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Sagiro's Story Hour: The FINAL Adventures of Abernathy's Company (FINISHED 7/3/14)
- Thread starter Sagiro
- Start date
Joshua Randall
Legend
It seems like the black goo is somewhat akin to
. I think that the tremendous impact that Kibi sensed was that of a
.
This is very cool. Even if I'm wrong.
the colour out of space (as in the H.P. Lovecraft story
meteor strike, again like the HPL story
This is very cool. Even if I'm wrong.
Piratecat
Sesquipedalian
Half right. But it's so, so much worse than that. Gah.It seems like the black goo is somewhat akin to. I think that the tremendous impact that Kibi sensed was that of athe colour out of space (as in the H.P. Lovecraft story.meteor strike, again like the HPL story
This is very cool. Even if I'm wrong.
Joshua Randall
Legend
Half right is better than I usually do.
And I'm still bitter that I was wrong about Mrs. Horn being the secret evil mastermind behind everything.
And I'm still bitter that I was wrong about Mrs. Horn being the secret evil mastermind behind everything.
Piratecat
Sesquipedalian
That's okay. I'm still bitter that I was wrong about the archmage Cranchus and Parthol Runecarver ("the mysterious 'P'") being the same person, with Parthol having killed Cranchus and taken his place. It was an awesome theory that explained everything but couldn't have been farther from the truth. I feel your pain.Half right is better than I usually do.
And I'm still bitter that I was wrong about Mrs. Horn being the secret evil mastermind behind everything.
Sagiro
Rodent of Uncertain Parentage
Sagiro’s Story Hour, Part 308
How to Ruin a Rat's Day
By now the Company packs a collective destructive force that rivals almost anything Abernia has to offer. When that force is unleashed on unsuspecting victims – look out.
They appear hovering in the air, not wishing to stand upon the seething carpet of rats that stretches for at least fifty feet in every direction. Grey Wolf opens up with a sonic lance. Kibi casts an earthquake over the entire area. Aravis invokes time stop, and while the world stands still he shape changes into an enormous yellow dragon. When time resumes he breathes a devastating cone of electricity.
Dranko sneak attacks the flat-footed Black Rat with his whip. Morningstar casts firestorm. Ernie casts destruction. With the rat still stumbling around on the quivering ground, Grey Wolf lets loose a greater fireburst channeled through Bostock. Kibi quickens a coldfire, then reaches down and bestows upon the Black Rat an Otto's irresistable dance.
All of this happens in about 10 seconds.
When the smoke (quite literally) clears, all of the mid-sized rats are dead, the ground is thick with the corpses of small rats, and the Black Rat is covered with wounds, its fur patched with burns and its skin beneath splotched with bruises. And, best of all, it's dancing a serious jig.
The bad news? Well, for one thing the Black Rat is still alive, having resisted or saved against much of the magical barrage. For another, the ground is still alive with living rats, squirming around and quickly covering the dead ones. It's as if there's a constant influx of the creatures from an Elemental Plane of Rats just off-stage. Ernie shudders.
The worst news is that Kibi has suffered some kind of backlash from making physical contact with the Black Rat. In addition to blistered skin and devastating internal injuries, his eyes have gone a flat black. The others see him preparing another spell and muttering to himself.
“Want to tell us where Tarsos is?” asks Dranko, looking down as the Black Rat spins and twirls. “We may let you live!”
“And those red-armored guys will turn on you,” Ernie adds. “You can't trust them.”
“Of course not!” snarls the Rat. “Do you think I care?”
“Where did you make the deal with him?” Aravis demands.
“Some human town,” says the Rat.
Aravis turns to Dranko. “Also, I will never let him live.” He pegs the Black Rat with a disintegrate, which dissolves more of the creature's flesh. A chunk of its shoulder drops into the carpet of rats and is promptly devoured.
Morningstar quickens a searing darkness that fizzles against her enemy's resistance, before casting heal on Kibi. The dwarf was preparing to cast prismatic spray, thinking that enemies had managed to surround him. As the haze fades from his vision and Morningstar's soothing energy fills him, he realizes that he was just about to cast the spell on all of his friends.
“No more touching the rat!” he shouts, alarmed.
“Uh, guys?” says Dranko, pointing to the Rat. “I have some bad news.” He noticed that when Kibi was healed, the Black Rat also gained health – a lot of it. They speculate over the mind-link that whatever happened to Kibi allowed their foe to share life force somehow. Whoops!
Back to the good news: while the Rat is dancing and they're hovering five feet off the ground, there's nothing dangerous to worry about, so the party continues to take their shots. Ernie flies directly over it and attacks with both Coiled Viper and his spiritual weapon. Grey Wolf burns it with prismatic ray. Flicker stabs it through one ear with a well-placed dagger strike. Kibi smacks it with a Bigby's clenched fist.
But the Black Rat survives, mostly due to its strong innate resistance to hostile magic. It shrugs off another disintegrate from Aravis, a flame strike and quickened searing darkness from Morningstar, and both an empowered cone of cold and an earthbolt from Kibi. They have more luck with physical strikes: Ernie, Flicker and Dranko continue to slice, whip and stab.
Dranko looks down at the Rat, wondering why it's still alive. Bleeding profusely, and with bone showing through its ravaged hide in many places, it's still jumping, spinning and shuffling its feet. With every step it's crushing smaller rats beneath its enormous bulk.
“If nothing else,” Dranko observes, “its dignity is nearly dead.”
The Black Rat stops dancing. Freed from Kibi's enchantment, it backs up and lowers its bloody snout into the swarm of rats. Then it opens its mouth wide and seems to breath in hundreds of its smaller brethren.
“Uh oh...” says Ernie.
