9: Interrogation

While the fighting continued at the club for fighting, Gulgad and Erhardt were left in Vielfras’ inner sanctum. They covered up the strange statue and began rifling through the place. They took some papers written by Vielfras. One was an unsettling religious poem, hinting at the Dark God S______. And there was a hurriedly written note on top about Heske Glaser saying he thought that she suspected him and that he feared she had been keeping a close eye on his activities. He wanted to have her killed and he thought he might get Orban to do the deed.

Meanwhile, it was clear to me that Solvej and Kurtis wouldn’t be coming to the Raven, it didn’t surprise me, however, as I knew that if Kurtis had someone else to hang out with, he wouldn’t bother with me. So, I wandered over to the warehouse to see what was up.

As I got there I saw a mob of citizens emerge from a side street and march purposefully on the place. The mob was led by an official-looking witch hunter figure, not Jonas Kellerman, thankfully. The mob swarmed into the warehouse, and it was clear there was about to be some real fighting at the club for fighting.

I tried to make my way in to see if I could be any help. As it happened, Kurtis had already sloped off unannounced. Solvej was trying to make her way through the melee but was blocked by bodies in the chaos. The witch hunter, Ursula Marband, was urging her mob on, and they were setting about the Altdorfers, their greater number gave them an advantage. Gulgad squared off against Marband, but someone threw some oil (can’t have a club for fighting without lots of oil) over Gulgad and it was set alight. So Gulgfad became ablaze for the second time in as many weeks.

Erhardt then, ostentatiously, went through one of his casting routines in order to intimidate the mob. The witch hunter got the wrong end of the stick, however, and seemed suddenly convinced that Erhardt must be a sorcerer of the Dark Gods. But realising this (erroneously?) she lost her nerve and ordered her followers to retreat. She made it clear to Erhardt, however, as she retreated, that he was now her sworn enemy. A few of the remaining Altdorfers fled, leaving only Orban in the building with us, and we made sure to arrest him and tie him up.

We thought about bringing Orban to the watch barracks. We were a bit unsure of ourselves as he was an occupying soldier and we knew some of our watch sympathised with the Altdorfers, we also thought he was bound to have friends in high places. We resolved to do out duty regardless and decided to bring him to Maurer’s old workshop as it was handy and we knew it was unoccupied.

So, in the wqorkshop, we had to get the truth out of Orban somehow. There was some discussion about how to do it, and during this Gulgad stood by the door being as intimidating as he could. This was rather undermined by the divided and sorry efforts of our interrogation. Solvej, upset by the events at the club for fighting (I fear she is not cut out for this sort of lifestyle) seemed particularly on edge and was getting increasingly eager to hurt Orban.

On the other hand, I was adamant that he should not be hurt. It is strictly against all Shallyan teaching to pick on the helpless or harm those who cannot harm you. Erhardt tried to be more reasonable, and he showed Orban the evidence we had forund, the note suggesting Vielfras was about to ask Orban to kill Heske for him. We also showed him the ramblings in homage to the unnamed Dark God. Orban held the piece of paper up and read it, and I thought for a moment we had convinced him of Vielfras’ guilt, but suddenly he stuffed the paper into his mouth, chewed it up, and swallowed it. I’m a man of Shallya, of course, but maybe Solvej had a point.

Whatever we said, Orban could not be convinced that Vielfras was in the wrong, or a follower of the Dark Gods, and would not help us with any of our questions. We did not want to release him, and we did not have much of an idea of what we could legally do with him. In the end we went to Captain Pfeffer and managed to convince her to lock him up. That way at least we would keep him close, while keeping him safe from witch hunter Marband.