35: Unterbaum

Hello, mum. If you remember from the letter I sent last week, we have left Kemperbad and got onto the river Stir via the marvellous mechanical screw contraption thing. It seems to me, mum, that an amazing device like the Kemperbad screw should be much more famous throughout the Empire, and it was strange that we’d never really heard of it until just before we needed to use it. But there you go.

We still had a few hours of daylight left and so Guido wanted us to begin navigating the Stir as soon as possible. The Stir was a lot more narrow and twisty than the Reik, and it was faster moving, too, so it was much more difficult to sail, and we made even slower progress as we were going upstream. This section was in a tall, narrow gorge, as well, which made it feel a bit oppressive, and I didn’t even want to think about rock falls.

We did manage a couple of hours sailing, though, and I made sure everyone was on lookout for rocks. As the light began to fail we found a good place to stop, a sort of inlet between two big lumps of rock.

Willow and Dreamy went off for a quick forage but the steep sides of the gorge didn’t yield anything useful. And Guido lit all the lanterns and said he wanted to do a sort of service in honour of Myrmidia to prepare us for this stage of the journey, which he said might be dangerous, and we would need Myrmidia with us.

He got the bucket of tar out and painted a design on the side of the rock. He did some crossed spears behind a big sun, and then a great eagle overlooking it. I thought it was going to be a bit rubbish, but it all came together at the last minute and ended up looking really good. The eagle had an enigmatic smile and its eyes seemed to follow you around the boat. We decided that Guido probably practised drawing eagles a lot when he was pretending to be writing or studying.

Then he said a long prayer to Myrmidia and we had to stand there and listen to it all, and it seemed like for ages, and he told us off for making shadow puppets in the lantern light.

And I said something about Mr. Tzeentch, which Guido got mad about again. I know he told me not to call him that, but that’s his name. In the end he agreed we could call him by his first name, Isaac.

Meanwhile, I had made a nice Tilean meat sauce meal in honour of Guido. I didn’t have any Tilean noodles so I served it on bread and I think I got away with it. Willow said a nice prayer to Esmerelda before we ate, in retaliation for Guido’s prayer. She even thanked Esmerelda for sending Guido to look after us, which I think was a bit of an exaggeration, and even Guido didn’t look too convinced about it.

Anyway, Guido kind of spoiled it by insisting he wasn’t Tilean and that there was a big difference between being Estalian and Tilean, and that would be a bit like him calling us gnomes. So that was a bit rude. Anyway, I had to sit through his long prayer without saying anything so the least he could have done was eat my food without saying anything but he didn’t.

Then it was time for bed, but out in the wilds, in this strange environment, we agreed we must set watches. As Blume had been up all night the previous couple of nights she was excused, but the rest of us did our shift. Luckily nothing happened, but I did notice, in the morning, Willow had drawn a big smily face and a love heart on Guido’s sun (it made Myrmidia look happy – Willow). I think it looked nice, but Guido wasn’t happy about it.

I made a full Reikland breakfast because I knew we would need to keep our strength up navigating the Stir. And Willow practised lancing boils with the eggs (it was good practice for being a physician – Willow).

And Guido and Dreamy did their morning drill together. I think they are practising fighting in coordination. We will see how that goes, mum. You can’t fight in coordination if one of you turns up to the fight a bit late!

Anyway mum, when I tried to set off that morning, I was not used to the difficult conditions of the Stir, and I got a bit tangled up and it looked for a moment like the current would send us straight back into the rocks, and it could have even meant Das Moot sinking. And without thinking, I asked Mr. Isaac Tzeentch for help again. And luckily enough (if it was luck) another current pushed us away from the rocks at the last moment, saving us all.

So that was the second time Mr. Tzeentch had saved the boat, but fortunately this time Guido didn’t hear me call to him, because I think he would have got very angry indeed. But I really think he is watching over us, and keeping us safe. And I don’t think we would have made it up the Stir at all without his help.

The second current did send up a big wave, however, that dashed against the side of Das Moot and then soaked the symbol of Myrmidia that Guido had drawn and it made the tar drip a bit. And as we sailed away, I couldn’t help thinking that the sun and smily face now looked a lot like the grinning moon that we had seen over Boegenhafen that seemed to be taunting us during all the nefarious.

