22nd Jahrdrung 2512 (from late afternoon)
The thick Altdorf fog, damp and heavy with the pervasive scent of wet rope and river silt, seemed to press against the windows of the Boatman’s Inn. Inside, the raucous laughter of sailors and the clatter of tankards provided a jarring backdrop to the unnatural silence surrounding the man who had, until mere minutes ago, been known as Ferdinand. He sat cradling a drink he barely noticed, wearing the face of Kastor Lieberung—a man the group had left for dead in a snowy ditch months prior.
The Weight of a New Identity
The physical transformation was absolute. Looking into his eyes, one could discern the familiar, terrified demeanour of the wizard, but the physical form—the sharper jaw, the different colouring, and the most conspicuous “follicle advantage” of a full head of hair—belonged entirely to a corpse. Ferdinand remained in a state of profound shock; in the space of twenty minutes, he had endured searing physical agony, heard a rumbling voice in his skull declare “soon is now,” and narrowly avoided Gunnar’s axe-blade.
Salundra watched him with a wary intensity, her hand never straying far from her sword. Having encountered enough weirdness in her military career, she knew that when a man’s face changes, the world becomes a very small and dangerous place. Across the table, Gunnar was immersed in a storm of internal grumbling. To a Slayer, sorcery was bad and necromancy was worse, and a friend returning from the street wearing a dead man’s face was usually a situation requiring a violent solution. Only a monumental effort of self-restraint had kept his axe, Shadowsplitter, from delivering its standard operating procedure.
Huddled in a quiet booth, the shadows of the inn offered a meagre sanctuary while the trio contemplated their next move. The papers recovered from the coach ambush now felt like lead in Salundra’s satchel. One was an affidavit witnessed by a Sigmarite priestess and a Guild Master; the other was a letter from lawyers—Messrs. Lock, Stock, and Barrel—naming Lieberung the sole beneficiary of a baronet’s will, including a manor and a staggering 20,000 gold crowns. The group realised they had limited options: if they did not pursue this inheritance, Ferdinand might spend the rest of his life as a nameless ghost. However, by pursuing it, they were walking straight into a plot that had already claimed the real Lieberung’s life.
A Dividend on the Docks
As the evening light faded, the group retreated to their rooms at the Lock and Key, an inn decorated with a kitschy, fishy mismatch of nautical paraphernalia. Gunnar maintained a watchful vigil through the night while Ferdinand endured an unsettling, fitful sleep. By pre-dawn the following morning, the docks of Altdorf had already begun to stir with the movement of lanterns and the industry of the river.
23rd Jahrdrung 2512
The trio made their way to the waterside, where they found Gela, the captain of the Deft Dancer, preparing her barge to tack upstream toward Ubersreik. She looked at them—noticing the “funk” hanging over the group and the stranger sitting where Ferdinand should be—but chose to focus on the gratitude she felt for their role in her redemption.
“I feel indebted to you,” she said, handing Salundra a purse containing 7 gold crowns. She described the money as a “shareholder dividend” for their assistance in establishing her new trade route. While the coins were a small fortune, it was the seventh coin that sparked a rare moment of Dwarven inspiration in Gunnar.
Disappearing for an hour, Gunnar sought out Heinrich & Sons, a local jeweller. Though his social skills were famously poor, he used a combination of natural intimidation and the sheer novelty of a Slayer wanting to use a jeweller’s saw to convince the smiths to let him use their tools. He worked the gold with the precision of a master metallurgist, splitting the seventh crown into three equal pendants and adding simple silver chains.
He returned to the docks and pressed them into his companions’ hands. Fresh Dwarven runes were inscribed into the metal, designed to be read together as “Fellowship and Protection”. Salundra received the piece marked “Fellowship,” Gunnar kept “Protection,” and Ferdinand was handed the rune for “And”. It was a silent vow: they were bound together, regardless of whose face they wore.
Boarding the Berebeli II
Passage out of Altdorf was secured through Josef, the master of the Berebeli II. A man of broad shoulders and a raucous, belly-deep laugh, Josef was Gela’s new business partner, running the Altdorf-to-Bögenhafen leg of their trade relay. He was late-rising and clearly nursing a hangover when they met him, but his barge was ready, its decks heavy with crates of illicit coal from the Duchy of Black Rock.
