Letters From Nuln 1

8/6/2019 Letters From Nuln 1

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Via Imperial Postex Nuln ad WolfenburgKaldezeit, 2520Greetings from the city of Nuln Master Silverforge! I hope the golden rivers ofcommerce flow freely through your Great House.

The heavy rains have started here in the Reikland. Nuln has just finished offGun Powder week. We were treated to the unveiling of this years Dwarven Rifle, thewinner of Nulns annual contest for the finest firearm in the empire. Many complainedthat the dwarves had only won the contest this year because they have the ear of theArch-Lector of Nuln. This is not true. Ive seen it with my own eyes: the DwarvenLongrifle of Nuln looked to be a serious competitor to the Hochland Longrifle.

This last week Ive joined up with an odd group of adventurers, all come toNuln to make their fortunes: a human named Wertha Brandenburg, a Halfling calledRudi Roundtopp, a dwarf Imperial Jailor called Gottri Truehammer, and two elves, afierce knifethrower by the name of Haleon and a male scholar by the name ofLaurenoralthough a touch of some illness has kept him within spitting distance of achamber pot for several days. Anyway, we arrived to Nuln on the same river barge,around midnight, seven days ago today. Much of note has happened in these sevendays! Strangers in the city, we spent our first rain-soaked night in Nuln searching forlodging, fighting a band of footpads who must have thought we looked like easy marks,(an assumption that cost two of them their lives), and chasing a burglar who hadsought to rob us in our sleep. Treacherous city!


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We quickly learned that the Deutzelm was the place to look for work in thiscity, so we tried our luck there on the second day. Adventurers, rogues and travelersgathered round the massive tree, reading, or having read to them, advertisements forcontracts that needed completing. We pulled one of the notices off the tree, whichled to a retrieval contract for one Albrecht Oldenhaller, which went smoothly and putus into contact with a resourceful smuggler named Dirk Huydermans (more on himbelow). For our next contract, we were hired by a prosperous butcher to track downhis missing daughter. It took us two days, but we found her, and in hideous condition:warped beyond recognition by a rival butchers poisoned sausages! Her father hadher brought to a Shallyan Hospital and we tracked and slew his rival, a man who wasin league with Chaos. We then converted the mans river barge to our use and are inthe process of acquiring an Imperial License to operate the barge on our own accountfor river trade.

In less than one week, we had made enough coin to live modestly for a numberof months, even accounting for our purchase of suitable armor and equipment for ournew careers as adventurers. In any event, Gottri still had one last task to complete asan Imperial Jailor. He had been tracking a criminal named Karl Warburg who escapedthe hangmans noose two weeks ago in Altdorf. The trail had gone cold, but Gottrisuspected that Warburg may have returned to Nuln to take up his former career as abandit and cutthroat. He showed me a picture of the villainous scum, a man bleachedwhite as a bone, with a jagged scar on his left cheek. He had been convicted ofmultiple murders and robberies on the Imperial Highways. 100 gold crowns for hisreturn! At the thought of such a bounty, my eyes lit up and I inquired as to what wasknown of the fellow. In my experience, simply tracking a criminal usually isnt enough;one must step into the shoes of the larcernous, murderous filth you are tracking. Youhave to learn to think the way they do. You must taste the rotgut and feel their joy in


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violence run amuck against all natural sense or reason. Unpleasant but profitablework.

We had met a man Dirk Huygens in our recent execution of the OldenhallerContract and thought he might be able to lead us to our quarry, or at least put us onthe track. Dirk is a smuggler accustomed to working in the grey areas of the law. Wevisited him on our seventh night in Nuln at his customary booth at the Merry Halfling.He told us that although he had neither met nor seen Karl Warburg, he would tap hiscontacts for more information on Warburgs location. The only catch was that weneeded to assist him that very night with an easy job that he had been contractedfor. I was suspicious, of course, just like you taught me to be. An easy job with highpay, is always a bad combination when youre working the laws shadows. It meantthere was something you didnt know that could get you killed.

He told us that he had been hired by a man he didnt know who called himselfDieter.This didnt seem much to go on and I was suspicious. Our fellowship castsideways glances at each other, signifying that we each had the same thought:perhaps Dirk had taken a job he shouldnt have, perhaps out of some perverse prideor perhaps to refill his coffers. Still, we had no other leads, so we agreed to meet uplater that night to assist Dirk with this mysterious job. We positioned ourselves at aninn across the way to watch for any odd comings and goings at the Merry Halfling.Dirk had also told us to make sure we were not followed when we returned thatevening at the strike of eleven. We did notice later that some of Dirks men went intothe bar that evening.

