Mandred, wishing to signal the rebels who are hiding in the woods, flies to the castle butresses. However, he is quickly spotted by the guards who sound the alarm.
He drops down several coils of rope and prepares to defend himself. Meanwhile both the heroes and the castle guards pour out into the storm and clash in the muddy courtyard.
Abels pistols explode with deafening sound, Otfrieds hammer smashes, Gotraks axe beheads, Felixs arrows pierce and Lothars blade slices. Mandred feels great power coursing trough him and he has difficulties controlling himself, his maniacal laughter accompanies him while magically conjured lightning mingles with the unnatural storm.
The mutant guards are tough opponents and they put up a gruelling fight. But, in the end, battered and bruised, our heroes emerge victorious.
After a quick rally, healing and recuperation, the adventurers move over the bridge towards the inner bailey. A torrential downpour limits vision to just a couple of meters. Because of this, the guards are easily overtaken and the heroes penetrate into the inner courtyard.
The inner bailey holds the castle proper, a defaced temple, a garden, an aviary, a tower, a solarium and a large pit in the middle.
The pit is the first thing the heroes investigate. The middle of the courtyard has been dug out into a 20-foot-deep pit, measuring approximately 15 yards by 10. The edges of the pit are lined with downward-angled spikes and the bottom ten feet has been roofed with a layer of criss-crossed bars in the middle of which is a hinged 'cage-door'.
Peering into the dark, aided with a light spell from Mandred, they notice dark grey tendrils of mist rising through the cage bars. The bottom of the pit is obscured by this mist, but the unsettling sound of screams and moans can be clearly heard. Writhing grey shapes can be seen through the mist. Arms are reaching hungrily for victims and mouths are moaning and groaning horribly.
The heroes decide to deal with this foul abomination later and head straight to the castle, hoping to reach the top of its largest tower.
The Castle
The hall contains a large dining room table set for a sumptuous meal. The walls are hung with dusty lanterns illuminating numerous portraits of past and present family members. Two polished mahogany staircases lead up to a balcony where faded battle banners and suits of armour can be seen.
The floor is made from oak boards. Once highly polished, they are now covered in a thick layer of grease and grime. The meal on the table is weeks old - sickly green with pallid grey moulds covering all of the food, and the wine in the goblets fizzles and pops, bearing an unsettling resemblance to the contents of a Chaos toilet. The cutlery and plates are however, made from silver, a fact that Abel quickly spots and he sets about to loot them.
An ugly old mutant appears from under the stairs. This is Slurd. Slurd is grey haired and his face is lined with wrinkles. He walks with a pronounced stoop, his head always pointing at the ground. His voice is old and cracked and he has a habit of tilting his head on one side as he speaks. His left hand has mutated into a giant bird's talon. He croaks with feeble voice: "Make yourselves at home, ladies and gentlemen. You must be hungry after your journey. Do help yourselves, and then I'll show you to your rooms. Just ring the bell on the table."
The adventurers look at each other quizzically, Gotrak steps forward and buries his axe deep into him.
The crew continues up the stairs, which moan and groan and feel like flesh, they try to avoid them by using grappling hooks but fail, however, apart from the strange noises, nothing happens.
On the first floor, the heroes start to investigate the several rooms one by one. Apart from some faint disembodied whispering voices warning them to turn back. The crew concentrates on going upwards, trying to reach the tower.
They enter one of the many doors and come into a richly furnished room. Two corpses sit in chairs in the room and the booted feet of a third can be seen sticking out from under her bed. The corpses are in various states of decay and the one under the bed has had its arms removed. The corpses are all are mutated in some way or other. There is also a large chest but before it can be investigated, various small object in the room start to float. A poltergeist is harassing the heroes, hurling objects at them. It only stops once they remove the corpses from the room.
Moving further towards the tower, the adventurers come upon a small room containing all sorts of grinding equipment, used by Dagmar Von Wittgenstein to grind lenses and later to grind warpstone dust. Beyond that is a library that contains many books on anatomy and necromancy.
