39: Punishment

Solvej was wondering how to keep the assassin in the barrel and Foambeard had the great idea to turn the barrel upside down, which seemed to work and then he gave Solvej another beer. I think perhaps she had had enough by then, but I had had a few beers, too, so who was I to judge. Kurtis explained to us how he had packed Pfeifraucher back on his coach. He was just saying it to show off, probably. Solvej was nattering to Seedling about Karl-Heinz but I don’t think she had that much to say about him. I think Seedling was more into petty gossip than high politics, but then she had a good audience for that in Solvej.

It wasn’t long before we heard a commotion in the next room and went in to see Pfeifraucher lying on the floor with Lorith stood over him. So much for Kurtis dealing with him. I don’t know why he feels the need to lie about stuff like this. Even if it impresses the gravin, it soon comes back to bite him. Kurtis stepped up to ask the elf if he could be off assistance, but it looked like she had the matter in hand. Kurtis dragged Pfeifraucher off for the third or fourth time that evening. Hopefully that would be the last we saw of him, but I doubted it.

As Kurtis went past me, however, he told me he would talk to me later. And he was rather menacing. I guess he was still upset about the friendly tap I had given him earlier. I resolved to try to stay out of his way for the rest of the evening, and I moved a little closer to Gulgad. I’m not saying I am scared of Kurtis, and we are supposed to be friends, but sometimes he gets a sort of violent glint in his eye and it’s like he is unpredictable and even deliberately cruel. Gulgad would stand up to him, for me, probably. For all the aggression and violence in the dwarf, he was rather peaceful, really, especially when it came to keeping the peace among the six of us. At the moment he was keeping an eye on Cristoph Engel who we thought had been responsible for some of the magic that had been happening, but I think he should have been keeping a closer eye on Kurtis.

And suddenly we heard screams and strange noises coming from the reception and went to see what that was about. A huge boar was attacking the guests, it snarled and growled wildly and then bit one of the guests, clamping its mouth tightly around her arm. Erhardt tried to dispel whatever magic was behind the event, but that did not work, and so Gulgad brought his axe down and decapitated the creature. Instead of blood and guts, however, only horsehair and sawdust emerged from the creature’s body.

The victim was still hysterical, and Gulgad and I tried to calm her down, but to be fair, neither of us were very good at it. Gulgad eventually managed to prise the boar’s head from her arm, and amazingly, her supposed wounds just disappeared before our eyes leaving no trace. I tried to take credit for the healing but was as surprised as anyone. Solvej joined the victim in the powder room, trying to console her, but she was still distraught and decided it was the worst party she had ever been to, which was probably fair comment.

We heard the MC struggling by the door, instead of announcing someone he was trying to keep them out. A woman managed to squeeze herself through the gap, and she was carrying a baby. I thought perhaps she might be trying to find Kurtis, but it turned out that she was after Baron Holzenauer. She called for him to come and acknowledge his child. Holzenauer told some of his servants to get rid of her, but as they stepped towards her, we could hear loud booing coming from some of the onlookers (actually it was just Erhardt). Then the gravin stepped in and was much more diplomatic. She said that it was the law in Ubersreik that a child should be supported by the father and that the woman should get some gold now, and they could meet the next day to give her a fair hearing. This got enthusiastic applause from the onlookers and so Holzenauer had little choice but to comply.

Solvej was asking Erhardt about whether it should be our job to poison people. Erhardt had stopped at least two poisonings so far this evening, so it would have been a strange change of tactics. I have noticed that Solvej does seem to get carried away with her role sometimes, and under pressure, or perhaps under other darker influences, she makes extreme decisions in the name of good. I’m not really sure what to make of it all. Solvej also suggested that maybe it was up to us to decide who ultimately gets to rule Ubersreik. I hoped she was not considering poisoning all the other contenders.

Before Erhardt and Solvej could come to some agreement about the poisoning, they noticed thick black smoke billowing from the kitchen and rushed to help. Solvej quickly grabbed a bowl full of punch and threw it on the fire, which added steam to the smoke. Then she forced a poker up the chimney and managed to dislodge a wad of wet rags, solving the problem. Erhardt went outside to look at the roof and see if he could see anything up by the chimney. He couldn’t, though you could tell he was certain that there must be something up there. It was just too dark.

And then the MC, to our great surprise, announced Manfred von Saponatheim. And sure enough, he entered the party, all manicured and coifed and neatly dressed in von Saponatheim colours, looking a little bit confused about everything. Holzenauer immediately greeted him, telling him it was good to see him, and saying he hoped no one would be embarrassed by his presence, which I took to mean the opposite of that.

