The Scourge of the Ratmen [Scarred Lands] - Updated 1/26

[Amaroq]

Issue #12: Under the Swamp - Episode 5 of 5

The uneasy quiet continues, broken only once by some sort of splash in the water of the lake below us. When Chuck goes to examine it, he sees ripples on the surface of the water, but there is no sign of a cause. He backs up the corridor to a point where he can watch the entrance, between the sleepers and the water.

Aside from that, six hours pass without interruption. When we awake, rested but still disquieted, Goldpetal tells Paks, “I think I have a way to restore the strength the stirges stole from you. It is a spell my mentor cast often. I have never cast it myself, but I think it is now within my grasp.”

She acquiesces, and he casts lesser restoration for the first time. When she picks up her shield and buckles it on her left arm, a big smile crosses her face. “Yes, that feels much better,” she says. “Thank you.”

Miriel tends to Hands of Fire’s wounds, healing him back from the brink of collapse. The lizard man feels warmer to her fingers, as though the dread cold touch of the phantasmal monarch has begun to wear off.

Again, we gather our belongings, and unseal the secret door to re-enter the crypts for the third time. We move through the first chamber, putrid and disease-ridden, to find the body of the crowned humanoid where we had left it, in the mouth of the passage towards the second chamber.

Miriel and Goldpetal examine it. The air around it is still noticeably colder than the rest of the crypt, but the eyes on the decapitated head remain lifeless and closed. “I think it’s a wight,” Miriel says.

“What is that?” asks Chuck.

“A powerful form of undead,” the priestess explains, “Who would have sucked the life from us and turned us into wights as well, had he killed us.”

“Shall we perform the purification ritual again?” asks Novalia.

“Yes,” Miriel answers. She, Goldpetal, Paks, and Novalia again gather in a circle to perform the purification ritual. The power of Madriel, Denev, and Tanil builds in the room, and a holy light radiates from the foursome as they chant and sing. Their guardians see no outside movement, and though it takes fully two hours, this time they are able to complete the ritual undisturbed.

When they have returned to silence and open their eyes, the room feels much better. The oppressive evil feel has diminished, as has the unnatural cold. Miriel, Chuck, and Novalia turn their efforts to scrubbing the graffiti off of the walls, while Paks and Stone search the room. A thorough search reveals nothing, and within half an hour the walls are scrubbed clean and white.

Paks moves to the mouth of each of the two corridors which we haven’t explored. She stands in front of the one to the right, the opposite one from where the wight had come, and says, “This direction feels less evil to me.”

We follow her down that corridor, and it opens into a smaller cavern, perhaps twenty feet in diameter. In the center is a single sarcophagus, intact. There’s another exit at the far left corner. Chuck walks over to guard this new corridor while the others examine the room. He sees another long, dark corridor, curving off to the left.

Miriel steps to the sarcophagus, looking at it closely. Carved in the white slab atop it is the symbol of the wheel, as we had seen on the door, and below that the sun-symbol of Madriel.

“Should we open the sarcophagus?” asks Paks, looking over her shoulder.

“No,” Miriel tells the young warrior. “It hasn’t been defiled, so we should leave it alone.”

Paks gives a curt nod, and joins Chuck at the new entrance. “It feels very evil,” she says. “This is where the evil is coming from.”

Stone pushes between them, and starts walking down the corridor without a word. The rest of us follow, hands ready on holy symbols or the hilts of weapons.

Fifty feet down the corridor, we reach another rough-walled cavern. This is a circular room, about forty feet in diameter. The first thing to catch our eye is a large pile of coins in the center of the room, all heaped together. There is a hideous shrine against one wall, and opposite it is a large wooden throne. On the far wall, across the cavern, is another exit. We can all feel the oppressive power of evil, now.

As Stone is about to enter the room, Paks holds Stone back. He pauses, in mid-step, and looks at her. “What?” he asks. She shakes her head uncertainly.

