We are robbed of Chris' (Peter Sangaree) presence, thanks to the fact that he is ungrateful enough to have care and consideration for his family. Everyone else shows up: Tim (Sir Brindal Karth de Hazat), Chuck (Sir Caine Engelheim de Hazat), and Paul (Sean Punch).
The characters start out in Tuam, discussing their options in a café over coffee and biscotti. Sir Brindal Karth de Hazat spends a long time pondering how to properly eat biscotti, much to the amusement of the other characters. Sir Brindal Karth's confusion is ended when Sean Punch points out that instructions are printed on the side of the package.
During this somewhat meaningless debate, Sir Caine Engelheim de Hazat is doing his best to pretend that he's not associated with the other two at the table. To provide a cover activity, he reads the latest copy of the Tuam Crier, the four-page daily newspaper for the city. He is surprised to notice a short article describing how the Bishop Ephraim Yates of Tuam has been stricken with the trembling fever, and is under the care of a battery of Amalthean healers. The article implies that the Bishop's case is serious, with some question as to whether or not he will survive. Sir Caine imagines that some of the risk to the Bishop's life is overstated for the sake of newspaper sales. The article also notes that the disease has recently started to spread through the Low City, and that the Bishop had been visiting several of the sickhouses where the afflicted have been kept. Normal disease transmission is through bodily fluids, so it is possible that the Bishop was infected during one of his visits.
Sean Punch happens to number Physician among his skills, and has heard of the trembling fever. He is able to add some actual data to the speculation by providing a brief history of the disease to the other characters. He says that is a fairly new disease out of the al-Malik world of Istakhr, where it mutated from a sickness common to the giant gavvam snakes the peasants raise for meat. The creatures are herbivorous, and can grow to 350 cm long and 30 cm in diameter. They also live in close proximity to their owners, providing a ready environment for disease transmission. Trembling fever only moved from Istakhr to the other al-Malik worlds, and then to the rest of the Known Worlds, with the outbreak of the Emperor Wars. It predominantly traveled with the al-Malik legions. Symptoms normally include a high fever and loss of motor control functions. A victim's chances of survival depend upon early treatment. Natives of al-Malik worlds tend to have substantial resistance to it, but other populations are often not so lucky.
At this point, Sir Caine suggests that Sir Brindal Karth would be well-advised to stop patronizing Tuam prostitutes, particularly if he wanted to avoid losing what motor control he has left. Sir Brindal Karth is forced to agree.
Having assimilated all the available information, the characters start to speculate rather wildly. Sir Brindal Karth suggests that the various cronies of the old, corrupt bishop might not be doing too well under the new regime. They may be spreading the disease in the hopes that they can force another change of Bishop. It is widely known that Bishop Yates is substantially spiritual and incorruptible than his predecessor was. Sir Caine objects on the grounds that the Trembling Fever can be treated, and thus represents an unreliable strategy. Sir Brindal Karth concurs, but points out that disease is a much less obvious idea than snipers or severed brake lines. Sir Brindal Karth then draws the debate back to the present by arguing that the characters need to figure out what kind of effects a Trembling Fever epidemic will have upon the Fennen Marsh colony.
At this point, a youth bursts into the café and heads towards the characters' table. It turns out that he has a note for Sir Brindal Karth, relayed by radio from Fergus Genne ab Marlwen, currently en route to Tuam in the Luftking. It is from Bob Lungflook, and contains two pieces of news. The first is that the Utag merchant Pieter Taussen has arrived in New Berlin aboard a steam brig, interested in trading linen and storage batteries. The second is that three Brain Factory members (including one Master Processor-Wright) have vanished.
The characters are much more interested in the second tidbit, particularly when Sean Punch mentions that the Master Processor-Wright, Amanda Harkness, was one of the NPAE dissidents most committed to the construction of the Big Thinker. She also carries as much internal hardware as Sean does. The other two were less-formidable members of the group, but also from among the hard-line Big Thinker faction.
