Interlude 18. Sharp Presents

Klaus panted from exertion, still clutching the bloodied knife tightly. The person before him had just lost conscience, and that meant that interrogation was over for the day. Or for good, really. If he were to be entirely honest, Klaus received all the information he needed within the first five minutes of it. The next ten were spent cutting the strips of skin off the incompetent idiot. He briefly thought back to the conversation. This was the person who conducted the observation of their patsy making an attempt at White Witch's wife. One who reported back that it was a success. Falsely so.

It took a couple days to review the notes his previous instance left behind. Thankfully, unlike the situation before, this iteration had the forethought to leave a detailed log of planned activities, so that Klaus could review what went wrong immediately. The last entry described an intent to try and extort the knowledge on some sort of alchemical substance codenamed as "cookies" from the lady Gillespie, using the antidote to rare poison provided to the hashishin as leverage. He had high confidence his previous instance had successfully departed to converse with the aforementioned lady and... vanished into thin air. His horse was found grazing on the meadow not far from Ashenvale pass entrance, which was indeed cited as the preferred meeting spot. Which very likely meant that White Witch exterminated the previous instance in some way that left no body behind or hid it convincingly.

Why would she? Collating the data he had, Klaus had tentatively presumed that his predecessing instance made a mistake and Alyssa Gillespie did not possess the knowledge of the compound in question and thus had killed in a fit of desperation after his predecessor refused to give the antidote without receiving the knowledge she could not give. But according to his diplomatic contacts, there was no disturbance with the Gillespies. Which was odd, because by all the clues he had so far, lady Gillespie was head over heels in love with all four of her wives and would definitely throw a big funeral, should any of them expire.

Which led to the current situation. Where Klaus clarified the validity of certain reports with the help of poignant questions and a sharp knife. And each answer he received had made him more and more furious with the incompetent buffoon on the other end of the conversation. As it turned out, the man had reported the success of the operation based simply on an observation that the addition to dragonscale amulet was triggered. No legwork to determine the exact outcome of it was even attempted - the report simply went with "everything went to plan" based on step one succeeding. What really galled him the most, however, was the blithe inability to comprehend the problem with not verifying the success of steps two through twenty by the man in question.

He contemplated momentarily the merits of just stabbing the bleeding mess in front of him in the jugular, but in the end, put the knife down on the table instead. This man was inducted into an organization for his knowledge of magical detection methods first and foremost, and no one had expected him to be so devoid of common sense in other matters. A mistake Klaus intended to rectify as soon as possible. The man would be healed up, though only to the point of preserving his life, then he would be confined for life as a live-in teacher of magical detection, which from now on would be conducted by trained agents who'd know better than to assume that success of plan's start meant it went without hitch in its entirety.

As he went to wash his hands off in the basin, Klaus mused on the question of "cookies". It was not unheard of to create certain alchemical compounds in edible form, though drinkables were much more prevalent. So he could accept the existence of something that in looks was close to baked goods and had some sort of desirable effect. If his predecessor did not make a mistake in determining its qualities, this "cookie" substance should be a powerful antisoporific agent. Which, as he thought about it, was probably not entirely benign. Snubbing the bounties of the goddess of dreams probably did not come without a heavy price to pay. From the chronological order of notes and witness testimonies, his previous instance had been steadily growing more and more erratic ever since they had discovered these "cookies" in a scrying session. Which, in turn, implied that the compound was either addictive or caused direct brain damage that worsened with time. Or, and this possibility had worried Klaus significantly more, scrying a highly defiled person carried a risk of defilement-induced insanity on itself. And he knew lady Gillespie to be highly defiled without doubt, given the testimonies of Kassandra and White Witch's own admissions to his highness Alphonse.

As he lifted up the towel to wipe his face dry, Klaus sighed. As interesting as some of the scrying results had turned out to be, he would have to stop doing that. The combination of mistakes culminating in his previous instance being so thoroughly removed could not be repeated. They were lucky enough it was not a start of a serious diplomatic incident between kingdoms already, and Klaus had no doubt that there will be a price to pay for that screw up yet. If not from Champagne, then from lady Gillespie. Who, much to his trepidation and cautious delight, was proving herself to be the opponent the likes of which he had not faced in several lifetimes. Maybe even the greatest one he had ever gone up against. She wouldn't even be the first Gillespie to make herself memorable to Klaus, come to think of it. Her grandfather Philippe was a cast-iron bastard with the cunning of a fox and ferocity of a bear and featured very prominently in Kraut archives. Often, as an architect of some family's breathtaking plummet from grace. It seemed that the merits of old coot did live on in his descendants.

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Alistair entered his room, whistling merrily under his voice. He was pretty pleased with his life at the moment. He had made a good showing at all exams, had a pleasant End of Year festivities and was set for a leisurable winter vacation with but light duties and plenty of time to give his new weapon a thorough examination. Which, in fact, he had just been engaged in, having had the servants set up a number of targets for him to swing and poke with the Bec de Corbin at, starting from pumpkins and ending with rocks for all manner of hardness. He was delighted with the experience and subtly astonished. As far as he could tell, Alyssa did not enchant his hammer in any way, so all the unusual properties could be attributed simply to the construction. And those properties were quite unusual indeed! He was warned about the 'dead blows' this hammer gave, alright, but the warning could not prepare him for the actual reality of it. He took the first swing at the pumpkin, expecting it to be knocked off the pole and broken into pieces, as it was wont to do when struck with a quarterstaff. Instead, most of the pumpkin sprayed around in pieces so small they were more liquid than solid, remaining few chunks splashing all around the yard. The show made everyone, including him, gape in disbelief for a moment or two. It also clarified somewhat the hushed stories that were passed among the palace guards about the "pulverizing hammer" and how it had a tendency to turn skulls into a bloody mist. Given what happened with pumpkin, he suddenly found himself much more inclined to believe Alyssa actually could mulch heads with a well-landed blow as the hushed rumors claimed.

