38: A Dysfunctional Party

Soon enough, the Baron de Grenouille was announced. He was wearing a sort of full-size horse costume, which I thought was probably a Bretonnian thing, but it did make it a bit difficult for him to get around the place. Then Heinrich Gutenberg turned up. He is the high priest of Verena in Ubersreik, and I have my own feelings about that, but Gutenberg had had the idea to come dressed as the goddess Verena herself, complete with skimpy dress and stuffed owl. I don’t think he was as convincing a goddess as Celestine, but he was certainly getting more decolletage than Solvej.

Otto managed to find Seedling and asked her about Glimbrin. She didn’t seem to know him that well, or she was being deliberately evasive. Otto implied that their kind would stick together, which Seedling got offended by. Otto told Seedling that if she ever did see him, she should tell him that Otto wanted to see him. Seedling offered to show Otto a trick, but needed a coin from him, and I think Otto is slowly beginning to learn about the way of the world, and he refused, no doubt saving himself a coin.

Solvej had managed to get Max to drink the graveroot and the annoying nob was soon unconscious and looking like death. She came out to the garden to tell me this, but I pointed out that that is what it is supposed to do. She wondered how she would tell whether he was really dead or not. She also wanted me to come back into the party and help her get Max into the powder room, but I had had enough of parties, and just wanted to sit in the garden by myself. I especially didn’t want to bump into Kurtis and Celestine. So Solvej went to find Otto instead.

So, Otto and Solvej decided to take Max upstairs to sleep it off, and they dragged him to the servants’ stairs as inconspicuously as they could. But they bumped into a maid there and came up with a story about max being drunk, so the servant, quite reasonably, suggested taking him to his carriage so he could be brought home. So thwarted, they dragged him outside the house, through the yard and all the way around the building, passing his coach, as they did. The coachman looked on confused. They pretended to have an amused conversation with the unconscious Max so as not to arouse his suspicion. Then they dragged him to the stables and decided to put him in the Holzenauer’s coach, for some reason. They managed to get him out of his makeshift ghost costume and put that costume over Otto’s bear costume and then Otto and Solvej walked back around the house again, continuing their imaginary conversation and making it look as though the ghost was still living.

As they came through the main entrance, seeing the ghost costume, the MC announced Otto as Max Aschaffenburg, which made Otto think that he was now actually Max Aschaffenburg and he asked Solvej whether he should go and find his father. Solvej explained the misunderstanding, which disappointed Otto as he thought he had finally made good. Then Otto went back to the yard and threw the ghost costume down the well. Then he did manage to get upstairs without being spotted and went through the rooms up there on the pretext of looking for the bathroom.

Meanwhile the gravin was trying to attract Kurtis’ attention. She was talking to Father Gunther who was tediously interrogating her on Theological matters, no doubt trying to come to an opinion on her virtue in the face of all the scurrilous rumours. But Kurtis took the hint and came up with a pretext for luring the gravin away, for which she was very grateful.

They were interrupted by a loud shriek and turned to see Florian Pfeifraucher trying to kiss Sister Celestine and her pushing him away. Kurtis quickly went over and pushed Pfeifraucher back and made sure Celestine was ok. Pfeifraucher asked Kurtis what he was going to do about it, in the way that nobles can get away with, but Kurtis told him they could talk about it later.

But the gravin was not looking impressed. She reminded Kurtis that this was a delicate matter and had to be handled with tact, while Pfeifraucher warned that his father was a big supporter of the gravin, which seemed like a threat of some sort. Kurtis guided Celestine away and told her, apparently, that I was a nice chap after all and that I should be given another chance. And he took her out to the garden.

So, I was not in a very good mood. I had finally met a nice Shallyan woman and after asking for Kurtis’ help, he had proceeded to woo her right in front of me, and obviously she had to fall for him. I don’t understand them. I’m not proud of the next few moments, but feeling so sorry for myself, having had a few too many drinks, having had Kurtis steal my one hope for happiness just because he could, as I saw him walking out to the garden looking so smug, I was overwhelmed with the urge to punch him. May Shallya forgive me. But, if I do say so myself, it was a nice punch, landing perfectly on his handsome nose, and sending him tumbling to the ground. It was then that I noticed Celestine had been standing right beside him dressed as the goddess of love and peace. I think I may have spoiled my chances with her.

She knelt down beside Kurtis, cradling his head and began gently wiping the blood from his nose, which made me feel even worse. I felt like if I had just explained my reasoning, I may have got Celestine back on side, but I don’t think it was ever to be, and Kurtis and I then just exchanged a few stupid insults. In the end the only thing I could think of to do was to tell Celestine that Kurtis was married. Celestine looked at him in disgust and began to run off. Kurtis called after her that he could explain and told her he wasn’t really married as she was in jail. And so we were just left in the garden, angrily staring at each other, with no Celestine.

Meanwhile Otto was in the bedroom of our gracious hosts going through their possessions. He managed to find some money, which he left behind, and a collection of risqué prints, which he stuffed down his trouser leg. Then he came back down the servants’ stairs, managing to avoid any attention and re-joined the party. He came out into the garden and saw me and Kurtis, and tried to reconcile us, but I think that boat has sailed. In any case, he called us Shallyan moonbeams which isn’t the strictly correct theonym, but there is definitely hope for the fellow in his imminent career as a monk.

