Captain Bösch watched as the soldiers and researchers entered his office. Sauer entered last, closing the door behind him. On the other side of the door, the guards moved back into position, making sure that no one would disturb their meeting.

A fire was dying opposite Bösch’s desk, casting a dim, flickering light upon the ceiling, barely enough to walk by. Bösch sat behind his desk, his hands held in front of him; the eight others gathered inside the room, forming a semicircle surrounding the desk.

Bösch sounded exhausted. “I assume you’ve brought bad news?” he asked no one in particular.

At that moment, everyone except Marvin began to speak. Realizing their mistakes, they all stopped talking except Rolf; all that Schmidt caught was him asking not to be hanged.

There was a moment of confused silence before Sauer spoke again. “Bad news is one way to describe it.”

Bösch sighed. “Alright, Thomas. You have my attention.”

Sauer took a deep breath before poorly clearing his throat, as though his words tried to come out before he was ready. “We have reason to believe that General Krüger has been working with the Church of the Beanmeister, a cult that worships the Beans, and that he plans to carry out some kind of attack.”

Bösch nodded. “Yes. Anything else?”

Schubert replied, “The bean samples—”

Rolf cut Schubert off with a noise somewhere between a groan and a roar before stepping towards Bösch, readying his fists. “He’s just brushin’ us off! He’s infected too!”

Greg put an arm in front of Rolf. Keeping his eyes on Rolf, he said, “Schmidt, you said you’d be able to tell, right?”

Schmidt looked at Bösch, who remained seated. His hands were steepled in front of him, though his eyes were cast down towards various papers sprawled on top of his desk. “I assume you’re talking about Bean infection,” Bösch said. He looked up, his eyes meeting Schmidt’s. “I assure you that I have not been infected by the Beans, but if Barry… if Barnabas needs to confirm this, I will comply with whatever you need to do to prove it.”

Schmidt wanted to look around the office, to look out of the window behind his desk, to look at anything but Bösch's eyes. Instead, he focused on studying his face. His hair was disheveled, strands stuck out awkwardly in the places he had run his hands through it. The stubble of an unshaven beard was visible, disappearing into the unkempt collar of his shirt. His mustache, usually curled up at the ends, was equally messy from the times he had twirled it around his index finger. Everyone was silent as Schmidt inspected Bösch. He returned his eyes to Bösch’s, which had not left him.

Schmidt saw a fire in Bösch’s eyes. It was a fire that Schmidt had long since forgotten; a fire that had raged during his campaign in Cologne but had died shortly after he returned, finding Jonah and Emilia Schmidt dead, Barry and Sofia orphaned.

A fire that had reignited on the morning of November 8th, 1587.

“He’s not infected,” Schmidt said.

Bösch stood to his full height, which was not much taller than his seated position. “Is that enough for you to believe that I’m on your side?”

Rolf relaxed, stepping back. “I guess.” The other soldiers agreed.

“I didn’t even think about that,” Schubert said. “If Krüger was in the Church, Bösch could’ve been a member too…” He turned to Sauer. “And you brought us straight to him, Thomas my boy!”

Sauer paused. “Captain Bösch… if he was in the Church, he would have known about the attack on Dijon and prepared accordingly, so he could not be a member of the bean cult.”

Reist replied, “He could’ve joined after the Beans attacked Dijon.” Schubert agreed.

Sauer bit his lip. “The important thing is that he is not part of the Church.”

Bösch sighed. “It’s nice to see that I have everyone’s trust.” He faced the soldiers. “Now, why are you here?”

Surprisingly, Marvin was the one that spoke first. “We have reason to believe that Lieutenant Kaplan was somehow being controlled by the Beans. Kaplan attacked Barry and Rob, so… we killed him before he was able to kill them. Beans were inside of his head. We think that he got infected somehow… He also had a sudden change in his personality, which we think was caused by the infection. He had no growths on his body, either, and as far as we could tell, he had no idea that he had been infected.”

Bösch began twirling the end of his mustache. “That is… an interesting development.”

“Wait, hold on,” Schubert said. “You give them a ‘That’s an interesting development,’ but all we got was a ‘Yes.’” Schubert smiled; by the light of the dying fire, it seemed hostile. “Does that mean you knew Krüger was in the Church?”

“Yes, I did,” Bösch replied. “I have known for a long time.”

“Wow, alright. But before we unpack all of that, you should know—”

Rob cut Schubert off. “How long’ve known that Krüger is a cultist?”

“The beans are multiplying! Our samples have multiplied!” Schubert shouted. The soldiers and Bösch stared at Schubert with varying levels of confusion and concern. “Sorry, I’m on edge. And interrupting people is rude.”

“While we’re just blurtin’ everythin’ out, we should mention that flyin’ Bean,” Rob said. “I think that just about covers everything… Beaned Kaplan, Bean infection without a growth, Beans in the military, flyin’ Bean… Yep, that’s everythin’.”

