Moonlight pooled like cold milk across the stone of Wittgenstein’s walls, thin and treacherous, revealing just enough to betray movement but not enough to grant comfort. The air carried the damp rot of the river below, and every sound—boot, breath, whispered word—seemed louder than it should have been. The company moved through it like knives through cloth, cutting a path that could not be undone.

The gatehouse had already tasted blood.

The door burst inward under Wanda’s hand, and for a heartbeat the world held still—four guards frozen mid-game, tankards half-raised, cards suspended in disbelief. Then the room exploded into violence.

Felrick’s arrow flew first, clean and merciless, punching through a man’s chest before he could rise. Qavitrae’s crossbow answered in kind, the bolt driving through another and pinning him grotesquely to chair and timber alike. The remaining two barely had time to understand that death had entered the room before Nora and Wanda were upon them, steel and fury closing the distance.

They broke quickly.

Weapons lay just out of reach, and the sight of companions falling in silence shattered what resolve remained. They yielded, voices trembling, hands raised. Questions followed—sharp, urgent, edged with threat—and answers came spilling out in fragments: numbers of guards, locations, names spoken with fear. The inner bailey. The dungeons. The watergate. A prisoner taken. A boat seized.

Hope, however faint, flickered.

Then it was extinguished.

The decision came without ceremony. No speeches, no hesitation. Mercy had no place in a castle that bred horrors. The prisoners’ pleas rose, shrill and desperate, and were cut short just as quickly—crushed beneath Morgenstern and blade. Their deaths were not clean, and their final cries echoed up the stone like accusations.

Silence returned, but it was thinner now. Fragile.

It broke almost immediately.

Below, a guard caught a glimpse—a flicker of movement, the wrong shadow in the wrong place. Huguette reacted first, vaulting the banister and descending like a striking hawk. Felrick followed, bow already drawn, the pursuit tightening like a noose.

The fleeing man chose poorly.

He slammed into a swollen door that refused him passage, panic rising as arrows snapped past him. In the end, it was not escape that claimed him, but inevitability—steel through the neck, a final collapse into stillness.

The path downward lay open, but the cost of silence was mounting.

Back above, the company pressed on.

Another door. Another breath held. Another gamble.

Inside, the sound was unmistakable—laughter, drink, the crude music of men who believed themselves safe. Too many to face cleanly, too few to ignore. Thindruk’s voice slipped through the door, borrowed and imperfect, a mimicry that should have lured them out.

Instead, it drew suspicion.

The laughter died. Chairs scraped. Boots shifted.

The door flew open, and the room erupted into chaos.

Wanda surged forward, voice ringing with defiance, bolstering the others as they poured into the cramped space. Steel flashed. Arrows loosed. Nora vaulted the table in a reckless arc, crashing into the far side in a desperate attempt to break their line before it could form.

But this time, the fight resisted them.

Blows went wide. Weapons failed at the worst possible moment. A knife slipped past Nora’s guard, nearly finding flesh. Thindruk’s grapple turned to pain as Felrick’s errant shot struck him instead, the arrow burying deep enough to draw blood and fury in equal measure.

The room devolved into a brutal knot of half-finished strikes and desperate counters.

One guard broke.

He ran for the window, screaming as he went—alarm, murder, the end of all things—his voice cracking the fragile silence the group had fought so hard to preserve. Arrows chased him, one biting deep, but not enough to stop him before he threw himself through the shutters.

He died on the stones below, skull shattered by the fall.

Another followed soon after, crawling from beneath the table, choosing the same desperate escape. He struck the ground hard—but lived, if only barely.

Inside, the survivors faltered.

One dropped his knife, hands raised, eyes wide with the dawning realization that this was not a fight he could win. Another, trembling, seized the moment granted by hesitation and fled toward the gatehouse, desperate to carry word to whoever still stood.

Felrick let him go.

“Tell them,” he said, voice low and certain, “and let them come.”

The man did not look back.

Behind him, the room reeked of blood and fear, the table overturned, bodies sprawled in unnatural stillness. The company stood amidst it, breathing hard, the weight of what had been lost pressing in.

They had wanted silence.

Instead, they had bought time—and nothing more.

And somewhere beyond the walls, the castle was beginning to wake.

