The Journal of Father Solomon

Part 32

In which we hunt for gypsy bandits, reaching a small town called Thornbury…

Godsday, Deathweek, Darkseason, 614 TA

As it happens, the others want to take up Henry on his gift of free spells. Since they spend the week learning Foxtroll at the Selene Cathedral, I instead decide to attune the dagger – I’ll learn Foxtroll later. During this, Victoria visits her embassy to advise of the massacre of her caravan.

Once we’ve finished our week of chores, we turn to hunting down Pierre and his gypsy bandits. Martha and Levi told us they were operating south of Moonguard. George tells us the south road out of Moonguard terminates in Silverseam, after passing through the town of Acrimony. (Of course, there’s also the Dwarven railroad from Moonguard to Silverseam but that has no stops on the way and a good part goes through a tunnel so it’s no use to us.)

So we set out – the weather is overcast but is not particularly cold, Ariella thinks it could go either way in the next few days. Just as we exit the south gate, someone Disrupts Victoria! She looks round and sees a couple of ducks scurrying out of sight and no further attack develops – it seems she’s been molested.

While on the road, Ariella holds forth regarding Chaos Lore and little interrupts her discourse throughout the day but I am occasionally distracted by having to control Keziah when she’s spooked by Victoria’s beetle (called ‘Tiny Tim’, apparently).

That evening, we stop in Goon – one of these villages that exist because of the wayside inns serving road traffic. There’s two of them: the Traveller in Time and Space is typically Selenite so it won’t accept Victoria, of course, therefore we commit to the Mother’s Milk, aimed at Mercers. It’s comfortable enough and I’m happy to doss in the common room, as does Victoria, though she has to picket her beetle outside the stables because it upsets the horses – well it’s not as if Tiny Tim is likely to be stolen by beetle-thieves.

We all find the locals disinclined to talk to any ‘furriners’, which I think is rather odd since the establishment is aimed at those from out of town. But nothing stops George, the ultimate people person, from breaking their reserve. He learns the village sells food and material to support travelling merchants. (Though how they do that when they don’t talk to them is beyond my guess). But it’s been a poor season so far – Darkseason is always slow but this year it’s been dead.

George asks for news of bandits and is told there are no bandits north of Acrimony but there have been reports of bandits to the south. Apparently they even burned a farmstead in Fireseason – a whole family died!

So, we’re not going to find what we’re looking for north of Acrimony but the far side looks promising.

Freezeday, Fertilityweek, Darkseason, 614 TA

We continue south, soaking up Ariella’s Chaos Lore, but her lecture is interrupted when we find a body, apparently hidden in the undergrowth. It looks quite fresh and Lydia reports the spirit is still present. But, surprisingly, the spirit’s face is that of a rat! Looking closer, I see the body’s head is that of a rat.

So it’s a wererat! I’ve heard of them, of course, and even seen them occasionally in Moonguard. I switch to Spiritsight (as a shaman, I no longer have to cast the spell, greatly saving in Power) and immediately see Lydia is completely right. Well, I’m a shaman now, so it’s time to do my job…

I approach the spirit and gently introduce myself but then I blunder by asking outright how it died. The ghost doesn’t seem to understand but he gives his name as Luke. I realise Luke is suffering the typical confusion of the recently dead – especially those killed by violence.

Gently, I calm him down and reconcile him to his own demise but he remains very confused. He says he was fleeing something and went to Acrimony, hoping to fall in with other wererats there – he says something about mischief that I really don’t understand. But somehow he didn’t get on and left for Moonguard. He recalls running from Acrimony but he can’t remember why. He thinks something caught him but he doesn’t know how he died.

While I’m doing this, George examines the body. The only hurt he can find is a stab wound to the back of the neck. It looks like it was from a dagger or similar but it doesn’t seem deep enough to kill. George thinks the body has been dead less than a day.

We find some tracks but there’s nothing suggesting any ambush – it looks as if he was killed elsewhere and his body hidden here. George says Ronnie, his ally-familiar, smells a lot of wererats and it seems Luke was surrounded by his own race when he died. Did they kill him?

I’ve no idea of the correct rites for a wererat but since he’s been dead less than a day I suggest taking him to Acrimony in case a Luciferan can bring him back to life. So we load his body on the cart and set out for Acrimony. Ariella resumes her interrupted discourse.

But in Acrimony we find no Luciferan hospital so we take him to the Azrael Temple. They say they’ll bury him for five shillings. I sadly pay up and attend the funeral. I hope Luke’s afterlife is happier than his ending.

