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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Sagiro" data-source="post: 5169538" data-attributes="member: 726">Sagiro’s Story Hour, Part 307Dream of a Black RatMorningstar shakes her head.  “Weird, weird, weird.”“He didn't seem like that bad a guy,” says Aravis.“He cut my husband!” “Yeah,” says Flicker.  “But it sounds like he deserved it some of the time!”Morningstar turns and glares at Flicker but says nothing.“Hey,” says Ernie, eager to change the subject.  “Grey Wolf and I were talking, and think that we should really find out what that black Goo is, given how central it is to what the Black Circle gets up to.  What if the Goo is the boiled down life energy itself?”“Note to self,” Dranko mutters.  “Not going to lick it.”“Maybe we can legend lore it,” Morningstar suggests.“Or I could do some alchemical experiments on it,” says Aravis, getting that gleam in his eye that shows up when he ponders doing something perilous.“Don't let it touch you!” Dranko warns,“I'll cast the legend lore,” says Kibi.  “But I'll need a protection from evil first so I can get close enough to cast.”So shielded, Kibi goes to the basement and retrieves from a closet the small sealed iron pot of Goo from Het Branoi.  He casts his spell, and can feel it starting to work.  Some kind of knowledge is coming into his head...Thirty seconds later he regains consciousness, with a clear memory that he had learned some truth that was too horrific to contemplate.  He has no recollection of the details.  The pot of Goo, still sealed, has fallen to the ground, and his protection from evil is still active.   He locks the pot back in the closet and goes upstairs to tell the others.* * The next night they invite Ozilinsh over dinner, and it's a much less awkward social call than Califax's visit of the previous night.  The now-powerless archmage seems happy, and they exchange pleasantries before the Company tells him about Mokad, Praska, and a possible new threat to the kingdom.  Ozilinsh is absolutely fascinated by the notion of a Morbid Link, and ends up reading through the Company's papers through dinner.  His mild hyperactivity and lack of social graces have certainly survived the draining away of his magical powers.“Hmmmm,” he says at various intervals, while the others eat and watch him.“Oooooh.”“Interesting!”“Dustwine?”“Say what you want about the Black Circle, but they're brilliant mathematicians.  Do you feel up to casting this Ritual of  Seven Stars?  Some of it is extremely advanced... but someone with whom you are eating dinner happens to be an expert mathematician himself, and would be delighted to help you.”“Ozilinsh,” asks Kibi, “Do you think casting the smaller ritual would alert Mokad that we were up to something?”“No, I don't think so.  I don't see any sub-aetheric vector that could account for transfer of knowledge.   If you don't mind, I'd like to borrow some of these books, so I can study the ritual and give you some advice.  Don't worry – I won't actually try anything myself.  Anyhow, thanks for dinner!  It's nice to get out of the house now and again.”* *Another week goes by without notable incident.  On the first day of July, Aravis wakes with a fresh message from the Crosser's Maze.This time your vision is direct – discovered by your own wandering fragment, rather than by your mysterious ally.   The vision is of a dark place – an attic, you think, with light slipping through thin gaps in the roof.   There are only two beings there – a short, stocky man in blood-red plate mail, and a large rat, its eyes glowing with malice.The two communicate telepathically, but your fragment hears their thoughts.  “Do you understand fully what I’m offering?” asks the man.  “A being of your divine stature would become immensely powerful.   You could lift your kind above all the others, become the hunters rather than the hunted.  You could eliminate your rivals... permanently.”“I understand full well,” hisses the rat.  “And believe me, I enjoy the thought.”“Excellent,” says the man.  “Because that is also the price of my gift.   Once you have been blessed, I want you to destroy the sparks of your three enemy factions.   The ravens will also serve us in time, but for now they are of no consequence.   It is the others who have both the means and the will to hinder me.  Feast upon them.  Their power will become yours.  No beast on Abernia will be your equal.”