107: Janna Eberhauer Again

Hello, mum. Not everyone is a team player. We needed to get to the bottom of the guard room that we had found, as it looked pretty nefarious. And we had found the explosives in that house, which we thought would come in handy as there were about eight guards. And, of course, we needed Blume to help us with the explosives as she knows a lot about engineering and things like that. So Guido went back to the watch house to fetch her.

But while he was there, Schutzmann explained that they would not be taking any further action against Professor Hasche, which I think we fair enough because she had only been supporting her assistants in the sincere belief that they were good people, an it was only after Gaius had fought us, and Karl had run off, that she realised what they were really like.

Schutzmann was apparently also doubting Doctor Dinkelacker’s role, thinking it had merely been all about academic jealousy. Anyway, I think we should investigate Dinkelacker a bit more thoroughly.

But apparently, Hasche had invited Fred and Guido for dinner. And they had agreed to go. I can understand Fred going because he had a very bad back, and Gaius had damaged it further, but I’m not sure why Guido decided to go. Perhaps he was investigating her subtly, or perhaps he was just hungry. But anyway, we had an important and dangerous job to do, and he had just left us to it.

Meanwhile Vinny and I had been going through the house. I managed to find a load of money beneath the fake bottom of a wardrobe. There was twenty-eight crowns and twenty five shillings, which I resolved to give to Blume. And there was a big pile of pennies, about three hundred, which I said Vinny could have.

And we managed to piece together what we thought might have happened in the house. We think that the kidnappers had come up through the cellar and a couple of servants had tried to fight them off, but they had been killed. And these servants had been dragged or retreated to the dining room, where we found their bodies. And then the rich man who owned the house had been dragged off, and his son stabbed while trying to save him, or something. We are not sure what all this had to do with Karl, however.

So Blume turned up and told us about Guido and Fred staying behind, which made me have doubts about our mission. But then she told us that she didn’t know anything about bombs and was wracking her brains trying to remember what had been said about them in her lessons, and I doubted our mission even further. But nevertheless I led Blume and Vinny back into the sewers because I’m a team player. There’s no I in Haricot.

We were carrying all four bombs with us, but we didn’t know how long the fuses on them lasted, so we cut off a bit of one, and it burned very quickly. So Blume said we needed to throw them as soon as they were lit and run away as fast as we could. I think they were probably designed for people who could throw farther than us.

It took us quite a long time to work this out and we were squabbling over exactly what to do for longer than we should have, and it occurred to me that we probably needed Guido or Fred with us to keep us focused and get decisions made.

We had warned Blume about the tripwire ahead of time, so we didn’t need to make a song and dance about it once we got there. And I crept forward to the edge of the guard chamber and then called Blume up. And then we realised that there was quite a steep slope (impossible to say exactly how steep) leading up to the chamber, so we needed to be careful about any bombs rolling back down towards us.

And so, Blume lit the fuse, and ran a few yards into the guardroom, threw the bomb, and ran out again. And the bomb landed right on the table where the guards were playing cards. And I think, mum, it was a lot more powerful than we had been expecting, and in the enclosed space underground, especially, it made a terrible noise as it went off, and the whole cavern shook.

And when we went to inspect the damage we were in a bit of a daze and we couldn’t hear each other shouting. And there was very little left of the guard room or any of the guards. I think it must have been a terribly sudden end for them, sitting around and chatting and playing cards, and then suddenly nothing. I hope none of them had a good hand.

But I suppose that might be a better way to go than some other ways, who knows? And we didn’t even know whether they were bad people or not. I think Vinny was a bit grossed out by the scene of carnage, but I suppose, if you want to be a KITUM, you have to face things like that.

In our deafened confusion and the dust and smoke, we found three more ways into the chamber, and we guarded one each to make sure nothing had been alerted by the blast. And when no one came, we inspected the first way.

It led to a cavern that contained a shrine thing, with two eight foot tall statues of a rat man with large horns. Like a great beastman, but a rat. And there was a carving on the altar of a bone triangle, like the silver one I had found. And there were columns around the chamber and a pit in front of the altar that seemed to go down forever. We couldn’t hear each other but we managed to mime the idea of lighting a bomb and dropping it down the pit. But we decided to do that a bit later in case the explosion caused the whole area to cave in.

The next way was protected by a heavy wooden door, and Vinny tried to pick it while Blume searched what was left of the guards for a key. Vinny seemed to take forever, mum, but if there is one thing even slower than Vinny picking a lock, it’s Blume sorting through bloody cadavers, so he eventually got it open.

Inside was a squalid rat-infested room with a number of cells along it. There was a bench with some weapons on, and so Vinny grabbed a sword. And we had a look at the cells, but only one was occupied. And it was occupied by a Janna Eberhauer, the assistant high wizard. We knew her because Blume had seen her in the maze at the garden party, and I had had a chat with her outside the joust. But mostly Willow had spoken to her, and had arranged to have her sister, Erina, stay with us at the Templar’s. Erina had helped us when all the rat-men had raided it and stolen that map, and we had fought them off.