Session Notes
  • The party began the session already inside Castle Wittgenstein, positioned on the second floor of the smaller gatehouse section in the outer bailey.
    • Their larger objective remained the same as at the end of the previous session: delay a full battle as long as possible, clear the route ahead quietly, reach and control the gate leading toward the inner bailey, and, if possible, get to the barracks before the castle fully mobilized.
    • They were also conscious that the larger force from the woods was waiting outside and could attack if things went badly, but the group preferred to keep the alarm from spreading for as long as possible.

  • The GM recapped the party’s infiltration up to this point.

    • The group had entered Castle Wittgenstein under moonlight and moved through the courtyard after passing a cluster of beggars and other wretched people.
    • At least some of those people showed signs of mutation.
    • One of the wretches had awakened during the infiltration, and Qavitrae had cut the person’s throat.
    • The party had then climbed up onto the walls and killed a guard there.
    • During that earlier action, Qavitrae had critically failed with her own crossbow and broken it, then taken the dead guard’s crossbow instead.
    • The group had also helped the allied fighters from the woodland camp get ladders up and over the wall.
    • Those allies had been told to hold position rather than cross the open courtyard with the whole force.

  • The party re-established their current tactical goal.

    • They were inside the main gatehouse of the outer bailey.
    • They did not especially care about holding that specific gatehouse permanently; they were using it as a route toward more important positions.
    • Their concern was avoiding movement across open, moonlit ground where a larger group would be noticed.
    • They intended to clear the path ahead and, if possible, move along the walls rather than expose themselves in the courtyard.
    • The group confirmed that they ultimately wanted a way to the inner bailey gate and eventually to the barracks.

  • The session resumed with the party at the portcullis chamber.

    • They were near the mechanism that raised and lowered the main portcullis.
    • The main gate itself was closed for the night.
    • A large wheel and ratcheting mechanism in the chamber could raise the portcullis.
    • On the far side of a nearby door, the party had already heard several voices.

  • The group confirmed who was with them at the moment.

    • Thindruk was positioned a little farther back, ready either to fight or to relay instructions if needed.
    • Three hunters from the camp had accompanied the party on this stealth mission.
    • The rest of the allied force remained farther away on the wall and could not easily see what was happening without a deliberate signal.

  • The party set the ambush.

    • Wanda was ready to throw the door open.
    • Felrick and Qavitrae were prepared to shoot as soon as targets appeared.
    • Nora was ready to charge in after the initial volley.
    • The group intended to overwhelm the room before the occupants could arm themselves.

  • Wanda threw open the door.

    • Inside were four guards.
    • They were armored, but not fully equipped for a fight.
    • They appeared relaxed and were sitting around a table playing cards.
    • They had changed shirts and were clearly not braced for combat.
    • Because they were seated and close, the GM allowed the ranged attacks as easy shots.

  • Qavitrae initially had more trouble with the stolen crossbow.

    • Her first attempt went badly enough that she considered rerolling.
    • There was confusion over whether aiming should have applied to the attack.
    • After the rules were checked and the aim bonus was accounted for, her shot was ultimately treated as a critical success.

  • Felrick’s opening shot killed one of the card-playing guards outright.

    • He fired from the doorway with his bow.
    • The arrow struck squarely in the chest, in the heart-lung area.
    • The guard barely managed to begin standing before collapsing dead.

  • Qavitrae’s corrected opening shot also killed a guard.

    • She fired the captured crossbow into the closest target.
    • The bolt went straight through the guard and pinned through the chair as well.
    • The man rose only partway before the crossbow bolt transfixed him and left him trapped with the chair.

  • Nora immediately followed the opening volley with a charge.

    • She used a takedown rather than a normal strike.
    • She rushed the remaining guards and knocked one of them flat to the floor.
    • The visual the group described was that Nora practically vaulted the table and flattened one of the survivors amid the scattered cards and furniture.

  • At that point, the fight in the room was effectively decided before initiative needed to matter.

    • Two guards were dead almost immediately.
    • One had been bowled over and was prone.
    • The last two surviving guards, still unarmed and surprised, surrendered.

  • The party questioned the surviving guards instead of immediately killing them.

    • One captive pleaded for time to think and begged not to be killed.
    • Thindruk demanded to know which guards were currently on duty and where they would be found.
    • Wanda watched the stairs while the interrogation took place.

  • The captive gave the group a rough breakdown of the defenders.

