[WFRP 1e] The Enemy Within 7

Wilfried - Human Bawd
Gottlieb - Human Ranger
Larry - Human Bawd
Wilhelm - Human Trader
Talbberry - NPC Halfling Scribe (Player absent)

(Previous Sitting - Absent)

Like it or not, the party was in Bogenhafen for Schaffenfest, coin pouches still bulging from their last job. Unwilling to waste the time, they seek employment as bounty hunters from the town councilor. He had no work for them at that time, but stated he would keep them in mind. There was naught to do but attend the Sheep Festival. The councilor reminded them they could not sell any sheep because they did not have the appropriate permits (a new trend starts).

At the festival, the first bit of entertainment they ran into was a wrestling match. Five gold to last 3 minutes, ten gold if you beat the champion! Larry accepted the challenge, and successfully beat the champion into submission with the most un-wrestling-like moves: dancing, kidney punches, and street fighting. The ringmaster payed the winner’s fee, but told Larry never to return (another new trend starts).

Looking expectantly at the freaks and oddities tent for a hint of the upcoming show, someone notices the star attraction, a 3 legged goblin, chew through his ropes and squeeze out the bars of his cage (do events that only happen twice constitute a trend?). Martin, with a severe case of goblin-related PTSD, runs screaming from the scene. Members of the party attempt to catch the dodgy goblin, but Wilfried is the one who ends up tackling it, yelling “Chain him up! Chain him up!” before the squirming creature can escape…or worse, bite him. For their efforts, the party is given 5 GC and free tickets to the upcoming freak show in one hour.

Next up was a drunken dwarf, belittled in the pillory for public drunkenness. Gottlieb strong-armed the dwarf to give up his helmet as collateral for paying the dwarf’s fine. Wilfried had been willing to pay the dwarf’s fine in order to have an underground contact in town, but Gottlieb was the more persistent in his bullying. As a Bawd, Wilfried would fleece you in a polite, backhanded way. Gottlieb was leaps and bounds less subtle. Somehow, in the end, the released dwarf considered Gottlieb his boon companion.

With so much festival and so little to do, the party returned to the freak show an hour later. They were completely underwhelmed with the hairy boy and the one-eyed dog…although the dog was actually cyclopean and not just a regular dog with an eye poked out. Wilfried briefly considered trying to buy the one eyed dog, since Wilfried only had one eye of his own (with one missing, not actually cyclopean). However, the party’s attention was grabbed by the three legged goblin escaping his bonds yet again and running out of the festival area toward the city walls. Wilfried had little motivation to chase the little escape artist, but the rest of the party was interested in following the fellow to see where he got off to…which was an outlet pipe leading to the sewers. Why were there outlet pipes? Because the gas in the sewers used to build up and explode periodically. Wilfried girded his nerves for the inevitable.

There was motivation to catch the beast when the freak show owner offered 50 GC for the return of his main attraction. The city councilor was consulted regarding bounty matching, and he offered another 50 GC…likely knowing the party had no chance of catching the creature.

The party was shown to a sewer grate near the affluent (not effluent) sector of town. They dropped down with their light sources into the (sometimes) explosive sewers. Gottlieb, being the only tracker, led the efforts…pretty much getting the party lost. Notable distractions included sometimes crossing a path of goblin blood, avoiding some type of fungus the sewer fauna also kept clear of, and tracking a thief through the sewers into the heart of the local Thieves Guild. The latter was a very tense situation that Wilfried initiated negotiations with and Othmar ironed out. The guild agreed to help us find the missing goblin, if we kept their existence a secret.

The guild thief led us to a door that was barred from the inside. It was stout, but the goblin had definitely snuck through a barred window. Progress was halted, but Wilfried offered two suggestions. 1) Find the house above this cellar, exit the sewers, and enter from above. 2) Use a grappling hook of some time to reach through the window, hook the bar, and release the door. Option 2 seemed more expedient, and Larry used and axe to pry the bar from the back side of the door.

Inside was a small temple/summoning chamber with no obvious entry from above. There were no other creatures in the room, but there was a pile of bones (including 3-hipped pelvis bones). A demonic creature materialized in the midst of a summoning circle. It laughed and bellowed, and scared us directly out of the room. Reflecting back, there was evidence of a dead 3-legged goblin, and there was nothing else living in the dead-end room. Our search was at an end, and our pants needed changing.

On the way back to the surface, the party happened upon the stabbed, mutilated body of the drunk dwarf who had ingratiated himself with the party earlier. He had multiple stab wounds (mildly concerning) and his ribs had been pulled open and his heart torn out (now elevate the concern level to high). We left the body behind in our haste to leave. Reflecting back, he had certainly been murdered and sacrificed to summon the demon in the nearby temple.

We returned to the inn to find we had been evicted from our lodgings because the 3-legged dwarf had been found, smooshed to a pulp under a crate in a warehouse on the docks. We found this highly suspicious, but took our belongings and left. We were no longer in the employ of the city councilor and we smelled like sewer. We retreated to the river to clean up, found our camp follower Emmanuelle, and set up lodgings in a more out of the way location (the boat) to reevaluate our plans.

Wilfried hopes to investigate the fellow who supposedly found the goblin smashed to paste in the warehouse. Our first stop, however, is the owner of the freak show.

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