Janna explained that she had been kidnapped in her sleep from her house, and said that from her sister’s description she had thought the rat-things were just beastmen, but now she realised they were there own thing. Despite Janna being dirty and dishevelled Vinny took an instant shine to her and he tried a bit too hard to comfort her. I think Janna could probably handle herself down here much better than Vinny could, but on the other had, we had rescued her so had probably earned the right to do that. Because she was a wizard Vinny kept making silly jokes like, ‘You’ve cast a spell on me.’ And when Janna looked at him a bit funny, I felt the need to explain to her that Vinny was the Top Shagger. Then Janna looked a bit more determined, and pushed Vinny away and said that they had taken everyone else.

And while they were chatting, I was guarding the door, and I noticed a rat man peaking round a corner and the fleeing. I expect you know by now, mum, that I don’t really like the rat men, and so as soon as I saw it I ran off after it. It went down the tunnel a bit and then stopped at a junction, and I saw that there were three more of them, and while three of them were pretty scrawny, one of them was bigger and was wearing metal armour, a bit like the one that I really hate that I faced in the Barren Hills. And he was carrying a halberd.

And he was quicker than me, and he struck me with the halberd, hitting my left arm and jarring it really badly. And I had been carrying one of the bombs, so I dropped that, and it rolled along the floor but luckily it didn’t explode. And the other three were faster than me as well (I’m not very quick, Mum) and they all attacked me, too, but I was able to fend their blows off.

I was able to get a good hit on the armoured one, but with all that armour, I don’t I think I managed to hurt him that much. And then he hit me again, in the left arms, again, and then one of the other ones hit me, and that was in my left arm as well, and I can tell you, mum, my left arm was really beginning to hurt.

Luckily, the others turned up. I should have called for them to follow me, but I just got distracted by the rat man, but they had come after me, anyway. And Blume shot the armoured rat man. And Vinny charged in with his borrowed sword, but he’s a shagger not a fighter, so he wasn’t much good, and he was very fortunate not to be downed by the first rat man blow. And a rat man went for Blume and she got a nasty blow on the knee.

And during all this, Janna was summoning magic from the atmosphere, and we could feel the power make the hair on the backs of our necks stand up. Then Blume had no choice but to fight her rat man, and all she could do was give it a slap, but it was quite a hard slap. I think high society ladies are good at that sort of slap.

Then I got hit again, and Vinny got hit very hard and went down. And as fate would have it, Blume just managed to dodge a powerful blow. I think I may have got carried away, mum, with my fighting prowess, as I had always fought with Guido and Fred or Dreamy before and I think I probably underestimated how much they have helped. Because now it was just me and Blume and Vinny, this fighting was a lot harder than I’d thought.

But luckily Janna was here with us, and she had summoned a lot of power, and she exploded a sort of lightning at the armoured rat man, and it completely frazzled him, but then the magic jumped about to all the other rat men and they were frazzled as well, and when the lightning had gone, we were left with four very frazzled rat men lying dead around us.

And then Janna saw to Vinny’s wounds as well. I think I might ask Schutzmann to sack Guido and give his job to Janna, because she’s a bit better at it, and she never nagged me once, the whole time.

And I was thinking it might be time to go back, but we carried on anyway, and we came to a chamber with some black robes hanging up in it, and a ceremonial dagger. So Vinny took the robes and I took the dagger. And there was a door, so we opened that and in the room we saw an old, grey, weazened rat thing, if you can call rat things weazened, and he was sitting on the floor sort of meditating, and he was chattering about ‘think think time.’

And so I ran up to him and dispatched him with my sword, killing him instantly. I was told off for this, mum, because the others said he was harmless and we could have captured him and interrogated him. But I just saw it was a rat man and I hate rat men and so I killed it. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with that. What do you think, mum?

Anyway, the room was a mess, and the rat man had a box of snuff and a strange book. And as it died it sort of did something with its green glowing ring, and Janna said it was a spell. And I thought the ring might accessorise well with some of Blume’s outfits, so I gave it to her. But it tingled a bit when I touched it, and now I think about it, that might not have been the wisest thing to do. And I think Vinny grabbed the book, which might not have been very wise, either.

And then we came to a very large cavern and there was a huge carving of a big rat man with horns, like the statues we had seen earlier. And there was a stone slab in the room with blood stains on it, and there was someone tied to it. And at the foot of the slab there were six bodies. But as we approached the rock the six bodies rose up and they were clearly dead, but not dead, mum.

Anyway, while we shot at the dead things, Vinny crept round the back and released the man. And the first thing he said was that his son would be pleased to see him. And I think he could have been left to think that for at least a little while longer, but Vinny was very quick to tell him that his son was dead.

And when we had got rid of the dead things, with lots of help from Janna, again, we made our way back to the shrine with the horned rat man statues, and we dropped a bomb down the pit. We waited a bit to hear the screams of dying rat men, but we didn’t hear anything.

On the way back to his house, we asked the man lots of questions. He said his name was Klaus and he said he would reward us for rescuing him, but he didn’t tell us anything interesting like why the rat men were interested in him, or why they captured him, or anything about Karl. But we told him he would have to see Schutzmann.

And anyway, all the way back, mum, Vinny was complaining about his mangled arm, and he said he might have to retire. I think it might be best if he does, mum, because I don’t think he’s really cut out for KITUM work, although he’s now doing better than I thought he would, so maybe he could stick around. Perhaps we should get Willow to see to his elbow.