Supply and Demand [Spoilers]
Posted: Tue Jul 23, 2019 1:47 am
"You are all doing excellent work!" Old Cusa praised the job being done by the group of young men and boys. "This project will provide fresh clean water to your entire village! Never underestimate the value of clean water. It was bad water that sickened the crew of that whaling ship all those years ago, which lead to me traveling to England. I have told you before how incredibly big London is, and how many people live there, but 5 million souls is an unimaginable number. You would not believe how much effort it took to supply a city of that size with fresh water. I mean on the surface it all looked so easy. They had pipes running everywhere, and you turn a tap, and water gushes out. It looks so simple. But underneath it all, it took a lot of effort to keep the water flowing."
Why I remember the first time I really got a good look at the arteries of the city...
I was a bit flush with cash right then, and had just arranged for the purchase of a ballistic jacket. Investigating can be a dangerous occupation and I felt that a bit of armor might save my life someday. I had also just a few days before finished a wonderful little training course where we practiced solving puzzles, and noticing things. I felt that I had really trained my mind to be more perceptive. My friend and mentor Gatsha, one of the founding grandfathers of the Lodge asked if I would investigate a local problem plaguing the nearby residents. He asked me to bring along some help, as he seemed to foresee that it would turn out to be more dangerous than one might at first assume, so I went and asked Private Harlan Price if he would be willing to help, the Lodge also asked a Ms Nancy Hargraves to help investigate with us. The problem was that the local standpipe was not delivering water.
Normally the East London water company is pretty good about things like that. Pipes of fresh water run under the street, sometimes through tunnels, sometimes buried in dirt. If a pipe bursts there are usually signs, a geyser or a sinkhole or something, and they will have a large crew digging up the street in no time. But now, certain stand-pipes were steadily delivering less and less water over a week and a half period, and the water company seemed unable or unwilling to do anything about it. They kept saying that they were working on the problem, and that things would be back to normal by the next day. But there was never any visible activity, and far from returning to normal, the situation kept getting worse. By the time the local residents took up a collection and asked the Shaman Lodge to investigate the situation (and the Lodge asked me), there were periods of time in which no water was flowing at all.
Ms Hargraves was a troll who had had a number of jobs in her young life. She had worked on narrow-boats (boats built to travel through canals, a canal is an artificial river that they dug so that they could take boats places that natural rivers did not go). She had also had jobs in construction, particularly as a plumbers assistant. She told us a bit about what we could expect to find underground. She particularly warned us that some of the pipes were high pressure Hydraulics pipes, and that leaks from them could be quite dangerous.
We examined the standpipe, and sure enough, there was no water coming out of it. We examined all the neighboring standpipes, and they were all working. Talking to people we heard rumors that the Burnditch standpipe was the worst, but ones to the South of it on the same line were also showing problems.
I wanted to talk to somebody who could give us more detail, or a map. Ms Hargraves suggested we try the Brunswick Road office of the water company. Their door was locked with a note on it saying that they were working on the problem and that it would be fixed the next day. We looked for and found the nearest pub, and therein found what appeared to be the entire staff of the office hard at work drinking their supper. Nancy knew some of them and when I offered to buy a round of the pubs finest, they happily let us join them. This joy started to dissipate fairly quickly when I started to quiz them about the recent troubles. Their leader, Rob, tiredly started to give us the standard line that they were working on it and that it would all undoubtedly be fixed tomorrow. I asked him about the rumors of the grizzly murders. Now just to be clear, there were no rumors of murder, but I wanted to stir the pot and get him off of his prepared script. And of course this was Victorian London, rumors of grizzly murders could, and often were attached to any other rumors fairly easily. My questions left him nonplussed and I got the impression that there were no grizzly murders that he knew about (which is not surprising since I had just made them up), however nether my questions nor his hurried denials failed to elicit any actual information like I had hoped it would until I asked the question "how did he know that none of the people that were missing had not been murdered in a grizzly fashion?" This actually seemed to throw him for a loop, and I got the distinct impression that this shot in the dark might have hit and that there were actually missing water company workers (though apparently nobody suspected that they might be dead, just missing).
