113: Map Making

Hello, mum. I have been sending you some of the reports that others have been making, because I’ve been a bit tired recently, and I haven’t always been hanging out with the group. I have also been visiting the upside-down world in my sleep. So I enclose with this letter one of Fred’s reports, that he dictated to one of the watch’s scribes.

I think Fred’s reports are more fact-based than Blume’s or Guido’s. Although, note, mum, he called Bors Boris all the way through, because he promised he wouldn’t name him in his report, which is a bit sneaky. But he did let Bors escape KITUM’s justice in return for all the help he had given us.

So, after we returned from the rat tunnels beneath the city, we went to report to Schutzmann, and filled him in. And after the report, Schutzmann took Fred aside and said he had been receiving official complaints from one of our members that threatened to undermine the group. He said he would be prepared to hear about any incidents but by putting them in official reports he was obliged to make them part of official record and that didn’t always look good for KITUM. Fred guessed (it wasn’t hard, mum) that Schutzmann was talking about Guido, and he promised that the problem was under control and he would have a word with him about it. And Fred pointed out that it wasn’t as if our group weren’t getting results, and that we had just rescued the Helm of the Ratslayer.

Then we went to the armoury so Blume could get some black powder and bullets, and I needed to get my mail shirt repaired. Blume had been impressed with the crossbow pistol she had borrowed from Bors, and I think we were all thankful it was a bit quieter than her pistols. And so she tried to get one from the armoury, but it wasn’t watch standard equipment.

But then she remembered Elmo Flensburger who we had dealt with in the line of duty, and she managed to get one off him. And I think she convinced Fred to help pay for it, because he was just hopeful she might stop blasting her pistols and alerting our enemies all the time.

And Vinny got a leather cap. I’m not sure it will do much to protect him, but at least we won’t have to keep looking at that ugly gash on the top of his head.

Vinny decided that I deserved some loot from the chest they had got from the rat men. They didn’t have much I was interested in, and he had already eaten all the cheese, but there was a vial of black lotus amongst the stuff. I had been studying poisons in the sewer jacks, and although black lotus isn’t something you would use on rats, I did know about it. It is a very potent blade venom, so that might come in handy one day.

And then we had a look at the unfathomable map they had found in the chest. We had the idea of trying to make a master map of all the tunnels beneath the city. And we tried to get our bearings and work out which bits of the unfathomable map corresponded to tunnels we already knew about. But it turned out to be unfathomable.

We decided that the dwarfs might have some good maps, especially of their tunnels, and so we went to KEDHI to see if we could get some. At KEDHI we spoke to Yarnad Magradil. He said that the dwarfs do have maps but we would have to go through the proper channels, so I think that meant Schutzmann would have to talk to someone at the DEG. He said he appreciated our help with the taxes, but he still couldn’t get the maps for us.

Fred had a quiet word with him about the rat men, and Yarnad seemed to indicate that he was aware of rat men, but that wasn’t enough to get us the maps, either. He asked him what the dwarfs did if they encountered rat men, and Yarnad said they would clear the area of them and then close the tunnels.

And while we were there Blume decided to talk to Himbo Wobbulbeli about her genealogy but then remembered he was only interested in halflings.

Then we decided to talk to the Ranaldans at the Fifth Finger to see if they could help with maps. Bors wasn’t there but Vinny spoke to Nadia, again. He asked her about smuggling in the undercity and she said it obviously happened but it wasn’t a particular interest of Ranald. And when Vinny brought up the subject of rat men, Nadia suddenly noticed that his ear was looking infected.

It turned out that Vinny had decided to pierce his own ear with the rat man triangle symbol earring they had found, to impress the ladies (he’s a top shagger, mum). And now it was throbbing and weeping pus. So Vinny took the earring out, and I grabbed it because it went with my other symbols, and I thought it might be useful evidence.

Then we went to the Bretonnia House to find Alfric and see if he could get us a meeting with the Man’s men to see if they had any maps. Alfric made fun of Vinny saying he was very brave for knocking off the Man’s gardeners. And Vinny insisted he didn’t do it. And I’m not sure if Alfric was pretending he thought Vinny had done it because of his terrible letter where he said he hadn’t done it, or he was just pretending because you’d have to be a right idiot to bother to tell everyone you hadn’t done something if you hadn’t done it. Or something else. (It’s wheels within wheels with these underworld types, mum.)

Vinny came straight out with the rat men idea to Alfric, and he didn’t seem that surprised. He said that no one got to speak to the Man, or at least spoke to him knowing it was the Man, but he said he could arrange a meeting with one of his representatives. And he immediately said that we could have a meeting at six that evening. (Maybe Alfric is the Man, mum.) So we said the meeting should be in the Verdra room at the Heaven’s Lament because it was convenient for the tunnels. And Blume started flirting with him and told him to send some more gardeners round.

Meanwhile, Fred was waiting at the Bell and Bucket because he didn’t want to go to a Ranaldan base. The Bell was a hang out for Nordlander separatists so he had to stay on the fence when politics came up. And then he went to talk to Schutzmann about getting the DEG to lend us some maps, and he said he would take it through official channels, so who knows how long that might take?

But he also had a new line of enquiry for us as three other people had been found dead with the same triangular stab wounds as our gardeners. He said the bodies were in the Temple of Morr awaiting disposal so we should get round there quick to investigate. So he went back to Hausnung to wait for us, and check on the security there, and make sure no more criminals were hanging around. And when we got back he told us about our new mission.

And after nanny had cleaned Vinny’s ear, we went to Morrspark and spoke to Father Weill. The first body was of Ansten Krohn, a civil engineer who had been found in an alley in Nordtor. His wife, Britte Krohn, a resident of the Wynd, had paid for his funeral, and his body was to be placed in the Eternal Flame, which as I understand it, mum, is the most expensive funeral you can have in Middenheim.

The second was a grocer called Yiva who had been found in an abandoned apartment in Sudtor and who was due for a pauper’s funeral.

The third was a sewer jack called Haludan Gerg but we didn’t know his place of death because it had been withheld, though it was noted that he ‘died defending Middenheim.’ He had also been slashed multiple times before receiving the fatal triangular wound in the chest. We decided that the multiple wounds on Gerg were from him defending himself. I recognised him, mum, a bit, as he had worked for Jacko’s shift. I had seen him around a few times, but hadn’t ever talked to him.

So we will have to investigate them, mum. I don’t really know what they all have in common, but we talked about it, and we expect it is something to do with the sewers or other underground areas. Perhaps they discovered something that the rat men want to be kept quiet.