92: Begleitersallee

So Vinny had broken (fallen) in to the purple doored house in Begleitersallee. Inside it looked like a small warehouse and there were bales of mouldy cloth piled about the place. Vinny beckoned us inside and Fred grabbed his shield and stood by the door just in case.

There was not much to see in the warehouse but concealed behind some cloth Vinny spotted another door. It opened into a stone built room with no windows that was lit by candles. It felt like the room was too big to be the same warehouse, and that it must be the building next door, which I hadn’t noticed much about when we were in the street.

At one end of the room were two statues flanking an altar. But the statues and the altar had been daubed with purple paint. Guido said it looked like Sigmar and Pendrag because Sigmar was wearing the crown of sorcery that he had stolen from Brass Keep and Pendrag was holding his sword in triumph, which is how boring Guido is.

Later we saw that it wasn’t just a bit of paint, but deliberate hand prints to symbolise the Purple Hand. There was also strange writing on the walls and blood on the altar. I couldn’t read the writing, because I can’t read, mum, but no one else could read it either.

There were some more doors on the other side of the room, and we could see that there should have been some doors leading out to the street but these had been bricked up. We tried to sneak into the room as quietly as possible, but Vinny and Guido bumped into each other and made a bit of a racket. For a house breaker, I’m beginning to think that Vinny isn’t quite as proficient as he makes out, mum.

In response to our noise we heard someone call out from behind the doors. A man’s voice asked who we were, and then said ‘Did Bahr send you?’ We had heard of Bahr, before, mum, because Guido had heard at the garden party, something about the Arabyan witch hunter Abu Tawb who had come to Middenheim in pursuit of the Vizier Bahr. Maybe it was the same person. Guido replied, ‘Yes,’ which wasn’t true, because it was Guido. Then he said, ‘It is to do with the ingredients.’

And the doors suddenly swung open and an arrow shot out and hit Blume in the leg, and then closed again. Before the doors closed we managed to make out a few black-clad soldiers with the red shield badge on their uniforms.

I saw Vinny slinking around the wall towards the altar. I wasn’t sure whether this was a clever outflanking manoeuvre or just a way to get to any valuables first. But when Vinny got to the strange writing, he seemed to get a bit nauseous and slunk back away from it.

I could see Blume was itching to get a shot back at the mercenaries in revenge, and I wondered how we were going to get a good shot on them, through the door, but Fred solved that problem by ramming the doors open with his shield. And we could see about six mercenaries in there surrounding Erich Kalzbad, who we recognised from his portrait, and who was looking remarkably calm.

Fred addressed the mercenaries, which was probably a good idea, and demanded they hand Kalzbad over in the name of the city watch. And we could tell they were thinking about it. He said that we weren’t interested in them, and if they were sensible there was no need for any of them to get hurt. Guido stood side by side with Fred and I shouted out that there was a fifty crown reward for Kalzbad who was a witch, which gave the mercenaries even more to think about. And then they looked to Kalzbad, hoping he might join the bidding war.

Kalzbad suddenly unclasped his coat and unleashed what looked like a strange third arm, which was like a tentacle with a gaping mouth at the end. And then weird colourful flames spewed from this arm and flooded across the floor. The pink, blue, and yellow flames seemed to have a mind of their own and they gibbered and grinned as they crossed the floor. All the mercenaries, and Fred and Guido, were caught in the fire, and it smelled like brimstone and burned them like real fire.

Blume managed to get a view of Kalzbad and shot him with her pistol. Fred was fighting the flames, and when he hit them was surprised to find them killable and he destroyed one of the flame-blobs. He signalled this to Guido who swiped at the fire, too, but the gibbering and strange expressions from the flame creatures was too distracting. Then I got a shot on Kalzbad and despite the flames, I managed to hit him and he fell dead.

Fred went to help the mercenaries put their fires out, and tell them not to do anything stupid, and he recommended Hartpetal’s Hospital in case they needed their burns seen to.

We questioned them and they said that they had been hired to escort Kalzbad to Wolfenburg via Krudenwald and Bergsburg, so we were on the right trail. They said that he had said he owed someone a lot of money and he was going to meet up with his wife in Krudenwald. Not sure what their son, Jonas, would think about that, though.

Fred told Vinny to check Kalzbad’s corpse. You could tell he didn’t want to do it, but he did it anyway. I think he was a bit surprised about what hanging out with us entailed. He went through Kalzbad’s stuff and found thirty-five crowns, which I was surprised to see him share out evenly between all of us, a silver topped cane, that now I think about it, he still has, and a letter.

Remember the letter we found at Wasmeier’s mum, that was written in a strange code? Well those of us who can read worked on it, and mostly managed to decipher it, and this letter was written in the same code, so we managed to decipher that one, too.

