117: The Great Smell

Hello, mum. On our way to the Regent’s to talk to the pedlar we discussed what our priorities should be. Erina was very keen to go to Gladbeich and confront the rat-headed beastman that we had heard about. She said that obviously, that sort of thing should be prioritised over a smell. But the rest of us convinced her to slow down a bit, and agreed that even if something looks minor and unimportant, if you can deal with it quickly, it will be worth doing.

I explained that just because picking the turnip crop is much more important than cleaning your teeth, you don’t stop cleaning your teeth while you’re waiting for your turnips to grow. And even Guido agree with me, even though I don’t think he knows much about growing turnips. I did suggest Erina could fly to Gladbeich to check it out, and come back and report on it, but Erina sheepishly explained that she didn’t know how to fly, which was a bit disappointing. Wasmeier could fly. And even Willow did it once. Then she started talking to Blume about fashion.

The Regent’s was pretty rough. I had been to the sewer jacks section quite a few times, and that wasn’t very pleasant, but it turns out that that was the posh bit. Guido seemed to think that he was escorting Erina there and protecting her from the baser elements, but she didn’t think that she needed protecting.

The pedlar explained that he had picked up Gelbert Vogel from Unterfraus, where he was visiting as part of his normal trade route, and had promised to bring him to Middenheim to get medical attention, but he had unfortunately died on the way. Vogel hadn’t said much but his fellow miners described being attacked by magical spirits with green-glowing lightning. We checked out the pedlar to see if he was healthy and he hadn’t caught any of the green glow, and he seemed fine.

And, I think, to thank him for helping us, Blume paid him to mend her coat, and then of course Guido had to lecture her on not respecting her equipment, even though getting it mended was respecting it. Then Blume got mad at Guido and threatened to cut his tongue off, for those reports he had sent to Schutzmann, but I don’t think she was serious, mum. Anyway, the reports were written so he wouldn’t need his tongue to send more.

Then we went to Morrspark to see the wounds for ourselves. On the way we asked whether beastmen could do magic, and Erina said they could, but she didn’t explain how she knew that, but said something about being in the army.

Vogel was not at Morrspark, as his body had already been taken to the Collegium. So we went there and found that his body was already being dissected. He had attracted quite a crowd and lots of physicians and what have you were interested in his wounds. And so we joined them.

We could see that he had a prematurely aged body, no doubt caused by many years of hard work in the mines. But one of his arms was completely missing, and so was a portion of his shoulder and rib cage. And it looked like that had all been cut cleanly off with the sharpest blade. And the wound was blackened and cauterised but also tinged with green.

Or that’s what it would have looked like had all these physicians not been so keen to cut off their samples, so that by the time we got to see the body it looked like it had been attacked by vultures, too.

Erina examined the body for the mystical winds of whatsit, and she said it had some sort of queasy green tinge to it, but not like the winds she had faintly sensed around Raina Mus. And then she asked the physicians that once they had finished with the body, to send it to the Great Guild of Wizards.

So then we headed up to Altmarkt. We thought about talking to some rat catchers to see precisely where the smell was, but we decided that if it was as bad as everyone was saying it was, then it would be pretty easy to track down. And sure enough, it wasn’t long before I caught a whiff of it, even without Boy’s help, and was able to follow the trail to some warehouses. Boy has taught me everything I know about tracking. As we got closer to the warehouses the smell became nauseating.

One of the warehouses was Lachmann’s Quality Victuals. We had a chat to Lachmann and he was upset that he wasn’t getting any customers, but it was quite obvious why. No one wanted to buy food where it smelt so bad. Lachmann said he had got a rat catcher called Bohnet in, but he hadn’t been able to solve it. And he offered us ten crowns if we could sort it out. I’m not sure whether we could accept the money, as we were doing this in the course of our normal duties, but he let us have a look round his store, anyway.

We went down into the basement, and although the smell was even worse there, we couldn’t find the source of it. Blume said she could hear scratching sounds coming from the other side of the old wall that lined the cellar, so we decided to look next door. Lachmann explained that some bloke called Krummer owned the warehouse next door, and he thought he rented it out, but he hadn’t seen him for months.

Having a look at the place, it kind of looked abandoned, with all the shutters down and door locked. Erina had a look at the lock, and then it was open. I’m not sure what she did to it, melted it with her wizard fire, or something, but she was much better than Vinny at it, and Vinny was thief.