The Black Rat lifts its head and blasts out a wide cone of rats from its mouth. The rodents spray over the party, thumping into them, tearing with claws and teeth, and clinging to their clothes and armor. Flicker and Dranko twist and evade the rats, and Morningstar's fire shield burns them away, but everyone else is now covered with rats, biting and scratching and squeaking loudly. Ernie, who has harbored a phobia of rats ever since the party's very first adventure, lets out a shriek of terror.
Aravis casts lightning ring, surrounding his draconian body with electricity that burns away the rats clinging to his scales. Kibi punches the Black Rat again with Bigby's Fist, and the creature wobbles noticeably. Dranko misses three times with his spiritual weapon but lands another crack with his whip.
With all of the party in bad physical shape after the Breath of Rats, Morningstar casts mass heal – which is good for the party, but also, it turns out, good for the Rat. Its consumption of Black Goo, along with the potent life-force absorbed from the three slain Sparks, has given it a powerful necromantic aura that leeches off any nearby healing energies.
“Dammit!” Dranko exclaims. “We just healed the Rat, too!”
Morningstar throws up her hands in exasperation. “You'd rather I let you all get gnawed to death?”
Ernie is living his own worst nightmare, covered with rats biting and scrabbling at his armor. Some of them find exposed skin and open up numerous cuts. Somehow he concentrates enough to fire off a searing light at the Rat, before flying upward a bit. “Get them off of me, get them off of me!” he shrieks.
Grey Wolf likewise feels the stinging attacks of a dozen or more rats, but he nails the Black Rat with a pair of lesser acid orbs. Flicker swoops down, flanks the Rat with Dranko, and jams his dagger into its neck. “Won't you just die, you stupid thing!”
Kibi flies himself up to where Ernie and Grey Wolf are hovering and casts a quickened rainbow pattern around all three of them. When he moves the glittering lights off to the side, the rats detach from their victims to follow and end up dropping back into the crawling carpet of their brethren. Ernie cheers. “Thank you, Kibi!”
“Yeah, well,” says Dranko, “I hope there aren't any still squirming in your...”
“Shut up!” Ernie yells. Shut up, shut up!”
Kibi then casts hold monster, but the Rat resists. “Dammit! That spell never works!”
The Black Rat sees that Dranko is hovering close above its head. With unexpected quickness it rears up high on its hind legs, grabs Dranko with its forepaws, and lunges with its enormous incisors.
It bites Dranko's left arm clean off. Blood squirts sickeningly from the stump. Dranko has just enough wherewithal to cast close wounds to stop the bleeding, and yell down “I had magic items on that arm!” before he starts screaming from pain and shock. The arm itself falls into the morass of smaller rodents, where it is quickly devoured.
Aravis fires off two bolts from his lightning ring, but both are stopped by the Rat's resistance. Then he breathes more lightning, which crisps many small rats and scorches the Black Rat, but catches Flicker in its area.
The Rat laughs. “It's because you're a cat. Don't be surprised when things don't work out for you.” But its optimism is belied by a gurgling cough and a battered body. Its health-leech ability has kept it alive well-past its expected expiration date, but it seems to be having trouble keeping its feet.
Morningstar fires a darkbeam that does only minor damage. Ernie's doom fails to get through the Rat's resistance, and another searing light likewise fails. Dranko, going on pure adrenaline and anger, gives the Rat a series of brutal lashes with his whip. Fittingly, the last snap of the whip yanks out one of the Black Rat's front teeth.
Bostock speaks into Grey Wolf's mind. “I suggest charging.”
“I like my arms, thanks,” Grey Wolf answers.
“Your spells are largely ineffective against it. Weapons are not. I am not!”
But Grey Wolf proves him wrong, casting a maximized chain missile that sends a handful of burning sparks into the body of the Rat. Dranko, looking down, sees his foe reaching up again to strike... and then a ball of blue lightning starts to burn in its eye socket. The Black Rat falls lifeless to the ground, where it is quickly skeletonized by the thousands of rats at its feet.
“Back off, everyone!” warns Aravis, and then he clears out the swarming rats with a pair of fireballs. What remains is a puddle of greasy black liquid radiating a palpable evil. Dranko can see his buckler and magic ring sinking out of sight in the center of the puddle.
“Hey, look. There goes my stuff.”
And with that, he floats weakly down and off to the side before collapsing in a heap.
* *
“It's kind of a low-grade Evil.”
Ernie sniffs the air with distaste as he attends to Dranko's stump. The small pool of Goo left behind by the Black Rat isn't quite at the same level of Evil as the Black Book in their basement, or the pot of Essence they also have in storage. Still, none of them feel comfortable looking at or standing near to it. The Company realizes that they hear none of the sounds of woodland creatures one would expect at this time of day. Even the animals have the sense to avoid the remains of the Black Rat.
“I can't believe it ate my arm,” says Dranko bitterly.
“Well, no,” says Ernie. “It didn't eat it. Technically it just ripped it off.”
“It was the little rats who ate it,” says Morningstar, nodding.
“Great,” Dranko mutters. “Thanks.”
They talk for a while about what they can do about the black puddle; it seems poor form to just leave it for unsuspecting passersby to stumble upon. Maybe positive energy will work? A miracle and/or wish? Hallow? Consecrate?
Flicker smirks. “Hey Dranko! Now you can answer the great question: 'What is the sound of one hand clapping?'”
“It sounds like a punch in the nose,” says Dranko.
“What...? Oh. You...um... don't happen to mean your own nose, do you?”
“No,” Dranko grumbles, “because if I punch myself in the nose, my finger might get stuck there!”
Dranko manages to light a cigar with one hand. The smoke forms into the words Kibi is great. But his next puff shows something less dwarf-aggrandizing: No permanent harm.
