46: Opening Night

I was only told about all this second hand, of course, and I personally doubt that a lot of what I was told actually happened. I pieced together the various accounts, as best I could, but it was difficult to get past some of the self-serving versions and create a more objective report. I was content to spend my time spreading the good word and helping people at the temple, but I can’t help thinking that, had I been present, things would have turned out better.

Everyone, except Erhardt, had ended up spending the night at Paul’s. Although Solvej and Ursula had tried to throw Yanica out of her own home, they had decided not to risk sleeping there, after all. Paul was tolerant of this and embraced the bohemian atmosphere at his place and tossed off a few more sketches. In the morning he was enthusiastic about going to the opening night of Orron and Erris, courtesy of Kurtis. Kurtis made a thing of being generous about the ticket gift, but behind Paul’s back told everyone he had stolen it. They all met up for breakfast on the Street of a Hundred Taverns at the Gryphon and Star and decided that they would all try to go to Orron and Erris that evening, too. There was some talk of the strange blue creature, but it didn’t seem to matter as much that morning as it seemed to the previous night. And while some acknowledged their love or hatred of the creature, Ursula insisted that she had been ambivalent towards it, at best.

Kurtis tried to explain to Otto that he preferred to be called Sitruk in public but in private it was acceptable for him to call him Kurtis, which Otto may not have understood, and along similar lines Solvej announced that she really didn’t like being called Solly at all, although the feedback was that that habit would be hard to drop as they had been calling her that for nearly two whole days. And then Kurtis sang a song about Orron and Erris, but it was probably crap.

On the trail of the mysterious Kurtin and armed with a sketch Paul had done of Kurtis, Otto asked the landlord of the Gryphon and Star if he had seen anyone like that. He said that someone of that description did come in occasionally, usually with a band of hangers-on in tow, and that in his opinion he was a bit of a nob and liked showing off with his lute and getting everyone to say how brilliant he was at it. This made Otto think that perhaps Kurtis and Kurtin were the same person, after all.

Solvej and Ursula decided they needed to dress up for the occasion and headed back to Yanica’s. They found her half asleep and noticed her eyes seemed larger than usual, and there was a black wine bottle next to her bed, which Solvej disposed of. Yanica told them she had had a strange dream. Solvej told her that she was moving out and they had a bit of an argument about it. Yanica was probably a bit jealous that Ursula was Solvej’s new friend, but I think Solvej was a bit jealous, too, that Yanica had gone off with Maria. So Solvej got all her things together, but Yanica was still a bit out of it, and so while Solvej was packing up, she managed to swipe some of Yanica’s dresses and makeup. And when they had left, they felt like they needed some wigs to finish off their outfits and so went wig shopping.

Gulgad went to watch all the activity going on around the Grand Opera House and took the opportunity during a drinks delivery, to pose as one of the delivery people and sneak into the building. There were still a lot of preparations going on for the opening night, with scenery being painted and some last-minute rehearsals. He saw the chorus going over their parts and noticed some of the main cast including Belladonna and a blue-painted halfling. Gulgad looked around for somewhere to hide, but soon got noticed by some of the theatre staff and so made his excuses and left.

Erhardt was confident enough of getting into the theatre and managed to just walk in without anyone really bothering to notice him. He found a costume store and settled down to wait for the show to begin.

Otto went off for a bit. I think he was looking for a new job. Perhaps despairing of ever getting into the ratcatchers’ guild he had the idea that he might become a rescue worker, making sure the sewers were safe and saving people who fell into them. I’m not really sure. But he did manage to find a route through the sewers that emerged into the theatre coincidentally in the very costume room that Erhardt was hiding in. Thinking better of interacting with Otto, Erhardt decided to stay hidden, though.

While Gulgad kept watch on the theatre, Kurtis went off to find the right sort of gentleman’s outfitters. He managed to find one where the name Kurtin von Rottmar meant something and got a whole new outfit on the promise that Kurtin would settle up later. From what people said afterwards, I got the impression he actually looked a bit ludicrous with his teal outfit and mustard ostrich feather, but nobles do tend to look a bit ridiculous, so he had the look down. Maybe it is in the blood.

