I awoke to sunlight streaming through my cabin and realised we had made dock in Altdorf with my curious friends. We had a discussion with Renat about selling the pottery and, after a brief discussion regarding his merits, we decided to sell "Monkey". Renat agreed to sell our goods on our behalf. Lin met with the Elven ambassador Farforian Whiteshore without the package which he'd asked for. Igor had to go back to the boat to pick it up. Farforian was exceedingly pleased to receive the package. Lin had some discussion with Farforian about his secret mission (the artifact). He also pointed lin in the direction of the great Hyronymus Blitzen, a master of the Arcane school of heavenly magic. Lin and Igor went to the temple of Sigmar, where Igor met with Xavant, his mentor at the witchhunters' guild. He recounted the tale of our exploits and he was very impressed. We showed him the letters and told him about Teugen and Etelka. He was very concerned about Etelka Herzen and charged Igor with investigating her in Grissenwald near Nuln. He also sent witchhunters to Boegenhafen to clean up after the calamaties. We went to the magic colleges where Lin met with Hyronymus who was very happy to see him and help in his quest. Lin had developed a curiosity about chaos magic and the power on the winds which revealed a lust in him for more power. Hyronymus agreed to teach me the beginnings of the lore of heaven and I decided in addition to what he recommended to acquire the spell "Comet of Cassandora" for my grimoire. I enquired about Etelka Herzen and he looked concerned, stating that she had been a student at the colleges many years ago but had turned to the dark arts. He recommended that I take great care in any attempts to pursue her. As a parting gift, he gave me a magic ring with an inset jewel that had the appearance of an eye. It is very precious to me. He said it would protect me from the undead. Back at the boat, Renat had negotiated the sale of the the ceramics and the monkey and reinvested the proceeds into iron. We bought provisions for 10 days. Making our way out of Altdorf upstream towards Grissenwald, we spotted Ernst the demonologist who we met in episode one, riding a four seasons carriage eastwards out of town. He spotted us also.

The first town we encountered was Fielbach, and we hatched a plan to intercept Ernst at the carriage stop at the skull and crown inn. We attempted an elaborate rouse to trap Ernst by setting up a surprise birthday party in his room, but the innkeeper was having none of it. Plan B was to hide in plain sight in one of the inn booths. Ernst entered the inn and immediately spotted Viggo, who gave up the game by knocking over his beer and making a scene. Ernst bolted out straight away and we made chase. In the street, Ernst make quick his escape by quaffing his potion of flight ex machina and zooming off towards the forest. The birds did not want to talk to Lin to help us find Ernst.

Disappointed after ruining Ernst's big day, we made our way further upstream, assisted by Lin's newly acquired spells, which allowed him to offer us a favorable tailwind. Disaster struck when we ran aground in a shallow section in the foreboding marshy stretch that afternoon. The Argy Bargy took some hull damage and Igor and Deagol alighted to free the vessel using brute force. We were immediately confronted with the dread sounds of beastmen gathering on the East bank. The situation became desperate as the beastmen started firing crossbows at us and it turned out that dislodging the boat would be no mean feat. We pinned our hopes on Lin's formidable new magic skills. Lin started channeling energy to provide a mighty gust to dislodge us, but was interrupted when he was hit with a crossbow bolt. Viggo had the presence of mind to shift the iron cargo to the offside of the boat and used his acrobatic skills to try to rock the boat free. This more than redeemed him after his disgraceful behaviour at Ernst's birthday party. Deagol manned the sails and tiller in anticipation of a gust, Igor providing taunts and exhibitionism to draw crossbow fire away from Deagol. Lin's gust never arrived. Desperate to try out his new spell, he sought cover below deck to channel, but when he finally had enough energy collected up he miscast, shitting himself. The beastmen started to wade across the river to confront us and were dangerously close by the time we finally escaped thanks to Viggo and Igor rocking the boat and some maneuvering from a bolt-riddled Deagol.

