20: A Sack of Apples

At around twenty to eleven everyone in the gravin’s party went to bed and the bar was soon emptying. Only the scholars remained with us, and of course the landlord. Otto was up in bed recovering from his illness or enjoying his weirdroot, and Kurtis was with Genevieve the harpist, probably discussing plucking techniques or fingering positions.

One of the scholars then left and Erhardt, who had been weirdly fascinated by the distinctly unfascinating scholars all evening followed her up. But she had already disappeared before he could get up the stairs, and so he went to see Otto. While he was there, he heard some heated language coming from the gravin’s section of the inn. Then he sensed some sort of shadowy figure near him and his purse, the one where he keeps all the party’s joint funds, not his own money, had suddenly gone. It occurs to me he could have just decided he wanted to keep the money for himself and made up the story of the shadow. It is exactly the sort of story a Grey Wizard would make up! Otto should have been a witness but, because of the weirdroot, was not in any fit state to witness anything.

Erhardt came down to ask us if we’d seen the gnome, as he was convinced the thief was Glimbrin the gnome we had seen earlier. Solvej went to look around outside to check access to our rooms from the windows. She went to the stable to see if anything was going on and met one of the Gravin’s soldier who wasn’t very helpful but did point out the gnome was not part of the gravin’s party.

Kurtis came back from Genevieve’s and was all full of himself, again. He told us he didn’t kiss and tell while telling us all about it, not that any of us were interested. He seemed to think that just because he had had loads of girlfriends and I hadn’t had any, that that somehow made him more successful than me with members of the opposite sex. I tried to explain that the right one hadn’t come along yet, but he didn’t get it.

We tried to think about Otto’s poisoning, reasoning that someone had been out to get Bruno in order that the gravin’s trial by combat might fail. The landlord wasn’t being very helpful but all we could piece together was that the tray with the drinks had been brought over by a young woman, and no young woman worked at the Three feathers, but there were any number in the gravin’s retinue.

The remaining two scholars then got up to leave, and Erhardt again followed them out. I’m not sure what his obsession with these scholars was but suspected that he could smell, or taste, or whatever he does to sense, magic on them. Unfortunately, as he tried to surreptitiously to follow them up the stairs he stumbled and gave the game away. He said the scholars rather snootily asked him what he was up to, but I think if I were followed around by a stumbling Grey Wizard I might be snooty about it, too.

So, it was time for bed. Gulgad went up to his room and pushed his bed under the window so that if anyone came in through the window they would land on him. This is the exact opposite thing I would do in the circumstances, but then Gulgad is a Dwarf.

On returning to the room he shared with Otto, Erhardt was surprised to find the body of the first scholar sprawled across the floor, bludgeoned to death, with a gaping head wound. When asked about it, Otto explained that he had been aware of a visitor to the room, some sort of apple merchant who came up through the floor and delivered a sack of apples and then left. Just say no!

Although Otto didn’t seem to mind his delirious state, we needed the information, so I took it upon myself to pray to Shallya to clear his mind of the influence of the weirdroot. Once his head had cleared, however, he was not able to give us any more useful information. Although he at least now realised that the sack of apples was no such thing.

Meanwhile Solvej was looking around the inn. She went through the various ground floor rooms and found the cellar, which was merely full of beer and wine. She also went into the common room looking for Glimbrin. She couldn’t find him but found Seedling who was not very happy about being woken up and said she hadn’t seen the gnome before going back to sleep.

We were all stood around Otto’s room wondering what to do about the body when there was a knock on Erhardt’s door. It was one of the Gravin’s servants asking if Erhardt would visit Gustaf Rechtshandler’s room as soon as possible.

Erhardt, Solvej, and Kurtis went to see Gustav, and accidentally called Solvej by her real name, forgetting her ingenious alias. Solvej quickly covered this by claiming her name was Greta Solvej but Gustav was not fooled. Realising he had been lied to Gustrav was put on the back foot and wondered whether they were there to do him harm. Despite his reservations Gustav revealed that he was being blackmailed by the two scholars (who weren’t real scholars), and he asked that we deal with the issue for twenty crowns. I’m not sure why he thought we might be the sort of people who would agree to murder people for money. In any case, we noticed that Gustav had said two scholars. How had he known that one of them was already dead? Clearly, he was involved in the death of the first scholar.

