Pavona, a tiny sun-kissed Tilean city with mountains to the East and open plains to the West, where oranges grew on trees all year around and children helped their parents to press grapes for wine-making. For many humans of the old world, Pavona and the other Tilean cities in the region were practically a paradise thanks to their diverse cultures, vast wealths and wonderful weather. War with Rat-men and goblins was common but things had a way of working themselves out. However, Johann Van Hal, a former Templar Witch Hunter Captain before he left the organisation due to its bureaucracy getting in the way of fighting evil, is not here to enjoy the weather or to sample the local delicacies. Instead, Johann and his Warrior Priest of Sigmar companion Wilhelm Hasburg have travelled here with one target in mind, Pavona’s most adored citizen, the most beautiful woman in all the old world, Lucrezzia Belladonna herself.

Despite being loved by all in Southern Realms, so much so that the Border Prince Leitpold the Black recently represented her in a joust with Duke Tancred the 2nd, Belladonna has long been under covert investigation by the Church of Sigmar ever since a proxy company she had investments in was found guilty of hiring an assassin from Clan Eshin to kill a Trantio nobleman who dealt in the trade of marble in return for a sack of warpstone conveniently left below a bridge. Despite extensive checking of her assets, the Church was unable to prove she had been involved in the payment of the Skaven Assassin and so had to leave her unmolested, even though rumours persisted that she was bankrolling several criminal and mercenary undercurrents within the city state and her seventh husband, Poggio, personally made a fortune by filling the gap left in the marble market….before Poggio strangely passed away from drinking some very dubious quality wine only a week after he wrote his will in which he left his estate to his loving wife. However, the investigation was recently re-opened when Ernst Traugott, an experienced yet modest-ranking witch hunter, managed to track down a payment slip from one of her accountants citing a payment of iron and copper being paid to an Eastern client. In addition to wondering why a Tilean noblewoman would be dealing in iron when she had no such companies herself in the first place, the real problem was the date the payment had been authorised; only 2 days after Lucrezzia’s eight husband Borgio the Besieger had been brutally mauled to death by the Ogre tyrant Ghark Ironskin (#LoreFight 24) while travelling along the Silk Road, an ogre who just happened to be known for valuing metals over gold and even flesh! Could Belladonna have been involved in the death of her late husband?

With the case re-opened, the church began to keep a close eye on the Tilean noblewoman once more, only for Ernest Traugott to be found dead in his quarters with a crossbow bolt lodged in his neck a few days later with the window open behind him. Now it was personal. Realising he couldn’t go in all guns blazing with his agents, Matthias Thulmann made contact with van Hal. Johann was initially reluctant to go after a human woman. He normally favoured shutting down Chaos cults and hunting down vampire covens in order to make amends for the shame that his name carried, thanks to his great grandfather being Baron Frederick van Hal, the first necromancer to ever invade the Empire, creator of the Dance Macabre spell and ruler of the Vanhaldenschlosse Keep back when Sylvania first rose to power. However, upon hearing that Traugott had been assassinated in his own bedchambers, this was enough to spur Johann into action as he and Wilhelm set up their wagon to travel South. An attack on one Witch Hunter is an attack on all Witch Hunters after all?

And so the wandering Sigmarites had travelled down to fair Pavona to arrest or slay its most famed citizen, unofficially of course to prevent tensions arising between the Church of Sigmar and the Tilean State. Hasburg set the wagon up outside her palatial mansion and began casting wards from his tome The Hammer of Witches in case things went wrong while Johann strode up to the mansion, a brace of holstered pistols attached to his belt and chest, a single helstorm rocket attached to the insides of his jacket, a rapier sheathed to his left thigh, an experimental rifle that could hold two bullets at a time without compromising accuracy like an outrider rifle would slung over his shoulder and a bottle of wine he bought at a nearby market stall in hand.

Lucrezzia was inside the mansion, currently upstairs taking part in a dress fitting after announcing her engagement to a Tobaro nobleman who just so happened to have made recent profits in the olive industry after discovering a new method of pressing olive oil. Ninth time’s the charm surely? As she was trying on an ornate, deep red ballgown with an crown-mounted veil atop her head, she suddenly heard a strange sound at the door and left her bedroom to walk down the landing and find out what was causing the noise. When she got to the bannister along the staircase, she saw her doorman lying on the floor with Johann standing there, wiping his blade clean on the end of the doorman’s embroidered hankerchief. She attempted to turn back to run and hide in her room but Johann heard her heels clicking and unslung his rifle…

Angry React – Johann lifted his rifle and fired off two shots against the bannister above as Lucrezzia ran down the hallway to her bedroom. As he ascended the stairs, Johann reloaded his rifle, snapping the gun open and inserting his cartridges and keeping a hand near his pistols at all times in case someone attempted to ambush him. He checked room by room until he heard Lucrezzia’s distinctive stilettos once more coming from a room at the end of the corridor. He wandered over and pumped his rifle, blasting the door open. He walked inside only to be jumped from behind the door by Lucrezzia who had discarded her gown and finery and was wielding a dagger in her undergarments. As she wrestled with him, he fired the other shot of his rifle into the floorboards before hitting her with the butt of the gun. She attempted to attack him again, but he kicked her against the wall, withdrew two pistols from his uniform and unloaded a hail of pistol bullets into her chest and head.