They wait for a moment, looking around the room. There is movement at the shrine, and on further examination it is covered with rotting flesh. Maggots writhe all through it, though there are no flies in the air. Scrawled all over the walls is more of the evil blood-and-offal graffiti which we have seen so much of. The only things moving in the room are the maggots.

Stone and Paks step cautiously across the threshold, but nothing happens. They cross the room to look at the shrine, against the right hand wall. It smells awful.

Chuck steps in and looks up at the ceiling, perhaps remembering the great spider we fought a month earlier, but he doesn’t see anything extraordinary. Novalia enters next, her bow drawn. There are no targets to aim it at. Hands of Fire strides purposefully across the room to guard the other exit.
Miriel and Goldpetal, last to enter the room, move over to the shrine. They examine it under the watchful eyes of Stone and Paks, who clearly suspect a trap of some sort.

“It’s evidently a shrine to Chern,” Miriel says. “It’s a very rough shrine, which implies that perhaps the undead might have put together.”

“This meat is a month or two old,” Goldpetal observes. “All of the graffiti here is Titan speech. It mostly consists of invocations to Chern.”

“Don’t touch any of it,” Miriel warns. “It’s likely to carry disease, and those maggots might prefer living flesh to rotting.”

She turns to examine the pile of treasure. It looks like it consists mostly of platinum and gold. “This might be an offering,” she says.

Chuck examines the throne. It’s just an old wooden chair, and it looks like one of the cross-supports is broken half through. He chuckles to himself.

“We should clean up this foul graffiti,” Miriel says, “Destroy the shrine, and perform the purify ritual again.”

“Before you do,” Chuck says, “Let’s detect magic here.”

Miriel obligingly begins the ritual, praying to Madriel to reveal the aura of any magic in the room. When the incantation is complete, she looks around the room. After a moment’s concentration, she says, “The shrine is somewhat magic, but it looks like nothing else is.”

“What about the pile of gold?” asks Stone. “Something might be under it.”

We circle around the pile, weapons at the ready, and Stone scatters it with the 10-ft pole. There are thousands of coins there, but only the top layer was platinum and gold; the rest are mostly copper.

“Let’s clean this up,” Miriel says. We set to that cleansing again, with Hands of Fire and Stone watching the entrances to ensure that we aren’t surprised. We clean up the graffiti and the spilled coins, picking up any coins larger than a copper piece. As we clean, Novalia finds an excellent longsword, marked with the same wheel symbol we’ve observed before.

Finally, we turn to the shrine. Goldpetal, Miriel, Novalia, and Paks again perform the purification ritual, taking special care to purify the meat. While they work, Chuck counts the coins.

After perhaps two hours of work, and three more of ritual casting, the spell is complete. Paks opens her eyes, and smiles. “The room feels significantly less evil,” she says.

“Definitely,” concurs Novalia. The foursome squeeze each others’ hands before releasing their circle.

Miriel casts detect magic again. “There’s no magic left here,” she says. “And that sword isn’t magical, either.”

“Drat,” Chuck says, looking longingly at it. “But we did find 77 platinum, 235 gold, and 1340 silver pieces.”

“Excellent,” Paks says. “Shall we move on?”

“There’s something I want to do,” Stone says. He smashes the remnants of the shrine with three sure kicks. On the other side of the room, Chuck smashes the wooden throne.

When they are finished, we move into the next room. It is another cavern, about forty feet in diameter. There are four more broken sarcophagi there, lids smashed, but a careful examination reveals that their occupants are no longer present.

Stone looks at the exit, again a passage at the opposite left side of the room. “It makes a circle,” he says, gesturing. It is obvious what he means – there must be five or six small chambers, connected by passages, but eventually we will circle back where we started.

This room, we haven’t been in before, so the walls are covered with graffiti. Paks, Miriel, and Goldpetal set to work cleaning it off the wall. There is less offal, or perhaps their previous spells have already cleansed it, so they do not feel a need to perform another ritual.

As they work, Chuck searches the sarcophagi. In one, he finds a silver dagger. It is set with an opal on the pommel.

