Splitting Heirs: Session Fifteen

I am now lagging a long way behind, unfortunately, given a lack of sleep causing a deficit of mental freshness and motivation to write. This sadly means that a couple of sessions will have to be summarised with bullet points.

• Scharf invited Pou out of town the morning after the wedding. Thinking it was a social affair, Pou brought his wife; Scharf had meant it as both sword practice (trying to break Pou’s reliance on his guns, which would quickly become useless in any pitched battle) and a clear-the-air talk. Despite their audience, both happened to some degree. Scharf confirmed his identity and revealed his past – including his associations and history with the southern bandits. This angered Pou, especially after what had happened to Jonn at the hands of said bandits, and the meeting was quickly over before the gunsmith did something rash.

• Lady FitzCarstein had chosen to pay Herbert a visit before heading back to Drachenmalstein. She outlined some rather ambitious plans for the future, saying she would support Pou as successor to the Baron, providing he swore fealty to her when she (hopefully) rode onwards, reversing any siege and deposing Duke Mörder, installing herself as Duchess. She revealed some of her knowledge of the situation, but was not able to convince the mayor that she actually had the resources or the ability to carry it off. Plus his natural distrust for her coloured Herbert’s interpretation of everything Lady F said.

• Pou returned to his workshop, where he spoke with Jonn about Scharf, his history, the bandits and everything. Jonn implored his employer that it was obvious that the other members of the council were seeking to isolate him, playing the politics game that Pou despised so much.

• Scharf met with Lady F, who outlined her plans to him. In the wake of Pou’s distrust it was important for them to “stick together” – all sorts of romantic (and less so) insinuations went with this phrase.

• Pou and Herbert spoke, the latter informing the former about Lady F’s mad schemes, to much disbelief, and Pou airing his distrust of Rudi (Scharf); Herbert assured Pou that his son (Rudi) was trustworthy despite his history.

• Lady FitzCarstein returned to Drachenmalstein, spoke a little with Jurgen about the imminently-due Witch Hunters and how to handle them, and then had them turn up. 3 of them, Herrs Ritter, Jaeger and Brunner. Jarla was not due back with her gaggle of hedge-witches until the morning…

• Scharf headed south looking for signs of Rolf, the sergeant he had sent down to scout. He found no trace of them, and was warned off heading into the forests by a man called Aachen, whom he had met before in Brunnenhing’s lands – Gretel had turned to Mörder, he said, and the Duke’s skirmishers were in the forests, and Rolf had either joined Gretel or died. On his way back north, Scharf saw a straw dummy hanging from a tree; it was wearing a Sergeant’s uniform, and pierced with an arrow. He heard laughter as he urged his horse on and away.

So the Templars arrived; a big moment that, as they are now relatively central to the events that will conclude the run. I am afraid I cannot actually recall many of the details of this session beyond the skeletal notes directly analogous with the abovementioned bullet points that I took in the immediate aftermath.