151: Research

After talking to Quintus Fassbinder we got the idea that despite some of his wacky ideas, he might be right about Ghal Maraz and how it was never taken from Black Fire Pass, after all, and Sigmar had left the world at a location covered by Fassbinder’s map.

Blume decided she needed to research the issue more, and set to work in the library. After about eight hours, Blume had had enough, but that was about seven and a half hours longer than I thought she would have kept at it.

Blume found a map of Black Fire Pass and the surrounding mountains, and she found a reference to the prophecies of the Sisters of Sigmar saying,

A statue of a goddess, Sigmar bows deeply and deft.

Two statues of goddesses, Sigmar panged bereft.

Three statues of goddesses, Sigmar’s spied the cleft.

Holy Hammer he heft, then he ventured to the left.

which, besides everything else, is terrible poetry.

And we also found a passage by dwarf Loremaster Yodri entitled From the Adequate to the Benighted: Ancestor Gods of the Manlings, which was a lot to consider:

Back when young Dawi had proper respect for hard Graft and pursuit of excellence Smednir set out to forge the greatest runehammer of all time. He took up half dozen ingots of copper and several of zinc and placed it in Zharren, the Ongoing Fire, as his furnace was called. But no matter how he laboured at the bellows the coals would not grow hot enough. Some say the coals had been purchased from an Elgi merchant from across the ocean, and that this accounted for their mediocre and dilute qualities.

Smednir cried out in frustration and a daemon appeared. It whispered to Smednir that it could heat the forge for him with its own flame. Proud Smednir denied the daemon and cast it from the mountain. Smednir chastised himself for his temper, for it is a bad workman who blames his tools, even if those tools were supplied by Yarnithiel Crestslider of briny Cothique.

With great effort, Smednir managed to get the metal white hot. He set to work shaping it. But the metal was wilful, the ore having been supplied by lanky folk of the northern lands who can barely tell a fine grade nugget from a clod of cuprous mud, and Smednir toiled for many days without success. The grinding of Smednir’s molars could be heard echoing about the peaks and the daemon reappeared. It offered to guide Smednir’s shaping hammer, Azulokrid. Smednir threatened the daemon and chased it from Zharren.

After more days of sweat, Smednir formed the hammer and began to set the runes. This was a grand endeavour the likes of which had never been attempted before. As he wrestled with this insurmountable task, the daemon slipped into the forge again. It saw Smednir working and boasted of its prowess in manipulating magic. At this, the Ancestor God grew enraged and cursed the daemon’s name, ‘Sheerargetru’, then smote it with the unfinished hammer. It was banished and Smednir finished Ghal Maraz with the aid of the other Ancestor Gods.

Since that day, the daemon has brooded in its ever-shifting palace, abhorring the hammer that was forged without taint of its influence, but fearing it too, for a mere brush from the weapon would grievously injure it and its kind. For an aeon the daemon sulked and whined. I mean, I might be the sort to hold a grudge, but the daemon really took it personally. It bitterly condemned the sons of Smednir. It hid the forge of Zharren deep within hideous realms and swore that until the Dwarfs returned to the forge they would never again weave such powerful magic into their designs.

We also found this:

Salutations to my friend in change

here a recipe for bold results

eternal fiend writhes and consults

empire he commands us rearrange

rites complex with ingredients strange

at nine month’s ninth assemble nine

cults run priest’s blood so the changer exults

great rune maul and confusion exchange

each eye present a horror become

then from fate’s grasp deliver the task

regent’s shell feather and twist

undone utter nine times swiftly

Iztak Graksk

They said something about Iztak Graksk being Harry’s uncle, which I didn’t understand. He sounds like an idiot. We wondered about the ninth day of the ninth month, which sounded auspicious, and as we were already in the eighth month, impending.

We also found something about the Champion in the Shadows, which we had heard before in Middenheim, as Schutzmann had discovered it from one of the Purple Hand the Middenheim authorities had interrogated.

We decided that if we were sure the real hammer was not currently in Altdorf, perhaps hidden by the grand Theogonist or the emperor, then we would have to travel to the World’s Edge Mountains to try to retrieve it.