Anyway, mum, apart from that incident, the travel up the Stir went surprisingly well. We travelled for six days straight and made reasonably good time. There was only one other incident. On the last day where we scraped a rock, and I fell over, and it hurt a bit, and Guido fell down into the hold and had to be looked after by Willow (I put his arm back in the sling – Willow). Luckily Das Moot was undamaged.

Then we passed between two huge vertical rocks overlooking the river. The rocks had carvings on them, and I’m not sure whether they were there naturally or someone had put them there. But it was hard to imagine someone putting them there as they were so huge. Anyway they felt very intimidating as we passed below them, and it felt a bit like going through a gateway to somewhere. Blume said the garden gate in her father’s house was this big.

And when we got a bit closer to where I was expecting Unterbaum to be, the sailing got a bit easier, and Blume did some fishing. And in no time it looked like she had caught a big fish. In fact it looked like it was going to be a huge fish. I thought it might be a Stirpike, and they can eat you whole, so I told Blume to give it up, but she wouldn’t. And after a struggle we could see that she had actually caught a horse.

Willow got her rope and helped Blume pull the horse aboard and it had a saddle and saddle bags and everything and looked like it had only fallen in quite recently. Willow reckoned it would be alright to make some sausages from the horse meat, and so Blume, who had claimed the horse as she had caught it, said Willow could have the body as she was keeping all the tack and saddle bags. She said it would come in handy when Guido stole us a load of horses in Unterbaum.

So Willow went below to cut up the horse to make sausages and she laid the horse’s skin out on the deck to dry out as she said it might make a nice rug (I made a bit of a mess of the galley – Willow).

Blume went through the saddle bags. She found some rations that were spoiled but then she found lots of women’s clothes which she seemed to think were quite expensive and fashionable, so she hung them out to dry. I think, due to how recently the horse had died, we all guessed that they could have belonged to Etelka Herzen. It occurred to me that we could have followed her all this way just to have her fall in the river and die.

And finally Blume found a map of the Empire which was illustrated with a red crown device, which didn’t mean much to any of us. Dreamy said there was a red crown cheese, but that red crown didn’t look much like this one.

The map had a circle drawn on it around the Barren Hills, a bit like the map Willow got from the observatory. And it was quite a big circle and we may have already been inside it so it wasn’t much help. But it also had ‘Dagmar’s Observatory’ marked on it, and that looked like it was in the location of the signal tower. It made sense that the old tower could have once been an observatory.

Meanwhile, Dreamy was having a good look around the boat and along the Stir for the body of the horse’s rider, but he didn’t find anything. I checked out the saddle and it was marked with the symbol of the stables I had been to in Kemperbad when I was asking about Herzen, so I think it was pretty conclusive that this had been a horse from Herzen’s party.

And it wasn’t much further along the river that we heard an increasingly loud roar, and then the river broadened out into more of a lake and we could see two waterfalls as the River Stir and the River Narn, joined the lake. It was really spectacular, mum, but it was hard to get a good view of everything because the falls were making everything so misty and wet.

On the southern side of the lake I could see the start of a flight of locks that I knew joined the Stir, and on the northern side there was a jetty, where a woman was making a canoe. She greeted us, and seemed friendly enough. Her name was Astrit. We asked her about getting up to the Narn, and she said we had no chance of getting our boat up and would have to walk. We could get Das Moot up the locks, to the upper Stir, but it cost five crowns and there didn’t seem to be much point, as we couldn’t get to the Narn from there, either. Willow said we had some sausages to trade and lots of brandy. And Astrit said we would be welcome in the village.

Then Guido called one of his meetings and told us we had to come up with a cover story so we would have an excuse for being here. I couldn’t see the point, and I think we just needed to ask about Herzen, but he seemed to think it was very important that we go under cover. He said that Blume would be a lady and he would be her chaperone, which Blume liked, of course. And us three halflings would pretend to be traders with a boat, and that didn’t take much pretending because we were traders with a boat.

Willow took her sausages and she decanted some of the Kemperbad brandy into a bottle, to trade, too, although I’m not sure she was allowed to do that (no one will notice – Willow).

Astrit said our boat would be perfectly safe in the lake, but we weren’t so sure. I think telling everyone our boat was full of brandy and then leaving it unguarded for a few weeks is asking for trouble. In the end we decided we could take a look at the village but if something felt off we could always come back down before nightfall and stay on Das Moot. Blume demanded that Guido help her off the boat as he was her chaperone, so I think, in future, Guido should be more careful about what cover stories he comes up with.