I asked if they had considered going down into the storm drains with armed guards. They started to get very uncomfortable with the conversation and started getting ready to leave (It pained me to see that good beer quaffed so quickly), rather than beat around the bush any more, I laid it right out that we would be willing to accompany a work party down into the drains as guards. Rob very stiffly said that the water company could handle it's own business, and that if we wanted to apply for employment we should do so at the main office in the morning. The water company employees then all left.
We waited until they were out of the pub before we also hurriedly left, and from the shelter of the doorway managed to see in which direction each went. It seemed clear to me that Rob was too much of a company man to discuss matters with outsiders, but I wondered if the others might prove more open-minded if approached when not in his company. After the group had split and Rob had walked off, the three of us split up and approached each of the other men. Harlan Price followed his man to his flat, but decided not to approach him. He did learn that the man carried a pistol in his tool-chest. I approached two of the men, and exchanged a few coins for the information of the location of the main entrance to that section of tunnels, plus the exact location of that section of tunnels exit to the Thames. Nancy learned that the water company had stationed guards at the main entrance to that section of the tunnels. We walked by that location and noticed the unobtrusive guards. We were not certain if they were there to prevent anybody like us from entering, or to prevent anything from exiting.
With the main entrance guarded, we next tried the exit. We went to the section of the docklands waterfront that was described to us, and after the application of "see by the light of the moons" were able to look over the embankment and see the place where the storm drains exited into the Thames. We quickly spotted a set of river stairs, that lead down and gave access to a cut path halfway down the embankment that gave access to the grate covering the opening. The grate was hinged and secured by a padlock. I cast "Bathing in the Invisible River" a few times to clean all the rust off of the padlock and the hinges, then Nancy struggled and pulled until the padlock broke. Having assured ourselves that the grate could now be opened freely, we rearranged everything to make it look as if the grate and padlock were still secure, and put a bit of mud over everything to disguise the fact that they were now rust-free and shiny. We decided to wait until morning to actually enter the tunnel, and retired to my boarding house for supper, and agreed to meet there again for breakfast.
Why I remember the first time I really got a good look at the arteries of the city...
I was a bit flush with cash right then, and had just arranged for the purchase of a ballistic jacket. Investigating can be a dangerous occupation and I felt that a bit of armor might save my life someday. I had also just a few days before finished a wonderful little training course where we practiced solving puzzles, and noticing things. I felt that I had really trained my mind to be more perceptive. My friend and mentor Gatsha, one of the founding grandfathers of the Lodge asked if I would investigate a local problem plaguing the nearby residents. He asked me to bring along some help, as he seemed to foresee that it would turn out to be more dangerous than one might at first assume, so I went and asked Private Harlan Price if he would be willing to help, the Lodge also asked a Ms Nancy Hargraves to help investigate with us. The problem was that the local standpipe was not delivering water.
Normally the East London water company is pretty good about things like that. Pipes of fresh water run under the street, sometimes through tunnels, sometimes buried in dirt. If a pipe bursts there are usually signs, a geyser or a sinkhole or something, and they will have a large crew digging up the street in no time. But now, certain stand-pipes were steadily delivering less and less water over a week and a half period, and the water company seemed unable or unwilling to do anything about it. They kept saying that they were working on the problem, and that things would be back to normal by the next day. But there was never any visible activity, and far from returning to normal, the situation kept getting worse. By the time the local residents took up a collection and asked the Shaman Lodge to investigate the situation (and the Lodge asked me), there were periods of time in which no water was flowing at all.