Our choice of inn is The Fattened Calf, which for some reason has a sign depicting a fleshy young man wearing a crown and not much else kneeling before a blood-stained altar. (The Lord’s Mother has a side quite as dark as that of the Moon goddess.) It’s another earthy inn for the likes of George and his fellow Mercers.

I have my usual success in mingling with the locals but the others have little trouble: Ariella talks to a Dwarf, a journeyman gemcutter. (Only a Dwarf could make a living out of itinerant jewelsmithing.) He says he talked to another gemcutter in a village called Thornbury, a day to the south. Her name was Katriona Smallwood and she warned him about bandits.

Warwick also heard mention of Thornbury but his warning was regarding a merchant, Vintus Broadleaf, who runs the general store. Apparently, Broadleaf is a shady character who happily talks of ‘raiders’ and Warwick’s source is sure Broadleaf sells loot gained from bandits.

And George also hears of Thornbury. He’s told to, “stick to the roads – if you don’t you can meet… strange things!” Apparently he had a friend who met ‘something’ (though he doesn’t say what). He’s heard they’re building a keep down there now.

Thornbury is about a day’s travel south of Acrimony, in hill country – looks like that’s our destination for tomorrow.

Waterday, Fertilityweek, Darkseason, 614 TA

Next morning, soon after we leave Acrimony, it starts to rain – a constant, miserable drizzle that gets into everything and depresses everyone’s mood. So we’re almost happy to come across a possible ambush. It’s a wagon by the side of the road with two men struggling to fix a broken wheel. Immediately suspicious, Ariella sends her stormcrow up but Haley reports nothing visible from above. Ariella casts Detect Enemies and I ask Lydia to move closer to the wagon and cast Detect Life (to pick up anyone else and in case they’ve hidden themselves with Detection Blank – if they show on neither, then we’ll know).

But Lydia reports they do show on Detect Life and she detects nothing else man-sized within forty yards. They flicker to Detect Enemies but that’s almost certainly because they’re scared of us.

It’s not an ambush – George offers our help in getting them back on the road. Their names are Hugo and Shaun. While the others help fix their wagon, we find their tracks show they hit a rock in the road, causing their wheel to come off and the wagon to veer to the side. The wagon is very heavily loaded and Hugo lifts the tarpaulin to show blocks of granite. Their mule looks very tired and I’m not surprised – they should have two mules or a powerful carthorse for this sort of work.

Victoria and Ariella try to lift the wagon so we can put back the wheel, but Ariella squeaks sharply, putting her hand to her mail skirt. Apparently the sudden strain caused a strap to break. For a second we all thought she’d hurt herself but the only harm is to her dignity and we all turn our backs while she fixes the problem.

With the wheel back in place, Hugo and Shaun say they’re going our way and promise to buy us all drinks at the inn in Thornbury. They’re to deliver the granite to the new keep being built under the watchful eye of Corporal Athenos Destrani.

A couple of hours later we find Thornbury is a large village or small town of 500 souls, like Goon, here to serve travellers of the road. We all note that the town has no walls, but it’s small and its situation makes attack unlikely – it’s far from the Chaos Zone and any Troll army would have to pass Silverseam. The first thing we notice is that the road stops at the town’s edge. It’s almost as if the town was built first with the road as an afterthought.

Hugo and Shaun say they have to deliver their stone to the keep on the east side of town so we follow their lead as they point out places of interest. The shop on the right with a huge bronze cockerel above the door is the general store, Vintus Broadleaf the proprietor. Opposite is a gemcutters (which we’ve been informed belongs to Katriona Smallwood). We pass the only inn – the Laughing Ploughboy looks ludicrously large, compared to the rest of the town.

Then we turn the corner and see the keep, two stories of scaffolding but it will be considerably taller when finished, I imagine. Some two dozen men are at work.

Suddenly, a guard shouts “Troll! Troll!” and levels his spear at us – or at Victoria, I should say. Other guards and several of the workforce spring to attention, drawing their weapons. Our guard also casts a spell on himself or his equipment.

Sighing deeply, I nudge Victoria and tell her to produce her license but she says she doesn’t have one because it was stolen by the bandits when her caravan was looted. I take a careful step aside as the guard steps forward, spear still pointing at the Troll, and challenges her. He’s got an accent – he speaks very fluent Lunatic but he’s definitely not from these parts. Warwick challenges him about this and – suddenly defensive – he says he’s Corporal Athenos Destrani, from Karnak. I thought so! They’re not exactly common but we do get Phoenician mercenaries serving in the Trollmarches. Corporal Destrani had to leave Karnak because of an ‘altercation’ that threatened to escalate. Well, Karnak is infamous for its feuds.

