Bed Bugs and Broomsticks The begining Episode
Greiderick Was born, a poor white child. The year was 1869. Spring was just around the corner. But there was no color in Greiderick’s life. Every photo from back then clearly shows black and white and gray. Or is it grey? It’s both, now let’s move on. His parents were indentured servants for the Mayor of Bavaria. Their duties were to sweep the castle halls at night. Making sure no bed bugs were moving around.
Greiderick was strapped to his mothers back. She was usually bent over sweeping, so he mostly watched as the ceiling slowly moved by. 12 hours every night, they swept. Kicking up dust but keeping the halls free of vermin. During the day, his parents shared a room in the basement, where 25 other people slept. Though some of the 25 slept at night, making the cramped quarters a little more sufferable.
Greiderick had never seen outside the castle. He had no reason to dislike his position in life. Night after night, he would lay there, rocking on his mother’s back, kind of like a boat on a lake, slowly rocking with the rhythm of the sweeping brooms.
There were not any older children living in the room they shared. He thought he had remembered some but couldn’t make out what their faces had looked like. After a few years, Greiderick was too big to ride on his mothers back. One day a man came to see Greiderick, while his parents were not in the room. The few adults that were in the room, turned their faces away from the man. It even seemed like some of the mothers were crying. This seemed to make the man happy.He took Greiderick by the scruff of the neck, and left.
10/9/2020
Bed Bugs and Broomsticks Episode 2
Greiderick and the man went down hall after hall. Greiderick knew them all. Or at least he thought he did. The man went through a door Greiderick had not been though before. They were outside. The air was cool and clean. He had felt fresh air before in the castle, in the halls that had windows. But it was never enough to overpower the castle smell. It was his ninth birthday. Not that he knew that, or that it had ever been celebrated.
It was nighttime, fortunately. Greiderick had only seen dim castle light. He would be blind in the daylight. There were a few lights here and there. But they were walking away from them. It was almost totally dark, where they were headed. The man seemed to know where he was going. Greiderick thought about his parents. He was in a state of shock, a sensory overload. After walking what seemed like forever, they saw some lights a short distance away.
It was a much smaller castle like building. The guards didn’t wear uniforms. They seemed to know the man and didn’t pay that much attention to us. The stone wall around the compound was two feet thick and roughly ten feet tall. We walked past a big double door in the front of the building. I could hear music and laughing from inside. We came up to a much smaller door. The man knocked in what I thought was a strange way. I later learned that it was a code.
The door opened a few inches with a chain keeping it from opening all the way. From inside, an old man looked at the man with a hint of disgust. He then looked down at me, and slowly opened the door. After closing the door, we followed the old man down a fairly dark hall. The man pushed and kicked the old man, then laughed. At one point I thought I saw a face off in the dark. It looked familiar.
10/12/2020
Bed Bugs and Broomsticks Episode 3
They passed door after door. All manner of noises were coming from these rooms, Greiderick thought. They entered a room that the old man called a parlor. “Help your self to refreshments my lord”, said the old man. The man shoved the old man towards the door and replied, “Oh I will”. He gave Greiderick a shove towards a wall and said, “stand over there until I need something”. “Yes, my Lord”, replied a quite confused Greiderick. There were platters of food on the table. The man kind of ate like a pig. He drank like one also, thought Greiderick. He had drunk about 4 goblets’, before he started to walk and talk funny. He looked angry, but he was far less scary in this condition.
Just then the door opened. Two young women and a young man came in. The man, or teen was the face Greiderick had seen the dark. He used to live in the castle in the big room with Greiderick and his family. The man tried to hit the teen, but the man just swung around instead and fell on the floor. The women each grabbed one of the man’s arms. The man was quite angry, but with all the slurring and drooling he was doing, it was kind of hard to make out what he was trying to say. The teen grabbed the man’s feet and tied them together.
“You sold us into slavery”, one of the women said. We are going to return the favor. “We know some old smelly rich widows, that need a sex slave. You are kind if ugly, but they won’t mind,” she said. “The man was really angry now”, a look of redemption was on the face of all three former captives. The teen then looked at Greidierick and said, “Your parents helped with this little operation. You most likely can never see them again. We all must leave. We need to split up as much as possible. We know a barber several towns over that needs an apprentice, if you are interested.” Greidierick was.
10/15/2020
Bed Bugs and Broomsticks Epidose 4
The people in the kitchen were also in on this plan win to their freedom. They were all basically slaves. They had all been abused and wanted out. One way or another, after all, what was death to someone who had no life? The food that was delivered to the guards had been poisoned with a medication that would help them rest. Over the years, a few souls had escaped this place. Many of them had stumbled on to one another while living in the shadows. They learned to fight by practicing with each other daily. They had learned to steal in order to live. They were called the Perditus, or The Lost Ones.
The Perditus were waiting for a signal. A signal that would tell them the guards were asleep. When they got the signal, they entered the compound. Two of the Berditus changed clothes with the guards, taking their place at the front gate. That way any visitors that came by wouldn’t think anything out of the ordinary.
The gang of Perditus would be traveling on foot as to not leave much of a trail. But they did let all the horses go. Letting them go two at a time, they all kind of rode off in different directions. Gold and gems could attract too much attention. They took silver, and copper pieces. They up graded some of their weapons but took nothing too fancy. The man was strapped to a stretcher. His hat and coat were left at the scene in hopes it might incriminate him.
The main gate was closed after most of them got out. The Perditus blocked the gate from the inside so it wouldn’t be easily opened. The guards were given some more medication, so they would be out for some time. The rest of the Perditus, then lowered them selves over the wall with a rope, then threw the rope over the wall. They formed into two groups, said their goodbyes, hoping to see each other again soon. However long that might be.