Ms Hargraves was a troll who had had a number of jobs in her young life. She had worked on narrow-boats (boats built to travel through canals, a canal is an artificial river that they dug so that they could take boats places that natural rivers did not go). She had also had jobs in construction, particularly as a plumbers assistant. She told us a bit about what we could expect to find underground. She particularly warned us that some of the pipes were high pressure Hydraulics pipes, and that leaks from them could be quite dangerous.
We examined the standpipe, and sure enough, there was no water coming out of it. We examined all the neighboring standpipes, and they were all working. Talking to people we heard rumors that the Burnditch standpipe was the worst, but ones to the South of it on the same line were also showing problems.
I wanted to talk to somebody who could give us more detail, or a map. Ms Hargraves suggested we try the Brunswick Road office of the water company. Their door was locked with a note on it saying that they were working on the problem and that it would be fixed the next day. We looked for and found the nearest pub, and therein found what appeared to be the entire staff of the office hard at work drinking their supper. Nancy knew some of them and when I offered to buy a round of the pubs finest, they happily let us join them. This joy started to dissipate fairly quickly when I started to quiz them about the recent troubles. Their leader, Rob, tiredly started to give us the standard line that they were working on it and that it would all undoubtedly be fixed tomorrow. I asked him about the rumors of the grizzly murders. Now just to be clear, there were no rumors of murder, but I wanted to stir the pot and get him off of his prepared script. And of course this was Victorian London, rumors of grizzly murders could, and often were attached to any other rumors fairly easily. My questions left him nonplussed and I got the impression that there were no grizzly murders that he knew about (which is not surprising since I had just made them up), however nether my questions nor his hurried denials failed to elicit any actual information like I had hoped it would until I asked the question "how did he know that none of the people that were missing had not been murdered in a grizzly fashion?" This actually seemed to throw him for a loop, and I got the distinct impression that this shot in the dark might have hit and that there were actually missing water company workers (though apparently nobody suspected that they might be dead, just missing).
I asked if they had considered going down into the storm drains with armed guards. They started to get very uncomfortable with the conversation and started getting ready to leave (It pained me to see that good beer quaffed so quickly), rather than beat around the bush any more, I laid it right out that we would be willing to accompany a work party down into the drains as guards. Rob very stiffly said that the water company could handle it's own business, and that if we wanted to apply for employment we should do so at the main office in the morning. The water company employees then all left.
We waited until they were out of the pub before we also hurriedly left, and from the shelter of the doorway managed to see in which direction each went. It seemed clear to me that Rob was too much of a company man to discuss matters with outsiders, but I wondered if the others might prove more open-minded if approached when not in his company. After the group had split and Rob had walked off, the three of us split up and approached each of the other men. Harlan Price followed his man to his flat, but decided not to approach him. He did learn that the man carried a pistol in his tool-chest. I approached two of the men, and exchanged a few coins for the information of the location of the main entrance to that section of tunnels, plus the exact location of that section of tunnels exit to the Thames. Nancy learned that the water company had stationed guards at the main entrance to that section of the tunnels. We walked by that location and noticed the unobtrusive guards. We were not certain if they were there to prevent anybody like us from entering, or to prevent anything from exiting.
With the main entrance guarded, we next tried the exit. We went to the section of the docklands waterfront that was described to us, and after the application of "see by the light of the moons" were able to look over the embankment and see the place where the storm drains exited into the Thames. We quickly spotted a set of river stairs, that lead down and gave access to a cut path halfway down the embankment that gave access to the grate covering the opening. The grate was hinged and secured by a padlock. I cast "Bathing in the Invisible River" a few times to clean all the rust off of the padlock and the hinges, then Nancy struggled and pulled until the padlock broke. Having assured ourselves that the grate could now be opened freely, we rearranged everything to make it look as if the grate and padlock were still secure, and put a bit of mud over everything to disguise the fact that they were now rust-free and shiny. We decided to wait until morning to actually enter the tunnel, and retired to my boarding house for supper, and agreed to meet there again for breakfast.