36: Mystic Myrtle’s

Festag 5^th Sommerzeit

After leaving Scheinfeld, the three days of travel back to Marienburg were uneventful and you arrived in Kruiersmuur. You went to see Rotter at the Hangman and told him you had got his cheese back safely. He wondered why you had taken so long and you gave him a long story of most of the things that had happened to you on your journey, but he didn’t believe the more fantastical stuff.

And you wondered about the payment for the cheese but he seemed to think you had agreed that the trip up to Carroburg had given you plenty of opportunity to turn a profit, and you had to admit that this was fair, as you had made a lot of money from the trip.

Then you asked him about Greta and there was a look of panic in his eyes. And then Greta entered the tavern and a heated argument quickly escalated between them. The gist of it was that Greta seemed to think she was the brains behind Rotter’s business empire, and he had stolen it from her. And you got the impression they were married.

Then they went off to have their argument somewhere a bit more private. And when he came back, Rotter gave you ten tickets to Mystic Myrtle’s Myriad Amusements and asked you to get Greta out of his hair for the evening so he could hide some of his assets.

You had to buy some armour, so you took Greta shopping for a bit, before going to the fair. She explained that she had been ‘away for a few years’ but now that she was back she should have at least a half share in Rotter’s business, so Max advised her to get a lawyer. She said that perhaps you would soon be working for her instead of Rotter, and Dietrich mentioned he didn’t feel particularly valued in the current organisation.

Mystic Myrtle’s fair was a bit underwhelming, and was a bunch of tents on a bit of waste ground by the quayside of Laangmaar Dock along side a bunch of brightly painted boats. You guessed that the fair had been going for a few days already, and interest was waning.

You bought some toffee apples and the girl selling them complained that someone had been stealing her stock. And you were enthusiastic enough about the acts. Max was keen on the twin sister acrobats. Bertha went to see a strong halfling, and was challenged to a cannonball holding competition, which she lost, but she was not so competitive as to call on the aid of the dark gods to help her win. And you saw a Tilean fire breather, which was spectacular but repetitive.

You saw the woman of a thousand faces who told the history of the Empire. And you went to see an exotic menagerie but it was smelly and all the exhibits looked a bit sad. And you had seen much more monstrous and spectacular creatures on your travels than they had here.

And then you went to see the marionette show. They were doing Orron and Erris which immediately made you suspicious. Even though the story is common enough throughout the Old World, it gave you flashbacks to the incident at the opera. There was one black clad puppeteer, but the puppetry was so good you suspected that there must be another one hiding somewhere.

So much for the fair. You went back to Frau Koester’s and told her what you had been up to. You couldn’t wait until breakfast for her gruel so she made you some for supper, and then made up a new room for five of you, even though only four of you were there.

Wellentag 6^th Sommerzeit

But first thing in the morning there was loud knocking on your door. You thought it might be the cheese police, but it turned out to be Rotter. He proudly showed you his shoes, which you had to admit were of the finest workmanship. He explained that he could get shoes like that because he had done some favours for the Chartered Guild of Kruiersmuur Cobblers. But now they needed a favour from him and you were the people for the job. And he told you to report to the guild house immediately after breakfast.

So you went to Schoenenstraat and met the secretary of the guild, Gertrude Zahndahl, who explained that three of the master cobblers of the guild had been murdered in gruesome ways that week, and there was only one master cobbler remaining, Ernst Bluecher. Zahndahl had been in charge of the investigation, but Bluecher had insisted they got some professionals in.

Zahndahl offered you five guilders for the job and you negotiated her up to six. But you didn’t seem that bothered about the relatively large sum of money because you had earned so much from Stalborg and the rest of your trip, that you thought you were rich.

Bluecher’s workshop was just up the road a bit on Schoenenstraat. Zahndahl knocked on the door, and said something about it being a lovely day, even though it was raining, and you heard a lot of bolts being thrown before Zahndahl could open the door. And once in the workshop Zahndahl shouted up to the upstairs room, through a trapdoor, and you heard muffled replies.

Zahndahl explained that the first victim, Belinda Boeck, was sown into her bedsheets and suffocated, and the second, Dieter Schlingbach, had his mouth sewn shut, and suffocated. And yesterday, they had found the head of the guild, Friede Schlypper, with hundreds of shillings sown into her body.

