URBAN DECAY
Field Marshal Kroft was thrilled when her agents handed over the Cheliaxan ambassador’s letters, though there might have been a tinge of something else in her expression as well when she heard that Devargo still lived. Disappointment? Perhaps. In any event, she had no further immediate assignments for the company, and dismissed them, though she admonished them to make themselves available at a moment’s notice. She would leave word for them with Theandra Darklight, the owner of the Three Rings Tavern, where the group was being quartered in lieu of the Citadel barracks.
Weeks passed, and life in Korvosa returned to a vague semblance of normality, though tensions remained high, and some neighborhoods were still mostly lawless. Bridgeport, a high-rise shanty town in Old Korvosa was one of these. Ratbone was intimately familiar with its narrow, dingy streets, having spent much time there in the past, performing minor acts of good will whenever he could. These days, however, Bridgeport had declined significantly, and Ratbone had encouraged his new allies to patrol its streets periodically, since the regular Guard wanted little to do with its inhabitants. Little wonder. A miasma of foul air hovered over its garbage-strewn streets. The reek of unwashed bodies, offal, and rotting refuse formed an invisible cloud that permeated everything. Rusty sewer grates spurted pea-green sludge that oozed down the gutters, and rats swarmed in the alleys. Peasants hustled through the streets, grimy handkerchiefs covering their mouths and noses. Yes, Bridgeport had indeed fallen on hard times since Eodred’s death.
As the group picked their way down the garbage-strewn lanes, a pot-bellied half-orc pie salesman hailed them from a corner. He said his name was Mung, and he said that he’d heard of them…Guardsmen who were not Guardsmen, who actually seemed to care about the fate of Korvosa’s less fortunate. He needed their help. One of his suppliers, a man named Algie, had gone missing. Ordinarily, he wouldn’t worry, but four others had disappeared as well in the past month, all of them professional ratcatchers. Two had since turned up dead. Mung pointed out the obvious, that Bridgeport, never the nicest part of town, had gotten even worse of late. First the garbage collectors had stopped coming around, and then the sewers had backed up. Now, the ratcatchers. Vermin were everywhere, and they were vicious! Before he disappeared, Algie had talked about someone leaning on the ratcatchers, threatening to hurt them if they killed any more rats. Mung indicated that Weston, the head of the ratcatchers, might have more information if they were interested. Ratbone made no promises, but said they would look into the matter if they had time.
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Events soon unfolded that encouraged them to make time. They had only just left Mung, cutting through a side alley to avoid the heavy crowds, when six men stepped out of the shadows, three in front and three behind. One of them said the group had been seen talking to the pie salesman, and if they knew what was good for them, they’d get out of Bridgeport while they could still walk. To emphasize his words, he and his cronies began slapping heavy saps against their palms. Some of the K.I.A. disliked threats more than others, Herc and Valeris among them. The fight was short and brutal, with all but two of the thugs laying dead on the cobbles when all was said and done. Those two still drew breath did so thanks only to Ratbone’s and Mandrake’s mercy. Just the same, the druid broke all of their weapons with his bare hands, then he and his companions simply left them lying unconscious in the alley. As they walked away, they could already see the locals gathering for the scavenge.
The headquarters of the ratcatchers was a two-story wooden building located on Spit Street. In a front office on the lower level, a young man greeted them enthusiastically when they said they were investigating Algie’s disappearance. He said that Weston would be glad to see them as well. When he escorted them to Weston’s room, however, they found the door partly open, and the room empty, but there were obvious signs of a struggle. A large bloodstain, still tacky, pooled on the floor. Cracks around the lock on the door suggested forced entry, and when Ratbone shifted to his canine form, he found a tuft of hair, a scuffed footprint, and a smear of blood that formed a trail that lead to a covered chute on the ground floor. The ratcatcher escorting them explained that the chute descended to the sewers. They used it to dispose of their quarry. The next choice seemed obvious.
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The chute was treacherous, and several of the companions took nasty tumbles on the way down. Ratbone again picked up the blood trail immediately along the walkway above the effluvium. For two hours they followed the mongrel druid, his nose constantly sniffing this way and that. Finally, down a tunnel that, to the others, looked identical to every other one they’d already been down, they found a door, cobbled together from mildewed boards and rusty nails. Splintered pockmarks studded its surface, and a light flickered around its edges. In the darkness above, they could hear faint rustling sounds. When Herc impulsively drew his sword and began jabbing it into the rafters, a large flock of roosting pigeons came swarming down into the passage. Cursing and yelling, the heroes flailed at the maddened birds, finally driving them away into the darkness.
