58: Middenheim

So we stayed the evening in the White Wolf Inn. Solvej kept asking Otto if he was alright, in a sort of friendly but sort of aggressive way. And it was making Otto nervous, so he left the inn to look for some trees to name. Solvej told Ursula that she thought Otto was losing it (whatever it was that Otto had previously had), but Ursula said that he’d lost it long ago.

Erhardt explained that we had to find Lotti, Bertrand Bosch’s agent in Middenheim, but Kurtis kept making little comments to undermine his leadership. It seemed pretty obvious that Erhardt should go to the Grand Guild of Wizards, which was the Middenheim equivalent of the colleges, but Erhardt was loathe to do so as he suspected that that organisation may have been infiltrated by whatever group was behind Sieglinde’s disappearance.

Kurtis had a chat with the landlady, like he does, but he also discovered that someone matching Sieglinde’s description had been in the tavern a week or so before asking about the local fishmonger who was called Lotti. That sounded like our contact and so Erhardt headed for her shop and took Kurtis and Solvej with him. I think Kurtis just wanted to complain that Erhardt was doing it wrong, and Solvej just wanted to be outside. On the way to the fishmongers Solvej asked Kurtis again about their marriage. Kurtis told her that she needed to be patient and that it was important that the man propose at the right time.

Meanwhile Otto went off to the rat catchers’ guild in Middenheim and told everyone what a famous and accomplished rat catcher he was in Altdorf. And of course, he didn’t get anywhere, because instead of asking about a wizard called Fenne and her contact called Lotti, he asked about a magic fennel that looked like a woman called Lotti.

The fishmongers seemed like a decent establishment, but Kurtis just barged in and got all the customers to leave by threatening them. This made the elderly shop owner, Lotti presumably, peeved. And then Erhardt drew a magic symbol on the counter, which annoyed her even more and she told him that dusk and dawn were the appropriate times for this sort of meeting. So they bought some fish.

When they got back to the White Wolf things got a bit out of hand. Solvej gave the fish to Otto, but Otto wasn’t sure about accepting anything from Solvej. But Solvej explained that she was being reasonable and had grown as a person since the old days and told him to fucking eat it or else, which didn’t improve Otto’s appetite. Then Solvej went on a huge rant and Kurtis felt the need to calm her down by interrupting with an offer of marriage.

The rant spooked Otto so much, he begged Kurtis not to marry Solvej, but if he must marry her, Otto wished him a short and happy life. And then he gave Kurtis some rat poison. I’m not sure whether this was to help end Kurtis’ own life if he did end up married to Solvej, or to give to Solvej.

Ursula told Solvej that she shouldn’t marry Kurtis because of what he did to Genevieve, but Solvej admitted that it was her who was responsible for Gen’s plight. Then Otto gave Ursula some rat poison, too. I don’t really care whether Kurtis marries Solvej or not, but I fear I will be roped into performing the ceremony.

Kurtis spoke to me a bit later about whether I could do something to help Solvej with my knowledge of herbs, and I don’t think he was proposing I poison her. I think he just wanted me to make something to calm her down a bit, but I couldn’t think of anything.

Erhardt got to escape all the drama when he went back to the fishmongers at dusk. Lotti told him that Sieglinde had been there about eight days ago. She had said she was heading back to Altdorf as she feared she had been sent on a wild goose chase, perhaps to get her out of the way of whatever was happening in Altdorf. Lotti was sure she had made it out of Middenheim but didn’t know where she could be.

So Erhardt returned to the White Wolf and told us we had to go straight back to Altdorf, which made our long journey and Erhardt’s great mission look a bit silly, which pleased Kurtis. We decided to leave the next day, but according to Otto we should have gone that night, because ‘there’s no tomorrow like today,’ which, to be fair to Otto, is quite true.

We went to the south gate and the barracks to see if any of the watch had any news of Sieglinde and they did seem to think she had left in a hurry about eight days ago. And Kurtis went drinking by himself.

That evening in the inn, perhaps Ursula had had too much to drink because she normally avoided talking about her past, but Otto asked about her facial scars and she told the story of when she was a girl, and her village had been involved in proscribed worship. Her own parents had been about to sacrifice her to the dark gods, but a witch hunter arrived just in time and burned the village to the ground. She had been burned, of course, but survived and both her parents were killed. I can understand why that led to her becoming a witch hunter, and it may be a sad story, but I still don’t think it justifies some of her behaviour. In any case, Ursula said that was when all her weakness was burned away, and Otto gave her a hug.

Erhardt went to the Grand Guild of Wizards after all, even though it risked blowing his cover, and spoke to someone there. They said that Sieglinde had been concerned that the Grey College in Altdorf had been infiltrated by cultists and suspected one of three wizards, Adelhard Gerber, who had given Erhardt the job, Stigr Blaug, or Valda Foerstnerg.

Solvej and Otto still suspected that Lotti knew something she wasn’t telling us, and so they made another visit to the fishmongers to try to intimidate her. They asked her what she knew, and she replied, ‘the price of fish,’ which was clever, but probably wasted on Solvej and Otto. In any case the pair of them didn’t get anything out of Lotti and finally gave up.

And so, in the morning we made our way south again, having made what seemed like a completely wasted journey. On the third day, however, we rounded a bend in the road to see what looked like three thugs attacking a grey-robed figure who was lying on the ground, at their mercy.

Kurtis demanded to know ‘what is going on here?’ expecting the thugs to step away, but they merely drew their weapons and advanced towards us. ‘That was a mistake,’ he said drawing his sword, ‘make sure you write down, that was a mistake, in your log,’ he then said to me, ‘because it sounds cool.’

And battle was joined. Solvej usually likes to hang back a bit, picking off enemies with her bow, but she went straight into the fight and broke one of the thug’s arms. But, then a hail of arrows assailed us from both sides of the road, and we realised we were being ambushed. Ursula and Kurtis were both hit by the arrows. Erhardt cast a spell at the middle thug on the road, who seemed to be their leader and Ursula shot her crossbow at him from horseback, killing him. Then Kurtis rode in and attacked another of them. Otto decided to pile into the forest and attack the archers. He managed to wound one and then set Schnitzel on her to finish her off.

I went to see if I could help the grey wizard on the ground. I rode up to the man and dismounted, only to see him stand, completely uninjured, and cast a spell at me. It was a spell similar to the ones Erhardt uses, so I concluded the man was a genuine grey wizard, and the bolt hurt a bit, but it did not seem as powerful as I was expecting having seen Erhardt see off many enemies in that way. And then I shouted, ‘Ambush!’ just in case that wasn’t clear.

Otto was injured by the remaining archer on his side of the road while Erhardt dealt with the two archers on the other side with a spectacular forked bolt. Solvej dispatched her thug, Kurtis overcame his, and Ursula shot a bolt at the wizard in front of me, hitting him and wounding him. Erhardt recognised the wizard as Stigr Blaug, one of the grey wizards from Altdorf, and one of the ones he had been warned about by the wizards in Middenheim.

I invoked Shallya to Blaug. He probably didn’t really care about her mercy, but I managed to prick his conscience just long enough to make him hesitate, and then I grabbed his staff. And soon all the ambushers lay dead except for Blaug. Erhardt did something magical to him that made him choke and nearly pass out and we were able to arrest him.

And so we brought Blaug back to Altdorf. Erhardt wasn’t sure he could trust Gerber, so went over his head and found a more senior member of the college to hand him over to.