He ended up spending a few hours exerting himself, followed by a visit to a bathhouse. Now, clean and invigorated, but pleasantly tired out, he was planning on a slow evening. Possibly read a book or maybe write a letter to his folks. Or... Or. He paused and leaned over the pile of boxes that were not there in the morning. A selection of them, of varying length and size, but none big enough to make it inconvenient to lift by himself. Though some were considerably lengthy. He was about to summon a footman and inquire upon the provenance of the boxes when he spied a flash of something white sticking from under the top one. Lifting it up slightly, he blinked as a letter fell out from under it. Since it has borne his name on the front, Alistair ripped the seal off and unfolded it, scanning through the note quickly. How... thoughtful.

He put the letter away and considered the boxes with much interest. Apparently, lady Gillespie did recall their earlier conversation about exotic weaponry. According to her, each of the boxes contained some kind of weapon and a short summary on its name, use and origins. The letter also helpfully recommended he put the boxes with copper embossing on the latch for the last. On one hand, he became immediately curious about those, which he counted two of, but on the other, he was pretty certain the recommendation was made for a reason. With that in mind, he lifted the top box, which was almost square and about a pied by pied in dimensions, and cracked it open.

Hrm... So. According to the annotation, this particular one was named kusarigama, and it resembled a sickle on one end. Attached to that sickle was a lengthy fine chain with a weight on the end. According to the explanation given, this was a weapon somewhat common in far orient, and the proper usage revolved around using sickle as a sort of hand-axe and hook while using the weighted chain as a flail and as a whip to wrongfoot and disarm the enemy and bring them within the striking distance of the sickle. Or, alternatively, catch them unprepared with a weight to the head. Tricky. Exceptionally tricky. He carefully coiled the chain back into the box. This was an interesting weapon, no doubt, but mastering it would not be easy, quick or painless. Better set this off till summer, maybe find out if there is anyone familiar with the thing at all among his contacts.

The next box, narrow and about a pied-long, yielded something akin to a quarterstaff... if the staff was sawed in three equal parts and conjoined with loose hinges. The annotation claimed it to be triple staff and implied it was also of oriental origin. Setting it aside as well, Alistair opened the bigger box under the two of them. A long club with a metal spike on top. An unusual combination and an unusual name. Goedendag, as it was apparently called, was supposedly in use among the freemen of the northern Kraut and developed as a countermeasure to armored knights. He set this one aside, it did look like he could learn some basics of it quickly enough, drawing on his previous experiences. The slightly wider box next to it contained a sword with an unusual wavy blade. Flamberge, as it was named, was apparently something no one really fielded often due to expense and complexity in producing a wavy blade, but was cited as having a significant cutting ability and, somewhat alarmingly, for causing wounds that were much more likely to fester. Something he would have attributed to poison, but apparently caused by the construction of the blade instead. Mindboggling. He probably could use it off the bat, but on the other hand, the information about causing bad wounds made him resolve to put this one aside for really bad situations.

The thick box underneath yielded something he had tentatively identified as a crossbow. The presence of pulleys and cross-shaped construction of shoulders was more than a little odd for him, as well as the string that formed a complicated loop. Reading the annotation made him swallow and set the thing aside. If what it said was right, and he had little reason to think otherwise, then this crossbow had the size suitable for horseback use, yet shot bolts with the power of siege arbalest. There was a short looking glass bolted to the back end of it above the stock. An interesting solution for aiming. This weekend, he and some of the other youngsters had planned to attend a boar hunt. That would be a good time for him to try this out. At worst, he'd be ribbed on for trying to use a boondoggle. At best, he would be the first to be seen using an impressive crossbow - and in that case, he would be certain to drop the name of Alyssa Gillespie in every ear. It seemed fair to him to send some business her way for such a thoughtful gift collection.

That left two long narrow boxes on the bottom, aside from ones with copper boss. He cracked both of them open. The longer one contained something called bardiche. Which vaguely reminded him of the battleaxes used by batal. Vaguely. The shape of the blade, while obviously intended for chopping, could probably be also used to thrust if needed. The shorter one contained a flail with three balls. He was vaguely familiar with the weapon, but insofar all of the examples he ever handled were with one ball only. Three at once obviously added some complexity.

Finally, he opened the two boxes he was instructed to leave for the last. A pair of flintlocks and a musket with a bayonet. He had already seen and used both, having been summoned to the castle right after the festivities along with some of the trusted knights and squires for demonstrations. He was very impressed. Firearms packed enough punch to make most armors pointless up close while being light and portable enough to make it a viable footsoldier armament. On one hand, it probably meant the end of chivalrous knight charges on the horseback. On the other, it meant that a kingdom with firearms would very likely win any conflict with one without. Maybe not every battle, surprise attacks and overwhelming numbers could possibly overcome musketeers in detail, but unless the command was given to utter morons, the war would still be won. And his highness Abraham did mention that the reason why they're only given some limited exposure to firearms was simply because Alyssa was already busy developing better ones and would have something even more impressive by the time they would train up anyone to be a competent musketeer. Still, having such exclusive weapons as personal gifts did tickle his fancy a lot.