    • He said “the Simonite” had fifteen guards total across both baileys.
    • He did not know the exact current watch rotation.
    • In the outer bailey, he believed there were the four men in this room plus four or five others.
    • He said the watch was heavier on that side of the bridge.
    • He identified the outer gatehouse as the other main concentration of guards.
    • He also mentioned that sometimes the sergeant could not sleep, which affected who might be awake.

  • Thindruk pressed for command details.

    • He asked who the senior officer was on that side.
    • The captive named Sergeant Clinger.

  • The party also asked about Doppler.

    • They wanted to know where Doppler usually was.
    • The captive said Doppler roamed, but tended to stay in the inner bailey more often because it was nicer there.
    • When asked what was under Doppler’s mask, the captive seemed confused by the question.
    • He nevertheless described Doppler as having “the face of a corpse,” though not a fresh one.

  • While the questioning continued, the group’s attention lapsed badly.

    • Wanda failed an awareness check while watching the stairs.
    • The rest of the party also failed their awareness checks.
    • The only reason they were not surprised was because the hunters who had accompanied them were more alert.

  • Huguette, the female hunter, noticed a guard below before the party did.

    • She saw movement from the banister area.
    • She immediately planted a hand on the banister, swung over it, dropped roughly eight feet down onto the stairs, and moved while drawing her short bow.
    • As she went, she whisper-shouted a warning: “guard.”
    • Her shot missed.

  • Felrick followed her over the banister.

    • He jumped down after Huguette without needing a roll.
    • He landed just behind her on the stairs.
    • From that angle he could see only the legs of a fleeing guard and hear the man running away below.
    • He tried to make a ranged takedown shot aimed at the back of the knee or Achilles area.
    • After rules discussion, rerolls, and a fortune point interaction, the shot still failed.
    • His arrow skipped off the flagstones near the guard’s feet instead of dropping him.

  • Qavitrae and the others moved to pursue the fleeing guard downstairs.

    • The guard ran for a nearby door.
    • He was trying to get out before the party could close with him.
    • He slammed into the door expecting it to open, but it was badly stuck.
    • The wood scraped against the frame, but the door would not fully give way.

  • The fleeing guard was then finished off before he could escape.

    • Huguette, now very close, tried to shoot him from only a few feet away, but critically failed by stumbling on the last steps.
    • Qavitrae leapt down with the others and fired her crossbow.
    • After another reroll, she hit him in the back of the neck.
    • The bolt struck hard enough that he slumped against the door, and blood pumped out of the wound as he died on the floor by the stuck exit.

  • Back upstairs, the party resumed dealing with the two surrendered guards.

    • Thindruk asked how to get down to the docks below the castle.
    • The question was important because the group wanted to find their boat and the guard who had been taken from it.
    • The captive said the route went through the dungeons under the inner bailey.
    • He explained that there was a stairwell in the dungeons leading down to the Watergate on the river.

  • The surviving captive then made an important connection.

    • He realized who the party must be looking for.
    • He said that the castle had brought back a prisoner.
    • He believed that prisoner was probably in the dungeons.
    • He asked whether the prisoner was a friend of theirs and urged them to hurry.

  • Once they had the information they wanted, the party killed the captives.

    • Wanda did not want to risk them waking up later or raising the alarm.
    • Thindruk was also ready to kill rather than leave them alive.
    • The captives begged for mercy and screamed when the blows came down.
    • Their deaths made some noise, but no immediate commotion answered from nearby rooms.

  • Afterward, Qavitrae examined the stuck lower door.

    • She eavesdropped and heard nothing on the other side.
    • With a successful awareness check, she determined the problem was not swollen wood.
    • Instead, the stonework itself had shifted and jammed the frame.
    • She concluded the guard had only managed to force it partway because he was desperate and willing to slam into it painfully.
    • She also judged that the party could probably force it open with repeated heavy kicks, but doing so would be noisy.

  • The group secured the tower and reconsidered their route.

    • Michael asked whether the heavy bar from the courtyard door could be used as a lever on the jammed door, but it was too large and awkward for that purpose.
    • The party barred the accessible ground-floor door so enemies could not come up through the tower from the courtyard.
    • They concluded that continuing along the walls was still safer than crossing open ground.

  • Thindruk ordered the allied force into a stronger position.

    • The GM improvised that there was effectively a way from the gatehouse back onto the walls.
    • Thindruk told Leopold to return to the main group and have them occupy the gatehouse.
    • His reasoning was that the gatehouse was a defensible position, offered a controlled exit if needed, and concealed the allies better than leaving them exposed on the walls.
    • Leopold quietly departed to carry that message.

