We made it back from the mines, and got ourselves fixed up. Vrba and Sanjay wanted us to go along and help on their "mission," presumably to keep them from getting killed. Hal and Erose were willing to go for the fun of it. Billy Ray, Keef, and I went to Throntax to talk to her about it. BRB surprised me by being the one to bring up the topic of compensation. I hadn't thought he had such a mercenary streak in him. She told us that she could give us some land. BRB and Keef were very interested in that. As for me, I don't have much use for land, and since I'm not a citizen of Steinhall, I wouldn't even get the satisfaction of being a "lord" of the same standing as Erose. Throntax said that she was sure she could find a suitable reward for me, although it remained unspecified.
In any case, we decided to go. Lubeck is on the way to Naussberg, so we stopped there and made some inquiries about the upcoming Metallica concert. We spoke with the concert promoter, one Otto von Odine, an odious, weaselly little man. We didn't get much information out of him; we only found out that the concert was going to be held in the same fairground where Keef fought the demon Renwen a bit over a year ago. There is apparently a large magic circle there which prevents one from entering it carrying weapons.
While we were in Lubeck, Vrba bribed some guy from the Thieves' Guild for information. He got the name of a contact in Naussberg, who could help set him up with plans of Goebels' castle, etc.
We arrived in Naussberg on the day of the Feast of Skirnir (Frejr's shieldboy). Skirnir is one of their patron deities, and so this festival is very big in that town. People were dancing in the streets with their shields, and quaffing much ale. Hal had a great time with his fancy shield. Most of us joined in the festivities. Vrba and Sanjay sought out the Thieves' Guild fellow to whom he'd been directed. After laying out a decent amount of gold, they got some information about Goebels and his castle. (Fill in, if they share.) Vrba wanted to get a map of a sneaky way into the castle (apparently the Naussberg Thieves' Guild had recently done some operations in Goebels' castle). They wouldn't give him that, but they arranged for Vrba to make a contact with somebody in Goebels who would be our guide into the castle.
The rest of us chatted with townsfolk, and found out about Goebels. He's not well-liked. He serves the same purpose in the northeast of Steinhall that Draco does in the northwest--keeping the monsters from the hills from overrunning the countryside. We also found out that he is sponsoring the Metallica tour, although we couldn't find out much more about Metallica.
We travelled up to Goebels. While it's about the size of RE, it's not a very lively town. We went to the most respectable-looking inn in town (there are only three), the Goebels Arms. We settled in, and spent some time in the common room. Vrba was waiting to meet his contact, the rest of us were just chatting and drinking. The innkeeper, Hans, was curious what we were doing in town; apparently they don't get a lot of travellers, apart from merchants. I told him that we were travelling entertainers, and asked if there was any chance of getting a gig in town. Hans said that most people in town weren't into the night life, but he could probably set up something small for the next night. We agreed to play in the G. Arms early the next evening.
Interesting note: The innkeeper knew BRB's dad, from when BRB Sr. was a travelling preacher and came throught the area.
A storm had been brewing all evening, and it broke during the night. It was quite loud, and woke me up. I didn't get back to sleep until after it passed over.
Vrba was amother matter. I've never met another elf who slept that deeply. (Remember when he slept through the storm when Keef got kidnapped?) Anyway, he was woken in the middle of the storm by a shadowy figure standing at the foot of his bed. Vrba lit a light, to see this person better, but the illumination was less than he expected (some kind of magical effect, it seemed). The figure moved further back into the shadows. This person was the guide Vrba had arranged. He called himself "The Shadow." He and Vrba negotiated a deal for Shadow to help us sneak into the castle and find Sara. The cost would depend on how much trouble Shadow had to go to (i.e. more money for fighting, more is the fighting was due to "something stupid you or your friends do," etc.). Vrba also had to agree not to tell the Naussberg Thieves' Guild any details of the Shadow's operation. Throughout the conversation, Shadow kept doing a sneaky disappear-and-reappear-on-the-other-side-of-the-room trick. They agreed that we would meet Shadow the next evening, in the alley behind the town's worst tavern, the Inn of the Drunken Swinging Leper, at the stroke of 9.00 on the town clock.
I slept late the next day. Early that evening, we played our gig at the G. Arms. Hal played bass. This was Hal's first actual performance in front of an audience, however small. He did pretty well.
