80: Hartpetal Thistledew

Hello, mum. It’s not good news, I’m afraid. But you will have to wait to hear what happened. But I’m telling you that now so you don’t read this out to the girls.

Remember we were in the cellar of that run-down house in Altquartier and we had killed a wizard but we had two thugs after us and one was very handy with her zweihander. Willow had managed to find Reya, the girl we were trying to rescue, but she was stuck in a room on the wrong side of the thugs. And Blume had been knocked to the ground and didn’t look in the fight.

I think Dreamy must have been very worried for Willow because he had a look in his eyes like when Blume had accidentally shot Willow. And so he stepped up towards the thugs, and stood over Blume’s body to protect her, and he stood side by side with Guido in a way I had seen them practise. Meanwhile Willow opened the door to her room a bit and gave the thumbs-up to let him know she was OK.

Guido and Dreamy did not manage to land any blows on the two thugs, but I shot through them with my second pistol and managed to hit the woman with the zweihander. I got a good hit on her arm, but I think the bullet ricocheted off her armour and she didn’t go down. Meanwhile Blume was crawling away from the fight along the floor as fast as she could which wasn’t very fast.

Then the two thugs struck, one hitting Guido with her zweihander hitting him in the leg and ripping up his armour even more, and the other hitting Dreamy with his club, but they both stayed in the fight.

Then the door to my left opened and out walked a young lady with a big hat and lots of strange amulets and things stitched to her clothing. I thought she might be a witch but she drew her sword, which was strangely shiny, and instead of just charging at me she just sort of sauntered towards me, looking very confident and nonchalant. And that was very unnerving, I can tell you, mum.

And then Willow’s door burst open and surrounded by a cloud of some sort of herb concoction she rushed out of the door carrying her barbed net and behind her came Reya armed with a mop and with a bucket as a helmet, and carrying her doll. And they rushed past the thugs and as they did, Willow threw her net over the club-man and entangled him. And she continued on towards the stairs with Reya in tow. She was going very fast and had big eyes and was sweating heavily (I was on the Ranny D – Willow).

Guido, meanwhile, told Dreamy to do a defensive retreat, which is where he concentrated more on deflecting the enemy’s blows than hitting with his own. I’m not sure how you can expect to win a fight like that but I think he was scared of getting hit again. And the pair of them retreated towards the stairs.

I think, at this point, I should have mentioned the woman with the sword as she was behind them, but I didn’t. I did attack her, but she defended herself easily enough. And Blume reached me, but she was still crawling and I think Guido was getting annoyed about that because it meant his retreat had to be really slow.

The man with the club then stood up and was about to attack Dreamy, but he fell straight back down again, unconscious or paralysed, or something. Whatever Willow had put on the barbs of her net must have been extremely potent (it was Hydrafoil from the royal gardens – Willow).

Then the hat-lady hit me in the leg with her sword, and I could tell that it was no ordinary weapon. So that was worrying, too. And as Dreamy retreated, he grabbed the unconscious club-man and slit his throat. I think Guido said he wanted to take some prisoners because he wanted to interrogate them, but he wouldn’t be interrogating club-man. And despite that he nodded approval at Dreamy (not sure he actually approved) and pulled him back towards the stairs. I think he was just trying to manage Dreamy, because he could see that he was close to going over the edge.

Willow looked back at the melee and I think she was a bit worried about leaving us all behind, but she had to protect Reya and so she led her up the stairs and through the trapdoor. I knew she was doing the right thing so I tried to give her the impression that I thought we would be alright without her, but I didn’t think we would be.

And as soon as Willow got out of the basement she started shouting about fire and various crimes to get the neighbours to come or to call the watch. But I don’t think we were in a neighbourhood where there was that much neighbourliness.

And after being kicked and shouted at by Guido, Blume finally managed to get to her feet. The zweihander woman was not happy about Dreamy slitting the throat of her friend, and went for Dreamy, but Guido stepped in to deflect the blow and just managed it.