“As you wish,” says the rat, baring its teeth.The man produces a small bowl and sets it down before the rat.“Drink,” he says.  And the rat drinks.That vaults the Rats into the #1 spot on the Company's 'to do' list.Ernie rubs his chin.  “What is it that the cats, dogs and horses can do that would annoy Tarsos like that?”“Whatever it is,” says Aravis, “we have to stop the rats.”Dranko frowns.  “But Mokad...”“I have to at least warn the cats about what's happening!  Can anyone here cast a sending for me, to Arkin?”Morningstar volunteers, and sends:From Aravis: do you have the ability to get cats, dogs and horses to meet?  We know who's killing you.  Respond 25 words or less.The answer comes back:No, we are not wizards, and separated by hundreds of miles.  It would take many weeks.  Who is killing us?Morningstar sends again:  We want Aravis to scry you, so we can teleport to you and meet face to face.The answer:  We are in a protected place.  I would have to endanger myself to allow this.They send once more:  It's important enough to take the risk.  We'll be scrying you in just under an hour.Very well.  I will step outside in an hour.  But you could have just told me, to satisfy my curiosity.Aravis starts casting scry immediately, and an hour later he successfully sees Arkin through the sensor.   He teleports, taking the whole party with him.* *The Company arrives at the foot of some steep, rocky hills that are covered with mist.  Arkin observes them calmly.  Only when he is satisfied of Aravis's identity does he gesture to a small meandering path that snakes its way up into the foggy hills.  Through his telepathy he thinks, “I don't believe most of you can follow us.  But Aravis can.  Come with me.”Arkin turns and vanishes into the mist.  Aravis follows.“Huh,” says Grey Wolf.Dranko sits on a rock and lights up a cigar.  As he takes a leisurely puff and exhales, the puff of smoke forms itself into words in the air:  Kibi is a genius.  Appalled, Dranko turns accusingly toward the dwarf.“I didn't have anything to do with it,” Kibi protests.“Really,” says Dranko dryly.  “Who did then?  You think my cigars are smart enough to just know you're brilliant?”“Well,” says Kibi smugly.  “Have you eaten any objects given to you by an Archmage recently?”Dranko gulps.  Yeah, in fact, he has.Kibi continues, “At the end of my message from Cranchus, it said:  'p.s. Watch Dranko every time he smokes a cigar.'”Dranko blows more smoke.  Elementals over all.  He blows again.  Hi Dranko.  Enjoying the cigar?Aravis smirks.  “You shouldn't have coveted his elemental's eye!”Dranko sighs, but at least he finds that if he blows smoke with a bit more vigor, the words smear into a normal-looking cloud.Aravis follows Arkin of the Great Pack up the winding path.   The mist soon grows so thick that the wizard is following Arkin only by sound.   Ten minutes into the climb, he senses something odd about his surroundings; the space around him takes on a tingly, ethereal quality, as if it both is and isn't part of the physical world.   (And back at the foot of the hill, Aravis drops out of the telepathic bond.)  After a minute of that the feeling subsides (and he's back on the mental link), and then the mist grows thin for the last hundred feet before Aravis steps out into a tiny grass-covered valley.There are dogs lounging here, eight in all if you include Arkin.   There is some barking, and some sniffing, and the dogs arrange themselves into a rough circle in the center of the valley.Aravis sits before them and describes in detail the vision he had about the Black Rat.  Immediately the dogs begin a riotous barking, pelting Aravis with mental questions and general exclamations of alarm.  (Aravis shakes his head at the chaos.  For all that these are Divine beings, they're still a bunch of dogs.)  Aravis waits for the clamor to die down before explaining about the Emperor, his red-armored servants, and how the latter are working to rescue the former from exile.The dogs are especially interested in Tarsos's opinion that the dogs “have the means and the will to hinder him.”“What does he think we can do?” asks Arkin.“I don't know,” Aravis admits.“We should do it, whatever it is!” barks one of the other dogs, and that starts more frantic back-and-forth.“But we don't know what it is!”“We should find out!”“How?”“I don't know!”“At the moment,” says Aravis, holding up a hand, “the more immediate danger is that the rats can kill us permanently, and possibly even take our Divine Sparks onto themselves.”