Willow decided to go to Elvyra to see if she could get her into the palace so we could be sure the true emperor did not have the true hammer. Willow pressed her about the double. Elvyra assured her that the double, Hermann von Feilbach, was loyal to the emperor and the Empire. And she said that the emperor was also in the good hands of Doctor Henrik Kappelmuller. But eventually Willow managed to convince her to help her see the emperor, if only to put her mind at rest.

Meanwhile, Blume and Fred went to Blucher’s wharf to see Das Moot. The boat wasn’t there but some bloke said his masters had procured it and he would be willing to help them get it back if they went on an errand for him. It turned out this was the Black Chamber, and he was trying to recruit them to get Ghal Maraz on behalf of the Black Chamber. He said we could have a fast patrol boat and a full crew to help us get to Black Fire Pass. It was surprising that the Black Chamber were already ahead of us, but we had to be wary about who we promised Ghal Maraz to.

Meanwhile Willow and Elvyra got into the palace, and Willow led some of his guards into the emperor’s chamber to see Kappelmuller sponging the emperor's forehead with scented ointments. She demanded to know what was in the ointment, and Kappelmuller explained that it was a mixture including Schlaf and Moonflower.

And while Willow was examining the emperor’s purple brain fever, she noticed Kappelmuller surreptitiously trying to put something into the ointment. They had an argument over what herbs might help the emperor, and Kappelmuller tried to blame Elvyra for any dodgy substances. And Elvyra eventually admitted that the herbs did include Ranald’s Delight.

And while Willow was examining the emperor further, Kappelmuller panicked. Grabbed a dagger from his bag, and threw it at her, and Willow stood in front of the emperor so the blade didn’t hit him. And then he stabbed Elvyra. Elvyra fell to the floor, looking green, and Willow realised she had been poisoned, but Willow was fortuitously unaffected by whatever poison Kappelmuller had put on his blades.

Willow shouted to the guards to stop Kappelmuller as he was trying to kill the emperor, but Kappelmuller shouted to the guards to stop Willow as she was trying to kill the emperor.

Two guards entered the chamber, and Kappelmuller stabbed one of them and fled. The two guards ran after him, while Willow saw to Elvyra’s wounds. Elvyra told her that the poison was black lotus. Willow went through Elvyra’s bag and found an antidote for it.

Meanwhile, Greta was off to the grand temple of Sigmar to hand in a detailed report of her last three months in the service of Sigmar. She told the witch hunter captain about her trip into the mountains, and what had happened since then, and then revealed what we had concluded about Ghal Maraz. The captain objected that that was heretical, but Greta managed to convince him it was reasonable.

He proposed making an expedition to Black Fire Pass on behalf of the cult of Sigmar, in order to bring the true hammer directly to the Grand Theogonist, and the captain had to admit that if the story of the hammer were true, then this would put the cult at an advantage.

And so they agreed to give official sanction to her mission, and paid her all the back pay she wanted. And they gave her an acting promotion, which they said would be made permanent if her mission was successful.

When Greta got back to Helstein she told us what she had agreed to, and we were surprised that she had effectively promised the hammer to the Grand Theogonist. But Fred and Blume had also promised the hammer to the Black Chamber, in return for the use of the fast patrol boat, and the return of Das Moot. So that put us in a difficult position.

Meanwhile, in the emperor's bedchamber, Willow had managed to stabilise Elvyra, and then went to see to the emperor. She decided that without the concoctions being forced on him by Kappelmuller, he was no longer in any danger, and would recover naturally.

And the the ‘Empress’ Maria-Luise arrived, and Willow explained what had happened. She said she had never trusted Kappelmuller. Then Willow left a final dose of Ranald’s Delight with Maria-Luise to help wean the emperor off it, with strict instructions that he was to have no more after that.

Willow asked if anyone else got to see the emperor while he was ill, and Maria-Luise said only the doctor, Elvyra, and a strange thirteen year old boy with a pudding basin haircut. That rang a bell with Willow.

Then some knights turned up with Immanuel Ferrand, the High Chancellor. They reported that Kappelmuller had taken a poison and was now dead. And after discussing the expedition to find Ghal Maraz with Willow, Ferrand proposed that should she find Ghal Maraz, she should return it to the Emperor. And in return, they would give her the use of his fastest boat.

And so we are in the awkward position that we have promised the Black Chamber, the emperor, and the cult of Sigmar possession of Ghal Maraz should we find it. But I think we need to concentrate on finding it anyway, and worry about who gets it, later.