And then Lorith Silverleaf was announced. A hush fell as everyone turned to watch the elf enter. She was certainly beautiful but more than that she had an ethereal quality that captivated everyone. Not everyone was dumbfounded by her otherworldliness, however, and Otto quickly grabbed a couple of drinks and introduced himself. I think it is good that Otto doesn’t underestimate his own allure, probably. In any case, the elf dismissed him with a few arrogant words. Although to be fair, ‘would you like a beer, hen,’ is probably not the best way to address an elf.

Then another scream broke the quiet, a fox was darting round the drawing room nipping everyone. Otto quickly sicced Schnitzel on the creature but the poor dog was as terrified as everyone else. Luckily Gulgad managed to grab the thing. It turned out to be a fox fur stole belonging to one of the guests and animated by some mysterious force. Erhardt sensed the area around the creature and found a trail of grey magic leading to Christoph Engel who was watching from a corner of the room, gleefully.

As a distraction from the distraction, Solvej lit one of her firecrackers and threw it into the room. I think this was to put off any wizard who may have been controlling the creature, which was good thinking, and it did take everyone’s mind off of the fox, but I find quite often with Solvej’s attempt to put things right, the cure is sometimes worse than the disease. I’m not sure whether the firecracker was more frightening than the fox, but it certainly shocked everyone, and her attempt to make a game of it with the guests encouraging them to wager on the result of the fight between Schnitzel and the fox and then Gulgad and the fox fell a bit flat. Especially when Gulgad smashed the fox against the wall showering everyone with pieces of fox skull.

The gravin was looking around for Kurtis, which she seemed to do every time anything happened. But as he wasn’t there, she got Solvej to get rid of the dead fox, which she threw down the well, and then went to fetch Kurtis. I think Solvej wasn’t in the best mood about having to run around after Kurtis and the gravin. I think Solvej feels a bit like me, in that we run around doing the gravin’s bidding, going out of our way to make things go as smoothly as possible, always at her beck and call, but whatever we do, Kurtis gets the credit. So, when she got to the garden she told Kurtis, quite angrily that the gravin wanted him. And to wipe the blood off his face. She was going to do it herself but didn’t want to get her new dress dirty.

When Kurtis got back to the drawing room, Pfeifraucher was now trying to kiss the gravin. Kurtis quickly grabbed him, but Pfeifraucher hung on to the gravin, and she fell. Kurtis told Otto to help the gravin while he dealt with Pfeifraucher. Otto, lovely chap that he normally is, had had a few drinks, and I don’t think he is a very friendly drunk. He took exception to being ordered around by Kurtis, as we all do, I think, and stormed off, leaving the gravin on the floor.

Solvej, at least, was on hand to help the gravin, and as she tried to get her up, the gravin fell back down again. Something was clearly seriously wrong. Solvej told Gulgad to fetch me and when I got there the gravin was unconscious and in a cold sweat, and her body had gone limp. I didn’t really know what it might be, so all I could do was offer up a vague prayer to Shallya but that didn’t seem to do much. But I thought it would be best to assure everyone that the gravin would be fine, even if I didn’t really believe it myself.

Meanwhile Erhardt sensed someone trying to leave the room and grabbed him. It was a noble looking, but rather inconspicuous, man. Erhardt tried his ‘can I help you’ approach which is more intimidating than it sounds. They had a rather polite disagreement, but Erhardt kept hold of the interloper and made sure he couldn’t leave.

Solvej decided to look around for help, getting Karl-Heinz, the gravin’s brother, who wasn’t much help, and Celestine. And she bumped into Kurtis in the garden. He was having a heated debate with Pfeifraucher. Solvej did her best to calm them down, but Kurtis pulled his knife and threatened to kill the man, if he didn’t reveal his part in the gravin’s poisoning. Pfeifraucher broke down and insisted he was just a bit drunk and didn’t mean any harm, and Kurtis decided that he was being sincere.

Meanwhile Celestine had examined the gravin and couldn’t see what was wrong, either. So then Solvej fetched the elf, Lorith, for a third opinion. I’m not sure why she thought just being an elf gets you to be an expert on this sort of thing. But to be fair, Lorith did actually spot a mark on the gravin’s body where the skin had been pierced and she had been poisoned. But Lorith couldn’t do anything about it. Anyway, while all this was going on and we were getting any number of opinions about the gravin, I could see she was slowly slipping away, becoming increasingly limp, and increasingly pale.

We needed to get information from Erhardt’s prisoner. If he was the poisoner, which looked likely, he might know how to save her. I handed Erhardt one of my vials of Truth Nectar, which I felt confident, would get the truth out of him. However, Erhardt, the great wizard, didn’t trust anything like that, and decided to take the matter into his own hands., He summoned a load of grey power, probably, and used it to magically strangle the man until he was unconscious. Once he was unconscious, they found a ring on him, with a needle in it, containing some sort of poison. I recognised it as Heartkill, I think, the same stuff that had been used to poison Otto at the Three Feathers, and therefore, we decided, this must be another plot by House Dammenblatz. Anyway, they stuffed the would-be assassin into an empty barrel and Solvej sat on it.

