106: Underground Again

Hello, mum. You know I was thinking about how we arrested Karl and Gaius in my last letter and how Professor Hasche defended them and didn’t want us to arrest them. It made me wonder about how much we should wield our powers for the greater good, when we are not sure how nefarious things were, and whether we had overstepped the mark. But something soon happened that made me think we should have more faith in our actions. I’m not an expert on moral dilemmas, mum, I don’t even know what it means, but that one seemed to work itself out a lot more quickly and conveniently than you might expect them to.

We had Karl, and Gaius, and Hasche, and Doctor Dinkelacker under arrest and we were marching them towards the watch station. When suddenly, Gaius lashed out and punched Fred in the back. Fred already had a bad back, so I think this was well planned. And I think Karl gave Gaius the nod beforehand, because as soon as Gaius struck, Karl ran off down the street, surprising us, and leaving us a bit flat-footed.

Guido reacted quickest and started to run after him. As he went past Gaius he got punched but still managed to run after Karl. Hasche screamed, and I think she was a bit shocked about the behaviour of her erstwhile loyal assistants, and I think she began to rethink what she thought about them. And Vinny said, ’You look like a right mug, now,’ for trusting them.

But to be honest, we looked like the mugs for not securing our prisoners better. The arrest was sort of civilised, and when they agreed to come with us we just let them walk through the streets ahead of us. And I think in future we should probably search them and perhaps tie them up or something, because Gaius had a knuckle duster but he could have had anything.

Then Vinny left guarding Hasche and Dinkelacker to Blume and the incapacitated Fred and piled in against Gaius. It turned out that Gaius was a particularly good, and dirty, fighter for an academic assistant and it turned out that Vinny was a particularly bad fighter for someone brought up on the mean streets. I’m not sure what fighting style Vinny adopted, but it was very awkward and Gaius just stood back and then punched him in the ear. And Vinny reeled and then fell over. He managed to steel himself and get up again, even though his ear was ringing and he couldn’t hear Guido shouting at us to follow him.

I didn’t want to hurt Gaius, because he was a key witness, and he was only an academic, but I should have probably learned from how he dispatched Vinny that he was not a soft touch. Anyway, I drew my sword, and told him that we could either do this the easy way or some other way I couldn't remember the name of, and expected him to back down, but he didn’t and he just smirked at me, and looked like he was relishing the prospect of a fighting, even though I had my sword.

Meanwhile Guido was running after Karl, who had knocked over a crate of sprouts, and he had to negotiate his way through the treacherous brassicas delaying his pursuit. But Guido could still just see Karl ahead, and saw him duck into an alleyway and head south into Sudgarten.

And while I was struggling with Gaius, Blume fired her pistol at him. I’m not sure whether to be mad at her about this, because I should probably have expected it, and sometimes it feels like she’s not in control of her own actions, in any case.

But anyway, she missed me and hit Gaius in the left arm and it started bleeding and so when I attacked, I went for the same arm, and there was nothing he could do to defend himself, and his pipe fell out of his mouth and he fell dead at my feet. But when he went down, he opened his mouth as if to scream, but he barely made a sound, and I could see that he had no tongue. I didn’t have time to think about that, though, and I hurried off after Vinny and Guido, and told Blume and Fred to look after Hasche and Dinkelacker.

I may be small but I can run fast, especially through the narrow streets, and over small vegetables, so it was not long before I could see Vinny running in front of me, and he was making good progress, too, and I think he put it down to his gold lame snotball warm up suit. And he could see Guido in front of him, and Guido could see Karl.

Guido called out to the locals to apprehend the criminal but none of them wanted to help. Someone said that if they wanted to spend their time stopping criminals running away from the watch then they would have joined the watch, which was a fair comment.

And then Guido lost track of Karl completely. But one local pointed out that he had gone into one of the nearby houses, which was sort of surprising because it was a nice row of respectable town houses on a decent street. Guido pointed the house out to Vinny and then went round the back to stop Karl escaping that way.

By the time Vinny had opened the front door I had nearly caught up with him. And As the door opened I saw a figure sort of amble towards Vinny. Vinny prepared himself for a fight, but it wasn’t Karl, and it turned out the figure had a dagger in his chest, and he fell onto Vinny and died.

But with his dying breath he said, ‘Please help me. Don’t let them take my father. Hurry!’ And it was very lucky Vinny’s deafness had cleared by then or he wouldn’t have heard a word of it.

We could see that the man was very well dressed, and the house was well appointed like it belonged to rich people. I thought for a moment that Vinny would get distracted by all the potential loot, but he was on KITUM business and it looked like his professionalism had finally overcome his baser instincts. Maybe Guido should give him a medal.

We knew we were in a hurry so we went through the house quite quickly. Vinny led the way as we went through the ground floor, and we saw the dining room was in a mess, and had a couple of bodies in it, but we didn’t have time to look closely. And we saw Guido out the back window arriving at the kitchen. And we saw the storeroom had a big crate in it, with a bright label, but we couldn’t read it. And next to that we saw the lounge that seemed untouched so we headed upstairs.

