30: Bloody Blume and the Virtuous Halfling

Hello Mum, here's the next bit of our journey up the river towards Nuln. Guido was upset that there was nothing dedicated to Myrmidia in Kemperbad so he decided to stay there for a bit and make a shrine, or something, in the temple of Shallya, so that Myrmidians visiting the city might have somewhere to go. I'm not sure what the Shallyans thought of that, because although Myrmidia and Shallya are sisters, they're sort of opposites, one being dedicated to healing and health and things like that and the other being dedicated to war and strategy. Although having a think about it I can see how they are similar, too. Neither go in for things like vengeance like Sigmar or Ulric, so you can see how they are related. I do wonder what they find to talk about at family gatherings, though.

So while Guido has been talking a lot about protecting us halflings, we have managed to look after ourselves quite well, and he hasn't been as useful as he pretends to be. But, I have to say, as you will find out, as you read on, mum, if Guido had been with us, I think the upcoming event would have turned out significantly differently. Perhaps after making a big show of turning up just to protect us, he shouldn't have let himself be distracted by doing shriney things.

Once we set off Willow told Blume how great she was at fishing, and that she should use the worms she had given her. I'm not sure whether Willow was just saying that to make Blume do some work, but she did seem very pleased with herself and she did do some fishing. But as soon as she had caught enough fish for herself she stopped.

And after a threat of rain, the day brightened up and we stopped by another riverside inn. These inn stops have certainly got more interesting, lately, and we wondered what this inn might be like. It was called the Hammer of Bloody Betty which doesn't sound as bad as the Poisoned Feast but it doesn't sound much better, either.

I made dinner, anyway, as we had a fully stocked larder from Kemperbad, and I made a big meal with lots of different vegetables, because who doesn't like vegetables (nobody - Willow). But because Blume only caught a single fish for herself, I served that to her on its own, and it looked all sad and bony and I don't think it tasted very nice (It was a Mud Trout, and they're not very nice at all - Willow).

Then we went to the Bloody Betty and as soon as I walked in I could sense that it wasn't a pleasant sort of inn. There was a group of seven men hanging out at the bar, and it immediately struck me that they had the air of thugs and wreckers as I had come across a fair number of these in my time as a river warden.

And there was another group of four men playing cards. Blume's eyes lit up and she asked them what they were playing. They said Elector Counts which isn't a game she knows but she said she was willing to learn. I think she was just attracted to one of the card players who she thought was rakishly handsome. And they said there was room for one more at their table, so Blume joined them.

They discussed how much they would play for and said that Blume must be rich to own such a large boat, but she explained that we had got it as salvage, and as they talked about salvage the man's eyes unconsciously flicked towards the group of ruffians at the bar, and that made us think they were into more illicit salvage than we were.

They had a learning game for a shilling, which Blume won, or at least they told her she won. I'm not sure they explained all the rules to her. And then they put a shilling on the next game and as badly as Blume played that one, she found that she had won that game, too.

Dreamy had a word with the landlord who told him that we'd soon be heading past Wittgendorf. He said that the place used to be thriving but now it was to be avoided as there was loads of sickness and unhealthy stuff going on there. He said it might be because of all the inbreeding, which was useful information to have. And then Willow had a word with the landlord who told him about how he met his wife at a barn dance, which was a lot less useful information to have.

As soon as I could, I had a  quick word with Dreamy telling him I didn't like the look of the clientele and he agreed. And as we spoke one of the suspected wrecker group left the inn. I thought he might be going out to size up Das Moot, and so I needed to go back to the boat. Dreamy said he was leave a few minutes later to see if I was being followed and to spy on the wreckers.

As I left, Blume made to leave the card game but the card players insisted that she play one last hand. I could tell she didn't want to, but they managed to convince her. And Willow decided she wanted to come back with me, too, which was probably a good idea. I was trying to be a bit surreptitious, and all she wanted to do was tell me about the landlord's first night of romance with his wife at the barn dance. In any case, I couldn't find the man who had come out first, Willow's nattering had probably scared him off.

I'm not sure what happened after we'd gone, but Dreamy soon followed, and that left Blume all on her own. She managed to win the third game, even though she didn't know how to play, and as she was leaving she noticed that her purse was missing. We had all been quite poor, until we sold our cargo in Kemperbad, but Blume had been the poorest of us, and she had just got her share of the profits, and so had been very pleased about that. And she had been carrying nearly five crowns in her purse, and now it was missing.

