79: Reya

It didn’t take us long to recover from the attack, mum. I think we’re experienced in these sort of things, now, and so we were ready to respond a lot quicker than we would have been a few months ago. Dreamy took one of his healing draughts, and Guido saw to our wounds, and we were mostly ready to go again. I think Willow was a bit concussed (I think the experience made me a more empathetic healer – Willow), and it didn’t take Blume long to try to renegotiate the price of her room. I don’t think Uli was in a the mood for it, though.

Guido asked Uli what had been on the wall that the rats had stolen and he said it was a map of the middle mountains around Brass Keep (Whatever that is) and he said he had just picked it up somewhere random on campaign, so that wasn’t much help.

And then we heard an alarm sounding down the street and we thought that someone must have heard the gunshots and called the watch, and Guido was very keen that we tidy up all the signs of the rat-men before the watch arrived.

Guido followed the route the rat leader would have taken outside the inn, and followed the tracks to an open manhole round the back of the inn. He was in one of those moods where he thinks he’s in the middle of a military campaign and he has to order everyone about.

He told me to move all the rat bodies into the stables, but I think I am the expert on sewers and fighting rats, and so I just went out to the manhole behind the inn and I was waiting for him when he finally followed the rat tracks to get there. Unfortunately, that meant Dreamy had to move all the rat bodies by himself.

Willow checked all the pockets and possessions of the rats, and she didn’t find very much, except one of the rats had a child’s doll stuffed into its belt. The doll looked like it was very expensive. It had the name Reya stitched onto its foot and it had a bit of paper on it which read, ‘HELP! I AM A PRISNER OF BEESTMEN.’

Then the watch turned up and Guido left Uli to deal with them but told him not to mention the rat-men, so it was a bit difficult to know what he would be mentioning.

And we decided we needed to follow the rat-leader into the sewer as soon as possible to save Reya and so everyone quickly got dressed and put their armour on, but Guido didn’t have time to go to the temple and get his fancy sword.

I gave Boy a sniff of the doll and hoped he would understand how to track for scent, and got Guido to tell me the Estalian for track, because it is clear by now that Boy only speaks Estalian, which is strange for a dog that is half Melange and half Nordlander Bamse.

And Boy seemed to know what he needed to do and he ran down into the sewer and started leading us. Guido said I could be the captain again and so I led everyone through the sewers after Boy. We were in the sewer and so I knew what I was doing so it was obvious I should be in charge, so I think he only said I could be in charge to make it look like he was still in charge.

We followed Boy for quite a long way and I calculated that we ended up under Altquartier which is one of the worst areas in Middenheim. But the sewers were still well maintained there, and even Blume said the Middenheim sewers were quite pleasant.

Eventually we caught up with Boy sniffing at the foot of a ladder that went up to a manhole and so we climbed the ladder and found ourselves outside an old run-down building in the slums. There weren’t any lights on and it looked abandoned.

Guido tried the front door but there was no reply, and then went round the back and found a back door, and also spotted that one of the boards over a rear window had a small hole in it. He tried the back door and a lump of masonry fell out of the wall and hit him in the head. I’m not sure whether that was a trap or just a sign of a badly maintained building, though.

I tried to climb up through a window at the front of the house but the wood just came away in my hand so decided not to bother. And Willow knocked on a neighbour's door, even though it was still quite early, to ask about the house, but they just told her to go away.

Meanwhile Guido just started laying into the back door and after making a lot of noise managed to smash it open. And then Willow and Dreamy went to join Guido round the back, and Blume and I stayed at the front loading our guns, and decided we would ambush anyone trying to escape.

Guido, Dreamy, and Willow went up to the top floor and found some footprints around some grains and bird shit and decided that someone must be coming up to feed the pigeons for some reason. And then they discovered a trapdoor on the ground floor that had been camouflaged.

Guido smashed the trapdoor open, and this was even noisier, and eventually broke through and found some steps leading down to a lit basement. So they called for Blume and me and we all went down the steps, with Guido and Dreamy in front with their swords and Blume and I behind with our guns. Although I was a bit worried that Blume had chosen to ready her blunderbuss.

We went down the steps and Blume said she could hear breathing coming from along the corridor, and so Guido called out that we didn’t mean any harm and that we were just looking for a girl called Reya. And when he said Reya we heard a muffled cry come from one of the rooms.

Someone told us to piss off and three figures emerged from the shadows. There were two heavily built people, one with a large club and one with a zweihander, and a smaller fellow.

Dreamy noticed that the one with the zweihander was wearing an Imperial Cross which is a prestigious military medal. And he called out that nobody needs to get hurt, but I think by then it was pretty clear that somebody needed to get hurt.

Then Guido said that this was their last chance, but he barely finished the sentence before a shadow came out of the corridor and sort of stuffed itself down his throat and stopped him from breathing. And we could see that the third of the group was probably a wizard and he was hiding behind the other two.

Dreamy shot his bow and managed to hit the wizard and Guido struck the Zweihander woman but she just shrugged it off. And then I shot the wizard and got a good hit on him and he fell to the floor, dead, and all the shadows around Guido disappeared and he was able to breathe again.

Then Blume stuck her blunderbuss in the face of the zweihander woman and pulled the trigger and got a good hit on her, but she still came back for more, which was a bit concerning. And she hit Guido with her big sword ripping into his armour and doing a lot of damage. And then the other thug smashed Blume with his club and she fell to the ground and didn’t get up.

Meanwhile Willow got some Scarlet Elf Cap on her tweezers (I’m not sure what it does, though, mum) and she sneaked behind the thugs and found the room that Reya had shouted from. And she opened the door and found Reya and to calm her down, gave her her doll.

So, mum, we managed to find Reya which is something, but we haven’t rescued her yet and the thugs that are guarding her are tough fighters. So I’ll let you know if wedo manage to rescue Reya in my next letter.