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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Jon Potter" data-source="post: 577890" data-attributes="member: 2323">[PLAIN][Realms #203]  I, Wererat[/PLAIN]For an instant it hunched there in the moonlight, wringing its long-nailed hands over and over again. Then it shrieked and burst into motion, moving more quickly than seemed possible. It darted downward, seeming to almost flow bonelessly under the bed. They could hear its nails scrabbling on the wooden floorboards as it moved.Ruze jumped out of bed, fumbling in the dark for his scimitars."Ruze!" Finian shouted as he drew his bola out from beneath his narrow bed. "Go check on the baby! This creature may be a distraction!"Ledare sat up and grabbed her crossbow from its holster. Nearby, Draelond was making a great deal of noise as he tried to blindly locate and unsheathe Ravager. "Where is it?" the man growled. "I can't see where it went!"Ruze's feet thudding against the floor as he rushed out of the room, drowned out any sounds that the wererat might have been making. For a moment, no one was sure where the creature had gotten to. The door creaked open then, letting more light into the infirmary. Draelond had broken it upon their arrival and it hadn't yet been repaired. The skaven slithered out through the crack and Finian shouted, "There!" He let his bola fly, but the device thudded ineffectually against the door and forced it closed.Ledare tried to squeeze off a shot at the creature, but her quarrel bit into the wood of the now-closed door. "Dammit!" she hissed in the shadows.The sound of breaking wood exploded in the darkness to the Janissary's right as Draelond tried to negotiate his way to the door. His human eyesight was a good deal less keen than either Finian's or Ledare's and he took a blind step off the raised wooden platform on which all of the beds were situated. He smashed down onto a small table as he fell, reducing it to kindling in an instant. Finian drew his longsword then, bathing the room in pale, bluish light and revealing a blinking Draelond sprawled on the earthen floor. The Archer vaulted down from the platform and moved toward the door."Get up!" Finian growled. "We can't let it get away!" He threw open the door, scooping up his bola as he did so.Great Celune was bathing the dirt courtyard in silver light. To the Archer's eyes it was nearly as bright as day, but he could see no immediate sign of the skaven. Grimacing in frustration, he bent down and examined the ground."Do you see anything?" Draelond asked from the doorway."It went that way," Finian said without looking up. He pointed across the dirt lawn toward the stable, and even as he did so, they heard the horses inside whinnying in panic. He broke into a trot, urging, "Come on!""What about Kirnoth?" Ledare asked. She stepped into the doorway, strapping on her longsword as Draelond ran after the ranger. They looked like two ghosts, dressed as they were in white gowns."I think three of us could handle the wererat!" Finian shouted back."That's not what I meant," Ledare muttered, sparing one look at the sorcerer's empty bed. She shook her head and hefted her six-shooter as she went to follow them, barefoot toward the stable."What is it?" Rherram asked. He held a candle in one hand and was rubbing the sleep from his eyes with the other. "What's going on?""There's a skaven in the infirmary," Ruze told him with remarkable calm. "Where is the baby?""Right over here," the healer said fumbling toward a nearby door. "She sleeps in Jisselleen's room, but I'm sure she's just fine." He threw open the door and the light from his candle looked in on a narrow room with no windows. An empty bassinet stood against one wall and Jisselleen sat cross-legged on her bed, nursing the tiny infant. The wet nurse raised a hand to shield her eyes from the candlelight."What's the matter?" the woman asked. "Is everything alright?""No," the Battleguard told her before turning to Rherram. "Stay in here with her and bolt the door. I'm going back to help the others, but there may be more of the creatures about."Rherram nodded and as Ruze headed back toward the infirmary he heard Jisselleen fearfully ask, "What creatures?""Get ready," Finian said and Draelond raised Ravager in a two-handed grip. They were paused outside of the stable and they could plainly hear the fearful cries of the horses within. The door stood slightly ajar, but there was no light within. Ledare came up behind them just as the Archer opened the door. She had her crossbow ready.Both Ledare and Finian could instantly see that the stable was in chaos. Rherram's stable wasn't built to house more than two animals for any length of time, but they had been forced to stable four of them here since Starday. Finian had taken them out every day for exercise and brushed them every night before closing them in. But that didn't change the fact that they were jammed into too small a space and they were now panicked. All four were tethered to a central rail that ran the length of the small barn, and they were rearing up against the restraints and lashing at the air with their steel-shod hooves. It was only a matter of time before they started to do grievous injury to one another in their madness.There was no sign of the skaven and Finian took a step inside with Draelond and Ledare at his back. The ranger's trained senses could almost smell the fear that was pouring off of the animals. As the light from his longsword illuminated the interior of the stable, he could at last see what it was that had spooked the horses. The rafters above their heads were crowded with dozens of hungry rats. Their eyes glimmered unnaturally in the magical light.Before Finian could tell the others what he had seen, the skaven dropped down from above the door and drove him to the ground beneath its silver-haired bulk.The infirmary was empty, and the door to the front yard stood open, giving Ruze just enough light to see by. He could hear the frightened neighing of their horses coming from outside and spared only a moment to ready his twin scimitars. He raced along past the foot of the beds, heading for the door, but something caused him to stop beside Kirnoth's empty bed. A pile of torn white fabric lay on the floor beside the bed; it was quivering. The fabric looked like one of the hospital gowns they all wore to bed, but it had been badly ripped. Ruze reached out a scimitar and flicked aside the white shreds, revealing what lay beneath.It was Gordigan, and the duckbunny did not look well. In fact, it looked frightened out of its wits. It just lay on its side staring glassy-eyed and shaking with horror.</blockquote>

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