Solvej insisted that if we were to do the job for Gustav then he should make Gulgad the Gravin’s champion. Gustav said he did not have the final say on this but would do what he could. When I first met Solvej she had appeared to be a simple northern lass lost in a world she didn’t understand. She seemed to be overly friendly and unnecessarily ingratiating. I now realise this was a bit of an act, perhaps to keep her safe, and now she was showing a more manipulative and ruthless side. Now, the stakes were higher, and we were wanted by the law (probably), and also somewhat more hardened to the realities of life, she was scheming to get Gulgad in a place of power in order to keep herself safe. This is all conjecture, but there is definitely more to Solvej than meets the eye. I wondered if she had just made friends with us in order to survive, and as soon as she found a better deal, might drop us like a stone, maybe taking Gulgad with her. I resolved to watch her more closely and trust her less.

So, everyone was soon back in Otto’s room wondering what to do. We were packed into the small room, with a body in the middle, Otto’s bed talking up most of the space, cramped and uncomfortable. Erhardt sensed the magical wind around the body and declared it reminiscent of the wind he had sensed around the strange sculpture and around Orban at the club for fighting. With us all crammed nervously into the small room for hours with a dead body, I could also sense some unpleasant winds.

The discussions were long and intense with many of us going back and forth on whether we should dispose of the scholars. As a man of Shalya, if I still was, I certainly did not condone any violence and certainly not murder, but I could not help but see that our actions over the past few days had led to this and we seemed backed into a corner with few choices. I blame Kurtis.

It was at this time we also realise that Otto’s tusk dagger had gone missing, which was his favourite possession and he had just spent a lot of money getting turned into a weapon. And his purse had gone, also. We once more resolved to find the gnome. I do not condone violence, so I plan on not being there when we do.

Our deliberations were interrupted by the sound of creaking floorboards from down the corridor and we opened the door to see the two remaining scholars. We called them in to reveal that we knew where their friend was. They were shocked to see her lying on the floor quite dead, but soon recovered and were anxious to negotiate with us. We told them that Gustav wanted them dead and they told us that they were very rich and could easily best any money he had offered us.

Then we revealed that we had met their kind in Ubersreik and had put an end to their plans there. This made them agitated, and things got very tense. Something needed to happen to break the tension, but unfortunately for everyone, Solvej happened. The hunter suddenly drew her dagger and lunged at one of the scholars. He was injured and then Kurtis moved in, as I had already seen him do this week, finished the helpless victim off. Then the other scholar drew her blade. It was a strange looking thing and it seemed to hum as she wielded it.

I needed to stop the bloodshed and I channelled Shallya’s peace toward Kurtis to stop him attacking her too. It was still fresh in my memory what he did to Boniel von Bruner, and my words did seem to stay his hand. But the second scholar attacked Kurtis, taking advantage of that delay, and the strange blade hit him and seemed to drink his blood. Gulgad moved in and hit the remaining scholar. Then Otto picked up one of the singing blades and struck the last scholar with it and she was dead.

So we stood there for some moments, three bodies lying on our inn room floor, wondering what we had just done, and how it had happened. We looked at Solvej who had started the whole thing off. She was even more unstable than I thought, and I didn’t know what to do about it.

And Otto was standing there with the strange dagger with a strange look in his eyes. It was the sort of look I had also seen in Solvej’s eyes. We were concerned about him still wielding the cursed weapon, and he said he liked the feel of it in his hand. We managed to get it off him by promising we would get his tusk-weapon back.

I could see that the event had affected him and so I decided to channel Shallya’s grace to remove some of the darkness in his soul. I’m not saying that I failed because Shallya is punishing me for being involved in three murders in a week, but I failed, and I think I may have made things worse. Otto certainly looked tortured about the whole incident.

Then Kurtis got very upset with me. He called it affecting his mind, I called it filling him with the grace and mercy of Shallya. He told me never to do anything like that to him ever again and stormed off but I had to go after him to check his wound as I was concerned that the strange weapon could have been poisoned or cursed or something. Although I couldn’t heal the wound I was satisfied that it was a normal sort of wound and should heal in the course of time.

We reported to Gustav who told us to get rid of the bodies and that we were now allies. We threw the bodies out the window and Gulgad and Erhardt went down to drag them to the river and threw them in. Erhadrt took the two singing daggers. He said he threw them in the river, too, but I am not sure whether to believe him.

Just when we thought our awful long night was over and we could get some sleep, we heard an almighty scream from the gravin’s section of the inn. So Solvej, Otto, Kurtis, and I rushed to her quarters, to find Bruno’s dead body lying on the floor surrounded by many of the gravin’s retinue who had come to see what the noise was about. Lo and behold, the murder weapon, sticking out of Bruno’s back, was Otto’s tusk-dagger. Never one to keep his cards close to his chest, Otto declared in front of all the witnesses that it was indeed his dagger, and he was immediately arrested.

The Gravin sauntered in and declared that as her judicial champion was dead, she would make Kurtis her new champion, and that he must travel to Nuln with her to fight to the death for her good name.