We lit our lanterns and loaded our guns before going in, but as soon as we did, the smell was twice as bad as it had been. We had a quick look round and saw that part of the kitchen had been hurriedly bricked up, and it didn’t take much to push the wall over. And as the wall fell so did a body, with a terrible look of fear on its face and its fingers worn down through trying to scratch its way out of its prison. Erina looked very shocked by the grim discovery, but for the rest of us, it was Bezahltag.

And there was a message scratched on the wall of the larder, ‘Ulric save me from the rats that walk lord Morr protect your servant Krummer from undeath.’ So we had found Krummer. We wondered whether Krummer’s body could be the source of the smell, but it was much worse than one corpse could make and seemed to be coming from somewhere else, close by.

Blume heard scratches coming from a wooden cabinet and we opened it to see that in the base of the cabinet there was a grille leading down to the cellar. Fred held his lantern to it, and below he could see lots of starving rat men with emaciated bodies and bloodshot eyes, screaming and clamouring over each other to escape the cellar. Fred recoiled in shock, but we all had to have a look, and it was pretty terrible. Usually when I see the rat men I have to have a go at them, mum, I hate them so much, but this time, I think I just felt sorry for them. It looked like they had been locked in the cellar and left to starve to death and to eat each other.

We could see at the edge of the cellar, there were some larger, armoured rat men, keeping an eye on the imprisoned ones from behind a barricade, like they were their jailers.

Erina spoke to one of them. I’m not sure why she was speaking to rat men, but I guess wizards can do things like that. Blume said it felt a bit like collusion, which annoyed Erina. The rat man saidd he was clawleader Rikkhin of Clan Mange. And he even called himself a man friend. He said something like he was working for Warlock Master Maliss, but Clan Scrutens were jealous of this and had betrayed them. And he said something about the rage-hunger and the eat-kill. He asked us to save Rikkhin and he would help-help man-things with the gift of a blessed stone.

Erina said she thought she might just kill them all in a giant fireball, but Rikkhin said she could kill all the others but save him, and begged her to throw down a rope. So Erina threw down a rope and Rikkhin started climbing up, but then so did some of the other rat men.

And then the armoured guards noticed what was happening, and they waded into the rat man pile, killing them and trying to get to the rope. And Erina blasted the rats, too, killing several of them with a fire ball. To be honest, mum, I couldn’t see much, and I didn’t really know what was going on, but it seemed very confusing.

And once Rikkhin climbed up to the grille, Guido cut the rope to stop any more rat men from following him. We questioned Rikkhin but he kept going on about the rage hunger and Warlock Master Maliss. He said something about Clan Mange attacking the brass tower in mountains. He said it would be a big attack with man-things outside and plague-things within. He said Mange would win, but they didn’t look like they were winning. And we noticed that Rikkhin was wearing a pauldron with the same symbol as the flag we found in the chest with the Helm of the Ratslayer.

So from what we could piece together we got the impression that Clan Mage were helping Clan Scryre attack the Brass Keep, and were going to give them a magic rock for their help. But Clan Scrutens got jealous of this, and decided to double-cross Clan Mage by imprisoning them beneath a warehouse in Middenheim. We could see that Rikkhin and all his dying mates were black and white piebald, and he said that Clan Scrutens (the armoured rats below) were all black, and Clan Scryre were black and brown. (Just in case you ever need to recognise rat men clans from their fur colour, mum.)

And after all this, Rikkhin could see the armoured rats fighting his clan, and decided to jump back down the hole and defend his clan mates from them. And Erina fired some of her magic after him. And Rikkhin managed to kill one of the Clan Scrutens rats and his clan mates were all over it, eating it before it had even died. And buoyed by this, a group of Clan Mange rat men managed to get through the barricade and force their way to freedom.

It was kind of satisfying to see the Clan Mange rat men escape, but it was a bit strange to find yourself rooting for rat men, even if it was against other rat men.

And so we were left in the warehouse with the rats gone but still dozens of rat men bodies beneath us, and we wondered what we had just witnessed. Fred said that we probably shouldn’t mention our rat chat with Rikkhin in our reports, and that collaborating with rat men wouldn’t look very good. And he told Erina not to mention it in her reports to the Great Guild of Wizards. Erina said she wouldn’t but she looked annoyed that Fred should presume to tell her what to do over wizardly matters.

So, that’s that, mum. I expect we will head to Unterfraus next, to check out the mines, and stop off in Gladbeich on the way to see if there is any sign of the rat-faced beast man.