The crew was a small, close-knit family: Wolmar, Gilda, and their toddler daughter, Elsa. Watching the child shuffle across the deck brought a visible melancholy to Salundra, her thoughts drifting back to her own daughter, Janna, whom she had left safe at the farm under Franz’s protection. Gunnar, attempting to be helpful in his own way, handled the gloom by “accidentally” pushing a small wooden cup of ale toward baby Elsa during dinner—a feat of dexterity that Gilda and Wolmar missed while bickering over stew ingredients.
The Imperial Fleet and the Weissbruck Canal
As the Berebeli II pulled into the main flow of the Reik, they sailed past the Reichsport, where the Imperial First Fleet lay at anchor. The sight was dominated by the Emperor Wilhelm III, the largest ship ever built. Josef spat over the side as he watched the massive vessel, noting in his roundy accent that the boat hadn’t left those waters in seventy years because the Imperial coffers were unwilling to pay the fees to get out through Marienburg.
The barge soon turned into the Weissbruck Canal, a sixty-mile stretch of water that Josef described as a “hurry up and wait” nightmare. Built too narrow fifty years ago and widened only in places, the canal forced boats to wait for “gluts” of traffic to pass in the opposite direction. After paying the two gold crown toll to House Gruber, the weather turned against them. A heavy, icy rain began to fall, sharp enough to sting the skin.
The Shadow on the Road
The first night on the canal was restless. Ferdinand took the first watch, finding a strange solace in the fact that his new head of hair kept his scalp warmer than it had been in years. However, the peace was short-lived. Through the mist, about half a mile off the canal road, he spotted a lone rider. The horse had stopped, and the rider sat motionless, staring directly at the barge.
“They’re watching us,” Ferdinand told Salundra as she relieved him for the second watch. The rider did not move to graze or rest, staying fixed until the light died entirely; Ferdinand was certain he saw the silhouette of a crossbow across the rider’s back.
24th Jahrdrung 2512
The Scars of Weissbruck
By the following afternoon, the Berebeli II cleared the canal and pulled into the northern docks of Weissbruck. The town was a maze of warehouses and inns that had grown up around the water. As they worked to tie off the ropes—Josef wisely choosing not to explain the knots to a soldier as competent as Salundra—Gunnar’s keen eyes caught movement in the doorway of a tavern called The Black Gold.
A man stood there, stocky and dressed in dark clothes. He had mid-brown hair and a livid scar that ran across the front of his neck. Most importantly, he had a crossbow visible across his back. He looked at the boat—specifically at Ferdinand—and a slow, mean smirk spread across his face before he vanished into the shadows of the tavern.
“I have a plan,” Gunnar grunted, his hand tightening on his axe. “Attack!”.
Before Salundra could suggest a more subtle approach, the Slayer performed a combat leap off the boat, landing on the wet dock with his momentum unchecked. Salundra followed, vaulting the rail with equal purpose, leaving a bewildered Ferdinand to catch his breath on the gangplank.
They burst through the doors of The Black Gold, the interior chock-a-block busy with boatmen and halfling traders. Gunnar scanned the room with a hunter’s intensity, but the tavern was an L-shaped maze of snugs and smoky corners. The man was gone.
Approaching the barkeep, Salundra used her authority to cut through the noise. A few coins and a well-placed conversation revealed the unsettling truth.
“The man with the crossbow?” the barkeep whispered, looking warily toward the back door. “He’s been here since two o’clock. Didn’t drink hard, just sat by the window, watching the docks. He only left through the rear alley thirty seconds before you lot came through the front”.
The realisation hit them like a physical blow: The man wanted to be seen. He wasn’t just a coincidence; he was a beacon. He had paced them along the canal for sixty miles just to let them know that they were being expected.
The Road to Bögenhafen
The party returned to the Berebeli II. The camaraderie of the crew—the smell of Wolmar’s spiced mutton stew and the simple pain of Elsa’s teething—felt like a fragile dream. They were three souls bound by gold and blood, moving toward a destination they didn’t choose, under the gaze of an enemy they didn’t know.
Ferdinand looked at his reflection in the dark waters of the canal. The face of Kastor Lieberung stared back, but the purple hand mark on his chest was truly gone. The “Soon” the voice had promised was now.
“We reach the main flow of the River Bogan tomorrow,” Josef called out, oblivious to the metaphysical storm brewing on his deck. “Four days more to Bögenhafen and the Schaffenfest! There will be games, drinking, and the finest animal market in the Reikland!”.
They nodded, but their minds were on the shadows that the preacher had warned them were stirring. The inheritance was waiting. The 20,000 gold crowns was waiting. And somewhere, the man with the scarred neck was waiting, too.
Until next time,
Owen