols at his bomb, one of the Dwarven engineers figures out what it is, and the Dwarves back off and even offer to escort us to our destination. All through this neighborhood are Dwarves just up and ready to rock the shit. We see the Collegium at the other end of the block.
A patrol at the other end of the block does not notice us, and we’re in the main dorms of the college. Right inside the door is a directory, with Weinstein’s name on it, and we find his apartment. We knock, and introduce ourselves. There is a man who looks exactly like Einstein, carrying a very large book. We present Randolph’s message, which he reads, wipes stuff off of his exceedingly messy desk and starts to examine the box, and alerts us to that he is about to open it. Instead of a skull is Johann Opfour’s severed head. Something, clearly, is afoot. Weinstein’s eyes dart around the room, thinking, says we can assume Leibniz did this (which means Leibniz probably has the actual skull) — we need to have a conversation with him immediately.