We'll need a Stealth (Urban) test for each work period representing your efforts to avoid notice. Only one person has to attempt the test each work session.
Asking the neighbors if they saw anything isn't a bad idea, but it's the middle of the night right now.
Ludger yawns and stretches trying to stay alert but watching people read is making him very tired.
Magda peruses through many books to the point of extenuation, searching for informations.
She seems to now how to proceed, having spent a few years in medical libraries
Magda's work in the libraries pays off and she makes efficient work perusing through the large volume of records.
The late hour and labor comes at a price, as Ludger and Magda begin to tire.
SL 1
Despite her tiredness, Magda manages to find some more tidbits of information.
It might not be much, but it's more than you had so far...
She struggles to keep awake, visibly, and yawn more than once
”This rekilling the dead has me worn out. I think I need to get some rest. Someone figure out a watch schedule and wake me when it’s my turn.” With that said, Ludger makes a nest the best he can in a corner of the room and settles down for a nap.
Before falling asleep, Ludger walks the perimeter of the house trying to make sure that there’s nothing obvious that would alert passerbys of the groups presence.
As he continues working on the voluminous records in the Swordfish House, Achill's regular work starts to become erratic as he begins checking records from multiple stacks briefly before placing each one back in its original position. After a few minutes of this, the old man makes a breakthrough. "I knew I was seeing a pattern!" he exclaims. He looks a bit guilty as he continues, "I'd...hesitate to call it clever. No sense in talking ill of the dead I suppose. He's organized the room, very roughly, like Reikland. If the furnace is Altdorf, then these walls would represent shipping along the Reik and the stacks over here would be the Bogen and the Teufel respectively. He didn't have separate room for the upper Tahme, so those went behind his desk. Shipments to Middenheim are...over there. He really didn't have room for all of this. And within each stack...the ordering is by date and...Timon's personal interest I think. Or maybe the cargo? It's hard to tell."
"Unfortunately, this means that we won't find the manifests for the Earl of Harwich all together. We can try to trace its route though."
With Achill's insight in hand, nature of the work changes. Where before your only hope was to read each page, now Magda finds herself reading records more intently as she attempts to trace the path of the Earl across time. Notations about the cargo being hauled help to inform where each record is looked for next.
As the morning hours begin to approach, Achill looks tired but keeps working on the project. "That's odd. The cargo notations on this excursion drop off entirely. It would be one thing if it was just careless behavior at one port, but it extends all down the Teufel and none of the other records we're sorting through show similar omissions. Was the captain bribing the dockmasters? What was the Earl carrying? It starts in Stimmigen..."
An hour later, the work grinds to a halt. Frustrated, Achill lays out what he has found. "The Earl of Harwich usually plied along the Bogen, but on this expedition she went up the Teufel all the way to Ubersreik. She spent nearly three weeks berthed in Auerswald and I don't see any repair orders to explain that. Then she heads up toward Holgau and Stimmigen and the cargo notations fall off. From there we see the Earl travelling back northward through Auerswald again, on to Grunburg. And that's it. No decommission document...nothing."
"We haven't searched through every stack thoroughly. It's possible the records got misplaced or stolen." Achill taps the journal you found earlier. "Timon's journal summarizes what he found about several different ships and is missing a page where the Earl would fit in. I've been assuming that whoever killed Timon took his personal notes on the ship with them. They could have taken other notes as well, but that seems unlikely. If they had gone through Timon's documents like we did there would be some sign of it."
"I think the last place your ship was seen was in Grunburg."
You recommend we keep searching? And we get all the paperwork in one bundle? It may be useful later...
After resting for a little while, Ludger wakes to find the researchers still hard at work. Ludger listens in to the conversation and when Achill finishes says, "Wait a moment! Weren't were supposed to find where the Harwich was last seen so, uh, what's his name...Lutz! So Lutz can use his odd little compass and we can get the treasure? We just need to take all of this stuff to Lutz right?"
I need a solid breakfast...and I have quite the headache. I hope we have whatever informations we need... I think I can't read another line for a few days
Achill raises an eyebrow at Ludger's outburst but doesn't question him further about Lutz or the Earl of Harwich. "It's not impossible that more information is in there...somewhere. But we've searched in all the places any further information should be already. If you need more than what we found already, you would have to read through the whole collection to be sure you hadn't missed it."
"I'm old man and I'm tired. I'm going to get some sleep. When I wake up, I'm going to tell the Watch that I found Timon dead. Someone will need to bury him properly after all. Sure won't be many to mourn him
"
"I'm sure that by the time I wake up, I won't be able to tell if the stacks here are a bit smaller than they were the night before. Shadows can play tricks on these old eyes. A bit smaller. I'm not blind yet."
Unless someone stops him, Achill leaves the Swordfish House and begins walking down a road just starting to fill with passersby.
Might be a good time to leave... and maybe grab a few books for resale. Some of the nicer ones. He did say 'a bit smaller' after all.
