[WFRP 2e] Renegade Princeps 60

My PC
Vaervenshyael - Female Elf Assassin

My companions
Tankred "Silver Bear" Tenneckermann - Human Artisan/Mercenary/Champion
Wilhelm Hechland - Human Pistoleer/Engineer/???
Doctor Johann Wilhelm Woeller - Human Physician
Tegort - NPC Ogre hireling of Udrin
Udrin - NPC Elf Wizard Lord
Bianca - Large pink riverboat the prince had used to come to this town

(Previous Notes)

The late hours of nightfall pressed well past Mittnacht. Katherina's Rest, emptied in the terrifying minutes as a black shadow, given form by "sin" or "mutants among us" or the "very cursed land we walk upon"—depending on who drunkingly shouts in fury from tables, filled with teamsters and regulars buying teamsters ale and spirits.

The mood in Padua was changing on the turn of a day. Whispers of an exodus were overheard. Furtive glances to the characters' table seem to at first suggest worry that the Princep's favored were the subject of some suspicion. Finally, a with a confidence mustered in a tankard, a bearded man approached the table from the bar.

"My neighbor's are not drunk enough yet to approach you, but they also have less to lose. You hear the talk in this inn? Tomorrow night Baptisa will be broke. Padua is on the verge of emptying into the lands around us! I have two small boys and a wife pregnant. Fishing the rivers, frogging the banks, or tilling the hard ground for pennies here or the rare caravan is hard! No harder I say than any direction, even North back to the Empire. But we need guides. The caravan returns morgen and any space already bought and filled. Straggling is welcome, but they wait for no one not with cart and horse.

"We have money! Maxes saved between us for protection! Can we hire the Sleuth? Even the bookish one and the ranging elf are welcome! The baron's old lands are open...," he pauses as Gertie sets her dagger on the table, staring the man squarely down.

He continued, "or even east, 9,10,11 is dead. Padua is nothing after tonight. Are any of you for hire?"

Cosetta, wiping her hands on her apron, approached the table and pushed the fisherman away. "Leave these honorable men of the Princep out of your scheming talk Hendrik. Men in their cups talk of leaving all the time. Padua's walls are tall and firm and have weathered savages and demons long before our Princep and his half master of horse arrived with their pink boat."

Hendrik parted with a frown, but reaffirmed his offer with a charade of a coin in pouch. Cosetta cleared the table of mugs and looked at Wilhelm and Johann ever so briefly and remarked that the river is often foggy in the morning and that the mists reveal much to those that can read them.

Tankred: “Good sir, why do you seek to leave?" (Gossip) “We have a home here, supplies to last, and walls for safety. In the wilds rage the greenskins still, though we have put many down with the aid of Barak Varr. The Sleuth will not be going north, it is going to quell our neighbor and secure peace on our border for a time.

“If safety is truly what you seek, then Ulric or Myrmidia can provide it here if you are willing to take up arms and learn to protect what is yours.” (Fellowship/Command)

Tankred was only able to convince a few to stay. The rest were too superstitious to be swayed.

Johann collected the party in close and put forth a suggestion of giving the townsfolk a scapegoat in effigy of their fears. During talks of what, specifically, to use for an effigy, Tegort's name came up.

Cosetta, overhearing the talk about Tegort, confided in the party that the ogre did not radiate the aura of the living. Apparently Tegort was undead, and none of the party had noticed yet at this point. The topic of scapegoats was instantly derailed. Talk of Udrin and Tegort carried on until the party was kicked out of the tavern.

In the early hours of the morning, Johann and Wilhelm met Cosetta at the riverfront. Vaervenshyael slept in. A rooster crowed. Smoke drifted into town from somewhere near the Bianca.

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