Middenheim is a revelation, the largest city any of you have ever seen. Four great stone causeways lead up the granite mountain that is the Fauschlag or Ulricsberg to the high walled citadel that covers the entire plateau at the summit. It is said that Middenheim has never fallen to force and looking up at the mighty fortress-city, still bearing the scars of the latest siege you can well believe it.

The Untergard refugees travel up the nearest causeway to the southernmost of the city gates. You notice other groups of tired looking civilians ahead of you ranging from individuals to refugee bands a dozen or more score. Many look wounded or hungry and most carrying possessions on their backs or pulled in cats. Clearly the people of Untergard are not alone in seeking safety in the City of the White Wolf.

Surprisingly the harried looking clerk at the causeway gate and his troop of halberdiers in blue and white hurries your group through. You suspect he might have made more of a fuss but the steely glare of Captain Schiller finishes any note of complaint or Sigmar help you a request for a bribe and he waves you on.

Inside the gate Untergarders quickly find they have been assigned rather cramped and squalid accommodations in the crowded Southgate-Ostwald district. Evidently these houses belonged to people who died in the siege (or who fled Middenheim before the siege began) and are soon the sight of arguments, fistfights and bawling children. You scarcely have time to think before you are sought out by Captain Schiller.

"Thank you for your help in getting here. We took our losses and I mourn them but we should have fared worse without you. Untergard shall be reclaimed in time gentleman and I shall look after our people but I release you from any further obligations. Ulric watch over you my friends."

The Captain's face is full of grim determination as he continues, "I'd advise you to find a suitable inn if you can soon. The houses we've been given here are cramped even now and I suspect there will be more refugees to come. But first I think you should return the Icon to the Temple of Sigmar. Father Dietrich was relying on you to do this for him. The Temple is The Freiburg district to the North East of the city. Here you better take this map."

Captain Schiller hands you a detailed map of the city.

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OOC: See 'Game Map'.

It is late afternoon and you are technically free to do what you wish, whether to go to the temple, look for better accommodations, talk with NPCs or just explore!

"Good to be behind safe walls of a city for a change." Klinka said with a stretch and a hint of a smile on his face. As you approached the city, he felt more confident and you saw him watching with interest the architecture of the causeways, guardhouses and walls themselves.

He nodded to Captain Schiller, hoping people of Untergard will find safety in this place.

"I think we should follow Captain's advice and find a decent inn to eat, drink and rest. Then we can explore the place." he suggested.

Lukas was exceptionally surprised, and relieved to have entered the city unmolested.  He was almost certain that they would be turned away, made to pay an exorbitant fee or even just generally made to feel unwelcome when they reached Middenheim.  That wasn't really the case here.  Despite the battered stone and signs of war, the causeway as they entered the giant walled mountain was the most majestic sight he had ever seen!  It must have taken the pinnacle of ingenuity to build a city like this and now, in awe of the City of the White Wolf he truly believed it was impregnable.

Inside the walls though he could see all was not well.  Clearly those living nearest to the walls had abandoned their homes, either to make way for defenders or following the ruthless bombardment of Chaotic siege engines.  The area was overcrowded and in disarray but it was true - the Graf had provided safety of sorts.  As he helped his former neighbours settle to their new home it would have been the easiest thing in the world to stay with them and start anew, but Captain Schiller had handed a map to his new friends and bade them farewell.  What was it to be Lukas?  Starting again or looking for more adventure?

He remembered Pieter, Gunther and Luciana and their quest for the magic sword.  He looked at the wizard, the halfling, the dwarf and the man from the North.  There promised adventure - and a likely early death.  He knew which way he was going...

"Let's find an inn and have a good rest and a bit of food.  Can anyone see one on this map?"  He stared intently, but he couldn't read and tried to make sense out of the symbols.

(OOC:  The Drowned Rat looks close and sounds like just the sort of place we'd be welcome in.  Shall we try there?)

The large warrior slung his arquebus over his shoulder as the caravan entered the great city of Middenheim. This was the first time in many weeks both his weapons were carried on his back and he wasnt on the highest alert.

He was more than happy when he heard conversation about an inn and a place to rest. He didnt have much coin but hoped there was enough for a few days under a roof in a bed for some sort. With a big smile and a "DA!" he agreed to Lukas suggestion.