Tossed in a corner under some refuse, Novalia finds a piece of paper. She smiles as she looks at it. “Guys,” she calls out. “Come take a look. I think I found a scroll.”

Miriel takes a break from scrubbing, and comes over. “Can I see?” she asks.
Novalia hands over the scroll, and Miriel studies it for a few minutes. “It’s a magic scroll,” she concludes, “In divine religious writing.” After a few more minutes, she whistles softly to herself, and begins rolling the scroll up again. “It’s a divine scroll,” she says, “Which allows a good cleric to cast two spells, protection from evil, and searing light. The caster was much more advanced in his powers than I am currently.”

Miriel finishes rolling up the scroll, and stows it in her pack. She looks around hopefully, and asks, “Does anybody see any other signs of Madriel?”

“What about opening the other sarcophagus?” Paks asks, referring to the unopened coffin we found, which had Madriel’s symbol on it.

“I don’t think that’s a good idea,” Miriel says.

“Maybe Madriel has placed it here for a reason,” Paks offers optimistically, “For us to find, now.”

“That’s certainly possible,” Miriel says. “Let me meditate on it a little.”

Since they have finished cleansing the room, we are ready to move on, and the unexplored corridor leads back to the first room, as Stone had predicted. Miriel and Paks press further on, returning to the unopened sarcophagus to meditate. The others follow, and stand watch over them.

Miriel opens her eyes. “I’m getting no guidance on this,” she says.

“Let’s open it,” Stone suggests, “Take the contents, and inter them in a less evil place.”

“I wouldn’t,” Goldpetal says.

“Let’s open it,” the half-orc repeats, ignoring the elf. Paks and Chuck nod in agreement.

Chuck, Stone, Paks, and Hands of Fire gather on the four corners of the sarcophagus to lift the lid.

“Madriel, bless us,” Miriel invokes, “No desecration is intended, let none occur,” she chants, as the others lift the lid.

Within, we find an old skeleton. It wears a beautiful golden armor, with a wonderful sword and shield. All are marked with the wheel symbol, and still shining and clean. Our torches reflect off of them. There are also two vials in beside the corpse. It looks so serene and holy that none of us reach into it to disturb its slumber.

Miriel quietly casts detect magic. “The potions are magic,” she says, “But the armor and weapons are not.”

The armor and weapons are the sort a king would use in battle. “That’s the best armor I’ve ever seen,” Paks whispers under her breath, looking at it longingly. She’s clearly imagining herself wearing it, riding a mighty steed, and leading the charge of some great, righteous army.

Stone starts putting the lid back in place. Hands of Fire and Chuck help him, and Miriel invokes Madriel again. When the lid is closed, Miriel consecrates the sarcophagus.

As we walk back out, we walk past the corpse of the wight. Stone kicks the head, and that kick separates the golden crown from the head. It rolls around noisily, settling, as a coin does, with a metallic ring against the stone. It is gorgeous, and Chuck bends down to pick it up.

“Look,” he says, “It also has the wheel symbol on it.”

“Let’s take it back to the sarcophagus,” Miriel suggests.

Stone takes it from Chuck, and points out, “It couldn’t have come out of the sarcophagus. It hadn’t been opened.”

“It could have been laid on top of the sarcophagus,” Novalia says, “As an honor.”

Miriel casts detect magic on the crown. “It’s not magic,” she says. “Should take it?”

“Yes,” Stone says, and sticks it in his bag.

“We should take everything from the skeleton,” Paks says, with a longing wonder in her voice.

Miriel looks at her, and in a stern voice says, “That’s grave robbing.”

“No,” Paks counters, “Madriel clearly protected those items for us.”

Chuck cuts in. “I don’t think grave robbing is wrong,” he says. “The dead have no use for material things.”

Goldpetal says, with the weight of authority in his voice, “It is disturbing to rob this particular grave.”

“We can put the bones back where they were,” Chuck says.

“We would be robbing not just this grave,” Goldpetal says, “But the last heritage of this great empire.”

