132: The Moonbreaker

So, mum, we’re in the pits of Karak Skygg, remember, surrounded by rat men, in a sort of rat man farm. And we tried to pass through, among the farmers, because I told everyone that the rat men weren’t really taking much notice of us. But when one of the pack masters challenged us, Erina fired a bolt at him, hitting hm squarely in the chest.

For a moment I feared the worst, that we would have the entire hold of rat men converging on us, and even if it wasn’t certain death, it would mean we couldn’t get back into the hold. But, quickly, Erina turned on the pack master and shouted at him for surprising her. And the pack master dropped his whip and flung himself to the ground whining in his rat man language.

It looked like he was begging Erina forgiveness for disturbing her. And the area smelled even worse than before, which someone said was ‘fear glands’. And the other two pack masters just watched, looking pleased that they hadn’t been picked on. So we walked on towards the next chamber trying to look confident and being careful no to rush.

As we approached the big central corridor I had scouted out before, we heard a great sonorous bong sound reverberating through the hold. And whatever each individual rat men had been doing, once they heard the bong they seemed to be doing it more intently than before. But we had no idea what it meant.

The main corridor was full of rat men. We knew we were on the lowest level of the karak, and it seemed that this was also where many of the more lowly rats were living. The bustle and activity put me in mind of Altdorf (I hate Altdorf, mum, but not like I hate rat men) and so it made me think that this was like the slums of Altdorf.

Then I noticed Greta looked incredibly shocked by the scene. I suppose we had forgotten that she hadn’t experienced what we had, and wasn’t familiar with the rat men. And now seeing them like this, with barely any warning, in a huge settlement, she looked genuinely frightened. And in a way, mum, I was quite pleased about that, because if she was frightened of the rat men, it made her less frightening to me.

Erina tried to help Greta by explaining what we knew about the rat men, and about how intelligent and sophisticated they could be, but I think that just made it worse. And she told her about their human collaborators, the Yellow Fang. Greta blurted out that the whole thing was heretical and inimical to the Empire, but that didn’t really help.

We decided that if we could pass for Yellow Fang we could just casually look around the hold, trying to get a general impression of what was going on. It was hard to know what they were all doing here, but we did spot six large black rat men in heavy armour guarding a door at the end of the main thoroughfare. And I noticed that the furthest the rats were from the main thoroughfare the more disgruntled and mean they behaved, which reminded me of Altdorf, as well.

Blume said that it looked like the hold was controlled by clan Skryre, but clan Scrutens were here, and going out of their way to scheme against clan Mange who were all enslaved. And Scrutens had been the ones oppressing Mange with the hunger-kill-thing in Middenheim.

Fred said we needed some concrete evidence to take back to Middenheim, and I agreed, because I didn’t have much evidence of the upside-down world, and no one seemed to believe me about that. But I wondered whether it might be too late for evidence and whatever was happening at Karak Skygg needed to be stopped as soon as possible.

As we went we picked up a few scraps and things with the idea that we might need a disguise at some point. Erina found a cloak and put that over her, reasoning that however accepting the rat men had been of our Yellow Fang membership, her bright red clothes were making her stand out. I said that if we really wanted to prove our membership we should get our teeth done, and Greta said she had the tools for that. But we left that plan as a last resort.

I realised that to look properly Yellow Fang I should make my white sewer jacks patch yellow. And I found some rat faeces with a nice yellow hue to rub into it. It’s surprising the array of colours that stuff actually comes in, mum. Erina said something about Ratson Pollock, but I think that was probably a wizard’s joke I didn’t understand.

Eventually we found some stairs leading up to the next level, and after I scouted ahead for a quick look, we all went up there, quite boldly. And there were a decent number of humans up there so we didn’t look out of place.

We came out near the grand entrance that we had spotted from the outside. There were lots of passages leading off to the rest of the hold and lots of traffic with rat men and carts. We saw some large pens with slaves in. And one of the pens had non-rat men slaves. Mostly humans and dwarfs, but I spotted some halflings, mum. That really made my blood boil. I wanted to smash down the pens and let them all go. But I knew we had more immediate work to do.

We did see one slave who looked a bit less browbeaten than the rest. A dwarf, who looked at us with absolute contempt. But as we made our way towards the pens a squeaky voice told Erina to stop.

She saw a very old looking grey furred rat man. He had an abacus and some parchment. He checked Erina’s biceps and told her she was a meaty yellow fang man thing. But then told her that she knew the rules. And then explained that she needed to praise Tiktik the tally rat. So Erina told tiktik what great tallying he was doing, and asked to see his notes. But she couldn’t really understand them except that it looked like he was keeping count of the everyone coming in.

