3: House Clearance

 

Backertag 3^rd Pflugzeit

The next morning Heinrich, Max, and Kris were at breakfast. Heinrich and Max were telling Kris what they got up to the day before, and Frau Koester was trying to eavesdrop while she was ladling out the gruel. But the story they told him was pretty much what actually happened.

You had a look at the jobs board and noticed that a new one had been pinned up there. This said “House Clearance. Some peril involved. See Mijnfrau van der Post on Tileasteeg. Own transport essential.”

You decided to go for that one, and thought it might be some easy work. You didn’t have any transport but decided to work that out later, once you found out what the job was.

You asked Frau Koester where Tileasteeg was and it turned out it was just opposite the Hammer and Bucket in Remasweg. You were a bit reluctant to go there because of what had happened there the previous evening but decided to risk it.

In Tileasteeg you asked after van der Post and were directed to the fourth floor of a large tenement building, and climbed the stairs up to her room. If anything was strange about the situation and if people were looking at you strangely then you were oblivious to it.

Some meaty bloke opened the door and eventually directed you though the apartment to a second room, with all the shutters drawn, where you found van der Post, who told you her name was Katarina. She was strangely dressed, though you couldn’t really put your finger on why, all in black, and wearing a veil.

She explained that she wanted her recently deceased husband’s summer house cleared, and offered you ten guilders, and then she said that if you found her wedding ring she would give you ten guilders bonus. You thought that she was very young to be a widow and also she didn’t seem that upset about her husband’s death.

You asked her for a bit more money and she offered an extra five guilders as long as you could start immediately. You asked where the house was, and Katarina opened the shutters and pointed across the Rijk to a small island with a tower on it. She said you should drop the goods off on Eagle Wharf at midnight. You already had some experience of midnight deliveries, but it still struck you as dodgy, and the tower didn’t really look like a summer house, but twenty-five guilders is a lot of money.

You realised that ‘own transport’ meant a boat and you went to the Hangman to see Johan Rotter to see if you could borrow his. At first glance, he looked a bit surprised and worried to see you, but once he realised you weren’t annoyed he relaxed. He asked you if there were any problems, and was relieved that there weren’t and you just came to use his boat. He charged you ten shillings for it, and told you he could use you for a little job in a few days and so you told him where he would be able to find you.

You were considering doing the house clearance at night, but did a recce of the island and could see that the first two storeys were stone with small windows and the top storey was newer, and wooden with bigger windows. Kris decided that with all the rocks around the island it might be a bit dangerous to sail there in the dark so you decided to do the job straight away.

You tied up and tried knocking and then tried the door but you couldn’t get in and Max had the idea of using his hammer and spikes to help him climb up to the top storey, but Heinrich just went ahead and climbed. And though it looked very dangerous, he managed it and secured a rope for you all to climb up.

Once you got through the window you could see in the middle of the floor was a large brass circular track and an intricate mechanism for rotating a telescope. And you could see that the ceiling of the room could be removed to allow the telescope to look at the sky. Max was very impressed by the workmanship and the attention to detail and said it would have cost a lot of money to have had it constructed.

On a desk there was seven books on astronomy and some other papers which included charts of the sky. Max had a quick look and saw that the books were written in Reikspiel, Wastelander, and Classical. And there was a drawer in the desk with some other papers in.

There was a trapdoor in the floor and you opened that and could see that the room below was quite dark so Heinrich lit a candle and descended the ladder. You found a bed and a table and some plates and general living equipment. You did find a pistol next to the bed which was still loaded. Max took it but thought it had been like that for a while so the powder was probably damp by now. You found a load of smashed jars and things near the table, but they were strangely clean.

Then down to the next level you found some barrels and boating equipment, some oars and rope and things, and you smashed off the locking mechanism of the front door so you could open it.

Still wondering about the wedding ring you did a thorough search of the tower and eventually Kris found a hidden compartment in the desk and inside was a gold ring. However, the stone of the ring was kind of green, but also had an absence of colour and light, and was actually difficult to look at, but Kris put it in his pouch, anyway.

Then you had the job of moving everything onto the boat. Despite some of the stuff being pretty worthless and some of it looking very valuable, you decided to move it all. Max decided as nice as it was it would be too big a job to move the brass machinery but it would be easy enough to take the telescope.

When Heinrich and Max went up to the observatory, Max went back to the boat and he sensed someone else board the boat behind him, but looked round and there was no one there, but he saw some canvas that was stowed on the bow move a bit.

So he took a look under the canvas and as he did something grabbed his hand and bit into it. Kris screamed and saw some sort of bluey green face that looked as scared as he was and then the creature darted to the other end of the boat. And Kris’ hand was bleeding so badly he had to rip off a bit of his cloak to bind the wound.

His scream alerted the others and when they got to the boat you decided the creature was probably hiding in the sails at the stern. So you prodded them with a barge pole and when the creature’s head emerged again Heinrich smacked it with his sword. And the wounded creature looked up at him pleadingly, so Heinrich hit it again and killed it.

You looked at the body and wondered what it was. You thought it might be the Seaweed Man, but decided that the stories you had heard of goblins made this sound like it was probably one of those, and then you threw it overboard.

So you cleared out the tower, and you found a barrel which looked like it had been converted into a little home for the creature. And with the boat loaded up you made your way back to the south islands. You had time to kill before midnight so Heinrich went to collect his armour from the leather worker. And you stopped off at the Hangman for some beer.

Then at midnight you sailed for Eagle Wharf. And as you approached you saw seven figures in silhouette waiting for you, and two of them were carrying some sort of small heavy litter between them.

Katarina asked if you had the ring and you asked if she had the money, and one of them showed you a purse, so you handed over the ring, and they threw the purse into the boat. And you looked to check the money and before you had looked up again they were already walking away into the darkness.

So you wondered what to do with all the furniture and stuff. You decided to keep the telescope and all the paperwork and then you just threw everything else into the Rijk.