Now, I’m not that interested in all this petty politicking and schmoozing that these nobles do and if I didn’t have a nice plot of land lined up by the gravin for my orphanage, then I probably wouldn’t care too much about all the shenanigans at this party, but we had been told by the gravin to keep the embarrassing incidents down and promote the von Saponatheim’s claim to Ubersreik, so I knew having Manfred walking around the party wouldn’t be good for us. Besides, we had already effectively forced his sister to marry into the gravin’s family by feeding her lover to Manfred, so I think I probably felt a bit guilty about the whole situation.

I quickly fetched everyone and told Kurtis and Erhardt to remove Manfred while Solvej distracted Holzenauer. Manfred was already telling Holzenauer about his right to the von Saponatheim title when we got to them. Solvej offered her hand, and instead of kissing it, Manfred gave it a good sniff, and for a moment, seemed to recognise her from the smell. I feared for her fingers. But she used her charms, however limited, to entice Holzenauer away.

Kurtis ordered a servant to hand Manfred a glass of wine and as he did so, he bumped into the servant so that the wine was spilled all down Manfred’ s clothes. Kurtis made sure to chastise the servant and give him a good slap, and they insisted they should take Manfred upstairs to get him some dry clothes. Up in one of the bedrooms they managed to get Manfred’s clothes off of him, but he got a bit suspicious when Kurtis fumbled with the buttons on his breeches and went to leave. Fortunately Erhardt cast a spell to change Manfred’s appearance so when he marched downstairs in only his underwear, no one recognised him.

Gulgad and Kurtis were able to guide Manfred out into the street and they took him away from the house and down a dark alley. From what I understand, and I find this hard to believe, Gulgad then beat Manfred round the head with his knuckledusters until he fell unconscious. I think it much more likely that Gulgad merely stood by while Kurtis perpetrated the violence. Meanwhile Solvej had managed to extricate herself from Holzenauer’s attentions, which proved so easy, she didn’t know whether to be pleased or disappointed.

By now I’d had a few drinks and I had been thinking about Kurtis’ MO. I decided that I wouldn’t get the credit for looking after the gravin unless I told her about it directly. All the communication with her went through Kurtis and I suspected (it should have probably been obvious from the start, but I am a trusting sort and like to think the best of everyone) that Kurtis was twisting things to show him in the best light, taking the credit for what the rest of us were doing.

I decided to take the credit for dealing with Manfred. I feel like I dealt with the situation very well. No deaths, no poisoning, no cannibalism. All under my leadership. So when I saw the gravin next, I told her that I had been in charge of the incident, and that it had all gone smoothly. I even added a bit about Kurtis not wanting to help, which wasn’t strictly true, but I imagined all the things he said to her that wasn’t strictly true, so I think that was alright. I even told her that I thought she looked stunning. That was a nice touch, I think. That seemed like something Kurtis might say. I think that probably clinched it. It made me think that soon I might be the gravin’s favourite.

It was at around that time that I began to feel exceedingly ill. I had already noticed one or two of the guests looking queasy and disappearing into the powder room or the garden. I could see Solvej and she looked as bad as I felt. We both dashed to the powder room, but it was occupied and so we had to make do with the garden. It was not long before we were both puking in the flowerbeds, and even Gulgad joined us. Even as I was puking, I couldn’t help feeling something serious was wrong, and I hoped it was just an innocent mistake with some bad food rather than an attempt at poisoning us all.

Erhardt and Kurtis were unaffected, and Kurtis told the gravin that he thought it would be a good time for her to leave the party. She wasn’t convinced and upbraided Kurtis for his poor showing over the Manfred incident. The gravin told him what I had said about it, which he obviously wasn’t very pleased about. He even told the gravin about me punching him earlier that evening, which I think was telling tales. He explained to her that he had dealt with Manfred and he knew where he was, and so if the gravin wanted to end the Manfred problem permanently, Kurtis would do the deed for her.

Who knows what the gravin would have replied to that, as they were interrupted by another disturbance. The Baron de Grenouille, still in his knight-on-horse costume, was challenging another young noble to a duel. The gravin told Kurtis to deal with it (I could have dealt with it had I been there) and he directed them into the garden. The baron was armed with a rapier, so Kurtis lent his opponent his dagger, and after a few moments the baron had wounded his opponent and honour was satisfied. Although, as Erhardt pointed out, it was hardly a fair fight as the baron was mounted.