George explains that the Troll’s caravan was attacked by bandits and Corporal Destrani (spear still levelled) admits he’s heard about that. “…but the bandits tend to stay clear of the town.” His orders are to build the keep for his lordship, and not to chase bandits through the hills, “…and I always follow my orders to the letter”. He’s a Mithrate, of course. He’s also heard of the burned farm. “I forget the name but it was very vicious, from what I’ve heard.”

I ask after his lordship: he’s Lord Brucia, a Heliot, according to Corporal Destrani, who shows us his letter of commission. I recognise the seal depicting the shield and I recall the arms as being Vert, three garbs Or – or three golden wheatsheaves on a green background. Proof that not all Heliots are in Sunbury, which is hundreds of miles away – the Duchy of Moonguard really is a patchwork state.

Warwick asks who is in charge in Thornbury in the absence of its lord. Corporal Destrani admits there’s a town council and that he’s a member but he thinks the man with the most clout is probably the proprietor of the Laughing Ploughboy, Fred Manos.

Corporal Destrani is still suspicious but he’s not about to skewer Victoria right now. As we turn to go to the inn, I whisper to him that he should invest in Foxtroll.

The inn is huge with the sign of a laughing man with a plough in the background. As we go in, various staff shout “Troll! Troll!” As Victoria attempts to explain herself, the rest of us, all cold, wet and miserable, join Ariella in front of the roaring fire and commence drying out.

But then a large, well-built man, holding a quarterstaff, strides through the crowd of staff around Victoria, demanding, “Why are you here?” This must be Fred Manos. He offers us room and board and stabling for our animals, “One bob each, five for the Troll”. Victoria declines and chooses to sleep outside this evening.

In an attempt to ease the tension, Warwick puts money behind the bar to pay for several rounds of drinks for everyone. Warwick mentions beer but then I spot a familiar bottle behind the bar and tell the barman I’ll have that. He reacts oddly, looking at me as if I’ve done something completely outré – does no one drink spirits in Thornbury? But he pours and puts the glass in front of me – I lift it up to savour the bouquet…

…and put it right back down – that is not Glenochre!

I ask, pointedly, what is in the glass and the barman laughingly replies, “Piss!” I think it reasonable to ask why he keeps a bottle of urine in full view behind the bar? Apparently it’s meant to be the forfeit for a certain drinking game.

Thankfully, he does have two bottles of genuine Glenochre and offers me the choice. One of them is undoubtedly the original Glenochre, not the Hammond derivative that so recently earned me 125s. It costs 1s/2d, as much as a couple of rounds of beer, but it’s pure nectar and I compliment the barman both on his whiskey and his sense of humour.

This little episode seems to break the ice with the locals, who have been watching it all avidly. I fall to talking to one early drunk and I have no difficulty in turning the conversation to banditry. He says there have been problems in the past but the bandits have never attacked the town. But he recalls one merchant staying here tonight had been attacked recently. He also mentions the burned farm – Deer Lake Farm – he knew the family, the Luckshys. He has no idea why it was attacked but suggests I talk to ‘Old Vintus’, owner of the general store. He warns me not to trust Corporal Destrani because he’s a ‘furriner’ – as if I would.

All this time Warwick has been trying to seduce various local girls, with absolutely no success.

George asks the landlord if he gets particularly large caravans coming through and he confirms there’s one in right now, on its way north from Silverseam. We find much of the clientele fall into some discrete groups: there’s that merchant caravan bound for Moonguard, led by Mercer Efran Winter; a group of shepherds and some lumberjacks.

About now a woman enters the inn – she catches Victoria’s eye outside because she looks like she’s trying to behave with studied nonchalance. Dressed in typical peasant garb, her eyes dart about, seeing everything. Victoria thinks her face is a little feral – ratty, even? I see her as she comes through the door but she doesn’t seem suspicious to me. No one knows anything about her so she can’t be a local.

Someone tells me Katriona Smallwood never comes to the inn. (He makes a joke of her possibly being a Dwarf in disguise but, from my experience, if she was a Dwarf, she’d be in here every night.)

