Having just gained entrance to Schloss Neuschwanstein in the foothills of the Bavarian Alps, MI6s team of enhanced individuals are deep into Operation Reindeer. The team consists of Mademoiselle Mimi Dubois, La Résistance fighter and mistress of skills; Miss Madeline Forsyth, SOE operative and a living shadow; Franklin Fort, hard bitten soldier and teleporter; and Sven Hyse, Norwegian Resistance soldier and shapeshifter.

Schloss Neuschwanstein, Hohenschwangau, Germany, January 1943

If there had been anyone to see what was happening in the lower halls of Schloss Neuschwanstein then they would have spotted a curious sight. A British soldier in commando fatigues creeping through the hallways following a black cat and seemingly casting three shadows, two of which are inexplicably on the ceiling. But there was no one to witness this most peculiar of sights and so MI6s team of enhanced individuals passed unnoticed.

As we head towards the keep like structure at the back of the schloss we check the doors along our route, most are of little interest but we discover a large cleaning cupboard that Frank spends time to memorize so that he can teleport back to it in case he needs to make a quick exit. Sven pads up to a door in the centre of the schloss and, with his cat enhanced hearing, picks up the conversation of a couple of German guards grumbling about uneventful night shifts. He indicates that there are people behind the door and so I push out with my senses to discover if there are any enhanced in the area. My senses are almost overwhelmed with the information that I get back.

After several seconds of concentration I have counted at least twenty two returns of enhanced beings, but fortunately only one of them is on the same level as. And that one is on the opposite side of the schloss to us. There is, however, an enhanced directly above our location and so I take the opportunity to push my senses further and discover if it is an enhanced screech owl. I am shocked when I discover that the enhanced is gifted with an altered time rate, damage resistance, and the ability to see if absolute darkness. I quickly tell the rest of the team that we have a powerful enhanced within the schloss. To be on the safe side I push my senses into the only enhanced on our level and confirm that this one is one of the enhanced screech owls.

The team continue to move further into the schloss with Madeline, Frank, and Sven overlapping and checking doors while I hang back and keep watch both visually and with my enhanced senses. Sven listens at his door but can hear nothing, even with his enhanced senses. But when he has a sniff he can pick up that the room beyond is full of food stuffs, he ignores it and moves on. Madeline slides in under her door and finds herself in a very well appointed dining room full of period furniture and elegant furnishings, Madeline moves through and slides in under another door finding a kitchen and pantry. Frank tries the handle of his door and finding it open steps inside, he enters what appears to be a basic staff canteen area.

With nothing to see Frank steps back out and closes the door, he moves to the corner of the corridor and has a quick peak. He can see a large hallway, across which he can see a short corridor with four doors off of it. He is just about to cross to the corridor when he remembers my warning about the screech owl, worried that the owl might see him cross the hallway Frank just disappears. He reappears within the corridor and has a closer look at the four doors, each is marked with a small white plaque stating who each room belongs to, Frank reads;

Hauptmann Arps Stellvertretender Sicherheitsleiter, Hauptmann Arps Stellvertretender Sicherheitsleiter, Hauptmann Lorenz Stellvertretender Sicherheitsleiter, and Major Rau Sicherheitschef.

Frank reaches out and tries the doors but finds them all locked. He disappears and reappears back at the corner next to us and lets us know what he has found. Madeline translates it as the offices of the Head of Security and his three deputies, so we decide that we need to get in. That was the first time that we made use of Frank’s enhanced ability to move the entire team. It proved to be a very useful tool.

Sven transformed into a thrush and flapped up onto Frank’s shoulder, while Madeline and myself in shadow form slid onto Frank’s body. We were stood at the corner and the next heartbeat we were twenty five yards away in the middle of the corridor. Quickly Sven leaps of off Frank’s shoulder and transforms back into himself holding his Bren gun and with Frank behind him he covers the end of the corridor. Madeline slides in under the door of Major Rau while I push out with my senses to make sure that we haven’t disturbed any of the enhanced.

Madeline discovers a plush, and uncluttered office. She searches the large leather topped desk and finds an itinerary for the expected demonstration. The visit is due to take place in thirty two hours, at ten hundred hours the morning after next. But that is not what draws Madeline’s eye in the first instant, what really catches her attention is the list of attendees. And the name at the top of that list is Adolf Hitler, the Führer. Using her power to create darkness Madeline covers the doors and windows and then takes a photograph of the itinerary.

In the corridor outside of the offices I push out with my senses to see if any of the enhanced are moving. I discover that most of the enhanced responses are in the same locations as before, but two of them have moved. I leave it a few seconds and ping again discovering that they are definitely on the move, and not only that but that they are moving down from the fourth floor to the third. A patrol. I select one of them and push deeper, I discover that he is what we have coined Wolfenkorps type B. I switch targets and push my senses into the next enhanced. I find that he is gifted with the ability to become insubstantial as well as being resistant to damage and being able to see in absolute darkness. I also get a sense of something that is not quite a power but is definitely an enhancement, it feels very similar to our own special chemical treated clothing. This one is dangerous.

Madeline appears once more in the corridor and shows us the itinerary, I copy down the details into my pocket book, and am just as surprised as everyone else at the names on the list. Hitler, Goebbels, Göring, and Speer would all be present at the demonstration alongside a number of other senior German military officers. We all look at each other realising that this could be an opportunity that never appears again.

