90: PPE

So, remember, mum, we had to go to the chancellor’s office to see about the clerk who had disappeared. Vinny and Blume were still arguing. The office was guarded by Knights Panther. Remember Guido and Fred (and Dreamy) were honorary Knights Panther, so that made me wonder why I wasn’t one. Guido said it was because I had asked the graf for something else (which I didn’t get) but I think it’s probably because they have a minimum height requirement.

Guido and Fred wondered whether to use their KITUM warrants to demand entry but in the end they just asked to see the chancellor and they said we could. The first thing Chancellor Sparsam said was that he was disappointed that Willow wasn’t with us. So I told him he should go and visit her hospital on Schwarzmauer Strasse, and he said he would. And after some pleasantries about the graf, Sparsam told us the problem.

He said that a senior clerk, Erich Kalzbad, had suddenly left his post telling everyone he was going to Marienburg to pursue a mercantile opportunity, but that didn’t ring true and we needed to find him. First we questioned one of his colleagues, Lina Gerdt. Well, Fred questioned her, because he seemed to know what he was doing and what sort of questions to ask.

She said that they did the payroll together and Kalzbad was usually was very cagey about it. And she said that she cross checked the figures and discovered that payments had been made to regiments as if they were larger than they actually were. And she said that she found evidence of a huge payment for an order of plague masks that were never delivered. The payment was to ‘Piotr-Pavel Englebrecht’ but there was no address for him.

Gerdt said that Kalzbad was not that well liked and kept himself to himself. His contact for the army payroll at the barracks was called Sergeant Stoll.

We made sure to get a good description of Kalzbad so we would be able to recognise him. He wore boring clothes and smoked a pipe.

We decided the best thing to do was to go straight to Kalzbad’s house. He had a decent little home in Nordgarten. Vinny and I had a bit of a surreptitious scout around it. Vinny knew all the things to look out for in spotting an empty house and a chance to break in, but I think one of us must have given the game away and we were spotted by a young man looking at us through a window. So we just knocked on the door.

The lad, Jonas, was Kalzbad’s son and he didn’t seem to know where his father was, and he didn’t seem to care that much. He told us that his father (and his mother) were away. He didn’t know where his father was and he had been gone a couple of days, and his mother had gone to Hochland to visit family at the same time. This all sounded a bit odd but Jonas didn’t seem that concerned. He said his father was the most boring man in Middenheim.

He said he had left in a hurry and had taken a few huge trunks with him. He thought the trunks were full of ledgers. Someone had picked the trunks up yesterday and taken them to the Castle Rock, the local coaching inn.

Blume made a story up about a ledger we needed to get from Kalzbad, and Jonas was happy to show us to his study. There was a self-important portrait in the study, depicting Kalzbad with an abacus and some ledgers, and a porcelain pipe. And the study did smell of pipe smoke but it had an air of brimstone about it, as well.

On the desk we noticed there were some feint purple ink stains, like the purple ink that had been used to write those messages that Blume had been sent when people thought she was Kastelle Lieberung. And there was a letter that was apparently written in some sort of code language (it just looked like normal writing to me). And it has been partially decrypted to say: ‘Declaration of change seekers after truth will seek in vain the architecture of fate holds out 1 hand but he opens 9 eyes...’. The cypher seemed to be the same one that the border of the letter we found at Wasmeier’s, signed MM, used. A bit later we decrypted the rest of the letter and it said, ‘...to gaze upon this ruined empire‘. Sounds like nonsense, to me, mum. And I think they’re trying to decrypt Wasmeier’s letter right now.

And Blume went through the desk and she found a receipt from Stiefel’s Emporium for 3GC 14/-. So we decided we might need to pay the place a visit. Blume asked Jonas about the purple ink but he didn’t know anything about it. And then we grabbed a random ledger for our cover story.

We headed straight to Piotr-Pavel Englebrecht but as we got close we could hear and smell a fire, and sure enough the modest merchant’s premises was a raging conflagration. And it smelled a bit like brimstone, too.

Fred thought about going into the building, but there was absolutely no chance. There were some bucket chains bringing water but they had given up trying to save PPE and were concentrating on stopping the fire spreading to neighbouring properties.