“Flying… Bean?” Sauer asked.

“Flyin’ Bean,” Rob agreed.

“There was a silhouette of a large flying creature above Stuttgart as we approached,” Greg clarified. “It may not be a Bean, but that would probably be the most logical explanation.”

“Where the hell’re we even supposed to begin with all this?” Rolf sighed.

“I wanna know how Bösch found out Krüger was a cultist,” Rob said.

“That would be as good a place to start as any,” Sauer agreed.

“But if you knew, why is he in charge of the advance on Bean territory right now?” Schubert asked.

“And why were you just meeting with him?” Reist added.

Bösch looked around, waiting for any further questions. When none came, he replied. “I might as well explain everything… I first became suspicious that something was wrong with Krüger when he ordered my company to relocate from Cologne to France. At the time, things in Cologne had been calm for a little more than a year, though there was still enough violence for soldiers to need to be stationed in the area. I assumed Krüger didn’t understand the situation, believing it to be more peaceful than it really was, but when I spoke to him, he insisted that this was much more important. The reason he gave for the relocation was simple; a disease had brought the Kingdom of France to death’s door, and we were to be the final blow. We would claim their territory and destroy the Kingdom, something that hundreds of years of generals, captains, and emperors had not been able to accomplish.

“I told him frankly that he was full of shit. We wouldn’t be able to topple the French, nor should we try. They are… they were a powerful ally, the western Empire depended on them for trade, so on and so forth. We finished the meeting and my company remained in Cologne for a few more months before I received the same order from Krüger. This time, he specified that we would be stationed in Dijon, and that we were to provide aid. This was sometime around April or May of last year. I thought that he had listened to my advice and decided against starting a useless war.

“Then the Beans attacked. Krüger suspected a religious war would start for months, theorizing that the disease outbreak in Paris was caused by French Catholic extremists spreading the disease on purpose. I didn’t doubt his reasoning for a second; the same thing happened in Cologne, after all. In September, I was given a strategy to defend Dijon in the event that religious warriors attempted to take control. The plan was made by Krüger himself, and again, I didn’t doubt it. He fought in Cologne just as I had. His plan was sound. It would protect the French civilians, who I had grown to care for after months of living with them. It would protect their town too, which coincided with the story he gave about us aiding the French. My soldiers were well trained, coming from Cologne, and I trusted them. Everything seemed perfectly logical.

“All this time, our soldiers were kept in the dark about why we were actually in Dijon. The disease was a convenient cover; aid work to improve our relationship with France, ensuring their citizens remained safe and healthy while Paris recovered. In reality, we were preparing to defend against another religious war, a second Cologne War. As a precaution, I sent scouts into France once a week to know if we should prepare for advancing French Catholics. I sent a scout out on the morning of November 7th. He returned, just after the sun had set, reporting that men were advancing from the west. After I gave the order to evacuate the civilians, I sent out three more scouts to confirm this. Two returned, reporting the same thing. The third died on the morning of November 8th; the first victim of the Beans.

“I’m sure all of you know what happened in Dijon. My soldiers were slaughtered, less than twenty survivors. Krüger’s plan seemed to be designed, specifically, to get every last one of us killed. It was only because of the quick thinking of Thomas and my decision to abandon Dijon that five of the people in this room are still alive.

“After we escaped Dijon, we arrived in Besançon. We slept in an abandoned church, guarded by Lieutenant Kaplan’s platoon. Inside that church, I found a set of papers. I had assumed that a priest left them when the town was evacuated, but my curiosity got the better of me. I read them; they were the correspondences of a local pastor and a man named Aaron. They discussed something called the Beanmeister, which I later learned to be the false God of the Church of the Beanmeister, and to prepare for an event that would begin on November 8th. At this point I was already suspicious of Krüger, but seeing his first name, Aaron, on these papers only made me more paranoid. It wasn’t enough to confront him, but it was enough for me to be on my guard.

“Months went by, and I watched his actions closely while I organized our troops on the front lines. He did nothing to help us, perhaps even getting in the way at times. That is, until the four of you found that bean sample. That got his attention. He made it very clear that we would host the meeting in a nearby church, which I had already suspected was being used by the Church of the Beanmeister. That was the final straw. After that, I began working under the assumption that Krüger was working for the Beans.

“As if he was trying to punctuate that point, he met with me that evening, after the party we held to celebrate the finding of the bean sample. He wanted to speak with me privately, and I declined. He tried to persuade me with food and drink, but I knew that if I went with him—”

Schubert suddenly interrupted Bösch. He spoke quickly. “Food and drink. Are you sure?”

Bösch nodded. “Yes. He said the wine was from the Emperor's personal collection… And it felt strange that he specifically mentioned the food after the feast held earlier.”