After the gig, we got equipped for breaking into the castle, and went to the Inn of the Drunken Swinging Leper to meet the Shadow. We were a bit early, and thus had to wait in the alley, which was quite vile. I felt like a bit of fresh air, so I climbed up onto the roof of the Inn (3 stories) for a smoke. While I was enjoying the lovely evening air, a voice spoke to me out of the shadows further back on the roof. It was a medium, slightly masculine voice, and it said something like, "What's a nice-looking elf like you doing on a roof like this?" I turned, and saw a figure in the darkness. I figured this was that Shadow bloke, so I nonchalantly answered, "Oh, just taking in some fresh air while waiting to meet somebody." "Oh, are you with that bunch of loud, clumsy folk down in the alley? I'm pleasantly surprised to see that there's at least one capable person among the lot." I was somewhat annoyed by the insults to my pals, and was about to make a comment to that effect, when either Erose or Keef (somebody wearing plate, at any rate) made a horrid clattering noise, and I had to concede the fellow's point. We bantered for a bit, and I got a better look at him. He was about my height, and was completely covered in close-fitting black clothes. This included his face and head, which, apart from his eyes, was covered in black wrappings. The Shadow is clearly somebody who does not want to be identifiable.
The town clock struck nine, and Shadow said, "Well, I guess it's time to meet all your loud friends." He walked over to the edge of the roof, did a handstand, and flipped off. On his way down, he grabbed a wire suspended across the alley. This let him land quite impressively on his feet. After that, I certainly couldn't just climbe down the fire escape, so I jumped off (without the handstand) and grabbed the wire. I didn't land quite so smoothly as Shadow, but he didn't see me stumble when I came down; he was too busy preening over his own entrance. His eyes widened when he saw me land behind him, letting go of the wire. He asked me, "Did you do the handstand, too?" "Of course," I answered with a smirk.
Introductions were made. Shadow said to all, "You loud folks can call me the Shadow. I'm your guide tonight." He then asked us for our names. I felt like keeping up the game we'd started on the roof, and answered, "You can call me Smoke." Vrba also gave an alias, but everybody else gave their real names. Surprisingly enough, Shadow recognised BRB's name. He said that BRB's da had saved his life once when he was in River's End some ___ years back. Having made one another's acquaintance, we set off for the castle.
Typically, the sneaky way into the castle involved sewers. These sewers were much cleaner than the ones in London, but they were still sewers. I amused myself by admiring Shadow's shapely ass as I walked behind him. It's a very feminine ass, and I have a sneaky suspicion that Shadow may actually be a woman.
From the sewers, we entered the castle proper. Shadow led us to the areas where the slaves were kept. The first area was all men, no good. The second area was women, but they were all Persian-looking, and none looked particularly Throntax-like. We asked the women if they knew of a woman named "Sara." One of them said that she had been taken to the lord's "experiment chamber." Shadow groaned, and said that was at the top of the castle, and going up there was going to cost Vrba extra.
We went as far as we could without meeting any guards. Unfortunately, the lord's workshop had only one entrance which Shadow knew of, and that was guarded. Shadow said he'd arrange to get the guard out of the way, and that once the guard was distracted we should run to the stair to the workshop one by one, with the quiet people going first, and the loud folks going last. Although I'm generally quieter than them, Vrba and Sanjay went first, then me. As I snuck across the hall to the stairwell, I spied a guard making out with a very attractive woman. We all got to the stairs without attracting attention. We went up, and Shadow caught up to us, saying, "that guard really likes that woman."
When I got to the top of the stairs, I found myself in what was obviously a mage's workroom. Mystical items and grimoires were scattered around. there was another stair leading to the roof above the laboratory (think _Frankenstein_). We went up, and on the roof were three cages with people in them. One of them contained a woman who looked a bit like Throntax, one contained a fierce-looking norse warrior, and one contained a huddled, ragged figure hiding beneath a cloak. We asked the woman her name, she said "Sara," we told her we were going to rescue her, and let her out. We went to free the other prisoners, which Vrba was against. He, apparently, felt it was perfectly okay to leave folks to vile experimentations of evil sorcerers. He can be a real asshole, but I knew that already. (I should have pointed out that if we left the other prisoners, it would be obvious who was behind it all.) When we went to let the huddled guy out, we noticed that there was a magic sigil on the cage, which was not on the other two. The guy in the cage didn't look like he was in any condition to cause trouble, so we got him out anyway. On closer inspection, we saw that he was all burned and disfigured. Sara told us that the mage hit him repeatedly with lightning bolts. Keef shouldered the guy, and we went down the stairs.