We followed Astrit through a cave and climbed a lot of steps up to the top of the gorge. From there we could see the top of the locks and the Stir on the other side of the Narn, with a boating inn near it. After a short cart ride through the forest we came to the village of Unterbaum. It was surprisingly pleasant and fertile, and even though we hadn’t really reached the Barren Hills yet, I still felt this area wouldn’t be as verdant, probably because the steep sides of the gorge had been pretty barren, anyway.

In the centre of the village was a giant oak tree and all the buildings seemed to face it. It reminded me of the story of the Willow Man. Remember the fairy tale you used to tell me, mum, with that village where halflings have to be sacrificed to the Willow Man or the crops wouldn’t grow. So that put me on edge a bit, and Dreamy said that as soon as he saw it, he started thinking of the Willow Man, too.

Astrit introduced us to Vorster the village elder and Corrobreth their priest. We noticed that everyone in the village seemed particularly tall and healthy but you do get some villages like that, I think. They said that the necessities of hospitality must be obeyed, and I thought they were going to feed us to their tree, but they just gave us some bread and cheese, which was very nice.

Willow offered them her sausages and explained that they still needed curing and told them how to make a smoke room. But then our cover soon dropped, and we asked about Etelka and Isaac. I think Vorster was a bit suspicious of our questions and we ended up being a bit more honest about it.

Meanwhile Willow had expressed an interest in the local herbs and so Corrobreth took her and Dreamy to his hut to show her his stuff. Corrobreth told them how the barrenness of the hills had not reached their village and said that the two huge monoliths we had passed were part of a huge stone circle that protected the land within it. Or something like that, I wasn’t there, mum.

He said that whatever benighted the land had fallen from the sky about two hundred years ago, and the worst of it had caused a crater that they called the Devil’s Bowl.

And so Dreamy got a bit more frank about why we had come here, and ended up spilling all the beans about our time in Boegenhafen and the nefarious and how we had come to the Barren Hills because we suspected that Herzen was at the centre of a nefarious plot. And it was lucky, or perhaps just good judgement, that these were good people and they said they would be prepared to help us.

Corrobreth even said he would come with us as our guide, and said that the best way to get into the Barren Hills was by canoe. He listened to Dreamy’s description of Herzen’s notes, and he said he suspected they could be heading for the Devil’s Bowl.

So then, of course, Guido had to apologise for lying and for making up that rubbish cover story, but said he only did it because we didn’t know if we could trust them, but now we knew we could. Corrobreth said he would go and prepare for the journey, and as he left he gave a short whistle and a huge raven suddenly appeared and settled upon his shoulder. And I think Guido said something about Myrmidia’s eagle being better than a raven.

The villagers began getting us some canoes and supplies together and we went back to Das Moot to grab anything we thought might be useful on our journey. Vorster said he would make sure the boat was safe while we were gone, and I think that put our minds at rest.

When we were ready to leave. Willow gave the bottle of brandy away as a gift, which I wasn’t very happy about because I have been sat on a boat full of brandy for over two weeks and I never got a sniff of it (it was a nice present – Willow) and she gave all the sausages away, but having seen the dead horse bobbing about in the river, I didn’t really fancy those.

Meanwhile, instead of helping, Blume went off to see if she could buy one of the necklaces that many of the villagers were wearing. She was directed to a woman called Brunhilde who said she was inspired in her work by the words of Rhya. And she showed Blume a necklace which was based on the saying, ‘never judge whom another loves,’ but Blume said she didn’t really like that one.

The next necklace was inspired by ‘life is sacred, do no harm’ but for some reason Blume couldn’t buy into that one, either. Then she showed her one which was inspired by ‘never feel shame for the flesh that Rhya gave you,’ and Blume stopped her at ‘never feel shame,’ and bought the necklace-bracelet combo for two shillings.

So we loaded up our canoes with all the supplies we thought might come in handy. Corrobreth was more relaxed about it and said that ‘Rhya would provide,’ but I think you would have to be quite naive to go somewhere called the Barren Hills and not take as much food as you can with you.

And so we are ready to set off, mum. I am in a canoe with Blume. I have a feeling I will be doing most of the paddling. Dreamy is with Corrobreth, and Willow is with Guido. I think Dreamy would have rather been with Willow, to look after her, but we decided to go one human one halfling per canoe, just in case we need someone to touch the bottom.

I will write soon to tell you how we get on. Sorry I haven’t written for quite a long time, but those six days on the boat, going up the Stir really flew by.