Castle Wolfenstein 0.1

Ominous Rumors – chapter 1

June 1942, The Bavarian Alps, Germany

The Sun shone mercilessly on the dig site.
Hans Krämer was sweating – not just because of the hot weather. The Nazis were everywhere on this site and they wouldn’t be too happy to discover that they were being watched.

Krämer was a blond-haired, 38-year old man. He had dark, brown eyes and he hadn’t shaved for quite a while. He lived in the German village near the fearsome Castle Wolfenstein in a house close to a small café. In fact, right now Krämer was lying in hiding very close to the dreaded castle itself. Closer than he had ever been before.

The enormous Castle Wolfenstein, located in the Bavarian Alps, was build upon the ruins of an old, medieval fortress. It had long been rumored that the Castle was haunted with ghosts and evil spirits – some even said that it had a stairway to Hell inside it. But most of these rumors had been replaced by more modern, yet not less superstitious rumors since the Nazis had taken over the castle.
It was now rumored that the Nazis where experimenting with highly technological machinery in combination with the occult. But none had the faintest idea what it might be that the Nazis were actually doing in there.

Krämer hadn’t taken any of the rumors serious. At least not until very recently.

-

Hans Krämer once had an older brother. The brother had fought in World War 1 and had returned to his homeland, forever changed. The brother, mentally broken from his experiences, had told Hans never to enlist in the army.
Hans had always respected his brother and saw him as the wisest man he ever knew, so he heeded his advice without further ado.
But when this man, Adolf Hitler, came to power, he separated himself from the will of his brother. Hans believed that the great Führer would lead Germany out of her misery caused by the Great Depression, whereas his brother Werner, thought that Hitler was an insane madman, who would only make things far worse than they already were. Hans’ mother shared Werner’s opinion, but did not have a say in the Kessler household as her tyrannical husband wouldn’t allow her to talk freely about such things. “Women don’t know anything about politics!” he would always say.

But one day, Hans’ world collapsed. The Gestapo unexpectedly arrested Werner. It turned out that Werner was a member of a German resistance movement. He was executed shortly thereafter.
Only then did Hans begin to take his brother’s words into consideration. But the real turning point in his opinion towards the Nazi Party occurred in the night between the ninth and the tenth of November 1938 during “die Kristalnacht” – the krystal night, where the Nazis assaulted Jewish shops and clinics, arresting a terribly high number of Jews. Hans woke up during that night, torn out of his sleep by the racket, and went to the window.
He saw the brutality of the Nazi SA – the “Sturm Abteilung”, and saw how their neighbor was dragged away. The neighbor had always been a most generous and kind person and Hans could not believe that the man was a criminal.
Since then he had felt that the Nazi Party was based on lies and propaganda.

Hans later joined “Die Kreisau Kreis” – a highly effective resistance movement, which he had run into by sheer coincidence and his codename within this organization was ‘Kessler’.

Krämer had been quick to learn the art of going undercover, but he realized that the Gestapo would find him one day, as the Gestapo was very efficient at tracking down resistance members, and their methods of disposing of these unfortunate resistance people were swift and brutal.

“Die Kreisau Kreis” or the Kreisau Circle had recently linked up with a secret American-British agency, which apparently had been founded quite recently. The resistance movement’s members knew next to nothing about this foreign agency, except that it represented the Allied forces. And the Kreisau Circle was eager to help the Allies rid Germany of her true enemies – the Nazis.

Something very unexpected happened this very morning. Krämer had heard a rhythmic knocking sound on his door. It was one of the other members of the Kreisau Circle. He was pretending to just wanting to borrow some sugar. Krämer’s wife, Bärbel, who knew nothing about Kessler’s secret activities, brought some sugar and thus made the cover-up work as intended. The knocking on the door was a special code and the message had been: “Massive archeological dig near Wolf. Die Herrscher extremely exited.”
Kessler knew what it meant. ‘Wolf’ was the movement’s term for Castle Wolfenstein and ‘die Herrscher’, meaning ‘the rulers’ were none other than the Nazis.
So the Nazis are digging near Castle Wolfenstein.. he thought. These were odd news indeed. What interest could the Nazis have in digging near the Castle?

-

He had wound up near the castle and was now looking through a pair of binoculars from his hiding spot behind some tall grass. He saw a lot of workers digging with picks and spades and dragging clay and rocks away on wheelbarrows. So far, he saw nothing, which would provide answers to his questions.

****

General Wolfgang von Shurber looked at the center of the dig with a stern look in his cold, steel gray eyes. He had been standing there for hours, determined to be there when the diggers would find "it". The workers were all busy digging and hacking away at the dry clay and rock. Lazy bastards! He thought, setting his jaw firmly. We could have found it by now if they weren’t so slow!

The workers suddenly stopped digging. One of them turned around.
“Herr General! We have found something!”
Shurber walked closer to the hole. This had better be something interesting he thought sourly. A few hours ago they had wasted his time with a useless rock which the workers thought looked interesting.
He looked into the hole and his eyes widened.
In the hole was a light-yellow tile with a strange rune on it.

This is it! He thought and smiled with a sudden surge of excitement.

He turned towards the workers who all looked at him, awaiting his orders.
“Return to Castle Wolfentein immediately. Notify Herr Himmler” he ordered with an authoritative voice and knelt down next to the tile, which the workers had just dug out, brushing off some of the small stones and clay pieces.

“We have found him!” he said in a low voice that was trembling with awe.

...

Found who? Tell me, dammit!

DooMBoy said:

Found who? Tell me, dammit!

I can tell that you haven't tried RtCW (or even seen the intro), 'cause this part is ripped straight out of the RtCW intro (and then 'spiced up' a bit).

Be patient young 'un, read the story and sooner or later it will be revealed (although it will be a looong time from now - one of the rather late chapters I suspect) - one thing's fer sure, it ain't BJ they've found ;-)

....two words I can use to describe this (but they don't truly do this story justice) : FUCKING SWEET! Omg dude, I can't wait to get RtCW! Great work DSM, you really ought to look into making novels based on video games ^_^

BRILLIANT!!!!!!!

Damn, Excellent work as usual DSM. I Loved the Intro to RTCW, mind you BBG, the intro is a little different to what is dsm wrote, but in my opinion is as good as the actual intro. Can't wait to see the rest DSM.

Well, it didn't differ much from the intro - the intro features some workers hacking away at the ground, then they stop, and this Nazi officer steps in and says more or less exactly the same as I wrote here - I only deviated from the intro by making the workers yell out that they found something.

My younger brother thinks the intro is too "Hollywood style" for his tastes, but I generally like it, although I find it too clicheed in general.
To anyone planning on getting RtCW: Download the demo first, so you can form an opinion on the game before you rush out to buy it.

Well, unless you got a different intro, I can't remember Kessler being in the intro.
Well, yeah, the intro is hollywood style. I agree there, but I like it, it's fitting.
Also, yeah, I agree about the demo, Although I loved it and am glad that I bought it as soon as it arrived, it really depends on your opinion, not everyone will like it.
I was a mad MPtest player as well, so me liking RTCW was a given.

[edit] Oh yeah, I'm trying not to spoil the intro for any who haven't seen it. I wonder if you could download it off of kazaalite or something like it.................(The intro, not the game! warez=bad)[/edit]

You could probably download it off of Planetwolfenstein's download section.

And no, Kessler wasn't in the intro, but it was just the part about the officer (the General in my story) and the workers that I ripped off of the intro - I have only deviated slightly from the intro there.

Yeah, I understand that. Sorry, I'm just being picky when it comes to the intro. I'll stop. But keep it up, the story is excellent so far.