10/21/2020
Bed Bugs and Broomsticks Episode 5
The group Greiderick was in, consisted of the two women, who had wrangled the drugged human trafficker, the human trafficker (Tied to a stretcher type object) that the two women carried. The woman with dark hair went by the name Tempestas, or The Storm. The blonde-haired woman went by the name Fatum, or Fate. There was a young man who went by the title Vindicta, or Revenge. Vindicta never spoke. Greiderick would later find out that Vindicta’s tongue had been cut off.
Greiderick, was told it would take about two weeks, to get to the town that would become his new home. They would travel at night and rest during the day for the most part. Vindicta always took the lead. Every few hundred feet, Vindicta, would approach the group from one side or another. Every now and then, Vindicta would Communicate with Fatum using hand jesters and a little grunting. Then he would wander off again to scout the path forward.
At one point during the first night, an animal could be heard screeching. Then there was silence. Vindicta soon appeared holding a dead fox. He quickly attached the fox to the bottom of the stretcher, and they continued on. They had not seen anyone or even heard another soul. There was only a sliver of a moon. After a while, the terrain started rising and falling, gently at first. Greiderick was used to walking a lot at night. His parents had given him a small broom, and he had been working alongside them for a couple of years now. But this walking had tired him out quite a bit. He loved his newfound freedom, but he was struggling physically.
10/25/2020
Bed Bugs and Broomsticks Episode 6
Greiderick had never been so tired in his short life. He thought about his parents every now and then, and tears would come to his eyes. But after experiencing the wonders of the outside, he thought this is a much better way of life for him. He heard some strange noises in the woods up front. Fatum and Tempestas both made similar yet unique sounds, like they were answering someone. Several Perditus seemingly appeared from nowhere. Almost as if they were falling from the trees.
They appeared to be communicating through a series of bird noises, clicks made by the tongue, and whistles. The tiny group started off through the brush. Vindicta made sure Greiderick didn’t get lost, as they brought up the rear. They came up to a rocky side of a small hill. The rocky face of the closest side went up about 200 feet. Straight up. Greiderick wondered where they were going from here. They were going in. First down, then over, then up. Through a short and highly guarded secret entrance, into the hill. It was a very tight passageway. No large force was ever going to pass through it. Neither was an uninvited smaller force.
The hallways were narrow. Every couple hundred feet, there was an opening in the ceiling. A huge rock was positioned so that it could be dropped to block the way, if any unwanted house guests showed up. It was fairly dark, but that wasn’t a problem for Greiderick. He was used to the dark. They came upon an opening in the wall. The Perditis started disappearing into the hole, one by one. Fatum told Greiderick, “it’s a bit of a slide, no worries.” Greiderick nodded his head like he knew what she said, he did not but entered the hole anyways. Down he went, with a loud shriek.
11/1/2020
Bed Bugs and Broomsticks Episode 7
Greiderick slid into a fairly large room. The slide emptied onto a ledge about three feet off the ground. The Perditus would just turn a little, put their feet on the ground and hop off the side. Greiderick’s dismount was far less graceful. He tried to put his feet down like he had seen the others do. This sent Greiderick, cartwheeling through the room. After cartwheeling about twenty feet, he ended up in the arms of a girl about his age. Her name was Flos, or flower.
Flos had caught Greiderick, grabbing his head and pulling it to her chest to keep him from falling. Greiderick was embarrassed about his dismount. He was more embarrassed when he realized his face was in Flos’s cleavage. “I’m so sorry,” said an embarrassed Greiderick. “Nice catch Flos”, joked a couple of the Perditis. “Hey Flos, are you going to keep him”, joked another Perditus. There were about 30 Perditus in the room. One by one, they all shook Greidericks’s hand and welcomed him.
There were several tables with chairs in the room. A long table at the end was full of food. The walls were covered with weapons of all types. The Perditus were slowly making their way back to their seats. Tempestas Guided Greiderick over to the table with food. Greiderick had never seen so much food. He wasn’t allowed in the kitchen or dining hall where he used to live. He didn’t know where to begin. Flos, sensing this, came over and started to pile food on a wooden tray for Greiderick. The rest of his life was just beginning.
11/18/2020
Bed Bugs and Broomsticks Episode 8
Flos guided Greiderick to a vacant table, sitting across from him, she seemed to never stop smiling. This helped Greiderick be at ease in his absolutely new surroundings. The different flavors he was experiencing seemed as wild as everything else happening to Greiderick. Some of the other Perditus would glance over and smile at him from time to time. Flos handed Greiderick a mug of wine. “You might want to take that slow”, said Flos.
The tables were laid out like spokes on a wheel, with a big area in the center of the room. There was now a Perditus standing there in the middle and the room slowly got quieter, and then totally quiet. “I would like to welcome Greiderick the newest member of our family. Greiderick, my name is Magister, or teacher. We are the Perditus. Most of us live regular lives with regular trades. That way we can more easily be there to help others when they need it most” said Magister
“We train when we can. We help when we can. We love when we can”, he went on Flos winked at Greiderick. He could feel his face redden. “We will keep you here for training. When you are ready to leave, we have set up an apprenticeship for you if you are interested”, said Magister. Greiderick had just taken a bite, he cleared his throat as quick as he could, rose up, and replied, ”yes My Lord, I am most grateful” There was a little chuckling at the my lord comment. “You can dispense of the My Lord, at least when we are here. In that case, let us celebrate the new addition to our family”, said Magister.
11/23/2020