Massive debate upon the next course of action ensues. Intriguingly, part of this debate centers on the idea of creating new characters of either more or less moral standing than the current crop. Beyond the meta-topics, all manner of things get discussed, among them how the can characters find a trustable exorcist, especially considering that Exorcism is a Level 8 Orthodox rite, and what really happened to the Bishop of Tuam. Both Sir Brindal Karth and Sir Caine put their heads together and come up with a partial answer to the matter of exorcists, forgetting for the moment that the group had already sent Brian the Goat and the Carrier VERTOL off to find exorcists at an isolated Eskatonic monastery. They remember a distant cousin on Aragon, the Patera Hermicio Lauro de Hazat, who happens to be an Orthodox priest of some standing as well as a professor of theology at a seminary on Aragon. Neither of the characters knows Lauro de Hazat well, but Caine thinks that he might remember him with less than total hatred.
Unable to decide anything else, the characters finally elect to send Peter Sangaree back to Fennen Marsh aboard the Luftking to talk linen prices with Pieter Taussen.
A short while after Peter departs, a squad of Clavigers in masks and rubber gloves march in. Their corporal announces that per order of the Electors of Tuam, all places of public assembly are closed, for fear of infection. The corporal goes on to instruct the patrons to go back to their homes.
Practically everyone else in the café obeys the Clavigers' order and heads out, but the characters wait. They decide that they'd really prefer not to leave, and pay off the café owner to let them stay even after he boards the place up and closes down. They anticipate the cessation of food service by ordering as many pitchers of drink as they can.
Brindal Karth decides to investigate the whole "plague thing" from the front lines, over the objections of everybody else. He walks over to the Church of the Prophet's Vision to visit the attached Amalthean clinic. Explaining that he is concerned about the fate of the unfortunates suffering from the Trembling Fever, he is quickly able to arrange a conversation with Sister Mary, the old and wrinkled head of the clinic. Even Brindal Karth is able to notice that she shows signs of having contracted the Fever herself: her arm shakes uncontrollably and she drinks water from a refrigerated carafe set so cold that ice is forming on the outside.
Sister Mary is happy to show Sir Brindal Karth around the clinic, and mentions that she and her sisters had been hard-pressed to care for the sudden influx of Trembling Fever cases until an anonymous Hawkwood benefactor provided the clinic with a large supply of sterile gloves and masks, and the refrigerated carafes that dot the facility. She gives a pair of gloves and a mask to Sir Brindal Karth, who accepts them with some trepidation. For all that the wise spirits whispering in his ears suggest that he shouldn't, he even puts the gloves and mask on, then follows Sister Mary into the ward.
During the tour, Sister Mary causes chills to go up and down Sir Brindal Karth's spine when she mentions that many Amaltheans have been stricken with the disease, in part due to a gunshot victim brought in near the beginning of the outbreak. She proves unwilling (or unable) to provide Sir Brindal Karth with any personal information about the victim. Sir Brindal Karth is able to see that there are several prominent churchmen among the patients, and that several of the officers of the Eahlen Forest Fusiliers are visiting two of their stricken brethren.
The characters fly back to Fennen Marsh. All of them keep their distance from Sir Brindal Karth, who is already starting to feel the nippy chill of the subtropics. Both Sir Caine and Sean Punch sit in the very back of the Luftking, pouring bleach over themselves and murmuring, "Unclean… unclean… unclean…"
By the time the Luftking touches down it is obvious that Sir Brindal Karth has contracted the Trembling Fever. He goes into isolation, and the gloves go to the Brain Factory and under their electron microscope. The Brain Factory technician is absolutely horrified by what he sees: the mask and gloves have microfractal surfaces that act to collect and protect microorganisms of all kinds. The technician thinks that even autoclaving won't be able to sterilize them. He returns them to the characters in a sealed box.
Sir Brindal Karth reacts quickly to this news, at least after he gets out of quarantine: he has orders sent along to Llanfyrth to ship 1000 FB of the finest sterile gloves available to the Amalthean clinic in Tuam, and follows it up with a 2000 FB donation to the Amaltheans to construct a new sickhouse for the Tuam Low City. He accompanies the gift with a warning that the healers should dispose of their old, "low quality" gloves.
During Sir Brindal Karth's four-day isolation, Sir Caine spends 50 FB to have copies of all newspapers published on Lachann sent to him. He tries to use his Intelligence Analysis skills to look for patterns in them, but all he really learns is that some of them have really gripping crossword puzzles. He does notice that there have been a few outbreaks of different diseases all over the continent, but none of them look particularly bad compared to Tuam's Trembling Fever problems.