“What?”“WHAT?”“ How?”“That's terrible!”“No!”“We must put a stop to it at once!”Arkin glares the other dogs into silence, then turns to Aravis.“I think,” says Arkin, “we know now, don't we then, why one of the Sparks was born into the body of a human, and a great human wizard at that.  We are...  I have told you that we are not wizards.  We do not have any magic in the sense that you think of it.  Our power lies in the guidance of our kinds.  Their greater good, their way in the world, their relationships with Man.  But we are not wizards, or warriors.  We are dogs.  That's why we hide.  And we hope that this Rat cannot find us here.”One dog looks worriedly at Aravis.  “Are you sure you weren't followed?”“Yes,” says Aravis.  “But even if someone did, my friends would take care of them.  Because we are wizards and warriors.”“Then we beseech you... find this Rat and do away with it!”The dogs are clearly in some awe of Aravis.  Over the mind-link, Kibi thinks:  “Enjoy it now.  The cats won't be in awe.  They're cats.”Aravis addresses the dogs.  “Do you know how I could contact the Feline Conclave, or the Noble Herd?”“I know approximately where they are,” Arkin answers, “but we have no magical means of contacting them.  The Noble Herd runs somewhere on the Plains of the White Sun.  And the Conclave resides in the Endless Wood, as you should know.”“How did you find me?”“You are different from the others.  You have a unique scent.  I walked, and ran, for many days.   Maybe the horses also sent one of their kind, but with Sparks being snuffed out, they are probably all in their place of sanctuary.  Regardless, we appreciate the warning, and the knowledge.  We'll appreciate it even more when you've eliminated this Black Rat.”“I'll be in touch,” says Aravis.  He bows to the dogs, and walks back down the misty path.  He is fascinated by the stretch in the middle where he seems to exist both inside and outside the world. “So much to learn, so little time,” he mutters to himself.  “And I have to waste that time killing rats and the Black Circle.”Once back with the others, Aravis shows off a new trick.  “I wish we were home,” he says.And they are. “Neat!” exclaims Flicker."Overkill," admits Aravis, “but I was out of greater teleports.”In the Greenhouse, they sit down in the living room and ruminate.Aravis exhales.  “They can't defend themselves against the Rat.”“Then I guess we know where this is going,” says Morningstar.“Once we deal with the Rat,” continues Aravis, “we may be able to convince normal dogs, cats and horses to help us against the Black Circle.  If the Sparks can guide regular animals, all of those animals could be our spies.”Ernie nods.  “Maybe that's what Tarsos was afraid of.”Aravis wants to issue a sending to the Feline Conclave, but cannot cast the spell himself, and none of the others have enough familiarity with the cats to cast.   This is solved by Morningstar casting memory read on Aravis and choosing the five minutes when he was actively casting the vision that showed him the Conclave.   She chooses as her target the one who was arguing most on Aravis's behalf – a big, fluffy, smoke-colored Maine Coon.I speak for Aravis of the Feline Conclave.  We know who is destroying the Divine Sparks.  We must meet.  Respond 25 words or less.The answer comes back:  Still too much distrust among the Conclave.  I agree with you, but some think HE is the killer.  I'll keep working on them.  Plumpypuss.Morningstar can't choke back a chuckle.  When she recovers, she recites the cat's response verbatim, and when she gets to the spoken signature, everyone except Aravis breaks out in gales of laughter.“No wonder the other cats won't believe her!” says Kibi.Aravis turns red.  “For the record,” he huffs, “before you make up some ridiculous Cat God name for me, I have never in my life insulted either Delioch or Ell.”“If your'e going to be that way,” says Ernie with a grin, “we'll call you 'Grumpypuss.'”Dranko snorts.  “Our return sending should be:  'Dear Plumpypuss.   That's the cutest little Cat God name we've ever heard...'”But Aravis has Morningstar cast again with a more sober message.  Stay hidden.  The Rats are able to kill you, and we believe they can destroy and absorb your Divine Sparks.The reply from Plumpypuss:  Understood.  Thanks for the warning.  Figures it's rats, the vile creatures.  They cannot penetrate our sanctuary.  