Solvej and Ursula were getting excited again, for another night on the town. I get the impression that Solvej is a lot more interested in dressing up and pretending to be a lady than she will admit, and Ursula, rather surprisingly, is just as keen to join her. They still needed a way to get into the theatre so went to the Bucket on the lookout for single men who might need a plus-one for the opera. They didn’t find any, but they managed to find a drunk couple, and while Solvej bumped into them in a distracting way, Ursula manged to pocket their two tickets. This was quite shocking behaviour from someone previously dedicated to upholding Sigmar’s laws. I’m not saying that Ursula’s downfall is directly linked to her association with us, but ever since she met us, her life seems to have been in a downward trajectory.

Kurtis, Gulgad, Solvej, and Ursula all met up outside the Grand Opera House. Kurtis was getting concerned that Ursula suspected him of being a cultist and knew that even though Ursula didn’t have much credibility at the moment, her ambition was to become a witch hunter again, so he knew he had to stay on her good side. Meanwhile Ursula was wondering whether Kurtis fancied her, and I think Kurtis going out of his way to placate her, made her think he did.

I think Kurtis had just planned on sauntering into the place with Gulgad posing as his bodyguard, but then noticed a tout selling tickets and managed to pocket a couple. And so they all entered the theatre with the rest of the audience.

Solvej and Ursula found themselves with rather decent tickets on one side of the upper circle, while the noble Kurtis and his bodyguard ended up in the stalls with the plebs. Looking around, Gulgad and Solvej both also noticed Kurtin and his entourage on the other side of the upper circle. I think by now Solvej was convinced that Kurtin was a dark cultist and behind some of the strange events that had been happening over the last few days and so kept a careful eye on him throughout the performance. But he didn’t do very much at all that evening except watch the play.

As the overture began Otto left the storeroom but there was so much activity around the performance that he found he could wander about unchallenged, so he found somewhere to sit to watch the play. A bit later, Erhardt emerged and sat behind a prop tree by the side of the stage, where he could see the performance quite closely but also keep an eye on the crowd.

The first couple of acts were ok. No one in the group was that interested in the music, preferring Kurtis’ style of folk ballads and bawdy songs, but the rest of the audience seemed to be enjoying it well enough, and the buzz was that it was quite good. In act one the chorus had been wearing papier mache spider outfits, and in the second act a blue-painted halfling had been playing a flute and the whole play took place in an enchanted forest. So this put everyone in mind of the forest, the spiders, and the blue daemon thing that they had encountered over the past few days.

In the interval Kurtis was feeling angry about everything and stormed off. He found himself heading to the upper circle on Kurtin’s side, for some reason. After the interval, however, the music soon began to get a bit strange.

Whether he was inspired by the discordant music and confusing melody or not, Otto decided to teach Erhardt a lesson. I don’t think we bully Otto, but it might be true to say we make fun of him quite a lot. I have to admit I am guilty of this too. But it seems to me he always takes this in good humour. And sometimes, it seems like he doesn’t even realise we are making fun of him. As I have mentioned a few times already, Otto is as thick as sewer water. Perhaps this mockery affects him more deeply than any of us realised and perhaps this feeling had been building up in him over the weeks, and perhaps the strange music simply allowed him to express himself.

Perhaps he had just had enough of being the butt of our jokes and this had been eating away at him for a long time. Perhaps the stress of our adventures has finally taken its toll on Otto like it has on Solvej and Kurtis. He insisted later he had not meant things to get so bad, and that it was just a practical joke intending only to humiliate Erhardt for threatening to kidnap Schnitzel, but that was not what transpired.

So, while Erhardt was hiding behind his scenery tree watching the show, and the music was becoming increasingly strange, Otto crept up behind him and pushed him into the centre of the stage. Unfortunately, and I am prepared to believe that Otto did not intend this, the shove was surprisingly powerful, and Erhardt fell onto a prop branch that was sticking up from the floor, impaled himself, and began to bleed profusely over the stage.

Some of the audience gasped in surprise but many of them thought it was part of the play. Some were so transfixed by the increasingly strange music that they could not react at all. Seeing Erhardt injured, Ursula stood up in the circle and screamed in fear for him. And the scream passed through the nervous audience like it was infectious. Some of the audience were becoming hysterical while some found themselves unable to move. The chorus positioned itself in front of Erhardt’s prone body hiding him from the audience, while Ursula jumped down from the circle onto the stage. Many of the audience thought this was part of a rather avant garde production and gave her a round of applause.

Solvej was still enthralled by the music and could not act. She thought about shooting her arrows into the orchestra pit but could not bring herself to do it. Gulgad ran towards the stage, pushing members of the audience out of his way. Kurtis was stood behind Kurtin’s box and was getting increasingly angry at Kurtin and the idea that Kurtin was behind everything that had made his life such a failure but couldn’t bring himself to do anything about it. Erhardt could only bleed over the stage, but he was aware of the music, and it put him in mind of the music he had heard at the Bucket a few days before, just before the forest had appeared, and how it had made him confused and annoyed at the time.