And the hat-lady lunged at me, and ran me through with her silver sword and I fell to the ground. I thought that might be the end for me. And then Willow changed her mind and decided we needed saving, and ran back down the steps carrying some scarlet elf cap in her tweezers.

Guido addressed the zweihander woman and told her no one else needed to die today and that if she laid down her weapons we would simply leave. And he swore on the name of Myrmidia, which didn’t impress her.

It was at this point, lying on the ground behind them, I thought it would be a good idea to warn the rest of the group that I had been attacked by a witch with a sword.

Blume grabbed her blunderbuss, but decided that it was too dangerous to fire it in the enclosed area, where a shot was bound to hit nearly everyone, and so pulled out her pistol instead and shot at the hat-lady. She got a very good hit on her, but she was unmoved.

And the zweihander woman ignored Guido’s pleas and swung at him, and luckily just missed. The hat-lady approached Blume, and Blume told her not to attack her because she was soon to become a lady of the court, which was a bit rich considering she had just shot her with a pistol. And the hat-lady said she knew who Blume was and knew she was not that important. And slashed at Blume, and just missed.

Dreamy swung at the zweihander woman but did so badly he managed to hit Guido instead. And Willow ran into the fight, trying to attack with her scarlet elf cap but missed badly, as well. And it looked like things were going really badly for us.

Guido remembered how he was taught at the Myrmidian monastery, or wherever it was he learned this stuff, how to fight zweihanders, and he stepped inside the weapon’s range forcing her to fight too closely to wield it properly. And, somehow, I managed to get to my feet. And Blume picked up the scarlet elf cap and tried to use it on the hat-lady but missed.

The zweihander woman was forced to drop that weapon and get out her short sword and Guido just managed to avoid its blade. And the hat-lady hit Blume with her sword, adding injury to insult and Blume fell to the ground. And that gave her the space to approach Dreamy from behind and hit him in the back, and Dreamy fell to the floor, too. And suddenly Guido was surrounded. Willow did her best to help him, picking up the scarlet elf cap and having a go at the hat-lady, but she just nonchalantly parried the tweezers away.

Guido saw Dreamy fall, and drew his dagger, taking advantage of his proximity to the zweihander woman and stabbed her in the leg, where she was unarmoured, and she fell to the ground, finally defeated. And exhausted, Guido looked at the hat-lady and asked her for a truce.

I’m not sure what she replied, because I was quite upset by this point, mum, and I’m sorry for what happened next, but you should understand that I was just trying to get us all out of trouble, and I thought this was the best way of doing it.

Seeing Dreamy and Blume on the floor and Guido confronted with the hat-lady and Willow frantic on drugs, I think I must have panicked a bit, because I just picked up Blume’s blunderbuss and vaguely pointed it down the corridor and pulled the trigger.

I knew it would hit everyone down there, except Blume who was lying behind me, but I hadn’t really thought of Dreamy who was obviously in a bad way already and he was lying on the ground so I thought I might miss him.

Anyway, I pulled the trigger and the hat-lady fell dead instantly. And it also finished off the zweihander lady, who I think would have died, anyway. And Willow was just hit but she survived it easily enough. And I caught Guido squarely in the blast. I’m not sure whether it was luck, or he had been covered by the hat-lady’s body, or, as he suggested later, it had been a miracle, but he was unscathed.

Anyway, mum. I am enclosing a letter from Willow that you can give to Mrs. Thistledew, that might explain everything a bit better. And I’m sure she will appreciate that he died looking after Willow as he promised to do. I’m not sure she will appreciate that I shot him, though, so you might want to avoid her at the bingo for the next couple of weeks.

Anyway, I’ve not been having a very good time of it over the last few days, and this has made everything worse, so I’m not sure how this will all end, and whether you should continue reading these out to the girls, because I’m not sure they are very suitable for young minds. But I will try to write to you again, if Willow is still talking to me.