Huh?
Morningstar starts small, casting consecrate on the black pool. The foul liquid bubbles, and the area becomes holy for a few seconds. Then there is an gassing-off, a foul stench, the holiness is gone, and the emanating Evil returns.
Morningstar harrumphs. “That was rude!”
Flicker looks over at Dranko, who is staring disconsolately at where his arm should be. “Say... you can craft ARMS and armor, right? Won't that help?
Dranko ignores him. “You know,” he says thoughtfully. “Maybe if we fish my arm out, it could end up being a holy relic someday. 'The Hand of the Healer,' they'll call it, except that it'll only do a half-assed job and only sort of make you feel better. But if you hit someone with it, it'll hurt a lot.
Morningstar next tries hallow, which will take a full day to cast. She prays to Ell while the sun crosses the sky above the tall trees. Her words grow louder and more powerful while the moon is out. The others rest; Dranko tosses and turns fitfully in his sleep.
The next afternoon Morningstar completes her hallow. The black puddle hisses and bubbles again, but this time it shrinks as it does so, and within an hour it has entirely evaporated. It leaves behind a scoured-out depression in the forest floor almost a foot deep. At the bottom, in some bubbling mud, is Dranko's partially-dissolved left arm, still adorned with its magic items. Dranko nudges the arm with his foot, turns around, and throws up. When he has wiped the sour vomit from his mouth, he croaks, “Could someone be so kind as to remove my items from my arm, so I don't have to do it myself?”
He turns to Aravis. “Forget about it being a holy relic. Can you disintegrate my arm after I have my new one?”
Flicker quirks an eyebrow. “Why?”
“I don't want our enemies getting a hold of it and using it against us.”
“Yeah,” says Flicker with a smirk. “They could raise an ARMy with it!”
Dranko can't help but chuckle. “My whip hand still works,” he warns.
“You're a cleric, Dranko,” says Flicker. “Above all, do no ARM!”
“Ell,” says Morningstar. “I ask that you please produce a new arm for my husband Dranko. He's a good man who deserves your blessing, and also Flicker is going to drive us crazy until this whole thing is behind us.”
She casts regenerate. At the spell's conclusion a black silhouette of an arm appears on Dranko's stump, and in a minute it fades slowly to a normal, functioning limb. Unlike the rest of Dranko's body, it bears no scars. He leans over and gives his wife a kiss.
“Thank you very much,” he says simply.
Aravis clears his throat. “The next thing to do is to contact the Feline Conclave.”
Morningstar casts another sending to Plumpypuss, explaining the demise of the Black Rat. After a brief pause, the response comes back: In six hours, scry me and teleport to my location. Um, Aravis can do that, right? Bring your allies if you'd like.
With six hours to kill, they get a bit more rest. Ernie flies up above the trees but sees no settlement within sight of their location. (They still have no good idea where they are – a drawback of the scry/teleport maneuver.)
Dranko ponders the battle. “I wonder what I did wrong in that fight. I mean, in past fights I didn't have my arm bitten off.”
“I think I made the bigger mistake,” says Aravis. “I had protection from evil up. I could have picked up the Rat without risking it taking over my mind.”
“It also hurt,” Kibi reminds him. “A lot.”
Six hours later Aravis completes a scry, and sees the fluffy Maine Coon 'Plumpypuss' in a forest clearing. He teleports the party.
And there they are. Aravis bows low. “Pleased to meet you, Plumpypuss.”
“The honor is mine,” meows the cat. “Thank you again for disposing with the Rat. The Conclave would like to meet you right away. Can you vouch for all these other bipeds? Especially...”
And here Plumpypuss looks pointedly at Ernie. “...him?”
“Yes,” answers Aravis. “But why should I be worried about Ernest?”
Plumpypuss says nothing for a moment. “Well, as long as you're sure...”
The cat turns tail and walks into the misty woods. It's an older, shaggier forest than the one they just left, with thick hanging vines and a rich smell. The Company follows, and they all experience a journey similar to the one Aravis took to his meeting with the Great Pack. The mist becomes too thick to see through, and everyone feels a tingle as if passing through some magical place. Were they teleported? Did they pass through a portal?
The feeling subsides, and the mist does as well, and then they are in a wide clearing. There are ancient ruins crumbled about – a low wall here, a smashed archway there. There are seven cats here including Plumpypuss, in a wide variety. There is a red tabby with white paws, a huge fluffy white cat, a mottled black-and-grey Manx, a little off-white Siamese, and a lean, grey alley-cat. A sleek black cat sits above them all on an old stone pedestal.
All of the cats regard Aravis and his friends with twitching tails. The black cat on the pedestal greets them. “Aravis, welcome to the Conclave.”
“It's an honor to be here,” says Aravis.
“I'm sure Plumpypuss has already asked you, but I'll ask you again: are you sure your friends are safe, and that you can trust them?”
“As certain as I can be,” says Aravis. “I trust them with my life, every day.”
The small white Siamese speaks. “I still don't understand how we can trust them, Aravis included! He's probably the same as that Black Rat! You smell it, don't you?”
The grey alley-cat looks at Ernie and hisses. “And he has a confederate! We should be prepared. Make the other one leave. Or at least, make them put down their – what are they called, their spell components, the things humans use to effect their magics.”
He looks at Aravis, then at Ernie. “Yes, put down your spell components.”
“Are you all crazy?” cries Plumpypuss. “He just slew the thing that killed Sawgrass. and the horse, and the Dog!”
“How do you know?” the Siamese retorts. “We only have his own word for it!”