When Sir Brindal Karth finally does emerge from his quarantine quarters, he notices that Sean Punch is strangely pale and hairless. He asks why. Sean answers, "Radiation sickness sucks, but at least I'm not catching any diseases."
The characters are easily able to determine that the gloves and masks were both manufactured on Criticorum, by Teneba Valley Medical Supply, an Engineer manufactory located in the Teneba Industrial Zone. Criticorum is an al-Malik world, and the only Hazat noble in the area that either Sir Brindal Karth or Sir Caine know about is the Ambassador to the Teneba Industrial Zone, the Baronet Vanessa Margien de Hazat. Brindal Karth sends her a request to send him information about Teneba Valley Medical Supply, along with a 1500 FB tapestry from a Pernley Bay artisan.
The characters get a very nice thank-you note from Sister Laetitia of the Amalthean clinic in Tuam. She is clearly very appreciative of Sir Brindal Karth's gifts, though she does note that she is writing because Sister Mary has become too ill to continue to perform her duties. The one ominous note in the message is the Sister's somewhat querulous comment that the gloves Sir Brindal Karth sent were identical to the ones he instructed her to dispose of. On reading this sentence, Sir Brindal Karth hits his forehead in frustration. He immediately summons the New Berlin staffer who ordered the gloves and asks why the gloves were the same as the bad ones the Amaltheans already had. The staffer explains that Sir Brindal Karth had requested that the very best gloves available should be sent to the Amaltheans in Tuam, and that he had determined from several sources that the gloves manufactured by Teneba Valley Medical Supply were the best available on the market.
The characters quickly decide that there is either something very bad happening on Criticorum, or something equally bad happening at the Charioteer-run trading operation in Llanfyrth. Either way, they resolve to do something about it.
The characters fly out to Pernley Bay to talk to the Hawkwood authorities. They attempt to fly into Tuam, and discover that things have progressed to the point that the city is under quarantine and the airfield is closed. They press the issue, attempting to force the Hawkwoods to let them land based upon their importance as nobles and guildsmen, until they discover that their very status as nobles and guildsmen makes the Hawkwoods much more likely to simply shoot them down upon their departure from Tuam: the quarantine authorities have already noticed that the Trembling Fever is cutting a wide swath through the social elites of Gwynneth, and are particularly alert for anything that might put more of them at risk.
Once in Pernley Bay, the characters are quickly able to arrange an appointment with the local Hawkwood Magistrate and the Apothecary Albert Regis, whom the Magistrate explains is in charge of administrating the Pernley Bay zone of the Tuam quarantine.
Both the Magistrate and the Apothecary are extremely interested in the characters' story, particularly when the characters are able to offer tangible evidence in the form of electron microscope images of the "sterile" gloves' surfaces. Apparently, even Hawkwood Magistrates and Apothecary's Guild epidemiologists have trouble getting access to electron microscopes. They quickly agree that someone must investigate both the warehouse in Llanfyrth and the manufactory on Criticorum. With surprising competence for a Hawkwood bureaucrat, the Magistrate agrees to appoint the characters as emissaries and make arrangements for a ship to transport them to Criticorum. In the meantime, he offers them the hospitality of his house outside the city. The characters accept.
The characters find that the Magistrate lives in fine style in a nice two-story house near the top of a small mountain overlooking Pernley Bay. From the guest rooms on the second floor they are able to see both the sails of ships in the harbor and the winding road leading up to the place. The Magistrate has quite a number of neighbors, but none particularly close: all of them appear to have at least as much money as he does, and live in appropriately-fancy dwellings.
Brindal Karth spends some time writing a letter to Count Marco Linford de Hazat. "Dear Count: You will be delighted to know that I recently almost died of a terrible disease…"
The characters' various activities are interrupted by the sound of a tremendous explosion somewhere down the mountain. They rush to the windows and are quickly able to determine that the blast was caused by a car exploding on the road below. Sir Caine, based upon the descriptions of the (small) fragments and the shallow crater provided by the characters with incredible Cybernetic Telescopic Eyes™ is able to guess that the explosive agent was probably a large quantity of gravity-polarized explosive, a rather sophisticated device. Sean Punch is able to read off the remains of the license plate from a distance, and calls up Pernley Bay Public Safety to both report the incident and to attempt to learn the owner of the vehicle. The Public Safety operator proves unwilling to simply give out registration information to anonymous people over the phone, but turns out to be susceptible to a surprise game of impromptu Twenty Questions ("Would the Magistrate's license plate number happen to be SDG8104?").