Still cursing, Herc jerked aside the rickety door. The small room beyond was filthy, filled with stacked crates. Dirty straw, animal waste and dried blood covered the floor, and a stained curtain covered a hole in the east wall. Standing in the center of the room was a woman that appeared to be half-human and half-rat. Scars marred her lean face and square chin. Dirty blonde hair sprouted all over her body to form a mat of fur. She held a short sword in her hand, and standing, backs arched and spitting in front of her, were three viciously feral-looking cats the size of badgers. She seemed in no frame of mind to talk, as she and her felines launched themselves forward. The six companions were taken aback by the ferocity and savagery of the attack. Before they could react, the rat-woman had forced both Herc and Valeris back out into the hallway, opening a terrible gash across the big mercenary’s face. Meanwhile, the cats pounced, all teeth and claws, upon Mandrake, and Ratbone, still in his canine form. Though Herc and Valeris dealt their opponent many fierce blows, her skin seemed to shed their steel as if they were striking stone. Still, the K.I.A. was quick to recover, and gradually, they gained ground, with Mandrake and Ratbone managing to dispatch the cats with some difficulty. Valeris and Herc continued to whittle away at the wererat until, finally, the duskblade reached out with his bare hand, channeling his magic as he did so, and delivered a deadly burst of electricity to her, sending her to the ground jittering and quivering before she stopped moving and reverted back to fully human form again.
A search of the room, and the adjoining cubby hole turned up a bound and gagged gray-haired halfling…Weston. He was terrified, yet grateful. He told his saviors that his captor had been called Beila Atcher, a new member of his organization that mostly kept to herself. During his captivity, she had raved about how she and her brother, Vernon, were going to finally show the powers-that-be in Korvosa that they could not keep their people in the sewers any longer. Apparently, their grand scheme involved sabotaging the sanitation systems in Bridgeport first. Then they would spread the filth to the wealthier districts, expecting the reek to drive some of the nobility out. Finally, with the aid of a local gang of thugs called the Scarred Shadows, they would slaughter Korvosa’s ruling class, and Vernon would take control of the city. Ambitious, to say the least. In addition, the heroes discovered a packet of correspondence between Beila and her brother, which revealed that Vernon was currently holed up in an abandoned garbage scow anchored on the river.
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On the way to the river, however, the company was once more accosted by members of the Scarred Shadows. That time, it was only three of the thugs, including the two they had left alive earlier, but there was a half-elf standing behind them, fingering a dagger and giggling. The encounter went no better for the gangsters than the previous one, however. With a single spell, Katarina rendered all four of them unconscious in a blast of colored light. When the group departed, Katarina left a Harrow card lying on the chest of one of the ruffians. She had scrawled the initials K.I.A on the back.
The ancient garbage scow bobbed in the black water of the Jeggare River. The deck groaned under the weight of piles of refuse, their reek almost overwhelming the dock smells of fish, salt and tar. A wooden shack rose from the filth like a mushroom. As they crossed the narrow, rickety gangway to the deck, Ratbone spotted movement amidst the trash piles as a cockroach the size of a pony erupted from the debris. The giant insect was vicious, and reeked like nothing they’d ever encountered. Still, it was still just an oversized bug, and proved no match for the combined fury of Mandrake and Ratbone.
The door to the cabin was locked, but Herc turned it to so much kindling with a smash of his shield. A dozen rats scurried along the floor of the bi-level, crowded room beyond. An oil lamp hung from the ceiling, shedding greasy gray light onto every surface. Piles of paper covered an old table, and sloping steps led down to a room filled with crates and a hammock. Crouched at the bottom of the stairs was another wererat, this one male, but covered with the same, dirty blonde hair as Beila. The family resemblance was uncanny. However, that resemblance did not translate to their fighting prowess. Vernon Atcher was no less tenacious, and though he was determined to see his deluded dreams through to their conclusion, he simply lacked his sister’s savagery. As a result, the would-be wererat king of Korvosa was quickly subdued, once more due largely to Katarina’s magic. Again and again, she assaulted the rogue with a physical assault of arcane power that rendered him quickly unconscious. Just like that, Vernon’s great plan came to an end.
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A search of Vernon’s scow turned up more incriminating documents of his plans. It also revealed the unconscious form of Algie, Mung’s lost friend. Algie was returned to the ratcatchers, and Vernon was brought back to the Citadel and handed over to Field Marshal Kroft. The K.I.A. was making a name for itself, both in the common quarters of the city, and in the places of power. Events would soon come to pass, however, when that reputation would be put to the most severe form of testing…
![:]](http://www.enworld.org/forum/images/smilies/devious.png "Devious :]")