Vinny spotted a black clad fellow who seemed to be of his class, and who was looking a bit singed. Vinny started to chat to him but it looked like he was in shock. He asked if he had been hanging his clothes too close to the fire. I think, mum, that criminals like to talk in code even when it is blindingly obvious to everyone what they really mean. I think they get a sort of pleasure out of letting everyone know how dodgy they are.

And instead of boasting about his arson deeds, the man, who was called Asbjorn, shook his head and said that the place had been set alight while he was in there, and that the flames were actually dancing and grinning at him. He told Vinny that he had spotted Kalzbad and the deliveries and wanted a piece of it and so had been watching the place. He had seen a nervous looking man from the city watch deliver the boxes, and then Kalzbad had collected them accompanied by mercenaries with a red shield badge, heading south. Fred knew of the Red Shield company and said they were a dubious outfit from Bergsburg.

And then we headed to the Black Rock coaching inn. On the way I spotted two urchins arguing over a bag which had a cat in it. I asked them what they were doing and they said that someone had been offering tuppence a cat. This sounded a bit strange, but there are lots of animals lovers in the Empire. So, to stop their argument I gave one of them tuppence. But then the other one complained about that and so I had to give him tuppence, too. I was going to release the cat, but then I thought I had better let them keep it. I think Willow would have done something like that, mum, and as she wasn’t around I thought I had better do it, although, to be fair, she would have probably saved the cat.

At the Black Rock they said they had had no dealings with Kalzbad, but after giving his description they said that sounded like Klaus Zichengabe. He was booked in to travel to Wolfenburg in two day’s time. But he wasn’t staying at the inn and his trunks had already been collected. I thought this was a bit confusing, and Fred said it sounded like he was deliberately trying to lay a false trail and probably had no intention of going to Wolfenburg.

Then we had to go to the Sword and Flail to see what we could learn from the mercenaries. We decided that only the soldier types should go there, so they would fit in better, which suited me until I found out I was one of the soldier types. In any case, I just waited outside and let Fred and Guido go in. I was securing the perimeter. And Fred and Guido split up so they could talk to people separately.

While I was outside I got chatting to a bloke who said that Kalzbad had come in to hire some muscle to escort him to Krudenwald. He was going to do it with his lads, but then the Red Shield Company had undercut him. So either Kalzbad was laying a false trail or he was planning on visiting a lot of places. Although, mum, Krudenwald is close to Bergsburg, and in Hochland, and sort of on the way to Wolfenburg, so I suppose all of them could be true.

Meanwhile inside the tavern some of the locals were having a go at Guido for being so Sigmarite. Someone had a couple of swings at him, and Guido stayed calm and tried to reason with them instead of smiting them righteously. And Fred just watched. I expect he would have stepped in to help if things got nasty, though.

In the end Guido told everyone that he was mates with the old Ar-Ulric and bought them all beers. Then a new guy turned up and he was looking a bit down so Guido bought him beers too. He was a treasury guard and so Guido and Fred had a chat with him.

He said that he was worried about losing his job as he had been asked to move things around for the last couple of years. But then he began to get a bit suspicious and so he had been paid to keep quiet, and that was very dodgy, and he was now regretting it. Guido told him to just keep his mouth closed, and asked him his name, and it was Stoll, which was the name of Kalzbad’s contact in the treasury guard.

So that is that, mum. I will write to you soon and tell you if we manage to catch up with Kalzbad. Here’s a few other bits of gossip we have heard while we were visiting these inns and taverns. People are still complaining about wizards not having to pay taxes. I thought the tax thing was behind us now, but some people are never satisfied, and most people don’t trust wizards, anyway.

There’s a bad outbreak of Scabrous Pox this year, and the Shallyans are barely containing it. They are recommending we stay out of the poorer places in town. And someone was even blaming southerners for bringing it with them for the carnival. I didn’t bring it with me, mum.

The Sons of Ulric told a blacksmith to stop making hammers and when he refused they beat him. That one doesn’t sound very likely to me, mum, but you never know because some of these Ulricans can take things a bit far.

And someone said Baron Heinrich has been gone a long time. I think he was talking about the graf’s illegitimate son. He was visiting the von Tasseninks and von Krieglitzes to talk peace, or something.

This isn’t really the sort of gossip you get in the Mootland, is it, mum, but it’s the best I can do.