The Tower
The tower is filled with the type of equipment you might expect to find in the laboratory of a mad scientist. The room is a maze of tubes of glass filled with glowing multi-coloured vapours, interlinked by a series of brass rods. Hanging on hooks around the walls are five human corpses and skeletons in various states of decomposition. Glass tanks along one wall contain preserved body parts - legs, liver, kidneys, a brain, and so on.
But the most dominant feature of the room is a large central wooden platform, at each end of which stands a 10-foot-high, steel column, with a solid wooden table between the two. The four corners of the platform are attached by lengths of rope to a huge block and tackle by means of which the whole thing can be raised up to roof level. Another system of levers and rods is used to open the roof to the elements. The steel columns are connected both to a lightning conductor which trails from a large kite, and to four lengths of wire which come together at a metal skull cap.
Lightning arcs high overhead, momentarily flooding the room with its stark, white light. Rain falls through the open roof to sputter and spit on glowing items of equipment, and the coloured tubes of glass pulsate with electrical power drawn from the storm above to a gigantic humanoid being, strapped to the table. The Giant looks like it is composed of multiple body parts sewn together. At the controls stands a slender young woman with a mad, deranged look in her eyes. This is Lady Magritte Von Wittgenstein, great-granddaughter of Dagmar.
Before the adventurers can react, lightning strikes the aerial conductor, and, with a terrifying clap of thunder, a surge of electricity sets the two metal columns quivering with raw power. A loud crackling sound and the stench of burnt flesh fills the room as Lady Margritte stares expectantly at the table. After three rounds the table begins to shake and a snapping sound comes from it.
A gigantic undead creature shambles forwards, it is slow and cumbersome but its attacks pack a serious punch. With Lady Magritte casting devious and heretical spells at them, the heroes face their most dangerous fight yet. The undead giant takes hit after hit but remains standing. He almost takes out Ottfried & Gotrak before he is finally slain. The Evil sorceress is killed as well and once more the heroes emerge victorious but bloodied. On the Corpse of Lady Magritte, they find an ornate key, which possibly opens the chest holding the warpstone. According to Mandred, such a chest must exists and be lead lined and lies somewhere hidden in the castle, otherwise he would have felts its potentially limitless power.
Lady Ingrid sits in a high- backed wooden chair at the far end of the room, and immediately and imperiously demands to know what the adventurers are doing in her private chamber.
When they tell her they're looking for the warpstone and demand to know what she has to say for herself about the state of affairs of her caste and lands she goes into a tirade of how useless peasants are and how inferior and how superior she is. Ignoring her, Gotrak beats her senseless and kills her without a thought. Strangely, one of the other companions react to this, is their morality already affected by their surroundings? It seems so, and it will get worse.
Throughout the rest of the castle, they encounter giant killer bees (expertly fried by Mandred's lightning), a sleeping beastman (expertly skewered by Lothar), And various strange rooms. In one of the rooms the adventurers find a "mercenary" by the name of Ulfwhernar the Destroyer. He offers his services to the crew, who are skeptical but decide to take him along.
The Courtyard
A bucket stands next to the trough, but this too is swarming with cockroaches. It's contents, sticky amber honey (made by the giant killer bees elsewhere).
With a crunchy sound underfoot, they make their way to the 1st floor. The furniture here is covered in the ubiquitous cockroaches, although the walls and ceiling are largely free of the insects. A bookcase contains books on plants and flowers, and also treatises on art and architecture.
Visible under the cockroaches on the walls are portraits of past and present family members. One shows Lady Ingrid, another Lady Margritte when she was 10 years old, a third is of Gotthard when he was 12, and a fourth -labelled "Head of the Family" - is of Ludwig himself. Ludwig's portrait is quite disturbing: although he looks superficially normal, there something distinctly unnatural about him. His jacket bulges out from under his armpits, possibly hiding extra arms and his skin is very shiny. Protruding from the edges of his mouth are two small black teeth. The heroes arrive in the last room, hearing strange music and singing. Ludwig spends most of his days in here reading, playing his harpsichord and singing. On entering this room (which is also filled with cockroaches), the adventurers see a cockroach, the size of a human, leaning upon a stool and playing a harpsichord with its forelegs. The creature wears a powdered white wig and spectacles upon its almost human head. A gold pocket watch hangs from its chitinous body and there is a white lace handkerchief tucked in between two of its body plates.