So we were allowed to go, and Erina said she didn’t feel good about chatting to Tiktik, but, and I’m not saying she’s colluding, but she certainly gets on very well with all the rat men she meets and she hasn’t got on great with every human she’s met.

And Fred went over to the dwarf slave, and told her that we were not with them. And he asked her what was going on here. When she looked doubtful he told her we were scouts and we needed to know what was happening. And the dwarf realised he was telling the truth and told him her name was Hetri and that she was also a scout. She told Fred that she could guide us through the karak if we needed help.

And when Fred asked her what the rat men were up to, Hetri said something quite mad, but ultimately, something, that in the light of everything we had learned so far, made sense. She said that the rat men were planning on shooting down Morrslieb.

When Fred told us, it seemed to make sense, with all the charts and books Willow had found about the course of the moon, in the signal tower, and the moon rock that had fallen on the Barren Hills, it seemed like we had been on the trail of this long term rat man plan for some time.

But Erina just got angry. She said that it didn’t make any sense at all and there was no way anything could reach Morrslieb. She said that she was prepared to believe in rat men, and even prepared to believe in the upside-down world (told you!), but there was no way she could believe this.

And Fred said it wasn’t important whether we believed it, it was whether the rat men believed it, and even if they couldn’t reach the moon with their gun, what if they could reach Middenheim. So, whatever we thought, it was vital that word of this got back to the graf.

But he also said Morrslieb comes very close sometimes, and even if they couldn’t blow up the whole moon, even if they just knocked a few shards off, it would be a disaster as we had seen what one rock could do to the Barren Hills.

We asked Hetri where the gun was, and she said it was at the top of the hold, and she would be able to guide us there. And then we heard another bong. Fred asked Hetri what it meant and she said, ‘nothing good.’ But Fred suddenly realised it might be some sort of counter, or even a count down. And he guessed that the previous bong had been about an hour before this one, so he made a note to keep careful track of the time to see how long it would take for the next bong.

And Erina went to talk to Tiktik again, to see if we could grab a slave to carry stuff for us. And Tiktik said it would be fine. So she came back to the pen, and lifted a bit of it up to allow Hetri to leave. But then a load of other slaves came towards her, hoping to be freed, too. And Erina put the fence back down, to stop them. And sort of shrugged apologetically, and told them she was sorry and that we might be back later.

Greta slipped Hetri a dagger, and as we left I think we all resolved to do our very best to return to the slave pen and release them all. But also, in the backs of our minds, I think we all thought that we must give ourselves other priorities, however harsh that sounded. Fred told us that our priority must be to get word of this back to the graf, and rescuing the slaves shouldn’t jeopardise this.

Hetri lead us out of the slave pens towards some stairs, and as we left, some giant rats (not rat men, mum, but just big rats) came over and sniffed us. I don’t know what they were after but Erina kicked one of them away, and we continued.

At the top of the stairs Hetri warned us we should keep it down a bit as we passed the barracks area. And then we came into a great chamber, that Hetri said was the old dwarf king’s throne room. But the throne had been covered by an array of crude wooden platforms.

Some rats were going through a group of slaves, selecting them for some purpose. And we saw a rat man chained to the throne. It looked like a clan Mange rat and we wondered whether this might be the leader of clan Mange, and having him captured was the reason the other clans were able to oppress clan mange. I don’t love them, mum, but I think clan Mange is the clan I hate least of all.

And then we heard a third bong. And Fred said he thought it had occurred a lot quicker than the second bong. And so with a greater sense of urgency, we left the throne room and Hetri led us through the maze of corridors and chambers and up another flight of stairs. And we came to another large hallway which was very tall and in places open to the night sky. And we could see Morrslieb on his way across the sky.

And this chamber looked like it had been hacked around by rat men, knocking it through to make it larger. And the whole place was littered with signs of industry. We could see machinery and vats, and things glowing green, and the crackling of lightning.

And we crossed this area, and came across a wall with a dwarven inscription upon it. And as Hetri read it she sort of smiled and translated it for us.

I, Runelord Thognar Torbrow let it be known that the denizens of Karak Skygg have relented this place. No dwarf, nor any other, shall dwell in these halls. Should they fall under the dominion of foul orcs, goblins, or elves, this karak shall be rendered into ruin. Beyond this wall are stowed full hundred casks of powder for the firing. Do what thou must, son of Grungni.

Then she depressed one of the runes carved into the wall and a door slid open. We went inside to find a huge store of black powder barrels. This was certainly enough to blow the whole place sky high. And there were long fuses and matches, to give us some time to escape.

