100: The Staging Post

Hi Mum. This is what I reckon. There’s a whole city underneath Middenheim exactly the same as Middenheim, but upside down. And instead of being inhabited by humans, and halflings, and dwarfs and that, it’s inhabited by rat men. And everything is exactly the same, except it’s the opposite. Anyway, mum, that’s what I think.

So we found ourselves in the darkness in that tunnel under the warehouse in Altquartier. Guido and Blume had run off, and I managed to run after Guido but we couldn’t find Blume. And it was a bit of a maze.

Fred followed us, as well, but Vinny just started ripping the silks off the wall and grabbing the papers and the skulls in the Arabyan bedroom, and he didn’t come after us.

We emerged into an artificial tunnel of quality workmanship with vaulted ceilings and dressed stone, which reminded me of the dwarven sections of the sewers, but it wasn’t a sewer. I think I had heard of stories about the dwarfs who had build a city underneath Middenheim, and they still lived in parts of it, but not this part by the look of it.

I called out for Blume a couple of times, until Guido told me to shut up. But there was no sign of her, or the person she was supposed to be following. And only Blume had heard where they were, so presumably she was hot on their heels, running down a different tunnel.

We had no idea of where to head. Guido wanted Fred to make a plan, but I had to point out that I was the underground captain. But I couldn’t think of a plan. In the end I had the idea that Boy would be able to find Blume, and so I had to ask Guido what the Tilean for track was, so I could ask Boy to do it. It was all a bit complex, but finally Boy got caught the scent of Blume (or something else) and ran off down a side-tunnel, into the darkness.

So we ran off after him, but I managed to hit my head on a bit of jutting rock, and it knocked me to the ground. It was a bit embarrassing especially as this was my element and I was underground captain, but I don’t think the other two noticed, probably. To be honest, the other two of them using their lanterns all the time was making it hard for me to see properly.

After a bit, the tunnel opened up into a wider cavern, but as we were running through it, a couple of spiders dropped onto our heads. And it was a bit gross, but they were easy enough to get rid of. I think Fred hit one with his sword and Guido just stepped on the other one. But when it’s dark and something drops on your head it can be a bit frightening, especially if you don’t like spiders.

And Guido didn’t even have time to wipe the spider spatter off his boots as we had to keep running after Boy. And after a while, I reckon we had been following Boy for ten or fifteen minutes, we came to a ledge, and next to the ledge was an iron cage hanging by a thick chain. And we looked over the edge and we could see that there was a sheer drop going down into the darkness.

And we could see that there was a mechanism in the cage which could be used to winch it up and down, a bit like the baskets we had seen in Kemperbad that lifts people up and down the cliff side (I told you about it, mum). And there were some other cages nearby, and other chains which I reckon had cages on their ends too.

And so we thought about winching ourselves down inside the cage. We checked it and it felt solid enough, so we reckoned it could hold all our weight. I told everyone it was probably made by dwarfs, just to make me feel better about it, but I don’t think it was.

We all got into the cage and Guido wound the crank and we were lowered a few feet, and then he cranked the other way just to make sure it would go up again, and it did. So he lowered us down as far as we could go. It was a bit of a long and dark descent but after a while we saw there were fungi, or things, growing on the walls which glowed a bit and that gave us a bit of light. Guido had hits lantern so that helped too. And Fred put his lantern out to make sure we had enough oil to get back again.

And as we went we could see a strange shanty town of makeshift wooden buildings in the cavern below. And it made me remember those stories I had heard in the sewer jacks about the mutants of Middenheim being driven underground and making their own mutant city beneath the sewers, and it looked like that was true, after all. And so I told Guido and Fred about it, but neither seemed to believe me.

And then we hit the bottom and found ourselves in a large natural cavern. We decided to check out the shanty town, but we hadn’t gone far when three rat creatures ran from there, squeaking at us. Well, as you know, I hate them, mum, so I just rat at them shouting. But I think they hate us, because they just ran at us, squeaking.

As soon as I got to the first rat man, I just ran him through, and he was dead. And then Fred stepped up and killed the next one. And then Guido hit the third one, and it was all but dead, and we finished it off. We are the boys, mum.

It seemed to me that these were not the man-size and quite strong rat men we had fought in the Barren Hills, with their big metal weapons and all their armour. These were a bit smaller and pretty weak and mangy and they weren’t armoured and only had spears. So I don’t think they were the brightest and the best of rat kind. And Guido called them runts. But I still hate them, mum.

And we decided to go into the shanty town to see if there were any more, and as we got closer we could hear a strange sort of mumbling coming from one of the structures, and so I ran in again, as fast as I could. Because I didn’t want a rat wizard or anything like that to be able to cast a spell on us.

But when we got to the hut we could see there were two humans in a sort of cage, and the remains of another one. They looked like they had been there a long time, but it turned out they hadn’t been there very long at all, but they were ill-looking and thin because they had been living on the streets of Middenheim. That is what we do to our own citizens. Remember what I said about the upside-down city, mum? It makes you wonder who are the real monsters. It is the rat men.

