Chapter 4 - Plagues and Peoples
General Summary
The day has been long and arduous, so the party settles down for a night's rest in the toolshed behind Eddi's house. In the morning, they are awakened by pounding on the door, and a voice calling for Franz der Schwarzhoffen. Bleary-eyed, Franz stumbles to the door and opens it, finding his brother Rudolf there along with Eddi's husband Friedrich. White as a sheet, Rudolf tells his Franz that when their mother got up this morning to feed Manfred, he was not breathing - he seems to have died sometime during the night.
Franz flies out of the toolshed and runs to the main town, followed by Dietmar and most of the rest (Cilly and Reinhard remain behind). At the house, Adele has her face buried in her hands, and Reinhardt the father is nervously drinking. He inquires about what the healers did to Manfred the day before, and they answer that they did not perform any operations - they simply examined the patient. The conversation is inconclusive, and in any case, is broken up by Franz running out of the house. Given the awkwardness of the situation, the rest of the group doesn't follow him, and returns to Eddi's tool shed, to gamble the rest of the day away. Franz spends the day drinking himself into oblivion at the Codfish. He stumbles to Eddi's when he awakes under a table later that day.
Over the next few days, the group stays in quarantine, while Reinhard goes off to inquire about Ulrich and the Rat's decision about his shop. A funeral is held for Manfred, at which Dietmar officiates. The group looks carefully at Ruprecht's necklace, and talks about Manfred's sudden death, and Franz's relationship with Ruprecht, but comes to no conclusions.
A couple of days later, Cilly comes down with a cough, and the next day, she begins to exhibit a noticeable rash. The Plague has come to Eddi's tool shed, and Dietmar along with the rest do all they can to break the fever and care for the patient while being careful to remain covered and to avoid catching the dread disease themselves. Fortunately, luck smiles on them: later the following day, Cilly's fever breaks, and over the next few days, it becomes clear that no one else has contracted the pestilence.
After the worst has passed, Cilly remains bedridden, to give her debilitating bruises time to heal. She and Franz come up with a plan to build an artifice to distill spirits in order to use their medicinal properties to fight the disease, and to make a little bit of money. The group pools their money to buy some alembics, and Cilly applies her ingenuity to constructing a still. The products are then sold to the bishop, and more ale is purchased to create more Water of Life. Cilly also uses the time when she is not resting to append her armor to her plague doctor suit, and to enchant it to make it more durable. She also constructs a wondrous sack that is bigger on the inside than on the outside.
As the enterprise is getting off the ground, Reinhard and Dietmar attend to their healerly duties - the main reason they were brought to Wunschau to begin with. Franz returns to service with the militia, and over the next few weeks, is able to leverage his position to make a good sum of money. Basil also acquires work at the Codfish as an entertainer, and is able to save a small sum as well. Eddi is most successful as she returns to fishing and makes some prize catches, at a time when the plague and the recent fire drive up the price of food. She also gathers some medicinal plants for Cilly, which the young plague doctor brews into three healing potions.
Cilly and Eddi also take two days to dig through the scriptorium attached to the Cathedral of St. Eugen, as per the earlier agreement with the bishop. They learn that the Plague started in the South and West before spreading to Markwald. According to the records, it was preceded by earthquakes and eruptions. There are also records of some towns being overrun by the Totentanz, and whole areas being emptied of human habitation. It is not clear exactly how the Walking Dead penetrate towns, but there are suspicions that they use dwarf or kobold tunnels that lie underneath the cities. In some towns, there have been reprisals against dwarfs as supposed causes of the plague, and they have been summarily expelled (or killed). That has yet to happen in Wunschau, however. Some dwarfs have been blamed for poisoning wells.
A total of five weeks pass, and Wunschau finds itself deep into autumn. In that time, the outbreak subsides, though the group begins to hear rumors about walking skeletons abroad in Westweg. Franz wonders if they are emerging from hidden tunnels, and starts making plans to speak to some acquaintances at the Zwerghof. Some vague plans are also made to speak to Margrave Konrad about selling spirits (to avoid extractive taxation and punitive sanctions by the guilds). As it happens, two of his servitors - Ingolf and Gunther - pay a visit to the toolshed. They announce that the Margrave has heard of the group's work on Wunschau's behalf, and now that the Plague seems to be on the retreat again, he is interested in contracting them to survey the badly stricken area around the town of Hegenburg across the river, and if possible to begin to bring it back under his control.
Rewards Granted
- 175 gulden in earned income, profits, and bribes
Missions/Quests Completed
- Cilly's life is saved
- The group learns about the origin of the Plague
- A still is constructed under Cilly's supervision
- She brews three healing potions
- She infuses a set of studded leather armor, and a wondrous sack
Character(s) interacted with
Report Date
13 Oct 2020
Primary Location
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