Guido smashed his way into the kitchen and found a couple of clubs on the floor in a pool of blood, and there was a brooch on the floor which looked like a triangle of bones. And I think we had seen that triangle form on some of the rat men things we had found. (The triangle was inverted, mum.) And he saw some steps leading down to a cellar.

Down in the cellar among the fine wines and ales, he spotted a loose flagstone, and moving it he saw a ladder leading down into the darkness, to the tunnels that we had been down any number of times recently. Guido said that everything seemed to lead to the tunnels.

Upstairs we quickly went through the place, just to make sure nobody else was around, and we spotted the servants’ quarters and a couple of large bedrooms, then went down to join Guido.

Guido had come back up and told us about the cellar, and we showed him the crate. He said that the label said ‘Danger! Explosives!’ So we left that alone and headed down to the cellar.

Beneath the secret flagstone was an old rusty ladder, and I went straight down. I am the underground captain, and I know by now it is my duty to lead the way in places like that. And also, it’s about the only time Guido doesn’t tell me off.

At the bottom of the ladder I could see we were in another underground cavern. This wasn’t worked like the dwarf ones or built like the sewers, but more like mostly natural caverns that had been widened occasionally where they needed to be.

There was a layer of mud on the ground and it was easy to see that two people had been walking side by side dragging something. So we guessed it might be that dead man’s father. And there was another set of footprints, too, which we thought might have been Karl’s. If they weren’t Karl’s then we had no idea where he might be.

I followed the tracks and Guido and Vinny followed me. I think Vinny has good eyesight, too, so he doesn’t mind it in the dark, but Guido had his lantern but left it mostly obscured.

And down here it felt a bit strange with a creepy atmosphere, and weird noises off in the distance, and slimes and other growths around us. And it was all so eerie I had to tell the others not to worry. And Vinny had to roll up the legs of his gold lame snotball warm up suit so they wouldn’t get dirty.

After some painstaking following of the trail, the tracks ended suddenly at a smooth stone wall. And there was something scratched in the rock next to it. Vinny said it might be signs that thieves leave for each other but he said he didn’t know what they meant. But when I pushed the wall, it swung upwards very smoothly, like it was perfectly balanced, and we found ourselves back in the sewer system. But I think this was an older part of the sewers, perhaps dating all the way back to the dwarf constructions.

I must say it was very nice to get a good whiff of the city’s effluent again. I had been missing it. And I think this was particularly ripe stuff that had been moving slowly beneath the city for several months. You can always tell the whiff of the more mature stuff by its complex profile, mum.

Once we were in the sewers the muddy tracks disappeared, but it was easy enough to follow the trail because there was really only one way they could go, keeping to the right hand side of the sewer channel.

We followed that until I spotted a body lying on the side of the sewer with its arm dragging in the sewerage. I told the other two to wait while I crept up and inspected it. Now I’m used to moving around in the sewers I think it’s really hard to spot me, unless you’re really looking out for me.

So I crept up to the body and I was expecting to find that man’s father. But this body did not have the rich clothes I was expecting or the fresh wounds. And as I rummaged around trying to see if there was anything on the body, though it was quite dead, it lashed out at me. I managed to get out the way, and while it flailed around in its half dead state, I kicked it into the sewerage and left it foundering in the shit.

When I went back to the others Guido pointed out that our quarry could not have continued this way, or they would have met that undead creature, too. And so we made our way back to the secret door looking for another way to go.

And halfway back we spotted another smooth rock surface, like the secret door, and this had those signs next to it as well. And we managed to push that open and came to another more natural cavern. And this sloped up at quite a steep angle. Precisely how steep it was was quite difficult to say but I think it was probably somewhere between a gentle slope and a vertical wall, mum.

And I walked a few yards up it, but very luckily, I spotted a tripwire that had been set all the way across the cavern. I jumped over it and warned Vinny and Guido. And Vinny stepped over it, easily enough, but Guido must have been day dreaming, he was probably thinking of all the different types of medals he could give himself. And he nearly walked into the tripwire but we just managed to stop him. And then we laughed at him for not paying attention.

And so I got everyone to stop again, and I scouted ahead. And soon I could see the lights of some sort of chamber, and I crept up to the edge of the chamber where the cavern widened a bit. And there were eight people in it, who looked like the sort of ruffians Vinny might hang out with. And there were tables and chairs and some people were eating and some were playing dice, or something. So this looked like a proper barracks or guard chamber.

So I went back to the others, and we hopped back over the tripwire and back to the secret door, and I told them what I had seen. We all agreed that it would be really difficult to confront eight guards like that. And Vinny said he could probably talk to them and convince them to let us past, but I don’t think he could. Not if they’re proper guards. So we were left wondering what to do next.

We were also left wondering who they were, and decided it would be a bit of a coincidence if Karl had just gone to a random house in the middle of a kidnapping, so it must be connected with him, and it could still have been a coincidence that the kidnapping was going on at the same time. And we wondered who the guards were guarding. I didn’t see any sign that they were cultists, or anything like that, so they might have been working for one of the low kings, or something.

And then Vinny had the idea about the explosives. And he said that Blume would know how to detonate the explosives and blow them all up. And we had to agree, that although it wasn’t very nice to get blown up for no reason, it was probably a good plan.

Anyway mum, I’ll write to you soon and let you know if we manage to blow anyone up.