Guido cut through the rope that held the cage closed, and spoke to them. One of them was looking very ill and fragile and mumbling gibberish, but the other one, who was called Goetz, seemed quite strong.

He was able to tell us that some men with gap-tooth smiles had offered them money, but put hoods over their heads, and dragged them away. He said he thought it was in the direction of Freiburg. And he said that one of the rats, in their strange rat accent, had told them that they would be taken to the mountains to help kill the moon, whatever that means. We looked at the other fellow who was clearly very ill, and agreed we would take him to Hartpetal Hospital, so we put him in the cage, ready to take him up to the surface.

And we took Goetz with us to look around the rest of the cavern. He said there had only been three of the things guarding them, but there were many others, and their leader, who turned up occasionally. Fred was worried about not being able to file a report, if we were caught by them, so we started to hurry, but really, mum, I was hoping they would come back while we were there.

Having a look around, it looked like this big cavern was at a confluence of lots of tunnels and channels. And Goetz said it was some kind of staging post, so we thought it might be an important place for the rat men.

And we came to a shelter with a big triangular door. There was no one inside, but there was some cheese, which I thought was quite nice, but Boy retched his up. And someone had drawn a map with charcoal on the wall. And Fred and I managed to work out that it was a map of the area around Wyndhund Haulage. And Wyndhund had a big cross on it, and the words Fizzy Fizzy. I said Fizzy sounded like Vizier, which made sense because Vizier Bahr was Arabyan and the basement at Wyndhund was full of Arabyan stuff. So I think Vizier Bahr lived below Wyndhund Haulage.

Fred said we needed to get back but I wanted to follow more tracks, but when I tried to get Boy to lead us, he couldn’t, because I think the cheese had probably messed with his sense of smell. So we made our way back to the cage, but when we got there, the other prisoner was dead.

Then we wondered whether we should take the body of one of the rats with us, to show Schutzmann, and in the end we decided we should, even if they weren’t the finest specimens of rat kind. We found some rags to wrap it in and put it in the cage with us.

It took a lot longer going up than coming down. And while we were going up, we saw another cage come falling past us and crashing to the bottom of the cavern. So, it was lucky we hadn’t chosen that cage, mum. We couldn’t tell if anyone was in it, or not.

When we got to the dwarven tunnels I was very careful to memorise the route, in case we needed to find the staging post again, but we went the wrong way anyway. We came to some big patch of yellow mould, and it looked even worse than the cheese, so we had to turn around and try to find the proper route. But I think if we ever need to find that route again, I will be able to.

When we got back to Wyndhund Haulage we could see that a lot of the fittings in the bedroom had been removed. And so that explained why Vinny hadn’t followed us. I think if you’re in an organisation like KITUM you have to maintain a certain standard of ethics and decorum and I think Vinny had fallen short.

We gave Goetz a crown and he told us we could find him at Sargant’s Flophouse in case we needed him for evidence. Then we decided to go back to Blume’s and wait for her there, but when we got there, she was already home asleep. To be honest, that was a bit annoying because we had been searching some of the deepest darkest parts of the city to try to find her, and all the time she had been tucked up in bed.

We put the body of the rat man in her en suite bath to keep it safe. I was going to put it in mine, but she had made such a fuss about me weeing in it, she probably didn’t want a rat in it either. But it will be a nice surprise for her when she wakes up.

And then Vinny came back and told us that he had been to see Maurice, and I think he had sold him all the silks and even a chair. But Maurice hadn’t wanted to buy the skulls. And she had brought the papers back with her because they might be evidence, which was good thinking.

And we told Vinny where we had been. I told him my theory about the upside-down world full of rat men. And I explained that it was exactly like our world but because it was upside down that meant at their balls the women rats had to ask the men rats to dance. And he asked me if there was rat burglars, and I think there are, but because it’s upside-down world, the rat burglars break into your house and leave you presents. And we showed him the rat man in the bath and he said it was disgusting.

Among the papers that Vinny had brought, there were books on daemonology, necromancy, and shapeshifting, and a book of spells, but I doubt they were real spells. And we found another of those coded messages and Guido decoded it as:

The Tunnel dwellers perform well. Soon after word of the death of the prince they presented to me and captured the girl, but why these other abductions? Please advise. BK

I have no idea what any of that means, mum, and I don’t think we have heard of any Bks, but I suspect the tunnel dwellers are the rat men.

We thought about what Goetz had said about killing the moon in the mountains, and about how the signal tower had had lots of astrological books, and how Dagmar Wittgenstein seemed to be obsessed with that sort of thing. And there was the stolen map from the Templar’s which pointed to Brass Keep, which is in the Middle Mountains. And it seems like the rat men are interested in all these things. But what does that mean?

And then Vinny said that if there were all these rat men around, under the city, then the people who would be most likely to know about it or see them, would be the rat catchers and the sewer jacks. And he asked me why they didn’t seem to know anything. And that was a very good question, mum, and I didn’t know the answer, but I said I would go into work and ask about it.

And by then, mum, it was very late indeed, and we were all very tired. I’ll write and tell you what happened the next day, in my next letter.