  • Before moving on, the party checked the weapons left in the gatehouse.

    • In the portcullis room there were spare crossbows set out in case the gatehouse had to repel attackers.
    • Qavitrae’s history with crossbows led to jokes, but the practical result was that Thindruk ended up taking one.
    • He also collected five bolts from a nearby container.
    • Doing so put him over his comfortable encumbrance.
    • He ended up awkwardly stowing the bolts in his belt.

  • The party proceeded along the wall to the next structure.

    • The building ahead appeared to be a large, three-story structure attached to the wall line.
    • The group approached a second-floor door and listened there.
    • Wanda failed to hear anything useful.
    • Thindruk succeeded and determined that there were multiple people inside.
    • The room sounded lively rather than alert: voices, laughter, and badly played music from some kind of stringed instrument.
    • Based on the sound, the group estimated there were definitely more than three people inside and fewer than ten.

  • The party debated how to handle the room.

    • One suggestion was to try to lure some of the occupants outside so they could be ambushed in smaller numbers.
    • Another was simply to rush them while they still seemed inattentive.
    • Thindruk revealed that he had a strong disguise capability and could imitate voices well enough for a quick deception.

  • Thindruk attempted the ruse.

    • He imitated one of the guards they had just killed.
    • He called through the door, trying to entice the men inside to come out and see something amazing.
    • The attempt almost worked, but failed narrowly.
    • Instead of answering, the room went immediately silent.
    • The party heard chairs scraping and boots moving, making it clear the men inside had become suspicious.

  • Realizing the deception had failed, the party launched the assault anyway.

    • They opened the door and initiated formal combat.
    • Inside were six guards.
    • The room was arranged around a large table with drinks out, a fire going, and at least one open shutter or window toward the courtyard.
    • One guard had been playing a lute or similar instrument before the alarm.

  • Initiative was rolled for the larger fight.

    • Wanda acted first.
    • She used Inspiring Words at the start of the battle.
    • Her speech affected the party members and the two hunters still with them.
    • The buff increased damage and peril thresholds and also raised initiative through her Scald ability.
    • Rather than overextend, she moved just inside the doorway, shield and Morgenstern ready, taking a position to block and support the entry.

  • Thindruk then tried the crossbow he had picked up.

    • He aimed through the doorway at one of the nearer guards.
    • Despite the aim, he missed.
    • The shot went wide and proved to him that the unfamiliar weapon was not worth relying on in that moment.
    • He chose to drop it rather than keep fumbling with it in the doorway.

  • Huguette fired next and struck a guard near the front.

    • The target tried to dodge, critically failed, tripped over a chair, and fell prone.
    • Huguette tracked the fall and planted an arrow into him as he went down.
    • She then moved farther into the room to support Wanda.

  • Felrick fired an aimed shot from behind the doorway into the back of the room.

    • He picked out a target deeper inside the chamber.
    • His arrow hit cleanly and lethally.
    • The guard was struck through the chest and collapsed, dying before he could meaningfully react.

  • Qavitrae entered the room and attacked the prone guard.

    • She moved in with her blade and tried to finish the man Huguette had knocked down.
    • The GM forced a reroll with a fortune point.
    • Even so, the prone guard managed an improbable defense by using a chair as an improvised parrying object.
    • The strike was stopped, though the chair was wrenched around in the process.

  • Nora launched herself over the table.

    • She attempted another takedown on a guard farther back in the room, using her usual high-speed, body-first style.
    • Even after spending a fortune point, the attempt failed.
    • The guard braced and redirected her momentum.
    • Nora hit the ground, rolled, came up on the far side of the table, and then used an extra action point from her special combat ability to make a follow-up claymore attack.
    • That follow-up swing also missed.
    • She ended the exchange on the far side of the table, now separated from some of the others.

  • The guards responded as the melee stabilized.

    • One guard grabbed a knife from the table and attacked Nora.
    • He hit, but the damage was not enough to exceed Nora’s threshold once Wanda’s inspiration bonus was taken into account, so she remained unwounded.
    • Another guard ran to the open window and began shouting an alarm into the courtyard.
    • As he tried to break away, Nora got an opportunity attack and wounded him badly enough to turn his cry into a pained shriek, but he still managed to scream that attackers were killing them.

  • A different guard armed himself with a chair and attacked Qavitrae.