The black cat on the pedestal interrupts. “He tells the truth. I can tell.” Then he turns to the Company. “Aravis, there is a taint on you, that we can sense. It is not just that you are a human. There is something fundamentally wrong with you – both you, and him.”
Aravis understands. He drops his component pouch to the ground and explains. “If you sense the same thing in both of us, then what you are sensing is that at one point in the past, we were touched by something very similar to what was driving the Black Rat.”
The grey alley-cat hisses. “I told you!
“Belladonna, hush!” the black cat admonishes.
Aravis continues. “We used a wish, the most powerful spell known to human wizards, to remove its influence. And, there is a further wish I would like to attempt. I hope it will provide final proof that I can be trusted.”
“Explain,” says the black.
“I don't know if my magic is powerful enough, but I would like to wish the destroyed essences of the slain animal Sparks back into existence.”
There is much animated meowing at this suggestion. The red tabby with the white paws arches its back and hisses, “That's blasphemy! You may be a Spark, but you are still a human. That is Quarrol's business. You should not meddle.”
“But others have already meddled,” says Aravis calmly, “and have destroyed the Sparks. I merely wish to restore the proper, natural order. Maybe that is why Quarrol allowed the Spark to be born into me.”
The white Siamese nods its head. “That makes sense to me.”
“How long would this take to do?” asks the black cat.
“A few moments, is all.”
“I think he should do it, and do it right now!” says Plumpypuss. “What's the harm in waiting?”
“I won't do it without your consent,” says Aravis.
“Then we'll vote,” says the black. “I am Inkspot, and I will save my vote for the end.”
He turns to the red tabby. “Four White Paws, how do you vote?”
“I vote 'of course not.'”
To the fluffy white: “Queen?”
“I vote Yes,” says Queen lazily. “I don't see the harm. If he has magics that powerful, what can we do to stop him no matter what he wants to do?”
To the gray alley-cat: “Belladonna?”
“No. Absolutely not.”
The Manx, named Claws, votes Yes, as does Plumpypuss.
Finally Inkspot turns to the Siamese. “Frungycat, how do you vote?”
(As Kibi, translating for the other via tongues over the mindl-ink, shares this last name, Flicker can't help but snicker.)
“I vote Yes,” says Frungycat.
“And I vote Yes as well,” says Inkspot. “Which makes the vote five to two in favor. And to enlighten you, since it's clear your friends are listening: Quarrol sees fit that the Divine Sparks are born into cats who are in the care of humans. We all keep the names that our humans give us, for it is our prime purpose to make sure the balance between humans and cats stays in an acceptable place, for the good of our kind.
“Now, cast your wish.”
Aravis takes a deep breath. “I wish that the Divine Essences that were destroyed by the Rat be restored back to their kinds.”
A wind picks up in the clearing, blowing through the trees and swirling the mist at its edges. The cats of the Conclave look around nervously, except for Inkspot who looks unusually attentive.
“You'll have to tell me if it worked,” says Aravis. “Though I've been given one of your Divine Sparks, I do not have your senses for others of our kind.”
All of the cats start to sniff the air. A minute later Inkspot stands up and flicks his tail. “It has worked,” he announces, “for our kind at least. We can sense it. A kitten has been born in Trev Lyndyn. Its humans have named it 'Snapdragon.' In time it will grow mature, and join us here. Aravis, Thank you.”
Plumpypuss hops up into an old stump. “So now you'll all stop doubting him, right? Right?”
Belladonna and Four White Paws shrink back a bit, humbled.
Pewter, who has been perched on Aravis's shoulder all of this time, has been taking in the scene with great awe. He whispers in his master's ear: “This is why I've been calling you 'Boss' all this time!”
“And you're part of me,” says Aravis, scratching Pewter behind the ear.
“Hey, yeah. Heck, I'm probably the only cat familiar a member of the Feline Conclave has ever had!”
Inkspot fixes Aravis with a stare. “We feel – most of us, at least, and perhaps the rest of will come around to this point of view – that one of the Conclave was born into you because of the threat the Black Rat posed to us. Quarrol foresaw that the Rat would arise, and that you would need to strike him down.”
Then he narrows his eyes further and speaks directly into Aravis's mind. No other present hears what he says next.
I don't think that's the end of it. By the Ancient laws of Abernia, the Gods may not walk the earth. They have to stay in their heavens, and the rules for even the tiniest interventions are prohibitive. They are limited to divinations and prophecies, and they cannot take a direct hand. In fact, we, the Conclave, the Herd, the Pack, the... others... are the only divine beings on the surface, of any kind. Which means that you are the only directly divine human on Abernia. I don't think that came about simply to help the feline race. Perhaps there is a place you must go where only Gods are permitted, or a creature you must slay whom only a God can kill. I am the oldest of the Conclave. The others don't know how old. To all of them, I have always been here. Each of the animal Sparks has a leader such as me...except, now, for the Rats. Destiny is not finished with you, Aravis. But it has done well by us for today. Thank you.
Then out loud, Inkspot says, “I leave you with one last word of warning. There is still something gravely wrong with you. You will have to do something about that, or it will be your undoing. You and your friend. And though I understand that it is not your fault, I do not think you should stay in this place any longer.
“You are more reasonable than we expected a human to be. We have found in our experience that humans are an extremely irrational and violent, and though occasionally soft and sentimental, ultimately capricious species. Even more so than we. Farewell.”
Aravis answers, “I hope someday you come to understand that humans are more than that.”
“We'd all better hope so,” says Inkspot. “It is our lot that we cats are, finally, at the mercy of humans. If harm comes to Abernia, it will be for the humans to prevent, or to cause, and not us.”
...to be continued...
How to Ruin a Rat's Day
By now the Company packs a collective destructive force that rivals almost anything Abernia has to offer. When that force is unleashed on unsuspecting victims – look out.