You wondered about Bluecher’s muffled replies, but when you went up the stairs, you found him perfectly alive, and the muffling had only been caused by shouting through the trap door. He told you to investigate the murders because Zahndahl wasn’t up to the job, and to get back before nightfall to bodyguard him through the night. And he promised you an extra guilder for every night you kept him alive.

You asked about the bodies, and Zahndahl said Boeck was already buried, Schlingbach was at the mourners guild, but she had made sure Schlypper hadn’t been touched yet, so you made your way up Schoenenstraat to the workshop of guildmaster Schlypper.

Her workshop was of a similar arrangement to Bluecher’s but there was no staircase, just a ladder leading up to the next floor. And you could see how the trapdoor had been completely destroyed. Zahndahl described how Schlypper’s husband had been tricked into going to the front door, and had used an axe to break open the trap door, but by then his wife was dead.

You had a look at the body and it was as Zahndahl had described, but you couldn’t help but admire the skill of the stitching. You had a look around the room and you could see an open strong box that looked like it had been retrieved from behind some bricks in the wall. And you found some small scratch marks or tiny footprints in the soot of the fireplace, and a fine thread hanging down from inside the chimney, which you thought looked like the sort of thread that had been used to sew up Schlypper. And you found a small bit of food stuff on the floor. You examined it and decided it was toffee apple.

Dietrich focussed on the magic in the room and he sensed a strange pink sort of magic that was unpleasant, but not one he had sensed before.

And then you had the realisation that the perpetrators could be linked to Mystic Myrtle’s fair. And having already taken against the creepy puppet show your first thought was that the crimes had somehow been committed by animated marionettes.

You asked Zahndahl about any enemies the cobblers might have, and she remembered an incident from a few years ago when a cobbler had been expelled from the guild for making shoes that ate their wearers. And he had got angry and accused Boeck of wantonness, and Schlingbach of gossiping about him, and Schlypper of greed, and suddenly he became your prime suspect.

You wondered whether to go to the fair right then, or to go back to Bluecher’s and lie in wait for them. You decided that there was no way the puppets could attack before about ten, when the fair closed, so you had plenty of time to prepare a defence.

So you went back to Bluecher’s to wait for the puppets to turn up. Zahndahl went home and you set up some screens around Bleucher’s room to hide behind. Max tried to make some sort of automatic trap but gave up. And Dietrich waited by the fireplace with some fishing nets and a big cooking pot. And Berta hid on the roof, saying she would give a bog octopus mating call if she saw anything. And she tied a rope to a neighbouring chimney so she could get down quickly if she needed to.

Bluecher wondered what you were all up to, but had little choice but to trust you. Max assured him he would be safe and showed him all his pistols, and Bluecher promised that if he kept him alive he would make him a bandolier for them in finest red leather.

Just after midnight, Berta spotted a bird like thing flying around the roof, and it landed on the chimney and she saw that it was the bird puppet from Mystic Myrtle’s and it was carrying in its beak the lizard puppet. It set the lizard puppet down and flew off, and soon arrived back with a moon-faced puppet. She watched while the there puppets knitted up a magical thread from the aether and used it to climb down the chimney and she gave her bog octopus call.

Down in Bluecher’s room, Balden channelled the magical winds and waited until the puppets emerged, and when the lizard puppet landed on the hearth he used his magic to entangle it in its own thread. Max shot at the creature, but managed to miss, and Dietrich tried to throw the cooking pot over it, but despite being entangled it just managed to dodge out of the way. And the lizard puppet struggled against the magical spell and nearly managed to get free of the thread.

On the roof, Berta attacked the bird puppet with her shovel, but it dodged out the way. Then the moon headed one shot some magical pink fire at her and covered her with the pink fire that continued to burn around her. And then the bird puppet flew in for a raking hit across her head.

In the room below, Balden drew his sword and smacked the lizard puppet, breaking it into firewood. Meanwhile, on the roof, Berta decided she had to get away from the puppets, and swung on the rope, down through the window and landed in the middle of Bluecher’s room, putting out the pink fire, as she went.

You looked through the broken window to see the bird puppet flying away with the moon-headed puppet in its beak, heading in the direction of Laangmaar Dock.

So they had got away for now, but you congratulated yourself that at least you had worked out who the perpetrators were from the clues you had found and you decided you were so good at this deduction stuff that you should open a private investigations agency.