Having gone down, we saw that the guard had been killed. This did not bode well. Sure enough, when we got back to the stairs leading to the slave quarters, we discovered that it was barred, and we couldn't open it. Shadow said we had to go another way, and took off. As we neared the door to the outside, we were cut off by a tall, thin man.
Then commenced some of the oddest behaviour I've seen. One might expect a powerful sorcerer (which the thin man turned out to be), upon discovering intruders in his castle who were in the process of freeing his prisoners, might smite those intruders with some fatal magic. At the very least, one would expect him to demand the return of his captives. Instead, this man laid hold of Shadow and started yelling about how he knew Shadow had been sneaking around his castle, and had stolen some valuable Jewel from him. From this, I surmised that the man was Jürgen Goebels. Having grabbed Shadow, he opened the door to the outside and yelled at the rest of us to get the hell out of his castle. Maybe he didn't notice the escaping prisoners? He seemed very fixated on Shadow and his missing gem. We had a "discussion" about who should go and who should stay to try to help Shadow, and we ended with me, Vrba, and Erose staying, and the rest of the group getting the prisoners out of there. I ducked into some shadows, hoping to be able to take G. by surprise if I needed to.
G. abruptly noticed Vrba and Erose standing there, and made some sort of magic shield so that we couldn't hear what he was saying to Shadow. I could see that he was yelling his head off, and Shadow was cringing and apparently pleading for his life. I made ready to shoot G. with an arrow if he actually tried to kill the thief, and I could see Vrba preparing to cast some spell or other. However, it was not necessary. G. dropped the silence barrier, and projected Shadow into a wall, and told us all to get out, or else. We fetched Shadow and got out. Before we left, he chanted at a disk suspended from the ceiling, and we were all hit with a Magic Missle from the disk. (Our comrades who'd already left said that they were hit with MMs which seemed to come out of thin air, as well.) Even so, that was more of a slap on the wrist than real retribution for breaking into his castle and freeing his prisoners. Why did he let us off so easy?
Anyway, we scrammed, and met up with our companions, and resolved to get out of town as fast as possible. Shadow gave Vrba a discount because of the fiasco at the end there. I recommended that he get out of town, and he said that while he seemed to have convinced G. that he hadn't stolen the gem, he definitely wasn't going to take chances. He took his payment and blended into the shadows. I was sorry to see him (her?) go; I found him very interesting, and wouldn't have minded finding out what (s)he looked like under all those black wrappings. (A few things he said made me think he's at least part an elf, and he had something of an elvish lilt to his speech.). Anyway, we travelled a good distance away from Goebels. The norseman, whose name we never did learn, went his own way the next day.
Now, ever since we left the castle, Keef had been feeling that there was something familiar about the burned fellow, who had healed a surprising amount in the short time between escaping the castle and our rendezvous. Keef insisted on keeping watch over him. The next morning, he was talking. Keef recognised the voice as that of Renwen, that demon fellow who Draco had been using as a secretary, and who Keef destroyed. This was somewhat worrisome, since it's not supposed to be possible for a demon whose corporeal form has been destroyed to be able to reappear in our world so soon after its destruction. BRB had the idea of taking him to Naussberg and giving him over to the priests there. We did so. As we travelled, the guy healed more and more. As he healed, he looked and sounded less like the old Renwen.
We gave him over to the priests, and they gave us a little lecture on demonology: The lesser demons like Renwen and this new Renwen owe allegiance to more powerful demons, who they refer to as "father" or "mother." Often, demons belonging to the same father will have a "sameness" about them. The priests said they'd banish Renwen 2 back to the demonic planes.
We got back to RE, and went to hand over Sara to Throntax. Throntax's apprentice, Luke, answered, and brought us to Throntax. She was in the middle of some sorcerous contest. She took a short break and greeted her sister (who called her "Teraquin," much to Throntax's dislike). She told us a bit of what was going on: G. was making moves against other powerful mages in the region; in fact, she was engaged in sorcerous battle with G. right now. G. had taken as captives people close to his rivals, to use against them.
She went back to her fight, and we left. Given the past associations, it seems obvious that that Renwenesque guy was probably meant to be used against Draco, but why? Draco has claimed that he doesn't consort with demons any more. Lying? G. mistaken? Draco part demon?!?!?!