Hope to see you soon..The party is not wholly convinced that the cats are safe from a Divine Rat who's already absorbed the Sparks of two other animal deities, but there's not much more they can do, so they go back to their work.* *Two days later, Aravis gets yet another missive from the Maze:You wake from a dream, and know it has come from the Maze, but are not sure who sent it – your fragment, or your ally.   You dreamed of the bottom of the sea.  There was a school of fish there, floating easily above the uneven ocean floor, perhaps basking in the eerie illumination of some odd plants clinging to the rocks.  Then there was a sound, a strange thud, a noise that does not belong in the quiet recesses of the ocean.  Another thud follows, louder, and the fish scatter.   For a second there is nothing but the rocks and silt bathed in the blue light of the local flora.   Then, with a swoosh and a yet louder thud, an enormous skeletal leg slams its bony toes into the ground.  A second leg follows, and then a third; some skeletal monstrosity is striding along the bottom of the sea.As Maze-o-grams go, this one goes into the “disturbing but not immediately actionable” category, though Dranko decides to  go ahead and make some Truedeath weapon crystals after all.* *Kibi tries another legend lore on the Black Goo, but this time maintaining a greater distance from the pot, and casting the version that takes longer to return information.  Ten days after casting the knowledge comes, and once again he is knocked unconscious.  But this time, though he wakes with no clear memory of what knowledge was imparted to him, he does retain a tiny recollected fragment:  a faint idea of a tremendous physical impact.* *The days roll by.  The Greenhouse basement fills with the acrid smells of alchemical reagents and the sounds of progress.  Morningstar spends hours in her room working on the first draft of her holy writing commissioned by High Priestess Rhiavonne.The Book of Morningstar!  What have I gotten myself into?Life is relatively peaceful for several weeks, and then gets hectic in an awful hurry.  Just before dawn on a hot July day, Aravis is woken from a sound sleep by the feeling of a dagger in his heart.  He instinctively clutches his chest and sits up screaming, but there is no knife, no assailant.   Pewter is sitting at the foot of his bed, meowing piteously.As are, from the sound of it, all the cats in Tal Hae.  One of the Feline Conclave has been murdered.The others rush to Aravis's room, knowing full well what must have just occurred.“The cat must have died, just now!” Dranko exclaims.  “Can we find out where he was?”?“We should have gone after the Rat before now,” Aravis groans dismally.“You warned 'em, boss!” says Pewter.  “It's not your fault.”Flicker puzzles.  “Shouldn't they all have been safe in their sanctuary?”“That's what bothers me,” says Grey Wolf, looking at Aravis with concern.“We should do a sending to Plumpypuss,” says Ernie.“Do it,” says Aravis.  “In the meantime, I'll do what I should have done weeks ago.  I'm going to try scrying the Rat.”Morningstar cast her sending.  Plumpypuss, can we help?  Who died?  Where?  Reply 25 words or less.The answer comes with obvious pain in the cat's voice.  It was Sawgrass, the only one away when you warned us.  He had been in Tev.  I'll work on getting Aravis his meetingErnie fumes.  “And why didn't you listen to us, you stupid fuzzy hairballs!”Aravis doesn't think his chances of successfully scrying the rat are high, but the Company preps for battle just in case.   An hour later Aravis blinks, almost in confusion.“I got him.  The Rat.  I've got him.”Through the sensor he sees an enormous black Rat, easily the size of a large horse.  It has its hairy snout in the bloody remains of a cat carcass.  The ground around the Rat, to the full extent of Aravis's vision, is covered with smaller rats, swarming and squeaking.  The air is filled with their furious cacophony.  Aravis also notes a few rats here and there that are also abnormally large, though not so huge as the Rat – more like the size of sheep.He quickly relays to the others what he sees.  The Company finishes buff and prep.  They don't often make use of the scry-and-teleport tactic, but this seems like just the opportunity.“Ready?” asks Aravis.“Yeah,” says Grey Wolf.  “Let's ruin his day.”...to be continued...</blockquote>

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