They appear hovering in the air, not wishing to stand upon the seething carpet of rats that stretches for at least fifty feet in every direction. Grey Wolf opens up with a sonic lance. Kibi casts an earthquake over the entire area. Aravis invokes time stop, and while the world stands still he shape changes into an enormous yellow dragon. When time resumes he breathes a devastating cone of electricity.
Dranko sneak attacks the flat-footed Black Rat with his whip. Morningstar casts firestorm. Ernie casts destruction. With the rat still stumbling around on the quivering ground, Grey Wolf lets loose a greater fireburst channeled through Bostock. Kibi quickens a coldfire, then reaches down and bestows upon the Black Rat an Otto's irresistable dance.
All of this happens in about 10 seconds.
When the smoke (quite literally) clears, all of the mid-sized rats are dead, the ground is thick with the corpses of small rats, and the Black Rat is covered with wounds, its fur patched with burns and its skin beneath splotched with bruises. And, best of all, it's dancing a serious jig.
The bad news? Well, for one thing the Black Rat is still alive, having resisted or saved against much of the magical barrage. For another, the ground is still alive with living rats, squirming around and quickly covering the dead ones. It's as if there's a constant influx of the creatures from an Elemental Plane of Rats just off-stage. Ernie shudders.
The worst news is that Kibi has suffered some kind of backlash from making physical contact with the Black Rat. In addition to blistered skin and devastating internal injuries, his eyes have gone a flat black. The others see him preparing another spell and muttering to himself.
“Want to tell us where Tarsos is?” asks Dranko, looking down as the Black Rat spins and twirls. “We may let you live!”
“And those red-armored guys will turn on you,” Ernie adds. “You can't trust them.”
“Of course not!” snarls the Rat. “Do you think I care?”
“Where did you make the deal with him?” Aravis demands.
“Some human town,” says the Rat.
Aravis turns to Dranko. “Also, I will never let him live.” He pegs the Black Rat with a disintegrate, which dissolves more of the creature's flesh. A chunk of its shoulder drops into the carpet of rats and is promptly devoured.
Morningstar quickens a searing darkness that fizzles against her enemy's resistance, before casting heal on Kibi. The dwarf was preparing to cast prismatic spray, thinking that enemies had managed to surround him. As the haze fades from his vision and Morningstar's soothing energy fills him, he realizes that he was just about to cast the spell on all of his friends.
“No more touching the rat!” he shouts, alarmed.
“Uh, guys?” says Dranko, pointing to the Rat. “I have some bad news.” He noticed that when Kibi was healed, the Black Rat also gained health – a lot of it. They speculate over the mind-link that whatever happened to Kibi allowed their foe to share life force somehow. Whoops!
Back to the good news: while the Rat is dancing and they're hovering five feet off the ground, there's nothing dangerous to worry about, so the party continues to take their shots. Ernie flies directly over it and attacks with both Coiled Viper and his spiritual weapon. Grey Wolf burns it with prismatic ray. Flicker stabs it through one ear with a well-placed dagger strike. Kibi smacks it with a Bigby's clenched fist.
But the Black Rat survives, mostly due to its strong innate resistance to hostile magic. It shrugs off another disintegrate from Aravis, a flame strike and quickened searing darkness from Morningstar, and both an empowered cone of cold and an earthbolt from Kibi. They have more luck with physical strikes: Ernie, Flicker and Dranko continue to slice, whip and stab.
Dranko looks down at the Rat, wondering why it's still alive. Bleeding profusely, and with bone showing through its ravaged hide in many places, it's still jumping, spinning and shuffling its feet. With every step it's crushing smaller rats beneath its enormous bulk.
“If nothing else,” Dranko observes, “its dignity is nearly dead.”
The Black Rat stops dancing. Freed from Kibi's enchantment, it backs up and lowers its bloody snout into the swarm of rats. Then it opens its mouth wide and seems to breath in hundreds of its smaller brethren.
“Uh oh...” says Ernie.
The Black Rat lifts its head and blasts out a wide cone of rats from its mouth. The rodents spray over the party, thumping into them, tearing with claws and teeth, and clinging to their clothes and armor. Flicker and Dranko twist and evade the rats, and Morningstar's fire shield burns them away, but everyone else is now covered with rats, biting and scratching and squeaking loudly. Ernie, who has harbored a phobia of rats ever since the party's very first adventure, lets out a shriek of terror.
Aravis casts lightning ring, surrounding his draconian body with electricity that burns away the rats clinging to his scales. Kibi punches the Black Rat again with Bigby's Fist, and the creature wobbles noticeably. Dranko misses three times with his spiritual weapon but lands another crack with his whip.
With all of the party in bad physical shape after the Breath of Rats, Morningstar casts mass heal – which is good for the party, but also, it turns out, good for the Rat. Its consumption of Black Goo, along with the potent life-force absorbed from the three slain Sparks, has given it a powerful necromantic aura that leeches off any nearby healing energies.
“Dammit!” Dranko exclaims. “We just healed the Rat, too!”
Morningstar throws up her hands in exasperation. “You'd rather I let you all get gnawed to death?”
Ernie is living his own worst nightmare, covered with rats biting and scrabbling at his armor. Some of them find exposed skin and open up numerous cuts. Somehow he concentrates enough to fire off a searing light at the Rat, before flying upward a bit. “Get them off of me, get them off of me!” he shrieks.
Grey Wolf likewise feels the stinging attacks of a dozen or more rats, but he nails the Black Rat with a pair of lesser acid orbs. Flicker swoops down, flanks the Rat with Dranko, and jams his dagger into its neck. “Won't you just die, you stupid thing!”