Now knowing that the gravin had been poisoned, I prayed, and through the power of Shallya, and no little faith on my part, I should add, in a few moments some colour came to the gravin’s cheeks, and she regained consciousness. See, Celestine and elf, that is what you can do if you were a devout follower of Shallya with faith and dedication. See!

As soon as the gravin came round, she asked for Kurtis. Now, I’m a very positive person, and I don’t complain much, but this one really got my goat. I had been doing my best to keep her alive, I was humiliated by Solvej trying to find supposedly better people than me to help the gravin, and it was me, well, Shallya working through me, but really, me, who saved her life. And the first thing she does on coming round was to ask for Kurtis, who had done nothing, and was probably having a fight in the garden, again. So, you will understand why I just shouted something about Kurtis and stormed off.

The gravin called for a drink, and Erhardt was careful to purify it, just in case, and she seemed to be much better. She decided it was important that she be seen to be alive and well and enjoying the party, so making joking excuses about having had one too many to drink she re-joined the revelry. Whatever you say about the gravin, she is certainly brave and dedicated to her position.

Solvej managed to chat further with Seedling. She got some gossip like Doctor Krup was upstairs in flagrante with Netta Volkman, whoever she was. I don’t think this sort of idle gossip is really what we need. Seedling seemed more interested in finding stuff out about Netta but Solvej told her to see if she could get any information on the assassin we had in the barrel.

Then Solvej talked to Lorith the elf and told her she was amazing. (Just for the record it was me that saved the gravin's life.) And then said, ‘So, you’re not from around here?’ While this might not have been the best comment, and Solvej is apt to state the obvious, the withering response she got from the elf was undeserved. Lorith did say she was intrigued by Solvej’s ignorance, and when Solvej replied that she was also here to learn the ways of the local people, the elf’s, ‘fascinating,’ was plainly intended ironically. So, Solvej sloped off, quite deflated. They do say elves are up themselves. I thought Kurtis was up himself, but Lorith is even more up herself than Kurtis is. Imagine starting a conversation with Kurtis by telling him he is amazing, though.

Then another guest turned up. She was dressed as a flagellant. Now flagellation is the sort of subject I usually steer away from, but I have found myself encountering it on a number of occasions over the past few months. There seemed to be a bit of a thing for it at the Temple of Shallya in Ubersreik. I have not found it in many of Shallya’s teachings and my suspicion is that Father Gunther (the Shallyan one, not the Sigmarite one) is more into it than he needs to be from a strictly theological perspective. Then the club for fighting that Vielfras and his followers formed seemed to me to be the sort of mixture of pleasure and pain that is ostensibly cathartic but actually unhealthy. And I think Vielfras’ worship of the dark god S______ bears this out.

I do not want to be critical of the Cult of Sigmar that must necessarily hold the Empire together. And I see the violence inherent in that cult to be a necessary evil provided it is balanced with a similar degree of mercy and pacifism from the Cult of Shallya, for which I do my bit. And although the practice of flagellation is only adopted by a minority of cultists, I do not believe it can be beneficial to society in general. Anyway, it was only a costume.

And it turned out, Erhardt knew the flagellant. It was the witch hunter Marband who we had bumped into any number of times over the past few months, and who had been obsessed with exposing the gravin’s supposed fall to the dark gods. And without warning she attacked Erhardt with her whip. She struck him but he managed to compose himself enough to cast a spell to make her drop the whip. Then Gulgad grappled her to the floor. Surprisingly, though, she wriggled free from the dwarf and ran off to find the gravin. Solvej saw this and though reluctant to get involved as she was so proud of her new dress and didn’t want to mess it up, she grabbed Marband and wrestled her to the ground. Then she handed Marband back to Gulgad.

I wondered why she was still angry with Erhardt as they seemed to have been getting on much better recently and the last time they met they could even be called friends. But now, as Marband struggled to free herself from Gulgad’s grasp, she frantically explained how she had been drummed out of the witch hunters for failing to bring the gravin to justice. And in her shame had become a flagellant. It wasn’t a costume, after all. And now she wanted her revenge. Then she managed to wriggle free of Gulgad, once more. I guess he’s better at hitting people than holding them.

Solvej had to wrestle her to the ground again, and then Erhardt did that trick with the shadowy hands and strangled Marband until she was unconscious. Wondering what to do with her, they found another barrel and stuffed her in. And so Solvej was left sitting on two barrels full of people, with her dress all dusty and ripped. She was a bit upset about the state of her new clothes, but I think they probably suited her better like that.

In the end Gulgad managed to do a deal with Captain Pfeffer to take Marband down to the watch barracks and lock her up for the night, and have her released in the morning, which sounds quite generous, but I couldn’t help thinking it might come back to haunt us. And Kurtis took Pfeifraucher back to his coach and ordered the driver to take him home.