I couldnt shake thoughts of a double cross all night. We knew what Dirk andhis men were capable of after all, we had fought alongside them against the cultistsof Nurgle in the sewers of Nuln. To make matters worse, during the evening, wenoticed two cloaked characters doing a bad job of watching us, trying not to be seen.


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Gottri noticed a chaos insignia ring on one of their hands. We slowed a bit whilewalking trying to figure out a good course of action, I suggested a split up. While twoheaded in for the meeting the other two of us would directly confront our admirers.As soon as they realized we were on to them, though, they opted to bolt, leaving tableand glasses of wine to clatter to the ground as they ran for their lives. We gave chasebriefly but soon lost them in the damnable Nuln crowd.

I paid the barkeep for the damages and inquired about my friends that hadleft so abruptly. A piece of gold bought me a fake sympathetic look for missing outon my engagement with my friends,and the barmans impression thatthey were asickly pair, one of em smelt of cheese and the other had fat, back flies buzzing abouthim. I told him to let us know if he saw similar men at his establishment and gave himour previous address at the Reavers Return (a decidedly odd establishment, seeingas its land locked and not really close to the docks at all) . We made our way back tothe Merry Halfling with the excuse that paying the tab took longer than expected.With a side glance to the party and a shrug, we signaled that we knew little of the twowho had been watching us.

In exchange for our help Dirk was going to give us the information he had onKarl Warburg. The help turned out to guarding Dirk and his men as they retrieved abox from a warehouse near the docks and took it to an inn outside of town called theEmpires End. At a quarter past eleven by the Deutzelm clock, we left for thepickup location. We quietly mulled over the situation, and I was still a bit worried thatDirk and his men might have ill intentions. We were also puzzling over the twomysterious men who were watching us. Were they some abominable cultists? It seemedlikely from the signet rings. But how dangerous were they? Were they out for revengeagainst Dirk or perhaps they simply wanted to rob him of his cargo?


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When we got to the warehouse area, we stopped about twenty yards from thepickup spot. It was the center of a four way stop so we decided to coming at it fromthree sides. If something was in wait we would have a bit of an advantage from theshadows. Dirk and he men having a lantern would be the first to be spotted ifsomething went wrong. Walking into the alley, Dirk and his men were the first todiscover that something terribly wrong had already happened. The bodies of five menwere strewn about a battered wooden crate with iron chains broken. Blood waspooled with rainwater and beginning to run off into a sewage drain. Three of the menseemed to have died from sword and knife wounds, while the others looked like theybore the wounds of some beast. One mans neck had been broken, turned nearly allthe way round and hanging at an impossible angle.

We spotted two drunks in an alley across the way and approached them .Thetwo men demanded payment in drink before they would talk to us. Gottri was havingnone of this and grabbed one of them and lifted him off his feetno easy task if youthink of the difference in stature. Without a kind or gentle world or attempt atpersuasiveness he demanded that the men talk lest they be forced to drink of a bottlenot of rotgut but of their own blood fresh from the beating he was about to administer.Gottri can get his temper up, that I can tell you. This sobered the man up and relatedto us in shaky voice what he had so recently witnessed. A coupla shady fellas comefrom the docks and walked straight right inna tha alley. They hadda box widdem.Warnt too long fore I hears the clash a arms. I recognize tha sound cause I was in thImperial Infantry, Twelth Regiment, afore the Greenskins took me legs. I sees twomen runna out, and they was as white as death, and they had fear and terror on theirface and in their eyes. I seen that look on men who ad seen too much deaththemselves.


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At this point you could see that the drunkard was starting to relive the eventshimself, or maybe he was remembering some brutal Greenskin attack on a remoteoutpost that he survived. Anyway, you could see that telling this story made him gowhite with fear. He stared off a moment in horror, recognition or who knows what.Fortunately, several slaps to the face from the dwarf encouraged him to continue.We seenwell, what we seen next was a flash a light, like un a cannon flash andwell,thenwell she warnt no woman, no regula barmaid or even no fancy lady, but we seena lady outta a mans loneliest dreamcome all floatin like outta that alley, on Sigmarshonor. She was she looked like some queen from a fairy tale she did. Shes whiteren white, like we coulda missed er if the she were lost in the moonlight. She lookedabout her an dinna see us, thanks to Sigmar. She headed straight inna town beforeall was silent.

We examined the site of the gruesome battle, and noticed that two of the menwere cloaked in dark robes with the same eight-point starred rings on their deadfingers. We knew them to be dread cultists of chaos, agents of the Ruinous Powers,as you used to call them. When we lifted their cloaks to reveal their faces and wethought they looked very like the men who had been watching us earlier in the evening.Both men had swollen boils on their lips that looked in desperate need of lancing. Wecould see that they must have fallen upon the other two crate-bearers, the two whohad escaped in a trail of blood, and whatever their intention it was not carried through.I pocketed the two chaos rings and then we inspected the crate. We first thought thatthe crate had been dropped but quickly dismissed the idea. It would have needed tofall a great distance to do that much damage. No, looking at it, you could only reachone conclusion: the crate was shattered from a force emanating from within the crateitself! The chains that were once locked around the crate were scattered about thealley in pieces.