Further upstream, we spotted Castle Reikgard on the starboard riverbank. The guards at the jetti refused to allow us to moor, dispite a half-arsed attempt to impersonate a delivery boat. Just upstream from the castle, we spotted a watchtower under construction and two dwarves ran out to hitch a ride with us. They were desperate and offered us quite a sum to take them away from that place. A dwarven lady also appeared and ordered the dwarves to stay, threatening them with blacklisting in the construction trade. She explained that they were constructing a tower for the empire, which would serve as a beacon communication system. However, there had been mysterious goings on, with six of the worker dwarves having gone missing and she appealed to us to put in some work to help finish the construction. We agreed to this, eager to get to the bottom of the disappearances. We sat around the fire, whilst Lin skulked into the woods to do some magic. A bird told him that there was death in this place.

Igor took the lead and convinced the party to camp out in the tower, Scooby Do style. We were torn as to how to divide the watch that night. We wanted to keep guard in pairs, but Lin and Deagol needed heals badly. In the end, we made the fateful decision to divide the watch between Igor and Viggo individually. Igor took the first watch, assuming that whatever might come for us would come early. How wrong we were. During Viggo's watch, a foul beast emerged from a well-hidden trap door in the floor and charged him. Viggo got off a shot from his crossbow and sounded his customary siren to wake the others. The beast was fearsome and dealt devastating damage to Viggo, who all but perished in the opening seconds of the encounter. We were on the back foot. Linthan attempted to magic-missile him, but ended up rolling another 74;. Igor charged in with his hatchet, but the beast appeared very very strong indeed and the mood was tense, as we contemplated the prospect of being totally overwhelmed. In desperation, Deagol employed a new tactic, knocking the beast to the ground before finishing it off with a mighty blow to the head. We composed ourselves and investigated the goul creature and the trapdoor. The goul had a very nasty bone weapon, which we decided not to take and an amulet with a strange symbol, which Viggo took. The trapdoor had no obvious opening mechanism and Lin concluded that it must be operated by some sort of magic. Though we were shaken, Igor urged us to delve into the depths below the trapdoor. At the bottom of a ladder, we found a circular room with a six-pointed star inscribed on the floor. At each point of the star was an indent with a strange marking. The circular room had two exits, so we picked one and headed onwards. The door led to three more, one of which opened when Viggo approached it, providing an exit to outside. Viggo ascertained that it opened when he approached it, concluding that it must be triggered by the amulet he had found on the goul upstairs. We pressed on through the door to right, revealing a laboratory with a hulking zombie standing in the middle. Igor and Deagol overcame their fear and rushed in to tackle the new threat. Between magic missiles from Lin, blows from Igor and Deagol and Viggo's bolt fire, we were making a decent fist of taking down the zombie, but to our dismay the wounds appeared to be healing at a great pace. Our circumstances worsened when a door at the far end of the laboratory opened and another zombie entered, lumbering towards us. We finally dispatched the first zombie and Deagol hacked off its head, worried that its regenerative abilities might allow it to rise again. Viggo braced the door to our aft, but a third zombie forced its way in to join the fray. Deagol charged the third zombie and we found ourselves fighting a battle on two fronts, with Igor and Deagol each engaging a zombie in close quarters and Viggo and Linthan supporting with magic missiles and bolt fire. Igor took down the second zombie only to be confronted by a fourth zombie following on close behind it. We dispatched the third and fourth zombies with relative ease and then sprinted around what turned out to be an arrangement of three rooms surrounding the central circular room to find no more zombies and that we were safe, for now. We investigated the place, noting from the dust that nobody had been in here for a long time. We found some valuable books in the library, which we took for resale. Linthan was particularly interested in a book of dark lore. On each zombie we found an amulet, meaning that we had a total of five. It appeared that they fitted into the star in the circular room, but we were missing a sixth. Surely the sixth amulet must be the key to finding some meaning to this place. In the study we found a magic staff for Lin and a map of the empire with an ominous triangle drawn over it.