His character is Jules-Henry Desfornaux, Ratibor's executioner, hailing all the way from France after some rumors surrounding his family force him to hit the road. From here on out, Marzena finds employment with Lothar and sticks around his house.
Personally, I find it that it's fully suitable for a Warhammer veteran to play an executioner! Also, as a last note: this session is narrated by our GM.
The next morning, Marzena has gone to inform and fetch Lothar about the
events at the inn. When Lothar arrives, he comes accompanied by his
guards and Ratibor's executioner, whom he trusts to manipulate the
beastie's remains.
Vuk and Estelle, at Lothar's request, go to secure the spider from
upstairs. Nobody had really checked on the spider since Vuk knocked it
out during the night. The corpse is there, so Vuk starts poking and
prodding it, only to realize that the spider wasn't really dead - it was
knocked out and is now very unhappy at being woken back up.
Miraculously, Vuk and Estelle manage to finish the damn thing without
anyone else getting bitten and poisoned.
When Lothar eventually sics Jules to inspect the spider's corpse, Jules obediently does so.
Now, due to the trouble with his family line, which involves a supposed
curse laid on them for executing Gilles de Rais, Jules has spent some
time researching the occult to figure out a way to escape the supposed
curse. He doesn't have any actual magical skills, but he is familiar
with some profane topics.
So when Jules recognizes the sigil of the fiend Baal (with a very lucky
critical roll), he first nearly has a heart attack, then he asks to
speak with Lothar privately, visibly losing it. The two agree to keep
the nature of the sigil a secret from the party and the people of
Ratibor, since this is obviously a matter for the Dominicans.
Instead, Lothar just gives them some "Tears of Chios" he's imported from
abroad to help their nerves, tells them to take some time for
themselves, and invites them to welcome Duke Nicholas of Oppolen when he
arrives in a few hours.
(Asen: Ah, so it was Nicholas, not Nicolaus!)
When Duke Nicholas arrives, the group is invited to share breakfast with
him and his companions. Even the executioner is invited, so that he may
give his testimony about the spider if asked, though of course he sort
of just mills about the yard at a respectful distance instead of
touching any of the food or sharing people's company.
Breakfast also
includes my new character - Wojslav Stolt, Katarzyna Stolt's
somewhat ardent brother, who has been petitioning for someone to help
his family rescue his sister.
During the breakfast, Estelle does a great job of speaking for the party
in front of Nicholas, her fancy words even earning her the Duke's
compliments. The local Dominican abbot was less amused, however, and
started probing for any heresy or heathenry that may have invited unholy
attention in Ratibor. Even Lothar, who tries to speak up to placate the
abbot, is quickly cowed. Things come to a head when Vuk makes the sign
of the cross in the Orthodox way, which causes the abbot to come down on
him with some very pointed questions.
(Remember, we know OOC that Vuk still secretly worships Dazhbog, a Slavic pagan deity, so he has very real reasons to
be afraid here!)
Vuk starts blubbering and completely losing it (Willpower is a very fun
skill to dump), and only a very unwelcome interjection by Estelle gives
Vuk some time to compose himself, find the right words, and barely get
his story straight in front of the abbot. Estelle, meanwhile, gets
harshly rebuffed by both the Duke and the Abbot for forgetting her place
(so much for that bonus Ehren for making a strong first impression on
the Duke).
Moving on, the Duke buys off the party's captive lancer from them.
Well, technically, he was Jaroslaw's prisoner so the money goes to Kristan, who then shares it with the party and keeps enough to pay for his master's treatment. Jaroslav had mentioned he intends to give them half, so that's what the dutiful squire does!
Meanwhile...
Barbara Rockember pries into some people's lives, in particular wringing the truth about Jules past from him despite his futile attempts to brush it under the rug.
After the breakfast, the party, Wojslav Stolt (who is told by Lothar that the party are currently the frontrunners for helping him rescue his sister), and Jules the executioner (who is now becoming fast friends with both Vuk and Estelle), are invited to participate in the next day's hunt.