Kibi flies himself up to where Ernie and Grey Wolf are hovering and casts a quickened rainbow pattern around all three of them. When he moves the glittering lights off to the side, the rats detach from their victims to follow and end up dropping back into the crawling carpet of their brethren. Ernie cheers. “Thank you, Kibi!”
“Yeah, well,” says Dranko, “I hope there aren't any still squirming in your...”
“Shut up!” Ernie yells. Shut up, shut up!”
Kibi then casts hold monster, but the Rat resists. “Dammit! That spell never works!”
The Black Rat sees that Dranko is hovering close above its head. With unexpected quickness it rears up high on its hind legs, grabs Dranko with its forepaws, and lunges with its enormous incisors.
It bites Dranko's left arm clean off. Blood squirts sickeningly from the stump. Dranko has just enough wherewithal to cast close wounds to stop the bleeding, and yell down “I had magic items on that arm!” before he starts screaming from pain and shock. The arm itself falls into the morass of smaller rodents, where it is quickly devoured.
Aravis fires off two bolts from his lightning ring, but both are stopped by the Rat's resistance. Then he breathes more lightning, which crisps many small rats and scorches the Black Rat, but catches Flicker in its area.
The Rat laughs. “It's because you're a cat. Don't be surprised when things don't work out for you.” But its optimism is belied by a gurgling cough and a battered body. Its health-leech ability has kept it alive well-past its expected expiration date, but it seems to be having trouble keeping its feet.
Morningstar fires a darkbeam that does only minor damage. Ernie's doom fails to get through the Rat's resistance, and another searing light likewise fails. Dranko, going on pure adrenaline and anger, gives the Rat a series of brutal lashes with his whip. Fittingly, the last snap of the whip yanks out one of the Black Rat's front teeth.
Bostock speaks into Grey Wolf's mind. “I suggest charging.”
“I like my arms, thanks,” Grey Wolf answers.
“Your spells are largely ineffective against it. Weapons are not. I am not!”
But Grey Wolf proves him wrong, casting a maximized chain missile that sends a handful of burning sparks into the body of the Rat. Dranko, looking down, sees his foe reaching up again to strike... and then a ball of blue lightning starts to burn in its eye socket. The Black Rat falls lifeless to the ground, where it is quickly skeletonized by the thousands of rats at its feet.
“Back off, everyone!” warns Aravis, and then he clears out the swarming rats with a pair of fireballs. What remains is a puddle of greasy black liquid radiating a palpable evil. Dranko can see his buckler and magic ring sinking out of sight in the center of the puddle.
“Hey, look. There goes my stuff.”
And with that, he floats weakly down and off to the side before collapsing in a heap.
* *
“It's kind of a low-grade Evil.”
Ernie sniffs the air with distaste as he attends to Dranko's stump. The small pool of Goo left behind by the Black Rat isn't quite at the same level of Evil as the Black Book in their basement, or the pot of Essence they also have in storage. Still, none of them feel comfortable looking at or standing near to it. The Company realizes that they hear none of the sounds of woodland creatures one would expect at this time of day. Even the animals have the sense to avoid the remains of the Black Rat.
“I can't believe it ate my arm,” says Dranko bitterly.
“Well, no,” says Ernie. “It didn't eat it. Technically it just ripped it off.”
“It was the little rats who ate it,” says Morningstar, nodding.
“Great,” Dranko mutters. “Thanks.”
They talk for a while about what they can do about the black puddle; it seems poor form to just leave it for unsuspecting passersby to stumble upon. Maybe positive energy will work? A miracle and/or wish? Hallow? Consecrate?
Flicker smirks. “Hey Dranko! Now you can answer the great question: 'What is the sound of one hand clapping?'”
“It sounds like a punch in the nose,” says Dranko.
“What...? Oh. You...um... don't happen to mean your own nose, do you?”
“No,” Dranko grumbles, “because if I punch myself in the nose, my finger might get stuck there!”
Dranko manages to light a cigar with one hand. The smoke forms into the words Kibi is great. But his next puff shows something less dwarf-aggrandizing: No permanent harm.
Huh?
Morningstar starts small, casting consecrate on the black pool. The foul liquid bubbles, and the area becomes holy for a few seconds. Then there is an gassing-off, a foul stench, the holiness is gone, and the emanating Evil returns.
Morningstar harrumphs. “That was rude!”
Flicker looks over at Dranko, who is staring disconsolately at where his arm should be. “Say... you can craft ARMS and armor, right? Won't that help?
Dranko ignores him. “You know,” he says thoughtfully. “Maybe if we fish my arm out, it could end up being a holy relic someday. 'The Hand of the Healer,' they'll call it, except that it'll only do a half-assed job and only sort of make you feel better. But if you hit someone with it, it'll hurt a lot.
Morningstar next tries hallow, which will take a full day to cast. She prays to Ell while the sun crosses the sky above the tall trees. Her words grow louder and more powerful while the moon is out. The others rest; Dranko tosses and turns fitfully in his sleep.
The next afternoon Morningstar completes her hallow. The black puddle hisses and bubbles again, but this time it shrinks as it does so, and within an hour it has entirely evaporated. It leaves behind a scoured-out depression in the forest floor almost a foot deep. At the bottom, in some bubbling mud, is Dranko's partially-dissolved left arm, still adorned with its magic items. Dranko nudges the arm with his foot, turns around, and throws up. When he has wiped the sour vomit from his mouth, he croaks, “Could someone be so kind as to remove my items from my arm, so I don't have to do it myself?”
He turns to Aravis. “Forget about it being a holy relic. Can you disintegrate my arm after I have my new one?”
Flicker quirks an eyebrow. “Why?”
“I don't want our enemies getting a hold of it and using it against us.”