Ludwig is genuinely pleasant to people and has a kindly demeanor. He enjoys talking about anything to do with art or philosophy. He welcomes the crew and invites them to sit down for a drink. Sadly, he has no idea about a warpstone and when he proposes the heroes to listen to some music, they decide to kill him off while his back is turned.
The adventurers see nothing wrong with their course of action even though the emperor declared mutants can no longer be prosecuted. In their eyes, they showed Ludwig mercy.
They exit the tower and move towards the next building, a large desecrated temple.
The iron-studded oak doors of the temple are slightly ajar, strange, discordant music drifts out on a haze of acrid lavender-coloured smoke. Mixed with the music are sounds of merriment and laughter, as if a celebration of some kind is taking place inside.
A stained-glass window at the far end of the temple casts a weird, orange-red light on the scene within. The scenes it depicts are hidden behind a thick coat of some red translucent substance. The far end of the chamber is raised about three feet from floor level, and on this dais stands a rectangular altar, with a statue, apparently twice life-size, behind it. The floor of the rest of the chamber is obscured by the thick lavender mist, and is littered with writhing bodies. A flight of steps on the right of the chamber leads up to a gallery.
The worshippers in the temple are about a dozen men and women, all dressed or partially dressed in rainbow coloured robes. Their faces and the visible parts of their bodies are covered with heavy make-up, in a wide range of garish and clashing colours. The worshippers are so involved in their various activities that they take no notice of the adventurers picking their way through the sprawling, writhing bodies. They all have a distant look in their eyes , and take no notice of anyone or anything else.
Mandred recognizes a symbol of the Chaos God Tzeentch just as a piercing scream rends the air and several human-sized figures hurtle forward over the top of the statue, performing a double somersault before landing in a fighting crouch before the altar. They are followed by a magician who stands atop a floating disc, an amalgam of daemonic flesh, flashing blades, and burnished metal.
The mage, accompanied by a pink and a blue horror attacks the heroes but they are soon bested, even when Lothar succumbs to some kind of drug laced into the mist. The adventurers are badly wounded at this point and their nerves are frayed. Ottfried loses it and proceeds to murder each and every one attending the blasphemous mass. meanwhile the others fight a chaos organ on the 1st level that sprouts tentacles and steals souls. With its defeat, the infernal music finally stops and the heroes reconvene in the courtyard.
Withered grey limbs are seen seeping out of the walls and floor and reach towards the adventurers. Mingled amongst the limbs are numerous hideously shaped heads and bodies which writhe and bubble uncontrollably up from the floor and out of the walls. Arms, tentacles and other appendages reach hungrily for victims and its mouths moan and groan horribly.
Instead of descending, the adventurers go to fetch pitch from the guard tower. They pour buckets of it down the pit and set it alight. While whatever creature lived in the pit utters soulrending howls and hair-raising screams, the adventurers take a moment to compose themselves. Wounds are healed an they notice that the Mercenary (Ulfwerenar) has taken the opportunity to flee.
Once the pit is burned out, they make their way down it and discover a secret hatch toward the dungeons.
Down there they stumble upon an Ogre jailer, which they kill, several corpses in cells, an imperial tax collector, who is set free and a deranged captive who refuses to leave.
Further down the corridor, the come upon a stout & sturdy door that is locked. It's keyhole resembles a daemons head with a gaping maw. At that point the adventurers experience something that resembles an earthquake or large explosion. Stones and dirt crumble an fall as the entire mountain seems to rock.
Upon opening the door they finally find what they are looking for: a large lead chest. But, they are not alone, a group of skaven, accompanied by a strange skaven with horns are in the process of dragging the chest trough a newly made hole. Meanwhile, the castle above starts to collapse and once more the heroes plunge into a quick and brutal fight with the ratmen. It ends with the horned rat escaping and the heroes in possession of the chest which contains a gigantic warpstone!
The heroes escape the crumbling castle with their boat and make their way up the River Reik.
Thus ends Death on the Reik, the 3rd part of The Enemy Within...