Jules' presence is mostly a way for Lothar to keep an eye on the party. Plus, having someone who knows about the occult on the lookout for more dirty business happening around the party is easier for Lothar's peace of mind than completely handing off matters to the Dominicans.
They spend the afternoon browsing the markets and gathering rumors. While doing so, Jules spots someone following them, so he leads the party to his workplace (i.e., Ratibor's prison), where it's safer and where he keeps his homemade hooch hidden.
Eventually, Jules, Wojslav, Vuk, and Estelle corner the person who's following them and recognize him as a servant of the Dominicans. Wojslav surprises the man by plainly inviting him to tag along with them in town, promising him that nothing bad will happen to him, and saying they have nothing to hide. With little other options, the Dominican servant just relents and tags along at a respectful distance, keeping an eye on them.
Elias, meanwhile, spends the day a bit paranoid after hearing about what happened to his friends at the Sleeping Lynx. So after breakfast with the Duke, he asks around for where a man can find a ballistrino and some poison. Unfortunately for Elias, he lacks any streetwise skills, so the end result is something like a first year art history major going to the bad part of town and asking for the "marijuanies".Doubly unfortunately for Elias (and unknown to him in character or OOC), he does all this while followed by a Dominican himself. Not great. This will possibly lead to something further down the line.
Anyway, Elias meets up with the rest of the party as the evening approaches. Everyone's pretty on edge at this point, so at Jules' suggestion they decide to head to the premiere establishment for "slumming it" in Ratibor - Hairy Hanno's Taphouse over in New Town, the last place the militia close up each night and the beating heart of Ratibor's night life.
This night, between the servants of Duke Nicholas' retinue and the people of Ratibor wanting to take their minds off of the troubling rumors surrounding events at the Sleeping Lynx, Hanno's is packed. People drinking, playing dice, etc. There's also cockfights being organized in the walled back yard.
Seeing a group containing the town executioner and a very low-Ehren Serbian that just keeps smiling at her, Hanno's wife does her best to politely decline service to the group so they don't scare away her customers. But Jules, in his best impression of a quiet and good little boy, manages to melt her heart with pity after a few great rolls. Not only is he not turned away, not only is he not charged triple or double the price, he is just asked to put some mittens on when touching anything, not bother the other patrons, and keep the Serb in check.
Wojslav ends up paying the cockfighting entry fee for Jules and Vuk, so all three of them go to bet on the upcoming match between the birds Tatar and Bloodwattle. Jules figures out Bloodwattle is meaner and likelier to win, while Vuk just likes Tatar a lot for an inexplicable reason.
Jules and Wojslav end up betting 4 kreuzer each on Bloodwattle and losing them against the odds, much to Vuk's delight at Tatar's ferocity.
Meanwhile, Estelle is busy playing for the taphouse while Elias plays dice outside with scruffy looking individuals and somehow cajoles them into telling him where he can buy a ballistrino in exchange for returning their bet to them. After he finally learns of where he can get one, he realizes he has less than a fifth of the money he needs to buy it and likely concludes he should have just taken the dice money.
Wojslav buys the corpse of Bloodwattle and asks Hanno's wife to cook it for him (he lost me money, now we're going to eat it!)
Vuk and Jules (who had already started early on Jules rank homemade hooch), drink cheap ale like fish. Vuk holds up, but Jules even has a passion for being a complete pig - so he ends up going way overboard despite his few remaining brain cells screaming at him that he has to get up before dawn for a hunt the next morning.
Jules ends up hallucinating Bloodwattle's remains beckoning him over, then fails his endurance rolls and blows chunks over Wojslav's nice meal.
Everyone shambles back to "The Sleeping Lynx", kept out of the fools' cage only by Lothar's protection spurred by his upcoming need for them. Elias treats the worst of Jules' intoxication with some home remedies, but come dawn he can still barely walk.
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