“Yeah,” says Flicker with a smirk. “They could raise an ARMy with it!”
Dranko can't help but chuckle. “My whip hand still works,” he warns.
“You're a cleric, Dranko,” says Flicker. “Above all, do no ARM!”
“Ell,” says Morningstar. “I ask that you please produce a new arm for my husband Dranko. He's a good man who deserves your blessing, and also Flicker is going to drive us crazy until this whole thing is behind us.”
She casts regenerate. At the spell's conclusion a black silhouette of an arm appears on Dranko's stump, and in a minute it fades slowly to a normal, functioning limb. Unlike the rest of Dranko's body, it bears no scars. He leans over and gives his wife a kiss.
“Thank you very much,” he says simply.
Aravis clears his throat. “The next thing to do is to contact the Feline Conclave.”
Morningstar casts another sending to Plumpypuss, explaining the demise of the Black Rat. After a brief pause, the response comes back: In six hours, scry me and teleport to my location. Um, Aravis can do that, right? Bring your allies if you'd like.
With six hours to kill, they get a bit more rest. Ernie flies up above the trees but sees no settlement within sight of their location. (They still have no good idea where they are – a drawback of the scry/teleport maneuver.)
Dranko ponders the battle. “I wonder what I did wrong in that fight. I mean, in past fights I didn't have my arm bitten off.”
“I think I made the bigger mistake,” says Aravis. “I had protection from evil up. I could have picked up the Rat without risking it taking over my mind.”
“It also hurt,” Kibi reminds him. “A lot.”
Six hours later Aravis completes a scry, and sees the fluffy Maine Coon 'Plumpypuss' in a forest clearing. He teleports the party.
And there they are. Aravis bows low. “Pleased to meet you, Plumpypuss.”
“The honor is mine,” meows the cat. “Thank you again for disposing with the Rat. The Conclave would like to meet you right away. Can you vouch for all these other bipeds? Especially...”
And here Plumpypuss looks pointedly at Ernie. “...him?”
“Yes,” answers Aravis. “But why should I be worried about Ernest?”
Plumpypuss says nothing for a moment. “Well, as long as you're sure...”
The cat turns tail and walks into the misty woods. It's an older, shaggier forest than the one they just left, with thick hanging vines and a rich smell. The Company follows, and they all experience a journey similar to the one Aravis took to his meeting with the Great Pack. The mist becomes too thick to see through, and everyone feels a tingle as if passing through some magical place. Were they teleported? Did they pass through a portal?
The feeling subsides, and the mist does as well, and then they are in a wide clearing. There are ancient ruins crumbled about – a low wall here, a smashed archway there. There are seven cats here including Plumpypuss, in a wide variety. There is a red tabby with white paws, a huge fluffy white cat, a mottled black-and-grey Manx, a little off-white Siamese, and a lean, grey alley-cat. A sleek black cat sits above them all on an old stone pedestal.
All of the cats regard Aravis and his friends with twitching tails. The black cat on the pedestal greets them. “Aravis, welcome to the Conclave.”
“It's an honor to be here,” says Aravis.
“I'm sure Plumpypuss has already asked you, but I'll ask you again: are you sure your friends are safe, and that you can trust them?”
“As certain as I can be,” says Aravis. “I trust them with my life, every day.”
The small white Siamese speaks. “I still don't understand how we can trust them, Aravis included! He's probably the same as that Black Rat! You smell it, don't you?”
The grey alley-cat looks at Ernie and hisses. “And he has a confederate! We should be prepared. Make the other one leave. Or at least, make them put down their – what are they called, their spell components, the things humans use to effect their magics.”
He looks at Aravis, then at Ernie. “Yes, put down your spell components.”
“Are you all crazy?” cries Plumpypuss. “He just slew the thing that killed Sawgrass. and the horse, and the Dog!”
“How do you know?” the Siamese retorts. “We only have his own word for it!”
The black cat on the pedestal interrupts. “He tells the truth. I can tell.” Then he turns to the Company. “Aravis, there is a taint on you, that we can sense. It is not just that you are a human. There is something fundamentally wrong with you – both you, and him.”
Aravis understands. He drops his component pouch to the ground and explains. “If you sense the same thing in both of us, then what you are sensing is that at one point in the past, we were touched by something very similar to what was driving the Black Rat.”
The grey alley-cat hisses. “I told you!
“Belladonna, hush!” the black cat admonishes.
Aravis continues. “We used a wish, the most powerful spell known to human wizards, to remove its influence. And, there is a further wish I would like to attempt. I hope it will provide final proof that I can be trusted.”
“Explain,” says the black.
“I don't know if my magic is powerful enough, but I would like to wish the destroyed essences of the slain animal Sparks back into existence.”
There is much animated meowing at this suggestion. The red tabby with the white paws arches its back and hisses, “That's blasphemy! You may be a Spark, but you are still a human. That is Quarrol's business. You should not meddle.”
“But others have already meddled,” says Aravis calmly, “and have destroyed the Sparks. I merely wish to restore the proper, natural order. Maybe that is why Quarrol allowed the Spark to be born into me.”
The white Siamese nods its head. “That makes sense to me.”
“How long would this take to do?” asks the black cat.
“A few moments, is all.”
“I think he should do it, and do it right now!” says Plumpypuss. “What's the harm in waiting?”
“I won't do it without your consent,” says Aravis.
“Then we'll vote,” says the black. “I am Inkspot, and I will save my vote for the end.”
He turns to the red tabby. “Four White Paws, how do you vote?”
“I vote 'of course not.'”
To the fluffy white: “Queen?”
“I vote Yes,” says Queen lazily. “I don't see the harm. If he has magics that powerful, what can we do to stop him no matter what he wants to do?”