“Is it not worse,” Chuck asks, “To leave it to rot under a stinking pile of refuse?”

“I will have no part in this,” Miriel says, and begins walking back up towards the stairs. Hands of Fire follows her.

“Nor I,” says Novalia.

Goldpetal looks as though he is ready to fight anybody who defiles the grave, and Paks sighs aloud. “Come, Chuck. They are right.”

We walk away without taking the items from the grave, but we do take the crown. There’s not much of a choice, on that, since Stone is clearly unwilling to give it up.



As we’re walking out through the corridor with the secret door, Chuck grabs the torch holder, and opens the secret door.

“What are you doing?” Goldpetal demands.

“I need to go look at the lake!” he shouts, and runs off down the corridor.

Miriel and Stone give chase, and we all follow after him. Miriel catches up to him at the edge of the lake, where he is frantically stripping off his armor.

Miriel grabs his arm. “Stone,” she cries, “Hold him!”

Stone grabs him and holds him tight.

“I want my duck!” Chuck cries, in a despairing wail.

“It’s an evil duck,” Paks tells him firmly.

“No!” Chuck yells. He begins to struggle, and gets one arm free. He slaps Miriel with the back of his hand. It leaves Stone with no choice but to subdue him.

The half-orc head-butts Chuck, but though he connects heavily, the Vigilant struggles on. Miriel casts hold person, trying to immobilize Chuck, but it doesn’t work. Chuck squirms and wriggles, trying to break free of Stone’s firm grasp. Finally, Stone has little choice but to head-butt him again, knocking him out.

“Grab a rope out of his pack,” Miriel tells Stone, “And tie him up.” Stone does his best to tie Chuck, although Chuck is our expert at binding the unwilling. Hands of Fire carries the big sack of gold which we have found, while Stone carries Chuck. Paks picks up Chuck’s leather armor.

Goldpetal climbs halfway up the ladder to the third floor, which he finds is still covered in rats. He casts flare in the center of the room, above the rats. As before, they scatter, fleeing from the sudden bright light, and we all run across the room safely.

The next two levels are easy to cross, and we make our upstairs and out to the boat, where we find Telryn safely asleep.



It is dawn on the second day of Madrer, Madraday. Miriel is just in time to perform her holiest of rituals, greeting the sun on the sun-goddess’ holiest day. As she finishes the ritual, the sun breaks across her face, and it seems as though she is illuminated in the light of her patron. Her red hair, normally a dark red, gleams in the sunlight like a flame. It seems as though even her peacock cloak, tattered and dirtied by the lengthy trip through the swamp, is somehow repaired and cleaned, though none of us have seen her sewing.
When she is finished, we wake Telryn, and all climb aboard the boat. Stone and Hands of Fire row us across the lake.

Throughout the short boat ride, Paks stares wistfully back over the stern of the boat. Goldpetal notices, and lays a compassionate hand. “You did the right thing,” he assures her.

Just before we land, Chuck wakes up. Hiding his wakefulness, he slithers free of the not-very-well-tied rope. As we beach, and Stone pulls the boat to shore, Chuck leaps from the boat with his hand on his sword.

He is angry again, this time with Stone, shouting, “Titan-cursed half-orc! You’re no better than the elf!”

“The duck has some sort of hold over you,” Miriel says. “Calm down.”

“It’s calling me,” he whispers miserably.

“Resist,” Goldpetal says firmly.

Amazingly, Chuck does resist the urge to go back for his duck, and we march back through the swamp to the lizard man camp, led by Hands of Fire.

As we travel, Stone begins to look ill. The further we travel, the more ill he appears, and finally, when he stops and vomits, Miriel calls for the party to halt. She examines him and finds him feverish. She gives him the other potion of cure disease. He drinks it, and almost vomits again, but finds that he is able to keep it down. It may not have completely healed him, but it is sufficient to allow him to travel with the rest of the company.