The characters are quickly able to deduce that the Magistrate has been blown to unrecognizable fragments. Sir Caine reacts to this discovery with the characteristic aplomb of someone long-experienced in vicious low-level conflicts: "Looks like somebody just got promoted!"
The characters are busy planning their next move when additional excitement arrives through the windows in the form of a group of three rifle-wielding goons. They are soon joined by three more, all crashing through the windows. Some seconds later, their numbers are nicely rounded out to eight by two additional reinforcements who burst in from the main house, bloodied swords drawn.
All of the attackers are dressed in ragged Hawkwood military uniforms, and several of them are visibly afflicted with horrible weeping sores and scabs. The characters respond in the traditional manner, by leveling all the firepower at their disposal at their assailants.
Sean Punch gets off to something of a slow start, as he is initially pressed by three goons. He manages to avoid injury at the hands of their bolt-action rifles only due to his shield. These setbacks prove to only be temporary, as he tackles one attacker, immobilizes him, and deftly binds him with cable ties provided by Sir Brindal Karth. He then brings up his integrated laser rifle and does his best to roast three of the attackers. One of them, paralyzed with fear of the Little Mechanical Boy and his Death-Dealing Laser, tries to escape by leaping underneath a large mahogany table. Sean Punch is not dissuaded by this stratagem: he responds by first setting the table on fire and then lasering the goon into bits.
Sir Caine also puts in a good showing. On seeing the ocean of hostiles pour in through the window, he draws back to a bedroom doorway and demonstrates that Peter Sangaree can really make firearms that are worth something: his Sangaree Special puts paid to one of the attackers and desperately wounds a second. He then draws his blade and finishes off the two who came in from the rest of the house with a bit of skillful fencing.
Sir Brindal Karth does not quite have the great success that his comrades do. He starts out by attempting to protect one of the Magistrate's servants with his own body, managing only to put the unfortunate directly in the line of fire. After the attackers shoot the luckless servant full of holes, they place Sir Brindal Karth under a withering volley of rifle fire that his own laser pistol proves unable to answer. He does manage to inflict minor wounds on a couple of them, holding them back long enough for his companions to rescue him.
By the end of the encounter the characters have emerged victorious, though all of them are covered with blood and pus from their attackers. They also come to the realization that the building is on fire, and not in the good Las Vegas way. Taking a strategy page from the magic lantern industry, Sean Punch fashions a simple rope from the bedsheets. Everyone scales down the side of the building with it, though nobody is particularly concerned about falling thanks to the magic of shields. They take no complicated precautions with their prisoner, simply pitching him out the window ahead of them. They head to the servants' quarters (to find that all the servants are rather messily dead) and engage in yet another session of bleach baths and new clothes.
Sir Brindal Karth spots a couple of additional infected soldiers running away from the house during the journey to the servants' quarters. He does his best to track them after he is cleansed. He loses the trail only when it reaches a paved highway. However, he is able to conclude that the two soldiers boarded a waiting vehicle ("A truck! They are in violation of Church law!") and headed north, away from Pernley Bay.
With their immediate concerns about infection and horrible disease dispelled, the characters manage to achieve radio contact with the constables at the explosion site. One comes up to report that the Magistrate is dead, and that the Apothecary has vanished. Even worse, the Apothecary's office and home in Pernley Bay have both been ransacked, and his assistant killed.
The characters are rather concerned about this, and elect to try interrogating their prisoner. He turns out to be Lancer Second Class Oliver Rope, from a Hawkwood military unit stationed a couple hundred kilometers upcoast. His story is a miserable one of infection and indenture to a Dark Master with "glowing green and blue eyes and long, spiny fingers" that ends when Sir Caine is struck by a moment of inspiration. He tells Sean Punch to play back Apothecary Regis' voice from their interview with the Magistrate. Lancer Rope's face drains of blood as he intones, "My Dark Master!" The characters congratulate Sir Caine upon his deduction.
The session ends with the characters heading back into Pernley Bay, intent on tracking down "Dark Master" Albert Regis, allegedly of the Apothecary's Guild. Each character gains four experience points, except for Sir Caine Engelheim de Hazat, who gets a bonus point for deducing that Apothecary Regis is the "Dark Master."