Determining which books among Timon's collection are 'nicer' proves to be a more interesting conundrum. Most of the tomes are careworn and very few are aesthetically pleasing.
Exhausted from a night of searching through Timon's collection, the group staggers back to the Sunfish. Isaak Krieger raises an eyebrow at each person as they come aboard, exhausted in the morning but not obviously drunk. The Ubersreik Watch isn't chasing you, however, so he doesn't prevent you from coming aboard.
Since Ludger slept while everyone else was working in the zombie house, he finds himself with energy and nothing specific to do. He does know that he needs to get off the Sunfish before Krieger has him swab the decks. Ludger sees his friends to their bunks and then hops off the boat.
I wonder if I can find out anything about the big guy that killed that tavern owner, Ludger thinks as he begins walking the familiar streets of his hometown. He decides to see if the coach companies brought in some guy that made them feel uncomfortable in the last couple of weeks. To do that, Ludger heads to a tavern that he knows of where the off-duty coachmen tend to hangout. Buying an ale he edges into the coachmen’s group at the bar and listens closely, laughs at their ‘funny’ stories and agrees with them when they complain about their bosses. After a while he casually mentions that he heard there’s a necromancer in town now and that he’d have come in by coach recently. Ludger asks his new ‘friends’ if they ”remember a big guy who kept his face covered and was downright scary riding with any of you lately...”
Axel spends a lot of the first day sleeping, making up for lost rest.
The second day he too goes out looking for rumours.
At least this one isn't a crit fail...
Being litterate, and used to books, Magda tries to make the best choices while selecting the opus they took.
If she finds anything related to medicine or plants, she asks to keep the tome
Ludger spends a pleasant day talking with various coachmen as they relax from their journeys. "We don't take anyone like that on our line. Coachmasters say we needs to know who we've got riding with us," says one postilion after taking a long draught off his ale.
"Old Longtoof was telling me a story from a few weeks back. We was in Stimmigen so...maybe two months ago? Anyways, he said he ran across some big fella off the side of the road, standing at the edge of the forest. No right-thinking person stands in the forest when there's a perfectly good road aye? Longtoof said the feller did nothing but look at them as they passed by, but he'd never seen the like. Scared him good. Said he'd never frighted like that in all his years coaching. The way he tells it the horses spooked as well, and ran themselves ragged before he could calm them down. Had to rest the team and got docked for being late on his delivery."
"Hards to say how serious we should take him. Old Longtoof was late that day, but the lot of us would tell most any story to get out of being docked, aye?" The man slaps the table with a meaty hand as his joke gets a laugh out of his peers.
The coachman's face sobers up as he looks straight at Ludger. "Strange things out there. Don't go looking for trouble, you hear? You seem like a good enough sort..."
*
Earlier, as Axel and Magda rummage through Timon's collection of books, they find that much of what he owned amounted to longform political tracts...the sort of thing that agitators push on the street but written up for the learned class. Axel finds a book filled with drawings of birds of various sorts, although the author's artistry left something to be desired. Magda locates a separate book on herbs and their various uses.
The secret practioner of Magic seems happy to stay on the boat, on the water, as old lessions taught by his grandfather coalesce in his dreams... giving him a terrible clarity into his latent powers. He shudders in his sleep and again on waking, worried that witch hunters may find him as they did his grandfather. He took comfort in an old bit of misremembered lore, possibly false but one providing some hope, however small, that moving water made it harder for witch hunters to sniff such as he out.
He wrapped the book in rags, in preparation to sell it at a future destination...
So friends, he says later. We have all the notes. We could turn that in for pay... or do we make a run at tracking down more evidence ourselves?
Ludger shares the gossip about Stimmigen with Axel and Magda. ”Ain’t that Stimmigen place near the last spot that the ship was seen? That’s too, uhm, what’s the word...coincidental for my comfort. With the zombies here and that scary guy in Stimmigen it sure seems like there’s a connection.”
Yes, a bloody dangerous one. That said we don't seem to be able to earn decent money by safe means... what's the plan?, he says nervously. Back to our employer with all the information and paper?
Rain begins to pour over Ubersreik around midday on the day before the Sunfish is scheduled to leave port. Isaak has been busy finding work for any sailors that hang about the barge, making your stay less than pleasant.
Ludger tries to stay out of sight of Isaak as much as possible but when spotted does his work without too much grumbling.
Ludger doesn't notice anything except that it's annoying to be working in the rain.
[dice=Perception 30]1d100
Axel makes himself as useful as possible and visible. He takes curses, kicks and cuffs but he wants to be paid and sees that as worth the effort and abuse.
Magda is still eagle-eyed , despite the heavy rain.
Her only concern is the valuable book of herboristery, which she protects in a sack, to the best of her abilities
Working through the steady downpour, Axel and Magda both take note of one of the stevedores keeping watch over the barge rather than working, a fact that is ignored by the other dockworkers about. After a time, he's joined by another man that bears a resemblance to Ludger.
