12: The Man in the Moon

 

Aubentag 17^th Pflugzeit - Bezahltag 20^th Pflugzeit

So you have just escaped from the Colony, leaving the mutants and Sister Astrid to their fate. It was not long before Balden gained consciousness and, thanks to the skill of Sister Astrid, was feeling much better.

You made decent time and thanks to your early start met the Gisoreux road while it was still early and you turned right and headed towards Marienburg. You saw that it wasn’t rammed like the local traders had made out, but there was a steady stream of travellers making their way from Marienburg. But you guessed that that is what is meant by rammed in such a desolate place.

It was pretty decent travel on your horses, despite the narrow road and the oncoming traffic and you reached the village of Oosthuis long before nightfall. The settlement looked a bit richer and more civilised than the ones you had seen away from the main road. The place was already busy and full of refugees from Marienburg who were fleeing some sort of imminent catastrophe that no one was really sure about.

There was definitely no room at the inn but Max managed to get the attic room for the night for five guilders which was extortionately expensive, and no one else was pleased about spending so much money. And the landlord promised to cook Egg a blueberry pie for an extra guilder.

As you looked out your window you could see a travelling theatre company setting up for the evening, and one of the actors was a dwarf wearing a bad-moon face mask. You decided it might be nice to take Egg to see the play. And she was immediately enamoured of the moon-face dwarf, Lorenzo, but he told you to piss off. But Egg still followed him around for a bit.

You spoke to the stage manager, Paulus Sternheimer, about helping them out. Balden said he could supply pyrotechnics, Kris said he could sing, and Max identified some of the rigging and staging that could do with fixing, and so Sternheimer said business was so good, with all the refugees along the route, that he could afford to take you on. He also said the extra security you could bring would help out as they had been attacked earlier.

While Max worked on the rigging, making a very good job of it, you tried to learn the script. You only had an hour to learn it but the play went remarkably well.

The play was about a mysterious woman who landed on a fictional island in the Sea of Claws, and was so mysterious all the men on the island, the duke, the mayor, the merchant, and the fool, tried to woo her, and ended up fighting among themselves. Then at the end the man in the moon came down and revealed she was his daughter and he had come to take her back to the moon.

Balden hit his cue with the lighting, and Kris only sang one bum note during the finale. Sternheimer was pleased enough and gave you five shillings each. And he told you to be up first thing to help pack everything away for the journey to the next village.

So the next day you travelled to Klessen, the biggest town on your route. You talked to Steffan Braten the lead actor and playwright, who wrote The Man in the Moon. He told you how brilliant the play was going to be when they got to Marienburg, and how it would bring the house down, or something, but he sounded a bit crazy. Max tried to tell him that Altdorf had bigger and better theatres than Gisoreux, but he wouldn’t have it.

When you got to Klessen you found that the inn was offering free food for the company, and you could sleep in the company’s wagon. It was another packed night and the performance went very well again, and Kris managed to hit that awkward note. And you managed to get some sort of fruit pie for Egg.

The next day you were at Huussenflurgen, and apart from a blip in Balden’s light show, it went well enough. And then you travelled to Lehmburg which was the last stop before Marienburg, and you were all looking forward to getting back to civilisation.

As you were setting up for the Lehmburg show, Lorenzo offered to take Egg for a walk around the town. She had been strangely attracted to him, perhaps it was the moon mask. But he was very grumpy and had tried to avoid her for the entire journey, and so you immediately smelt a rat.

You insisted that you would go with them, but Sternheimer suddenly found jobs for each of you, as if to get you out of the way. When you made it clear to Lorenzo that you wouldn’t let him take Egg, he looked a bit frustrated and looked to Sternheimer for help, but there was nothing he could say to change your minds.

So that evening’s performance was going like normal, when abut halfway through Max and Kris noticed that Sternheimer was talking to Egg and then he began to lead her away, out of the inn’s courtyard.

So, while Max grabbed Balden’s attention, Kris followed Sternheimer and Egg. He saw them making their way down the street towards three men waiting with four horses, and you got the same sort of vibe from them as you got from Katarina’s henchmen.

Kris called to Egg and she turned to come back to him, but Sternheimer grabbed her, and then he lost his grip on her hand and unluckily fell backwards into a puddle. Balden ran up to them and grabbed Egg, and Sternheimer ran towards his colleagues.

So you were happy at having saved Egg but you wondered what Sternheimer had been up to and what the rest of the theatre company had to do with it. You decided not to stay at the inn, or even in town, and so you saddled up and rode towards Marienburg.

It was not long before you decided that travelling by night was too slow and tiring and so you decided to make some sort of camp in the marsh. You were having trouble finding a dry area when you heard the sound of horses coming from Lehmburg’s direction and you stood in the road to greet them.

It was the three men you had seen waiting for Sternheimer. And you demanded to know who they were and what they wanted. They told you, rather dramatically, that they were the Brotherhood of the Forgotten One, and they demanded you hand over Egg so they could bring doom to the world.

Max interrupted his rant, telling him that he had heard enough of his heretical bollocks and shot him in the chest. Kris shot his bow, but missed, and Balden charged at him. And pretty soon he was dead. Then you fought with the other two, and Max reloaded and fired his pistol at one of the horses, making it bolt, and carry off its wounded rider.

And you piled onto the last man, eventually overwhelming him and he bled to death in front of you. Kris had taken a heavy wound during the fight, and Balden saw to his wounds, a skill he must have picked up recently.

You went through the cultists’ stuff and found eight guilders and a letter which said:

Brother of the Moon,

Brother Paulus has located our prize. She is travelling with a bunch of idiots. Meet him in Lehmburg and he will hand her over. Bring her to Tileasteeg.

So now you were left with a horse each. But you were still in the middle of the marsh in the middle of the night. You wondered what was going on with the Brotherhood, and what the travelling players had to do with everything.