    • The chair was used as an improvised weapon.
    • Qavitrae successfully parried and hacked a leg off the chair instead of taking the blow.

  • Another guard tried to escape through a door at the back of the room.

    • He disengaged from Wanda and ran for the exit.
    • Before he could get through it, one of the remaining hunters took an aimed shot through the room.
    • The arrow struck him in the back and killed him.
    • His body hit the inward-swinging door and then slid down, shutting it as he collapsed.

  • The party chose to play one more round instead of ending there.

    • The reason was that the outcome of the room was still unresolved, especially because one guard was actively shouting alarm from the window.

  • Wanda opened the next round with a heavy attack.

    • She went after the badly wounded guard in the corner.
    • A fortune point forced her to reroll, but the second roll connected.
    • The Morgenstern hit hard enough to inflict a serious wound, with broken ribs implied by the narration.
    • Wanda then tried to use Litany of Hatred to demoralize the remaining enemies, but failed and held her remaining actions for defense.

  • Qavitrae used Dirty Tricks on the chair-fighting guard.

    • She successfully blinded him with a quick, dirty maneuver.
    • That left him unable to counter a follow-up properly.
    • She then stabbed him with her fast, vicious blade and inflicted a serious wound.
    • After the attack she repositioned to threaten more than one opponent, including the man who had crawled under the table.

  • Thindruk tried to silence the shouting guard personally.

    • He rushed across the room toward the man at the window.
    • Instead of using a weapon, he attempted a chokehold.
    • The attempt failed.

  • Felrick’s Black Cataract drawback then caused friendly fire.

    • Because he had missed a shot while an ally was engaged, the special rule triggered.
    • The attack redirected onto the engaged ally instead.
    • Felrick’s arrow struck Thindruk in the back.
    • The damage was enough to give Thindruk a wound and make him lightly wounded, though not injured beyond that.

  • Nora, still struggling through heavy peril penalties, failed again to control the center of the room.

    • She attempted another takedown against the guard Wanda had just smashed, but failed.
    • She then abandoned that target and ran toward the guard at the window.
    • She charged in and swung her claymore at him.
    • The attack missed and buried the blade into the windowsill instead of the guard.

  • The knife-wielding guard opposite Wanda lost his nerve.

    • He still held the knife, but stopped pressing the attack.
    • He looked at Wanda in a pleading, tentative way and effectively asked for mercy instead of continuing to fight.

  • The guard at the window kept yelling despite multiple attempts to stop him.

    • He continued shouting alarm and warning the castle that killers were in the room.

  • Qavitrae’s blinded opponent then made a desperate decision.

    • Once his own turn came around, the blind effect ended.
    • He backed away from Qavitrae and got the shutters open wider.
    • There was discussion over whether he had enough actions to escape safely.
    • In the end, he chose the desperate option rather than stay in the room.
    • Qavitrae got an opportunity attack as he broke away, but he managed to spoil the strike by catching part of it on the chair he had been using defensively.
    • He then smashed through the shutters and dove out the second-floor window.

  • The jump killed him.

    • The fall was ruled high enough to be dangerous.
    • Because he was already badly wounded, the damage from landing was enough to finish him.
    • He went out headfirst and effectively landed the same way, dying from the impact outside below the window.

  • The guard who had earlier hidden under the table followed that example.

    • With the table no longer protecting him and the room collapsing around him, he spent his actions crawling out and getting upright.
    • He then threw himself out the same window.
    • This fall hurt him, but not enough to kill him.
    • He survived, taking a lighter wound than the other jumper.

  • At that point, Felrick turned to the remaining hunter beside him.

    • The hunter was close enough for a direct exchange.
    • Felrick told him that it was over and that he should go alert their friends.
    • The hunter nodded, told the party to kill the rest for him, and ran back toward the main gatehouse.

  • The session ended with the situation still unstable rather than fully resolved.

    • The party had won control of the room in practical terms, but not cleanly.
    • At least one guard had successfully shouted the alarm into the courtyard.
    • One wounded guard had escaped the room by diving out the window and surviving the fall.
    • One guard remained alive inside asking for mercy.
    • Another shouting guard was still in play when the round ended.
    • The allied force had been ordered to occupy the first gatehouse.
    • The party had learned the vital route they needed next: the dungeons under the inner bailey, then the stair to the Watergate on the river, where their boat and likely their captured companion could be found.