19: Garret of the Spiders

Guiltag 12^th Sigmarzeit

In the morning you were all a bit shocked about the magical forest. Heinrich was still feeling injured and Balden was seeing to his wounds, so Max and Dietrich decided to go and see Johan Rotter to see what he had to say about the strange events, especially as it was his nephew who was in peril (although you had resigned yourself to the fact that he wouldn’t be seeing his nephew again). You already had the idea that he wasn’t that interested in magic and strange stuff like that, but you went to the Hangman, anyway.

You told him all about the events at the opera house but he just told you not to take weirdroot when you went to the theatre. You asked him about his contacts with wizards and witch hunters and people like that but he said he was just a simple trader and at a push could introduce you to a couple of thugs, if you needed someone worked over. But you decided that that wasn’t what was required. Although you kept in mind that the composer at the Grand Opera House might need to be beaten up, or worse, at some point.

You thought you might need divine expertise and as loyal subjects of Sigmar’s Empire, you decided to head to the Temple of Sigmar. There used to be a huge temple of Sigmar in Tempelwijk but that was now boarded up, but remained as a sort of memorial to Wastelander independence. And the new temple was tucked away in Ostmuur as a sort of humiliation.

Father Gunther there was happy to talk to you and took you a bit more seriously. He said he couldn’t just get the theatre burned down on your say-so, but if you had strong evidence then he could perhaps call upon witch hunters. He said there was a Sigmarite witch hunter in town right now, who had recently returned from burning an entire village of mutants in the wasteland. His name was Otto von Lufthanser. Max explained to Dietrich that you had already had a few run-ins with him in the Wasteland. So you decided you needed to steer clear of him. But Gunther said if your evidence was good enough he could pass it on to Lufthanser without you needing to get involved.

So you went back down to the theatre in Kruiersmuur. One of the first people you saw there was Belladonna Firaglio. Max went up to her and said he was a fan and asked for her autograph. So she got a flier and signed it for him. And after a bit of a chat she said she was going for lunch and told you both to follow her.

You went a few doors up the road to a tavern called the Flamingo, and followed her as she went through the main room to a back room guarded by a bouncer. The VIP room was dark and sort of luxurious and staffed by athletic looking waitresses. There were some noble-looking people in one booth, and some wealthy merchant types in another, but it was mostly empty as it looked more like a night-time sort of place.

A waitress brought over a glass for Firaglio and poured her something dark from a black-glass bottle, and offered you drinks. Max had some brandy and Dietrich went for Bretonnian wine.

Max started telling Firaglio how great she was and she agreed and told him about the new opera and about Jacques Hoffman the composer. Max noticed that she may have been quite old but looked a lot younger than she should, or something.

While Max was fawning over Firaglio, Dietrich was concentrating on her wine and he decided that it had a bit of magic about it. It had the similar enticing, but slightly nauseating, magic that he had seen around the magic forest. Dietrich told Max not to touch the stuff.

Then Dietrich went off to talk to the waitress, but Firaglio and Max didn’t mind as they were busy flirting. Firaglio offered Max a job at the opera house, Max said he’d think about it, and told her about his career in the theatre as a stagehand for the travelling players in the Wasteland, which didn’t impress her much.

Dietrich noticed the young waitress was wearing heavy black eye makeup and told her he would be interested in buying a crate of the wine that Firaglio was drinking, but she was a bit suspicious and told him that they only sell that on the premises. She also pointed out that he had been drinking different stuff, and he was surprised she had noticed. Then she offered to dance with him which made him run away.

Eventually you made your excuses to Firaglio and left, but before you went she insisted you must come to the first night of Orron and Erris and gave you two free tickets.

You went back to the theatre and spoke to your stagehand mate and you helped him move some scenery, though you were careful not to go anywhere near the back of the building where the forest had been.

You asked him about Hoffman and he said he didn’t come to the theatre much, and some messenger delivered his rewrites. He said lots of the actors and performers around the area went to the local taverns and they often broke out into a sing song or something like that, and Hoffman might be involved. He said the best place for it was probably the Hammer and Bucket a couple of doors down.

You decided to do a drinking tour of the Esplanade that evening to find Hoffman and went for some food to line your stomachs. That evening at the Bucket you recognised some of the chorus from Orron and Erris and got talking to them. One of them had an anecdote about Hoffman carrying a spider around in his hat or on his head, or something. They seemed to think is was funny, anyway. And they described where Hoffman lived which was in a garret at the top of a tenement just past the Flamingo.

So you went up past the Flamingo and saw some cool kids with the same sort of eye makeup as the waitresses queuing outside to be let in, and some rich VIPs getting out of their sedans and being allowed straight in.

And past there you found the door to the tenement above a shop. On the first floor landing a few kids were playing. And the second floor was quiet. And you could already see that the top floor had too many cobwebs. You prepared a couple of Kislev cocktails from the Wodka you had bought at the Bucket, and made you way up to the top floor.

You knocked but there was no reply. Dietrich tried to open the door magically, but in the end Max had to get the hammer and spikes out. And you opened the door to see a dark room with the ceiling covered in cobwebs. You went in and hit your flint a few times, and in the brief light you could see there were sheets of music manuscript all over the desk and the floor and a few, mostly empty, bottles of the wine Firaglio had been drinking.

And then something dropped from the ceiling and attacked Max’s head. He managed to bat it away, and screamed, and legged it for the door. And Dietrich could see that it was one of those giant spiders you had seen in the forest. And he backed away to the door, too.

You stood outside for a while, wondering what to do, and decided to firebomb the whole place. So you lit one Kislev cocktail and threw it in, but nothing happened. And you threw the other one in and still nothing happened.

Then you decided to set fire to the manuscripts on the desk and around the floor and see if that might work. Dietrich lit some tapers and then ran into the room. He lit as many papers as he could and then grabbed one of the half full wine bottles. And as he retreated, he saw a spider dropping from the ceiling, but was able to bat it away with the wine bottle.

You saw that the papers had caught light nicely and so you legged it down the stairs, knocking on all the doors as you passed, warning them about the fire. And when you got down to the street you decided to head straight back to Frau Koester’s for bed.