To the gray alley-cat: “Belladonna?”
“No. Absolutely not.”
The Manx, named Claws, votes Yes, as does Plumpypuss.
Finally Inkspot turns to the Siamese. “Frungycat, how do you vote?”
(As Kibi, translating for the other via tongues over the mindl-ink, shares this last name, Flicker can't help but snicker.)
“I vote Yes,” says Frungycat.
“And I vote Yes as well,” says Inkspot. “Which makes the vote five to two in favor. And to enlighten you, since it's clear your friends are listening: Quarrol sees fit that the Divine Sparks are born into cats who are in the care of humans. We all keep the names that our humans give us, for it is our prime purpose to make sure the balance between humans and cats stays in an acceptable place, for the good of our kind.
“Now, cast your wish.”
Aravis takes a deep breath. “I wish that the Divine Essences that were destroyed by the Rat be restored back to their kinds.”
A wind picks up in the clearing, blowing through the trees and swirling the mist at its edges. The cats of the Conclave look around nervously, except for Inkspot who looks unusually attentive.
“You'll have to tell me if it worked,” says Aravis. “Though I've been given one of your Divine Sparks, I do not have your senses for others of our kind.”
All of the cats start to sniff the air. A minute later Inkspot stands up and flicks his tail. “It has worked,” he announces, “for our kind at least. We can sense it. A kitten has been born in Trev Lyndyn. Its humans have named it 'Snapdragon.' In time it will grow mature, and join us here. Aravis, Thank you.”
Plumpypuss hops up into an old stump. “So now you'll all stop doubting him, right? Right?”
Belladonna and Four White Paws shrink back a bit, humbled.
Pewter, who has been perched on Aravis's shoulder all of this time, has been taking in the scene with great awe. He whispers in his master's ear: “This is why I've been calling you 'Boss' all this time!”
“And you're part of me,” says Aravis, scratching Pewter behind the ear.
“Hey, yeah. Heck, I'm probably the only cat familiar a member of the Feline Conclave has ever had!”
Inkspot fixes Aravis with a stare. “We feel – most of us, at least, and perhaps the rest of will come around to this point of view – that one of the Conclave was born into you because of the threat the Black Rat posed to us. Quarrol foresaw that the Rat would arise, and that you would need to strike him down.”
Then he narrows his eyes further and speaks directly into Aravis's mind. No other present hears what he says next.
I don't think that's the end of it. By the Ancient laws of Abernia, the Gods may not walk the earth. They have to stay in their heavens, and the rules for even the tiniest interventions are prohibitive. They are limited to divinations and prophecies, and they cannot take a direct hand. In fact, we, the Conclave, the Herd, the Pack, the... others... are the only divine beings on the surface, of any kind. Which means that you are the only directly divine human on Abernia. I don't think that came about simply to help the feline race. Perhaps there is a place you must go where only Gods are permitted, or a creature you must slay whom only a God can kill. I am the oldest of the Conclave. The others don't know how old. To all of them, I have always been here. Each of the animal Sparks has a leader such as me...except, now, for the Rats. Destiny is not finished with you, Aravis. But it has done well by us for today. Thank you.
Then out loud, Inkspot says, “I leave you with one last word of warning. There is still something gravely wrong with you. You will have to do something about that, or it will be your undoing. You and your friend. And though I understand that it is not your fault, I do not think you should stay in this place any longer.
“You are more reasonable than we expected a human to be. We have found in our experience that humans are an extremely irrational and violent, and though occasionally soft and sentimental, ultimately capricious species. Even more so than we. Farewell.”
Aravis answers, “I hope someday you come to understand that humans are more than that.”
“We'd all better hope so,” says Inkspot. “It is our lot that we cats are, finally, at the mercy of humans. If harm comes to Abernia, it will be for the humans to prevent, or to cause, and not us.”
...to be continued...
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I love the feline conclave.
How (mechanically) did Dranko lose the arm? Expanded crit table, some kind of special attack? I'm curious how that was determined, if you don't mind explaining.
Loving the quick updates the last few weeks -- the fight with the Rat God was awesome indeed, but the council afterword was just great.
Can't wait to see how the whole thing with Praska turns out... I wish I lived close enough to sit in on one of these games.
How (mechanically) did Dranko lose the arm? Expanded crit table, some kind of special attack? I'm curious how that was determined, if you don't mind explaining.
Loving the quick updates the last few weeks -- the fight with the Rat God was awesome indeed, but the council afterword was just great.
Can't wait to see how the whole thing with Praska turns out... I wish I lived close enough to sit in on one of these games.
Joshua Randall
Legend
Piratecat
Sesquipedalian
I think its mouth was like the old 1e sword of sharpness; if it rolled a crit, off went a limb. I was really in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Although personally, I think Sagiro was getting even with me for the time I charmed his character into testing a sphere of annihilation the hard way!
Sagiro was really disappointed that we came in flying. The fight would have been much, much tougher if we were standing on the ground in the middle of that rat swarm. I also seem to recall that he was shocked we were able to scry it. Rolling a "1" on your will save happens to the best of us, I guess.
Although personally, I think Sagiro was getting even with me for the time I charmed his character into testing a sphere of annihilation the hard way!
Sagiro was really disappointed that we came in flying. The fight would have been much, much tougher if we were standing on the ground in the middle of that rat swarm. I also seem to recall that he was shocked we were able to scry it. Rolling a "1" on your will save happens to the best of us, I guess.
No coincidence! That's Sagiro's favorite computer game. Frungy, sport of Emperors, is also the game Flicker snuck off to play when we first arrived in Djaw. And did you know Erol Otus did the art for the Zot-Fot-Pik? It all ties together.