The one at Wasmeier’s said something like, I don’t (k)now what your sc(h)emeing is 4(for) in the long term c(still unclear could be ar or ch, it can be the name C/Karl though) l but don’t be a pinhead Skaven(!!) cenott be trusted and your puny (also could be mount of Slaanesh but puny fits the meaning better) venture with the duplication/duplicate is extremely thin/nothing Beside our own ? you have a ? and gift of magic but (k)no(w) your level henchman, reckoning of Tzeentch

And this one said, My Friends in change It is time. Our many hands must come together as one. For too long the Purple Hand has worked as fragments each to its own agenda. We have sown glorious chaos but to bring the time of changes we must act as one under a champion in shadows. Your Friend Kastelle Lieberung

But as Vinny was searching him, Kalzbad grabbed his arm, and his third arm spouted more of the strange fire and burned itself. So when it was done there was very little left as evidence that he was so horrifically mutated. But we had witnessed it, and we knew what we had seen. To be honest mum, the coloured fire with the gibbering mouths and stuff seemed like it came straight out of one of my dreams. I expect I will have even more nightmares tonight.

Then Vinny grabbed Kalzbad’s sword, because he didn’t have one of his own, so it was probably a good idea that he has one. I did ask hm to check with Guido that the sword didn’t have any dark runes or evil vibes or whatever they can have. And Guido said it looked alright, but Vinny might want to take it to a temple to make sure. Although to be honest, mum, I just grabbed Frau Kenner’s sword because it looked nice, and never asked Guido anything about it at all.

Guido and Fred had a chat about what to do with what remained of Kalzbad’s body and I think they decided they should get some local watchmen to watch it until Schutzmann could arrange to dispose of it. And Guido was concerned about the desecrated temple of Sigmar we were in. He needed someone from the cult to do something about it, but there were so few of them left in town, he wondered who he should contact.

Vinny said the whole event had made him so stressed that he had to go off and relax with his own third appendage. I’m not sure what he meant by that, mum, but when he came back he looked like he was feeling a bit better.

When we reported to Schutzmann we heard a scrabbling sound under one of his bookshelves, and as we were fumbling about trying to see what it was, Vinny put his hand straight into one of my traps. And looking under the shelf I could see what looked a bit like a rat but it had two shining red eyes and I could hear a strange whirring sound. I set Boy on it, but he was probably a bit confused by what it actually was, and wasn’t much use. But luckily, I managed to grab it.

It was a rat, sort of, but it had been enhanced in strange ways. It had an ear horn sticking out of it, and some mechanical bits like a clock. And when I pressed the red button on its rear we could hear the conversation we had just been having with Schutzmann, just like we were having it there and then.

Guido declared that it was a spying device and said ‘I hate to say who it was spying for,’ but that meant he really wanted to say who it was spying for. And he asked Schutzmann what he thought about rat men. He reminded him of the incident at the Templar’s and said that there was clearly a presence of these creatures in the city. And now they seemed to be taking an interest in Schutzmann, or in us.

During this, Vinny was looking increasingly incredulous at what Guido was saying but also in how matter-of-factly we were all taking it. We explained that this was what we did, and if he just wanted to go home now, he could. And for a moment I thought he would just leave us, but in the end he said he was a grafter and if this is what it took to get to the top then he would stick with us. Which sounded good, but he said it all with a rat trap stuck on his hand.

Schutzmann was being very thoughtful about the rat listening device and our report on Kalzbad but he interrupted his own thoughts to tell us we had a new mission.

He said that he knew of a member of the Purple Hand who was ready to defect and tell him everything he knew, for a thousand crowns and an amnesty. It was a radical lawyer called Gottfried Jarmund. But then he showed us a note:

My Dear Marshal. Your errant Magister is now my guest. I should think 1,000 GC would be a sufficient bounty to have him handed over in return for our hard work in capturing such a dangerous individual. When you are ready to make payment, let Half-Nose know. Words reaching his ears soon reach mine. Regards, a Low King

And he gave us a small ring, and explained that it was someone they both knew, a long time ago, someone called Elise, and that Jarmund would recognise it and it would prove to him that we were representing Schutzmann.

Then he told us to investigate, and we should start at Jarmund’s house, and we should also contact all the low-lifes we knew who might have an appreciation of the low kings. So it was lucky that Vinny was still here.

And I remembered a fellow called Alfric half-nose who was my first partner on Raina’s shift in the sewer jacks, so I decided I needed to talk to him immediately. And it was a bit of a surprise to learn that he was a contact of one of the low kings.

So, that’s what happened today, mum. I will let you know how we get on trying to find this mysterious Gottfried Jarmund, and whether he gets his amnesty. I wouldn’t be surprised if Guido has something to say on letting known Purple Hand cultists go free and giving them loads of money.