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Wouter Dhondt
Belgium
Anzegem
My armor is contempt. My shield is disgust. My sword is hatred. In the Emperor's name, let none survive.
When I now saw this Coppelius, the frightful and terrific thought took possession of my soul, that indeed no one but he could be the Sandman.
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Opposition in the Eye
This is our fifth session from the Terror at Talabheim adventure.
Players:
Snorri, a Dwarven apprentice runesmith
Ronny, a Human initiate of Morr
Arwen, an Mutant-Elf apprentice wizard
Alex, a Human hedgecraft apprentice
Yes, we have a new player. He'll be joining the others during the adventure.
We find Snorri, Ronny and Arwen in the courtyard of Heldenhammer temple, counting limbs and licking wounds after kicking the skaven out of the temple. Ronny is still unconscious with his left hand crushed to smithereens. Snorri and Arwen decide to enter the temple in search for help and healing. There are lots of dead skaven and humans inside the temple as well but it seems two initiates of Sigmar are still alive, guarding what seems to be a icon of Sigmar himself. The players ask about the icon and the initiates mention that the relic is supposed to go to Middenheim. But they can't leave the city due to the Skaven invasion, and many priests of Sigmar have died in the battle. Snorri ponders on grabbing the icon from them but decides not to at this point. He does go through every room in the temple for other loot and finds some nice holy symbols. After looting the place they decide to get their unconscious friend some medical attention as well. The initiates try to help Ronny as much as they can and stop the bleeding.
At that point the image of a Grey Seer appears in the sky by some magic. He addresses the people of Talabheim in Reikspiel with an accent. They can see that the skaven captured countess Elise and is forcing her to surrender and give the skaven control over Talabheim.
Asorak Steeleye wrote: Man-things, harken! Your rule-law is ended, over-over. There is only skaven rule-law now. Listen-obey and live-live. Fight us, man-things and you will die quick-quick.
The countess complies and is dragged away. After that, the image in the sky disappears. The players decide they had enough of this town and try to figure a way out to leave. The temple is guarded by skaven though so they ask the initiates if they know a way out. The initiates inform them they know of a secret passage, but don't know where it leads to. The players decide to use the secret passage and see where it leads them. They ask the initiates to join them and after a few minutes they are in a subterranean corridor. They reach the end of the corridor after about 100 meters and notice a ladder going up. The elf goes up first and discovers the exit is shut by some kind of rock. He's unable to move it so Snorri decides to go first instead and moves the stone without any problems. Apparently they ended up in an alley between two temples, one depicting a white dove, the other a wolf. They can see a skaven patrol in the distance and decide to go to the temple of the Shallyans. They try to knock on the door and are somewhat surprised that no one opens. (Here I had to tell my players out of character to think for a minute. What do you think the Shallyans would do in this situation? Would you open the door when someones is knocking on it during an invasion ?). They start talking and request to let them in. The Shallyans are convinced they are not skaven at this point open the doors for them and let them in.
They are brought into a big room with multiple beds where the Shallyans are taking care of several people. One of them introduces himself as Alex and they start talking about the adventures they had in Talabheim. Ronny asks a nurse if they can help him with his hand, but they are understaffed and there is not much they can do. They do offer to amputate the hand. Snorri thinks this is a great idea, takes his axe and chops of the hand of Ronny. Alex picks up what's left of the hand and the Shallyans stop the bleeding. They discuss leaving town and decide the best way to do that is going through the Taalgarten. They leave the temple and try to avoid the skaven patrols. Ronny decides to visit the temple of Morr a last time before leaving. The others wait in the temple while he visits the Abbott. There the Abbott begs him to help him with the necromancer in town (who apparently lives in the palace now) and promises full priesthood if he succeeds. Ronny agrees, goes back to the others and tells them the Abbott will give them a huge stash of gold if they kill the necromancer. They all decide to help out. The dwarf stonehome is next to the palace though, and they suspect that the Skaven won't be able to get into that building as well. So they decide to stop at the stonehome first.
On their way to the stonehome they notice a large group of Skaven transporting lumber from the Taalgarten in the direction of the Dragon's eye. They try to hide but Snorri accidentally drops one of the stolen holy symbols of Sigmar. 3 of the skaven break from the group to investigate and run towards the players. They all try to conceal themselves again except for Ronny who somehow decides it would be a good idea to act like a rat in order to fool the skaven into thinking he's one of them. This fails of course and the skaven charge the group. The skaven are quickly defeated and they are able to continue to the stonehome without encountering any other patrols. Indeed the stonehome is still in the hands of the dwarfs. They are greeted by a dwarf who reluctantly lets the two humans and the weird elf inside. They make themselves at home. Snorri talks in Khazalid so the others don't know what he's saying to the other dwarfs. Apparently the stonehome leads to Undgrin Ankor, an ancient underground network of tunnels. Only part of the tunnels are known and they have guards to the parts that aren't mapped. They decide to visit the local weaponsmith after a few beers. They try to haggle a little but the dwarfs are reluctant to sell anything cheap to outsiders, especially in times of war. The shop is owned by a master runesmith and Snorri decides to show his work and see if the master is willing to take a new apprentice. The master isn't easily impressed but decides that Snorri can take a test the next day to see if he's worthy. They decide to go to sleep in the stonehome.
Snorri returns next day to the master runesmith, but apparently they where still "cleaning the room after the last test" so he can't take the test just yet. Instead the group decides to handle the necromancer problem first.
They leave the stonehome and get to the palace. The place seems deserted. No skaven or undead to be seen. The front door is locked and just when they decide to break a window Alex discovers that the servant entrance is open. They enter the palace and detect a "magical presence" at the end of the hallway. They storm through the door into the throne room and see the necromancer and a selection of zombies and skeletons. They charge in and a big fight ensues. The undead are keeping the players busy while the necromancer can cast her spells unopposed. It looks grim for the players until some the the necromancers spells fail and Arwen is able to cast a damaging bolt. The necromancers head practically explodes and she drops to the ground. Snorri charges in for good measure and embeds his axe in her chest. They destroyed the necromancer and saved Talabheim from the undead plague.
All our previous Warhammer 2nd edition sessions:
A merry bunch visits the old world: character creation and their first adventure.
Of Chickens and Vampires (a merry bunch visits the old world , session 2)
The docks of Taalagad (ambvtow session 3)
The Port & the Plague (ambvtow session 4)
The Desperate & the Dead (ambvtow session 5)
They have guns! (ambvtow session 6)
All images are (c) Black Industries
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