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Dirk and his men were stunned, speechless. They knew now that indeed theyhad gotten involved in something complicated. Dirk looked and me and said: I dontlike complicated. Complicated gets a man killed. But I recognize these men, Dirkpointed at the two men who had done battle with the cultists, as part of a Bretonniansmuggling gang led by an old rival of mine, Jacques Perriot. Friendly rivalry.well asfriendly as business gets I suppose. I like Jacques, he knows all the best places forwine and brandy in Nuln. Lets go to him, hell talk to me. Tomorrow, though, fortonight we should return to our quarters. The evening had begun with a simple jobthat turned out to be just as bad as I expected. Proves your point again, MasterSilverforge! But what were we to do? We went to sleep late that night not realizingthat we hadnt even seen the worst of what this whole dangerous affair would have tooffer.

We found Jacques Perriot at his favorite establishment, the Golden Mead. Awell-dressed man in his late 30s, Jacques looked us up and down as we approachedhis table. Several other men started to move towards us, but Jacques waved themaway. Dirk! It is a pleasure to see you! The man spoke with a soft Brettonianaccent. Nodding towards us: Whos this odd-lot youve brought with you? Weintroduced ourselves and Dirk spoke with Jacques for a minute or so out of earshot.When they faced the group again Jacques began speaking in a low voice: Threedays ago, I was approached at this very table by a man who called himself Dieter. Hesaid he knew who I was and that he had an easy job with good pay. My men wouldpick up a crate from a river barge called The Andronicus. The crate would be markedBrettonian Brandy. Special Vintage. We were to hand this crate off to a secondset of hands at an appointed spot in the warehouse district. We figured it was somekind of contraband item, or that someone simply wanted to avoid the Empires ruinousexcise and shipment taxes. Dirk said:Ruinous, perhaps, but good business for us,no? Jacques smiled and nodded.


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Jacques had two bottles of very good Tilean wine brought to his booth and alarge flagon of real dwarven beer for Master Gottri, whereupon his mood liftedconsiderably. We sat and drank and listened. I sent four men to the docks last nightand only two came back, one of them, Francois Levesque, mad with fear and the otherman, Clement Petit, recovering from a nasty head wound upstairs. Here is whatClement told me. Close to midnight last night, Clement, Francois, Jean and Davidemet the barge called Andronicus at the docks as agreed. They had a small cart withthem to move the crate. They could barely see Andronicus at the end of the pierbecause of the fog. They began to approach the ship. About halfway down theywere met by a well-dressed man who called himself Viktor accompanied by six or sorough-looking characters who were unloading the crate. Viktor spoke with aSylvanian accent. He said Here it is. This should be easy enough. You are clearon what you must do? Good, then youll be out of the cold night air in no time.Clement instructed the other three men to lift the crate carefully onto the cart andnoticed meanwhile that the Sylvanians watched until the crate had been carted offinto the warehouse district. Moments after reaching the appointed area, they were setupon by three men. Two were hooded with purplish cloaks and bore studded macesas weapons and the other looked to be a footpad who had perhaps seen a chance tomake a fast gold crown off our troubles. Clements a good man and has been in hisshare of scrapes, some deadly. So, quick as a cat, Clement drew his longknife andbefore the footpad could position himself to strike, stabbed the man clean through hisleather jerkin, a killing blow. But just as quick, he was struck from behind and droppedto the ground. Before he passed out, he heard the two hooded figures chanting andshouting in a kind of frenzy. At that moment there was a loud noise and blinding lightand he passed out. When he awoke soon thereafter he saw that Jean and Davide laydead. And he saw the three other men were also dead. He retrieved Francois andthey stumbled out into the night and back to the Golden Mead.


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Jacques took pity and deposited Francois in a Shallyan asylum ward, payingfor his care for the indefinite future. Jacques then told us that he didnt know thecontents of the crate and, like Dirk, was instructed not to open it. We surmised thatJacques men has been ambushed by chaos cultists in a robbery gone bad and hadended with both sides losing the cargo and whatever had been in the crate coming totown on its own accord. Both Jacques and Dirk were concerned that whatever hadhappened here, they would be better off knowing a bit more about it, if only for thesake of self-preservation. We toldJacques that we were willing to help with this andthat all he needed to do for now was to obtain a crate and shackles. If he did that, wewould deliver the crate and discover what was behind all this. We made some furtherinquiries about the circumstances of the job. When we compared both mens storiesabout the events leading up to this incident, we asked them to described the manDieter who had hired them: they both described Dieter as being very pale, with ajagged scar down his left cheek. Of course, we knew immediately upon hearing thisthat Dieter and Karl Warburg, Gottris escaped criminal, were one and the same!