But Fred spotted that there was a whitish rime over most of the barrels. And Blume said that indicated that the contents had spoiled and wouldn’t be blowing anything up. So we searched through the barrels and only managed to find ten that were unspoiled.

We left the store to look for the weapon that was to blow up the moon and we took three of the barrels with us. We decided it was too soon to wander through the hold weighed down by two barrels each.

Next we came to a workshop. It looked like this was where they were fabricating some of the more intricate elements of the gun. And there were furnaces and molten metals and glowing rocks, and all sorts of things. And Blume said it was very impressive and efficient.

And we saw some schematics lying across a bench that looked like it was for a giant cannon, so we quickly grabbed them for evidence. And we were interrupted by a moustachioed human with a yellow fang patch. And he asked what we were doing with the barrels. And we told him that it was for the gun. And he patronisingly explained that this gun didn’t need gun powder. And he introduced himself as Hermann von Talg, and began explaining how the gun worked. It was very boring, mum.

But he carried on talking to Blume, who was agreeing with most of what he had to say, and I couldn’t tell whether she was pretending to agree or she actually agreed. He told her about how his university in the Empire was too staid and to experiment, or risk blowing up lab assistants, and how working for the rat men offered many more opportunities.

Blume asked him how much he earned working for the rat men, and I think I saw that she might be interested in him, but he said he only got room and board and the opportunity to experiment, which immediately put her off. Blume asked him if she could see the big gun, and von Talg agreed and called it the Moonbreaker. And said that Maliss (whoever he is, mum) was the greatest genius in history.

But he said that the gun was very delicately balanced and a lot could go wrong. He said that if the warpfuel is contaminated… boom! If the induction chamber is misaligned with the charge bore… boom! If the transmission gear rotates a shade too slowly… boom! So that was interesting, and I think we were all making sure to remember those bits, mum.

And he showed us the gun which was absolutely huge, and it poked up through a hole in the cavern ceiling. And beneath the gun there were lots of rat men covered in very thick rubbery outfits, which must have been there to protect them from something. And I think we all realised that the protective clothing would be a great way to disguise ourselves if we could make ourselves move like rat men.

I sneaked up to the next level to have a look for good places to plant our black powder. And right at the top they had some big vats of glowing greed liquid, and some rat slaves were pouring things into the vats. But it was all very exposed and it didn’t look like there was anywhere to hide the bombs. And I saw a huge rat man next to a gong that was carved with the horned rat device we had seen in the rat temple under Middenheim. And it was obviously his job to make the bongs. I decided he must be what the others had called a rat ogre when they’d fought one beneath Middenheim. And I wondered whether stopping him would stop the countdown.

And then I saw a sort of map room with lots of charts and astrolabes and the like, and chained to a lectern, with a heavy metal gag across her mouth, and this was very surprising, mum, but it was Janna Eberhauer. Yes, mum, Erina’s sister was here. The rat men had kidnapped her before, and we had rescued her. But she was clearly very important to their plans, as she was one of the most accomplished celestial wizards in the Empire. And she was chained up in the map room, and I supposed she would be forced to help them aim the moonbreaker.

And so I went back down, and I avoided Erina, and pulled Fred aside and told him about Janna. And so he sneaked up to have a quick look, and came back down again and went to talk to Erina.

When he told her that Janna was up there, and all chained up, she went mad. She swore and insulted her sister, and said she was going to kill her, but I think that was just her way of showing concern. But now it made our job a lot harder because as well as everything else, we had to rescue Janna as well.

To be honest, mum, I was tempted not to tell anyone about her, but in the end I told Fred, so he could decided whether to tell Erina or not. Hopefully he made the right decision. Hopefully Erina won’t go off to rescue her sister and spoil all our plans.

But when Erina had calmed down, she thanked Fred for telling her, and explained that everyone else should focus on the cannon, but she would focus on rescuing her sister. It was just something she had to do.

And so we retired to the secret powder store to discuss things. And we had a lot to discuss. We have to stop the cannon from destroying the moon, but we should probably destroy the cannon at the same time.

We have the black powder but it is hard to know where we should put it. We could put single barrels in lots of places, hoping one of them would do the trick, or put them all in one place. From what von Talg said it won’t be hard to damage the cannon, but I think it will be hard to hide the bombs.

There are lots of non-rat slaves that we might be able to use as a distraction, and in any case, we should try to free them. There are lots of rat slaves that could cause a distraction but I think we will need to free the Mange clan leader to encourage them. And there are probably other ways to cause a distraction.

So that’s that, mum, we are trying to decide how best to deal with all these elements, and we have to decide quickly because it looks like they are planing to set the cannon off very soon. And then there was another bong.