Madeline returns the document and we quickly check out the other offices but find nothing else of interest. Once again the team take advantage of Frank’s ability and we reappear inside the staff canteen where Frank remembers seeing a door that he did not check. The door is unlocked and when we open it we realise that it is an administration office, a quick check reveals it to be the administration office for the Schloss’ security department. The office has two doors leading from it and so Sven and Frank take up position next to one each while I continue to ‘ping’ with my senses and track the enhanced two man patrol. Madeline begins to systematically search through all of the documents within the room.

One of the first things that Madeline finds is the shift rota for the security heads, and in particular that it is a Hauptmann Wilck that is the deputy head of security currently on shift. She is also able to work out, by cross referencing several sources of information, who are staying at Schloss Neuschwanstein. Madeline believes that the first floor of the Schloss’ keep is given over to Wolfenkorps Alpha and the second floor is mostly Wolfenkorps Beta. There is also reference to a medical facility on the fourth floor.

Time seems to tick by with glacial slowness as the rest of the team keep watch while Madeline continues to search for information. She next finds names that are connected to each of the Wolfenkorps divisions. Wolfenkorps Alpha are led by Oberst Von Kramer with Oberstleutnant Graf as his second in command. There is also reference to a Professor Fleck, with a schedule for him to be escorted by a squad of troops every day to the Berwang test site. Wolfenkorps Beta is commanded by Oberst Bruckner with Oberstleutnant Schultz as his second. There is also listed a Professor Schroeder who is the Application Lead for Wolfenkorps Beta, and it is listed that he has two testing facilities within the Schloss.

The final discovery that Madeline makes is that the Schloss has a complement of ten Wolfenhund and sixteen enhanced screech owls. It looks like one Wolfenhund is always kept at the main gate and another is always on patrol. The owls are detail as being in each of the towers as well as the western lobby. After ten minutes of searching Madeline believes that she has gathered all of the essential information from the room and so we move on through an unchecked door in the kitchen. Knowing that crossing the corridor will put us in line of sight of the enhanced owl, Frank teleports across the corridor with Madeline and the find a sitting room and bar area. They return and we discuss retreating back to RV1.

Madeline makes a strong case for searching the upper floors and we are all convinced. The time is zero two twenty hours and I push out with my senses once more to try and find the patrol, there is an increase of two enhanced at the main gate and so we make the assumption that the coast is clear for a moment, I do also pick up that the enhanced with an altered time rate on the first floor has moved from one location to another. We move swiftly to the middle spiral staircase that is not covered by an owl and begin to climb. After two turns of the stair we are looking out onto the first floor landing, ignoring this we continue up for another two turns of the stair and arrive at the second floor. The staircase stops at this level, but there is a hatch in the ceiling that must lead out onto the roof.

We begin a systematic sweep of the rooms with Sven in his cat form using his enhanced senses, Madeline in shadow form slipping in under the doors when Sven has given the all clear, Frank keeping them both covered with his gun, while I push out with my senses every thirty seconds to track the enhanced patrol. We find a small bedroom with two nurses asleep inside; a room full of medical supplies including laudanum, Madeline steals a couple of vials; a larger bedroom with a single sleeping occupant, by the white coat hanging on the back of the door Madeline assumes that it is a doctor and when she searches further she finds the name Dr. Hella on some paperwork; finally we find the administration office of Wolfenkorps Beta.

We all head in and once again Sven and Frank take up positions covering the exits while I continue to track the patrol and Madeline starts to search through the files of Wolfenkorps Beta. After a couple of minutes Madeline looks up from the filing cabinets and says;

It’s all here. Everything that we are after!

She starts to pull out all of the pertinent documents, details of the production facility, the application facility on the fourth floor of the Schloss as well as detailed records on the location and powers of all application subjects. There is a lot of information and Madeline begins to lay it all out and take photographs. At zero two forty hours I let everyone know that the patrol has headed up to the first floor and I start to help Madeline put all of the files back in their correct locations. By zero fifty hours I sense that the enhanced patrol is heading up to the second floor.

Sven turns into a thrush and lands on Frank’s shoulder, Madeline and I become shadows and slide onto Frank, and then Frank disappears. We all reappear inside the ground floor broom cupboard that Frank had studied when we first entered the Schloss, I continue to track them and as soon as they head up to the third floor Frank teleports us all back to the Wolfenkorps Beta administration office. As soon as we arrive we get to work finishing gathering the information.

Once we have gathered all of the priority information we agree to check out the rest of the second floor. Once again Frank teleports us across the hallway so that we can avoid the screech owl and we find ourselves in a short corridor with four doors, each door has a little plaque stating who the office belongs to. We have found the offices of Oberst Bruckner, Oberstleutnant Schultz, and Professor Schroeder. Madeline and I head in under the doors and give the rooms a quick search, in Oberst Bruckner’s office I find documents referencing the demonstration but noting that the Wolfenkorps Beta demonstration has been postponed.

Attached to the documents is a handwritten note saying that the postponement of Wolfenkorps Beta’s demonstration is the fault of Heinrich Himmler and his Schutzstaffel. Mostly due to the SS attack on Schloss Wewelsburg. When I tell the rest of the team, it is all that we can do to not laugh out loud.