She demanded to know who at the table had taken it, but everyone just ignored her. She was about to threaten them with her pistol, but realised it was unloaded, and so left  the inn, briefly. Outside she called to us that she had been robbed and she loaded her pistol. Then before we could do anything, she went back inside. Dreamy knew there was going to be trouble so called for me to fetch his bow, and I did and then started loading my own pistol. And then we heard a gunshot.

I told Willow to stay aboard, and ran to the inn door where Dreamy was. It felt like it had been bolted or barricaded, so we ran round the back where we had noticed an exit, earlier. Luckily that door was open and so we went through the storeroom and emerged behind the bar. From there we could see a scrum on the floor. Some of the men were fussing over the rakishly handsome card player who seemed to have been shot in the foot, but was still conscious, and near him was Blume's body.

So we were faced with ten or so angry foes, and we had to get Blume out of there. I decided to go with my position in the river wardens. If they were wreckers, as we suspected, they hated river wardens more than anything, but on the other hand, they also feared them. So I shouted as loudly and as authoritatively as I could for them to stop what they were doing in the name of the Emperor and Esmerelda (I'm not sure why I added the Esmerelda bit). And they did take some notice of me.

So with Dreamy covering me with his bow, I hopped over the bar and made my way towards Blume. They weren't that keen on getting out of my way but I managed to wriggle through without losing too much dignity. And I felt the need to reiterated a few times that I was a real river warden, in case they didn't believe me (I am a real river warden), but I think that may have undermined myself a bit. I suppose a real river warden doesn't need to insist that they're a river warden quite so much.

Blume was slumped on the ground, unconscious, covered in blood. She looked bloodier than Bloody Betty herself, whoever she was. I slapped her face and luckily she came round, and so I tried to lift her to her feet. I was trying to do this as quickly as possible without looking like I was rushing, but it probably looked to everyone else like I was panicking a bit because I was.

Someone asked if I was going to arrest her, and I think I had little choice but to agree that I should. Then they asked if I was going to interview the innocent victim, and I said I would as soon as got Blume locked up, then I would come back and take statements. So I told everyone to stay where they were until then. I managed to get Blume into the storeroom, and we pushed a barrel behind the door to stop anyone following us and we ran to Das Moot. As soon as we got there I gave the order to cast off. As we sailed away the whole pub had come out to watch us go, and when I was sure no one could reach us I shouted that we would be back.

Blume was still mad about her purse but I think she did well to get out of there alive. It turned out that when Blume had returned to the inn she demanded that the rakishly handsome man return her purse or she would shoot him. When he denied any knowledge of her money, she shot him deliberately in the foot as a warning. But she had not considered what would happen after that. I think it would have been much better for Blume if she'd still had her blunderbuss as she could have targeted the entire table. But as soon as she'd fired her pistol she was mobbed by most of the people in the inn and punched and kicked until she was unconscious.

She was getting upset, again, as she told us what happened, and she said we should go back to the inn and burn it to the ground. Dreamy tried to reason with her, and said that if we did then we would be the bad guys and get hunted down and hanged. Willow said that there was something more precious than money and it was what we all had together on Das Moot. Blume thought she meant the brandy.

In the end Willow took Blume to her hammock and did her best to clean and dress all her wounds. When she came back she told us what a mess Blume's face was in, and hopefully Blume didn't over hear that, or she would have got even more upset.

We carried on sailing for a while and then stopped on the opposite bank for the night. Dreamy said we should be safe enough although I still felt like the people from the inn might turn up and wreck us.  Willow took the first watch and Dreamy told her very clearly not to get the fuggleweed out until the end of the watch, but I think she ignored him. But luckily by the time it was my turn to watch nothing had happened. And I was so worried about the wreckers I cast off again while it was still dark. And I scraped the bottom of the boat and woke everyone up, anyway.

I think Blume had a decent enough sleep, though, and in the morning she was looking much better. Despite that we could hear her crying in pain, and she insisted on having breakfast in bed, and when Willow brought her the scramborridge Blume made her blow on it until it was cool enough to eat. And she bemoaned the fact that her nanny wasn't there to blow on her porridge. And she reported that the pain she was in was eleven on a scale of one to ten. Even though she was now perfectly alright. I think Willow preferred it when she was genuinely injured (She was the worst patient I ever had - Willow).

Blume called me to her bedside and dramatically told me that if she didn't make it then I could have her pistol. And so I said that she could have mine, too.  And then she called Dreamy in to tell him that if she didn't make it then he could have her hammer and spikes, whatever they're for.Then she called Willow in to tell her that if she didn't make it then she could have her writing kit. Willow told her to pull herself together as she was going to be fine. But Willow did feel sorry for Blume losing all that money and so she gave her one of her own gold crowns.