Otto was distraught at causing Erhardt’s injury, and ran onto the stage to help him. But Ursula confronted him and punched him in the face. Gulgad reached them and tried to tend to Erhardt’s wounds but wasn’t able to help much. So Otto tried to pull Erhardt across the stage to get help. Despite Erhardt bleeding over the stage, and Ursula and Otto fighting over him, and Gulgad jumping onto the stage, the actors covered as professionally as they could, and the audience seemed to keep their suspension of disbelief.

As he was getting dragged away by Otto, Erhardt pointed out to Gulgad and Ursula that the orchestra and the chorus were effectively casting a magical ritual. Ursula struck one of the chorus with her whip and that seemed to jog her out of her mental state and she stopped singing. But the spell continued and some sort of opening to another world appeared in the middle of the stage.

Kurtis was increasingly furious with Kurtin, and with the music driving his mood, he went through a litany of all the major gods and called to them for help, but they didn’t. So he implored any of the gods to help him. And whichever god it was, he managed to pull himself out of his rapture, and he shoved Kurtin over the balcony, to his death. One of Kurtin’s nobby companions looked at Kurtis, confused, and protested, but the other three sat there helplessly in thrall to the music.

As the portal got wider Gulgad stood in front of it, as if protecting the entire theatre, he could look into it and see the strange forest everyone had been caught up in a few days earlier, and he could see any number of daemonic figures coming towards him. Ursula manged to hit another of the chorus, and he stopped singing too, but the portal was still growing. As Erhardt was being dragged off by Otto, he cast a spell to drain Otto’s life force in order to heal his own, and this stopped the bleeding. Solvej finally managed to wrench herself out of her musical reverie and shot one of her arrows at the orchestra wounding a violinist and stopping him from playing.

Erhardt left Otto behind telling him he would discuss this with him later, which sounded a lot more threatening than that, and while Otto apologised profusely Erhardt made his way back to the stage.

As the portal widened and the daemons approached, Gulgad thought about attacking the chorus to try to stop their spell, but instead stepped through the gateway into the daemonic forest blocking the daemons’ route.

Meanwhile Kurtis threw the second noble over the balcony. Erhardt returned to the stage and cast a spell at a couple of the chorus and ended their song. Ursula whipped another into submission, Solvej shot another arrow into the orchestra, and Otto slinged at the conductor, hitting him on the head. And as the conductor faltered, the orchestra did too, and with the chorus already depleted, the spell failed. The portal closed and Gulgad disappeared from view.

Everything went eerily quiet for a few moments. Kurtis suddenly realised what he had done and looking up could see Solvej watching him. He wondered whether he had been partly responsible for the appearance of the portal, with his appeal to unknown gods.

And then freed from their possession by the daemonic music the crowd became hysterical. They panicked and ran for the exits. The doors were all locked and the crowd pushed and clawed at each other in their fear and determination to escape. This helped cover Kurtis’ crimes. In all this confusion none of the three women who had been accompanying Kurtin managed to make it out alive. A number of others died in the crush, too, but nowhere near the number who would have perished had the portal been allowed to stay open.

I should say that perhaps I did not like Gulgad too much when we first met. I am a man of peace and a very modest one, too. Whereas Gulgad was a professional fighter and very keen to become famous. But over the time that I had known him, I think I got to know him better, and really, he was more of a protective and considerate influence than any of my other associates and in his own way, more peaceful than any of them. Our travails had brought out the worst in some of us, and some of us, had been found wanting. But Gulgad had been a calming and steadying presence as well as our protector. And considering he was a dwarf, had a lot more humanity than most of my colleagues.

He once said that he was the most Shallyan of all the rest of the group, and of course, him being a pit fighter and a slayer, I had to disagree. But thinking about it now, I believe he was right.

After Gudrun’s death he had changed, of course, but in his desire to find his own meaningful death he still stuck with his old friends, and I think keeping us safe was what made life meaningful for him until he found that death.

Who knows what atrocities would have befallen the hundreds of people in the theatre, and perhaps the general Altdorf populace beyond, had Gulgad not stepped through the portal and barred the way to this world.

Gulgad Proudhank, Daemon Slayer, 2447-2512, RIP.