Sad – Johann ran after Lucrezzia and upon reaching the top of the stairs fired two shots as she narrowly closed her bedroom door and locked it behind her. He dropped his rifle and ran towards the door with his rapier and a pistol in hand, conscious of the fact she may attempt to escape somehow. He kicked the door off his hinges and slowly entered, his pistol in his left hand outstretched and sword hand hanging low. All around the room were mannequin’s in wedding dresses and ballgowns, clearly other dresses she was considering for the wedding and at the end of the room stood an immense canopy bed with silk coverings and a fireplace. He took a few paces before she emerged from a hidden curtain, wielding the fireplace’s red hot poker which she branded against Johann’s pistol-wielding arm, causing him to yell in pain as he dropped his weapon. She attempted to attack him again only for him to easily push her to the floor as she tripped over her wedding dress’ veil. Before she could attempt to stand, Johann pressed his rapier against her cheek. Belladonna threw the poker away and allowed herself to be arrested. Johann took her downstairs to the Hasburg’s wagon and they locked her in a cage at the back. Tilean peasants shouted and jeered at the two Sigmarites, wondering why their favourite citizen was in a cage, but with his rifle in hand nobody was going to challenge Van Hal as they took her away to be interrogated in Nuln.

Laugh React – Johann fired two shots against the bannister as Lucrezzia ran to her room to hide. Johann checked each room but found no sign of her until he reached the dress-fitting and bedroom at the end of the hall where he found the canopy bed against the window with her stilettos next to it and her crown-mounted veil tied to the canopy bed and winding down through the window with the veil’s train reaching the ground beneath. Realising she had escaped, Johann lit the rocket and fired it out of the window to signal her escape. Wilhelm Hasburg unhooked a horse from their wagon and rode it around the backstreets near the mansion in search of the extravagantly dressed noblewoman. Upon passing a corner on horseback he suddenly saw a contingency of men dressed similarly to Tilean state troops approaching. Wilhelm took no notice at first, thinking they were just on patrol but suddenly he recognised their feather helmets. They were not state troops, they were the Alcatani Fellowship, a famous band of Dogs of War mercenaries! The warrior priest tried to turn away only for the mercenaries to thrust their pikes into the horse, causing him to tumble to the ground. Wilhelm stood up to fight only to be killed shortly afterwards. The mercenaries then marched into the mansion to kill the Witch Hunter. Johann attempted to fend them off, killing 15 of them from the windows before running out of ammunition and killing 4 more in melee. Finally, he was overrun and surrounded by the mercenaries who killed him. The Alcatani Fellowship escorted Lucrezzia Belladonna back to the mansion as nearby peasants cheered in joy at seeing their favourite citizen returned home safely. Their captain, Rodrigo Delmonte, went on to be handed the key to the city for valiantly saving the world’s most beautiful woman from those rogue Sigmarite savages.

Wow – Lucrezzia was about to run away to her room when she heard a coughing sound below. She turned back to the bannister to see Johann convulsing on the floor of the hallway. “Oh, I didn’t expect it to act so quickly. Did you enjoy your drink?” Johann choked with his hands on his throat until finally, he stopped moving. Evidently, the market trader Johann bought the wine from was one of Lucrezzia’s assassinswho had reserved a poisonous bottle for anyone he thought may intend to hurt his pay-mistress. After some time Wilhelm Hasburg left his wagon to see what had happened, only to be seen and arrested for trespassing by nearby city guards.

Love – Lucrezzia turned to run towards her room as Johann fired his rifle. However, the rifle malfunctioned and the recoil exploded into his right arm. Johann scowled as his arm was engulfed in shrapnel but Johann couldn’t waste time tending to his wounds as took a bandage out with his left arm and wrapped it around the right. Johann left the rifle by the entrance and walked up the stairs, wielding his pistol in his left hand and the sword in his right, not that he would be able to fight much with his sword because of his injuries. He looked around the rooms until he heard a sound from the room at the end of the hallway which he ran towards. He kicked the door open only to have Lucrezzia immediately emerge who sprayed his face with a perfume bottle. Only this wasn’t perfume, rather some type of acid she had been concealing in case a day like this ever came. Johann tried to fire his pistol but could barely see as the acid burnt out his eyes, causing him to shoot the ceiling instead. Now blinded, he wildly swung his sword in the hope it would hit her only for it to get lodged in the wooden doorframe. He attempted to pull the sword free but it was too late. Lucrezzia reached up to the veil of her wedding dress and unpinned a hairpin, revealing a dagger as her long, raven-black hair uncoiled into a straightened form. Johann asked for mercy, completely blind to his surroundings, only to be stabbed in the throat. “It’s a shame you had to come here. I was hoping to save this for use on my fiance once we were wed. Until death do us part indeed.” Wilhelm Hasburg entered the mansion shortly afterwards to find out what was happening after he heard the sound of gunshots outside. He walked upstairs to find Johann lying on the landing and ran over to check if his friend was dead. However, as he passed one of the side-rooms, Lucrezzia emerged to stab him from behind with the trusty dagger she kept in her stiletto.

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