The day's journey went largely without incident, but in the afternoon we got to a bend in the river where all the traffic was sailing close to one bank. We looked up to see an old castle looking down at us, imposingly and ominously. For some reason it just looked wrong. We knew this must be the Castle Wittgenstein that we had been told about. Another boat hailed us and told to keep to the far bank and told Willow to mind a thing in the water. She looked down to see a bloated half-man half-fish sort of creature bobbing in the water. She said it might be a siren, but it wasn't singing so I don't think it was.

Willow asked the other sailor what it was and he just shrugged and said, 'another wretch from the castle.' And then we imagined a castle full of fish which was quite funny. But the sailor said it was probably full of diseases. Willow decided that we should stop at the castle to help them with their diseases, but Dreamy and I told her we couldn't even sort out the inn last night, what chance would we have sorting out a castle (I still think we could have helped them - Willow).

Once Castle Wittgenstein was far behind us we were all feeling a bit better and even the weather seemed to brighten up a bit. And as the evening drew in we came to a riverside inn. It looked quite nice, a bit like an inn you might see in the Mootland, but for bigs. And it was called the Virtuous Halfling. We quickly docked and made our way in. But it wasn't quite what we had expected.

The inn looked sort of like a typical halfling inn but some of the details we a bit wrong and some of them seemed to be straight out of folk tales or fairy stories or just ignorance. And there were some bits of typical Stirland furniture, which isn't halfling stuff but lots of people seem to think it is. And halfling inns are nicely cosy (it's hard to explain but I know you know, mum) but this was like quaint and twee.

So we realised that we were in some sort of tourist trap Halfling themed inn. They have them in some cities as well where the clientele think they're having a genuine Mootland experience, but they're really getting ripped off. And when the landlord said Hoo-dee-doo, it felt like we were really being patronised. People think that halflings say Hoo-dee-doo to each other all the time, but we really don't (I do - Willow). Anyway, the place was still quite nice, and certainly better than any of the other places we had visited recently so we decided to make the most of it. And they had Cornhole and Dwile Flonking, which the landlord called Flonkydonk because he didn't know its real name. Blume thought it was all very lovely and quaint, though.

Then we noticed a huge figure sat in one corner. It was an ogre. I had not seen one before, and nor had Willow and Blume. Dreamy had fought alongside them, though. He said they were good fighters and they loved their food. He said he thought this one was a mercenary, too, because of his hat with a big feather in it, and his gut plate, and he had a huge club and two big handguns tucked into his belt like they were pistols. I think most of the people in the inn were a bit frightened of him and were giving him some space but Willow walked right up to him and asked him his name.

I know Willow can get on with almost anyone, which is a good thing (I think it is - Willow) but one day, I think she might befriend someone and regret it. But anyway, the Ogre was called Thumm and it was happy enough to chat to Willow. It was an ogre of few words, but that was fine because Willow is a halfling of lots of words so things evened out. Willow arranged to play him at Cornhole later and bought him a pie and a beer and then invited him to join us at our table, which he was happy to do.

When we were all sat round our table together, we asked Thumm what sort of fights he got into round here, and he said pirates, which made Blume wonder what might happen if we brought Thumm up to the Bloody Betty (to be honest, I was thinking exactly the same thing, and perhaps Dreamy was, too). Blume asked how much it would cost to hire him for a day or so and he said it would be a crown, and Blume said that would be fine because Willow had just given her a crown. And she said if  he found a purse with five crowns in it at the Bloody Betty then  he could keep that, too. Willow was immediately against this, saying that Thumm was such a lovely big thing that she didn't want any harm to come to him and she wanted her crown back (He was the nicest man I ever met and I don't think it is fair to make him do a fight - Willow).

So we asked Thumm if he liked going on boats and he said it was alright, and we asked if he would mind travelling north for a day, and he was fine with that too, and we asked him if he wanted to fight, and he said he did. Dreamy said there was nothing Ogre's liked more than fighting and eating (and Cornhole - Willow). And then Willow told us all off for trying to ruin her new friend.

And so mum, that is where we have to leave it. I still don't know whether we will take Thumm up to the Bloody Betty. Willow is dead against it, but I think the rest of us can see the value of it. They were certainly not very nice people there. In the Reikland they say, 'revenge is a dish best served cold,' so I think that means you don't do it in the heat of the moment and you have to plan it out and make sure you do it right. In the Mootland, of course, we say, 'revenge is an old pie,' which means you don't know what's in it, but once you've bitten into it, it's too late to change your mind. So who knows what will happen. But, you can be sure I will write to you soon and tell you about it.