Dust and shit and the unwashed masses. With these markers came unwelcome memories, pressinng in on Pieter like the flies and babble of the masses of displaced and war-torn refuges apparent to him as they entered Middenheim. Inwardly, he laughed: the City of the White Wolf? Perhaps more the city of the flea-bitten cur. His lips curled, but he smothered the betraying gesture and sought out Luitpold and his family once they had passed the gates, close enough to claim his fee for safe passage. Winding their way to the hovels the folk of Untergard had been housed in, his sharp eyes sought sign of profit or warning

But perhaps there was also opportunity, and he let Captain Schiller prattle on or a few moments, before taking hold of the map - ostensibly to hold for his fellows. At Harkrin and Lukas' suggestions, he nodded - wisely he hoped - and added his pfenning's worth, "We need to see Herr Hause to his house. Perhaps he might recommend somewhere... or his Guild put us up for a day or two as recompense for our valour? If not, at least put in a word for us..."

"Herr House to his house?" Klinka scratched his burnt beard trying to figure out what Pieter meant. "Who is Herr House anyway?"

OOC: Klinka wasn't paying too much attention to people we met... To him all people look and act the same. Even I had to go back to the previous thread to check who was Herr Hause;-)

Pieter chuckled, somewhat more darkly then perhaps he had prior to these recent days, but explained nonetheless, "A silversmith, from the village we passed through. With the daughter. Bringing him here puts us in their favour, perhaps"

As you disscuss where to go and what to do Edgar speaks up. The Halfling messenger has been quiet since the confrontation, obviously lost in thought.

"I reckon we must part ways my friends," he says, offering a small hand to each of you, even the scarred dwarf and the rude Ostermarker. "I still have a job that calls me and I'll have to be on the road with Nibbles again. I hope our paths cross again some day. See to it that Father Dietrich's icon get delivered to the temple."

He turns and departs, wistfully.

Jocelin watches him go then speaks up in turn. "I've decided I better stay with the Untergard refugees for a while. They've lost Granny Moescher and I think I can help them, maybe not exactly how she did but I do have some knowdlege of my own. Good day gentlemen. It has been a pleasure and a privilege."

So saying the wizardess too takes her leave.

Taking the preferred hand from Edgar, Pieter muttered a farewell, “clear roads and a full belly”. His nod to Jocelyn was both more muted and more polite, wary of the Winds of Magic she called after his encounter with the Queen of the Wood

You soon discover that the 'Southgate-Ostwald District' of Middenheim is really two quite distinct quarters. To the east of the Southgate itself lies the Southgate quarter with it's humble but clean houses and clean looking streets. It doesn't look rich by any means - indeed Lukas had seen several larger houses in Untergard which had been a prosperous small town - but it did look respectably working class from a distance.

Of course you have only seen it from a distance since the Untergarders had been settled across the Ostwaldstrasse - the wide main street leading from the gate - into Ostwald. If Southgate looked working class Ostwald looked class. This quarter was a warren of small yet cramped buildings and shops squashed together, dirty sloped alleyways that seemed to run off in all directions and more people than most of you had seen in your entire lives. Men (fewer and often old or showing the signs of war), women (more and usually trying to sell you something including on at least one corner themselves) and whole armies of children, crying, laughing and playing.

The sound was overpowering, the smell was overpowering. And yet for all the obvious signs of grief and poverty and violence - narrow faced, glazed eyed women in widow's black, beggars in rags and shady characters on every street - it was also intrinsically exciting. This was the big city where opportunity lay beyond a thousand doors or so they had said back in Untergard...

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OOC: Where to first do you want to check out the Drowned Rat and see about accommodations and food (and maybe listen for rumours) or look for Luitpold House Hause and bring him to his hause house?

Also who is currently carrying the icon of Sigmar?
This message was last updated by the GM at 12:35, Thu 06 Oct 2022.

Pieter spoke softly, his eyes flicking subtlely to some of the more obvious gang scrawls, "Remember not everyone in the city will seek the best for the Untegardians. There is plenty of opportunity here, but peril too"

"Watch your purses", he continued, before dismissing the signs, "Let us ind the inn, and decide our path from their"

If no-one else is carrying the icon, Pieter will

"Drowned Rat, eh?" Klinka muttered. "Let's check this place, hopefully it is less awful than its name. Mr House's hause will have to wait."

Fyodor chuckled as they entered into the Ostwald district. This was his kind of place and reminded him of parts of Kislev, the great city of his homeland.

He grinned "Rat drown. We drown." he says as he makes a gesture of drinking.

Pieter's words made Lukas feel very wary in the big city.  All of a sudden he felt all hours on them and was convinced the children running in and out of the alleyways were certain to rob them.

"A drink first, yes," he agreed.  Although it would be good to get warm food and a decent ale inside him he was mindful they had Father Dietrich's relic on them and he wouldn't feel safe in the eyes of Sigmar until they had returned it to where it belonged.  They could also get that Herr Hause home safe too, although now they were in the city he wondered why he hadn't just wandered off home now.