Warwick spots a local behaving oddly. He seems perfectly genuine when anyone’s talking to him but, when he’s not aware anyone’s looking, Warwick thinks his expression turns oddly calculating as he surveys the clientele, as if he’s mentally weighing them in his mind. Warwick alerts George. They find out he’s a peddler and tinker called Thomas Pinshot who’ll happily trade in merchandise that ‘fell off the back of a wagon’ – he’s a shifty customer and not above passing information to bandits.

We learn that the huge bronze cockerel over the general store is a long-running joke. One person thinks Vintus polishes it from time to time.

As the clientele get drunker we hear ever more unlikely stories. One drunkard raves about the banditry having risen because of Faerie-folk invading the local woods. That seems unlikely but it does occur to me that Zadok & Banuril are infamous for killing victims with quick dagger thrusts to the neck or throat – I wonder if poor Luke fell foul of that cult?

There’s a surprising consensus that the banditry is down to undead emerging from barrows – some even think the victims are dragged back to the barrows to meet unspeakably horrific ends.

I think the stories are getting wilder and we’re all tired from walking or riding in the pouring rain all day so we turn in. Outside, Victoria makes herself a nest in the stables.

Clayday, Fertilityweek, Darkseason, 614 TA

Over a very decent breakfast we decide to visit the two known leads we learned of in Acrimony, the gemcutter and the shopkeeper, in that order. We should probably also talk to the innkeeper, Fred Manos.

So, half an hour later we walk round the corner, joined by Victoria, to visit Katriona Smallwood. As we walk up George points out a small (pigeon-sized) bird fly from the back of the shop. We get a lot of housemartins nesting in eaves and guttering at home in Grimpen, but not usually this time of year. But they may have different birds out here.

The shop is small and austere – she obviously doesn’t want to leave her wares on view, where they might tempt criminals. A petite lady sits behind a desk from which I hear the discrete click of a key as we go in. Her hand remains below the desk, I wonder if she’s got a crossbow down there? She must be Katriona Smallwood. She doesn’t look like a Dwarf to me.

Victoria mentions bandits before asking if Katriona wants to hire us ‘to deal with them’. Victoria tells her about her caravan. Katriona replies, “That’s interesting because I wondered what had happened to it”. She had heard about it coming this way and was hoping to do some trade but it never arrived.

Was the caravan carrying gems as well as silks?

Victoria offers Katriona a broadsword and medium shield “at a discount rate” and mentions George as a fellow merchant; Katriona offers jewellery in return but they don’t conclude any trade.

But then Warwick shows her the green gem (his share of the loot from the Broo). She lights a special lantern that throws a narrow beam of light on the gem. She pronounces it magical and asks its provenance but Warwick seems reluctant to admit where it came from.

She hands it back to him. Its base value is 200 shillings and that’s all she could offer without knowing its magical properties. She suggests he attune it to gauge its true value but I sense Warwick is reluctant to attune something that might be Chaotic. (I know I would be.)

Katriona doesn’t think it’s Chaotic in its own right but it might have Chaotic properties. She names a Dwarf in Silverseam who could tell him more. But then there’s surely an apothecary in Thornbury who might be able to cast General Knowledge – at a price, of course.

We take our leave of Katriona and cross the street to the general store. The cockerel’s beak and feet don’t look shiny to me and Ariella thinks the thing is far too corroded to take a shine. However, she does spot some straps that could be used to attach something to the feet – Victoria and George mutter darkly about sending signals – well, quite! Victoria casts Detect Magic – there’s something upstairs and two things downstairs in the shop, but the cockerel isn’t magical in any way.

Unlike the gemcutter’s, the general store is crammed with merchandise – there’s even a cabinet containing vials of potions in the corner. Unlike just about everyone else we’ve met, the proprietor, Vincent Broadleaf, does not bat an eyelid at a Troll entering his shop and beams as he asks what he can do for us.

Warwick makes a crass joke about his ‘huge cock’ but Vintus shrugs it off, “Nothing I’ve not heard before.” Victoria again proffers our services in dealing with bandits. Vintus declines her offer but suggests he’d be happy to buy anything we can liberate from bandits. Victoria repeats the story of her caravan and this time Vintus looks genuinely shocked.

The shop is very well stocked. We look for anything that might have come from the Troll caravan. I find a stunning dress made of fine silk which Victoria is sure was made by Trollish weavers but it didn’t come from her caravan.

She recasts her Detect Magic and finds one return from the cabinet of potions and another from further back in the shop, out of sight (and something upstairs, which obviously we can’t see either and is probably personal to Vintus). Victoria asks about the magic potion and Vintus brings out a vial which he claims is a Dispell Magic IV potion.