After we had all recovered a bit from our bout of puking, we could see that any number of the other guests had been suffering too, but we couldn’t work out what the source of the trouble had been. While we were discussing it, we saw Holzenauer slip something into the pocket of one of the Aschaffenberg entourage. Kurtis picked the man’s pocket and retrieved a piece of paper. It said,

‘Magister,

All is ready for tonight’s sacrifice. May the Dark Ones smile on our enterprise and may the von Bruners be avenged.

Aschaffenberg’

Kurtis wasn’t sure what to make of it, and he called the Aschaffenberg fellow, ‘Magister’ to see if that got a reaction, but it didn’t.

Then we saw Holzenauer talking to Captain Pfeffer and suggesting the watch be brought in to deal with everything. Erhardt pointed out that as the host, Holzenauer cold well be responsible for the poisoning. Then Kurtis told Pfeffer about seeing Holzenauer plant the piece of paper, and showed her the evidence. Pfeffer decided that it was a very serious matter and that she would bring in a witch hunter, although she didn’t seem very impressed that Kurtis should be pickpocketing guests.

It was around this time that Solvej decided to check on Maximillian Aschaffenberg. He was still lying in the Holzenauer coach looking like death. Solvej began to wonder if she had killed him, after all, and came up with a plan to cover her tracks. She dragged him out of the coach and into the stables, and smeared dirt on the young noble’s face. Then she hit him a few times with a horseshoe until his ear was bleeding. Sometimes I think when Solvej gets stressed, she has a tendency to over-elaborate. Still, at least Max hadn’t been eaten, yet.

Solvej also saw Florian come through the stables. It seems he had returned yet again to the party. So she went to tell Lorith to watch out, as she thought he might be after revenge, but the elf was adamant she could look after herself.

The gravin told Kurtis to fetch her some punch, but Kurtis told her that he thought it wasn’t a good idea as there was some sort of poisoning happening, and that now would be a good time to leave the party. The gravin had to admit that Kurtis was probably right, and so she ordered us all to leave. Otto had been absent for some time, and I think probably had just drunk himself into a stupor, but Gulgad found him and carried him out. Kurtis ordered me to fetch Manfred which I think he did deliberately to demonstrate to the gravin that he was still in charge. I wasn’t sure about dealing with him on my own, so I asked Solvej for help.

Kurtis went to get the assassin from the barrel, so our group had swollen somewhat since the start of the party, and we were all occupied as we made our way to the gravin’s coach. Except Erhardt. I’m not saying it was all Erhardt’s fault, because some of the blame must lie with Kurtis. He was in charge, after all. But Erhardt was the only one left guarding the gravin.

Solvej and I were on our way to get Manfred when we heard a shout from behind us. Eberhardt von Dammenblatz himself was there shouting at the gravin. He must have been waiting in the shadows all evening for her to emerge from the party. He drew his pistol ranting about his deceased father and having his revenge. We all ran back towards the gravin as fast as we could. Erhardt cast a spell to make Eberhardt drop the pistol, and although he seemed to fumble it for a few moments, he kept hold of it, aimed it at the gravin and fired. She fell to the floor and Eberhardt laughed maniacally. Erhardt ran to the mad noble and hit him with his staff, but Eberhardt didn’t seem to care. He had finally got his revenge and he was unconcerned with the consequences.

I ran towards the gravin and prayed to Shallya to save her. It looked to me like she was already very close to death. The gravin may not have been a devout Shallyan but she had promised me land for my orphanage. Surely Shallya would look kindly upon that. But as I prayed, I felt sort of empty. I felt like there was no answer. And the gravin died. I think Shallya had forsaken me. And not only had she forsaken me, she had decided to punish me. I felt Shallya’s wounds inflicted upon my body as she purged my flesh of my sins.

Although this all happened in a split second, time slowed for me and I had time to consider the last few months, the time I had spent adventuring with this group, and things became clear. I was left critically hurt myself, the goddess of mercy and healing punishing me with physical injury. Lying over the gravin’s dead body, my dreams of a Shallyan orphanage destroyed, my sins and those of my companions exposed, our actions judged and found wanting. Our endeavours shown up to be a litany of failure. We had thought it was some great game, but it was not, and now the gravin lay dead, Genevieve was rotting in prison, Natassia condemned to an awful marriage, her fiancé killed, Boniel von Bruner murdered, Rudi dead, Josef dead, Manfred pummelled, Max pummelled, Marband insane, Orban killed, and Gustav dead. Shallya finally released me from this terrible realisation, and I lost consciousness.