Down into the cesspit of doom
The owner of the Crossed Pikes gives Lothar an ornate chest, that after careful inspection by the Vogel brothers, should be safe. Lothar is shocked to his core as he opens it to reveal... The head of his sister Najjia Kaloffi! The new champ can barely contain his rage and interventions by Ottfried or Gotrak have little effect on the stricken arabian. Whether this is a response to Lothar's refusal of joining the arabian delegation, a revenge of Mr. Gouda or a blowback of the events of the night before is unknown but the crew suspects the arabians and, while lamenting the death of Lothar's sister, some voice their opinion that she was too rash and -sort of- had it coming.
Abel has a message as well, he is invited by The Man to join him for dinner, he is to make contact his usual agent (Mr. Schnellgeist).
Descent into the Undercity
On their way to the temple of Grugni, the group spots a chained Dezur Darkforge, accompanied by about 10 City Watch, Otfried asks them what is going on and their captain tells him Dezur is being suspected of murdering the Chairman of the Kommision of Trade and Taxation, Gotthard Geubbels! However, once the guards spot Gotrak, two remain behind to trail them. Without even doing the slightest effort of ditching their trail, the heroes enter the Temple of Grugni.
High priest Thordazim welcomes them, and informd them things have become dire in the undercity, he warns them to be careful. The last expedition into the tunnels did not come back and the Priest is worried about the heroes safety. Blessings and spells are cast as preparation and the heroes enter the lift into the deep (see session 18 for further details).
Below, the standard guards have been replaced with heavily armoured versions wearing tower shields with mounted crossbows on them and heavy axes. Sure enough, after only walking five minutes, the band encounters large rats, the size of small, but vicious dogs. These, of course are obliterated with ease.
The Lizard
The adventurers climb on its back and after several tries of giving it orders it might understand, it dives into the underground lake. It takes them to an underground mooring room. The place is littered with corpses, all of them quite pale. They have two distinct puncture wounds in their neck.
These corpses are clearly members of The Purple Hand, distinguishable by their tattoo on their chest and mutations. Felix informs them about vampires and about what to do to prevent the dead from rising. Before chopping them up, Mandred searches the bodies and finds a map.
The Cellblock
Investigating the study, the heroes discover various small notes with demonic script, similar to those found in the tower of the Windhund Haulage Company. Apart from that, several letters are found, communication between "Badwolf" and "The Jade Cock" The latter who's handwriting is easily recognisable as that of Gotthard Geubbels/von Wittgenstein.
Enter the Dungeon of Disgust and Despair
The slow undead is easily dispatched and it's corpse used to set off the trap, that consists off a hail of poisoned arrows, many of which are recuperated by Felix.
First stop is the northeast corner, where the heroes find a sewer grate, secured by some sort of one way mechanic device. Opening it, they find that the tunnel beneath leads to Skaven warrens. Clearly marked by their foul triangular symbol. Apart from that, there is also a large Nurgle symbol in the wall, hals covered by glowing mushrooms, lichen and other vileness.
Making their way across the stairs to the other room, the adventures find an old tomb. The script on it can be traced back to the time of the founding of the city. Yet, the tombs have been desecrated. Deciding it might be too dangerous to open they leave the burial chamber and make their way to the other tombs. In the corridor with the stairs, the crew is attacked by cultists of Tzeentch and Slaanesh. After a brutal fight, in which a Nurgling is accidentally summoned by one of the cultists, the crew advance. Passing the stairs, they set off another trap, by which three of them fall down a deep pit filled with oil, the walls lined with vicious spikes. On top of that, the heroes hearts skip a beat as a flaming torch drops down from the ceiling. Thankfully the trap is very old and not well maintained and the torch extinguishes just before it falls down into the oil.
The second tomb chamber is even more defiled than the first. Green glowing mist slowly overflows the edges of the burial places and the band of explorers retreats quickly from the foul vapours.
Botched EXPERIMENTS and the thing in the cell
The creature proves a worthy adversary but in the end, it cannot hope to defeat our heroes.
Coming upon the room where it was held, Gotrak finds traces of dwarf craftsmanship in the diamond shaped room. After searching a while he finds the mechanism that allows the room to be moved, activating it, the room descends into the darkness below on unseen hinges.
The Laboratory of corruption
After making sure the lab is destroyed, the crew returns and continues its expedition into the evil headquarter.