Axel subtly points these facts out to Ludger.
Both unsettling and creepy... what's happening here?, he mutters to them both.
Axel subtly points these facts out to Ludger.
Both unsettling and creepy... what's happening here?, he mutters to them both.
”Oh crud...family. Don’t think I mentioned it but my family, well my Da, runs one of the bigger gangs on the docks. He weren’t too happy when I took up the wanderer life instead of staying on the docks. Wasn’t planning on coming back here until I was a success so I could show the old man, but now look at me, just a common deck hand on an ordinary boat, back where I started. I guess I better see what they want. It’s probably not going to be good though...” With that, Ludger starts down the gangway, midway he turns back to Magda and calls, ”let me know if you got any poison in your bag, I may need it.” Head hung low, Ludger makes his way to the men on the docks.
I hope you are speaking in jest. I would NEVER use poison.
It seems the worst scandalous idea to Magda, and she is really enraged at the suggestion.
I dedicated my whole life so far healing other, taking care of them, trying to teach them to take care of themselves. I'm not here to poison anyone!
She doesn't care if she draws attention to them
Sssssshhhhh, says Axel, trying frantically to hush her so the roughnecks don't look over their way...
As Ludger gets closer to the pair of men, he recognizes them as Tim Dinter and Meik Korte.
Meik is a 'cousin' of Ludger's. On the records, he's the son of Hilga Korte and her husband Dieter, but everyone in Ludger's family at the time Korte was born knows there was no way that the two were spending the night together. No one has publicly claimed to be Meik's father, but he looks very much like a Braunlich, and Ludger's family has treated him as an outsider cousin.
"He'll be here shortly," says Meik with a satisfied grin.
Ludger ambles over to the two men trying to look confident. ”How’s tricks Tim? Any good scores?”. Ludger sneers at Meik but doesn’t say anything to him. Ludger pales hearing his Da is on the way but speaks with false bravado, ”Oh, great, Da is coming here. I was just about to go see him to say hello.”. You’ve killed zombies, you can handle talking to the old man, Ludger tells himself. However a little voice in his head whispers, zombies are nothing compared to Da.
Axel, internally berating himself for this foolishness decides to back up Ludger. Axel being a country boy was at least familar with wrestling, fisticuffs and the odd kicking. He had a body hardened to work and labour. That said, he knew he wasn't "Hard" like these stevedores, and violence to them was akin to thrashing flax was to him.
Alex moves up behind and to the left of Ludger and crosses his arms over his chest, hoping to convey support for his companion.
Still fuming against the scandalous accusation, Magda stands her ground and makes a show of her profound disagreement, her mouth frown, her arms folded on her chest.
*waves*
Isaak spits on the deck as Magda and Axel ignore his advice but makes no move to stop you. "Bring trouble back here and I'll throw you in the Teufel myself."
Meik sneers as Magda and Axel join Ludger on the docks, but says nothing as the standoff continues. Gradually the tension in the encounter spreads throughout the nearby area of the docks as others nearby notice the situation. Sandra looks annoyed, but eventually comes over to join you.
Some minutes later, another group of stevedores approaches: two humans and a halfling. When one of the dockhands facing your group notices their approach, his grin turns a bit more savagely expectant.
With the arrival of reinforcements, the stevedores spread out to surround your group on the dock side. The human in the lead of the group snarls at Ludger, "Didn't think you'd show your face around here again, boy. No son of mine slinks off like that. Do it."
The stevedores all have the boat hooks common to their work, but none have drawn them.
Fail 0?
Ludger's face reddens as he realizes what his drunken father is doing. He gives a signal to Magda and Axel and says "stay out of this!" as he doesn't want his new friends to get hurt.
Ludger nods at Bodo and gives him a bit of wink and then puts his head down and charges his friend trying to get him down as quick as possible. The two young men have wrestled hundreds of times as children and Ludger is hoping that they can make it look like a real fight with but with no one get seriously hurt. Ludger figures that the old-man wants to see a show...
The farm labourer wanna be wizard gulps and tries to keep his composure... and is totally blindsided when Ludger charges the stevedore!
As if I would have any intention to join in a fisticuff. Let's hope these ruffians have some respect for ladies...
The stevedore knocks aside Ludger's attack and immediately takes a swing at him.
Axel tries to give the impression it would be best if the battle didn't spread to him... he folds his arms over his chest and hardens his jaw, while puffing up some.
fail - 2 SL
Which is funny because he's trying hard not to shake or tremble.
dice=Weapon Skill (Brawling) 35 Defense]1d100
The stevedore knocks aside Ludger's attack and immediately takes a swing at him.
dice=Stevedore Weapon Skill (Brawling) 35 +10 Advantage]1d100
Ludger fails to take down his foe so gives up on grappling and takes a boxing position that his friend at taught him years ago. Ludger slaps aside the man’s swing and then launches an uppercut at his chin.