Dirk decided that perhaps it would be best to go ahead with the drop-off asplanned, at the very least to get paid the other 50 gold crowns. Of course, we alsoneeded to capture Dieter, so we offered to complete the delivery to the EmpiresEnd coaching inn outside of Nuln for half of Dirks 50 gold crown payment. Dirk wasquite intrigued as to how all this would play out. He could offer no man brave enoughto accompany us but he was willing to provide a mule and mulecart for the delivery.

We decided that we would hide Rudi Roundtopp inside the crate in case inbecame necessary that we place a man on the inside of whatever criminal ring (orworse) we were to be dealing with. We headed out of town. The rain had increasedtenfold since we had left Nuln and the roads were beginning to flood. We soonarrived at a darkened Empires End, which was in no way reassuring. We looked


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Two of them darted into our hallway. They were wearing leather and chain andcarrying wicked-looking axes. As soon as they were through the door Haleon hadstuck one in the eye with a heavy throwing dagger while Wertha was upon him with abarbaric shout and heavy mace, crushing his skull bringing him crashing to the floor.The second creature charged forward and then suddenly realized that it hadovercomittted: it had run into a room full of foes and all it could do now was to bleat toits comrades out in the main room, but not before we brought him low with sword, maceand axe. Three moreBeastmen entered the hallway. Haleon and I blindsided one ofthem, knocking him off balance while Gottri and Wertha took advantage of theopening to kill him with two crushing blows from axe and mace. The hallway was nowslick with blood.

There were now three Beastmen corpses piled in the hallway. Their twocomrades stepped over the corpses and charged snorting and grunting into thehallway. These two each bore a bottle of brandy and torch with the intention ofburning us out. I acted quickly and sent a crossbow bolt down the hallway and set thebrandy alight in their hands. We then charged them while they sought to extinguishthe flames. Gottri doubled back to guard our exit as the rest of us pressed ouradvantage. Wertha and Haleon blocked the door to the hallway and kept threeBeastmen at bay, while I shot a bolt or two past my comrades into the crowd. Bothwomen yelled back at me that I should watch what I was shooting at. Werthathreatened to break my head for me if she managed to survive the Beastman assault.

Haleon wailed in injury and I shouted that she should back away from the door.Rudi popped his head around the door exclaiming that he and Gottri were busy withthe leader of the warband so we would need to hold them off a bit on our own. I shotmy last bolt my, dropped my crossbow to my side and drew my sword. As I waded intothe melee, I felt the bite of an axe on my chest and saw Wertha fall badly wounded


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soon thereafter. I sensed that the tide was turning in the Beatmens favor.Fortunately we still had Gottri and Rudi as our rearguard. Haleon and I broughtdown two more, with the help of Rudis dirk, which he slipped between the ribs of thelarger of the two remaining Beastmen. Gottri and the Beastman leader exchangedblows, Gottris axe grinding against the Beastmans nasty, sawtootheddoublehanded blade. The Beastman took blow after blow from Gottris axe, but waswell-armored and stubbornly resilient. Gottri was yelling what could only have been aseries of oaths and curses in Dwarftongue and the Beastman roared and grunted inreturn. Between the blood and the rain driving in through the broken window, the floorbeneath them both was very slippery. The Beastman slipped on the slicknessbeneath him and lost his balance but for a brief momentgiving Gottri just theopening he needed to drive the blade of his two-handed axe into the chest of theBeastman. As the creature lay prone, Gottri stood on its chest and delivered thekilling blow to its head.

We finished off any still-living Beastmen and then Gottri treated Werthasnasty chest wound by cleaning it, setting the broken ribs with bandages andfashioning a splint has he had learned to do. With tired limbs we stripped theBeastman of their armor and weapons. Gottri took the small purse of the warbandleader, a prize, he said, for felling him single handedly (for the most part.) We were tootired to argue. As a bounty hunter, I knew that we should collect the Beastmen headsas gruesome proof to the authorities that we were entitled to reclaim any availablebounties. We looked outside and saw that our mule had been half eaten and was verymuch dead. We searched the rest of the inn, took whatever spoils we could andpacked tem away in the crate. It had been a very long day and we debated briefly ifwe should go back that night on in the morning to Nuln. Instead, we piled the corpsesat the end of the long hallway, double barred and barricaded the doors and windowsand went upstairs to sleep.

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Letters From Nuln 1