We reach the lizard cavern without any difficulty, as Hands of Fire leads us safely through the many hazards of the swamp. The lizard men are very happy to see us, and One Fang, the medicine man, comes up to Miriel and Goldpetal, and thanks them profusely, with Telryn again acting as interpreter. “We must have another feast, to celebrate the lifting of this great evil,” he proclaims.

Miriel tells him that they are welcome, but that we must rest before we can celebrate. We retire to our small cave, with Hands of Fire, to identify and divide up the treasure.

Telryn casts read magic on the arcane scroll, and determines that it has two spells, flash and flame weapon.

Miriel examines at the crown, and says, “Wow, this is incredible. I thinks its worth at least 2500 gold!”

Telryn asks Hands of Fire if the lizard men have any pearls, and when the answer is yes, he trades one of the garnets for a pearl and casts identify on the prism. “It’s an Ioun Stone!” he exclaims excitedly, when the spell is finished. He tosses it up into the air, and it circles above his head. “It creates a magical field,” he explains, “Which should make me harder to hit.” Stone tries to punch him, and the field visibly slows the half-orc’s fist down.

“Let’s divide these things,” Paks says, “And go to sleep.”

“I’d like the divine scroll,” Miriel says, having earlier identified it in the cavern as containing protection from evil and searing light, two divine spells.

“I just just want 50 gold,” Novalia says, “Nothing else.”

“I would keep this elven cloak,” Goldpetal says, gesturing to the grey cloak he is already wearing. “As my share.”

“Can I take the Ioun Stone,” asks the half-orc monk, “Since I can’t wear armor?”

“That’s fine with me, Stone,” says Paks. “I’d like the fine longsword.”

“I want the lockpicks,” Chuck says.

“I’d like to keep this,” Telryn says, gesturing to the arcane scroll.

Hands of Fire selects a pair of garnets.

“I’ll take the silver dagger,” Miriel says.

“I’d like the gold candlestick holder,” Goldpetal says, picking it up.

Stone takes two garnets, Hands of Fire takes another pair of garnets, and Chuck takes the military scroll.

Telryn trades the topaz and the garnet for two more pearls.

“I think I should get more,” Chuck says, “Since my duck was taken away from me!”

Stone shakes his head, trying to hide a grin.

“I hate the swamp,” Telryn says. Stone loses it, and bursts out laughing, joined by Paks, then Miriel, and suddenly the entire group is laughing aloud.

 

[Amaroq]

Issue #13: The Rat Man Warren, Pt I - Episode 1 of 5

18th of January, 2003​

Issue #13

The Rat Man Warren, Part I​

While pursuing the tribe of Disease ratmen who had attacked Kratys Freehold, we encountered a tribe of lizard men who live in the swamp. At their behest, we undertook to cleanse the swamp of a great evil which had festered for generations in the ruins of a tower upon a remote island on a lake.

At the bottom of the ruined tower, deep beneath the lake, we found a wight, who styled himself as a king. We defeated the wight and his ghoul minions, and proceeded to enact a difficult ritual of cleansing to help clear the poisoned lake of the blight which the undead king had placed upon it.

Successful in our quest, we returned to the village of the lizard men, where we have been resting in our cave.



It is mid-afternoon on the first Madraday of Madrer. We’ve been napping, resting from our ordeal, through the heat of the day. When we awake, the shaman comes to tend to our injuries. He proscribes various potions for our injured, explaining them to Goldpetal and Miriel through Telryn’s interpretation. The potions taste absolutely foul, but are quite efficacious, and we are healed of everything that had ailed us.

Shortly after he departs, the lizard men arrive to escort us to the feast. They bring us to their main cavern, where there is a large celebration. Everyone gathers around while Hands of Fire tells the tale. He embellishes it a bit, and even though few of us can understand his words, we recognize his meaning as he acts out the many parts. The children gasp at his depiction of a stirge, flee in terror from his imitation of the crayfish, and laugh when he mimics the paralyzation we experienced by stiffening and falling over. Finally, his imitation of the wight is impeccable, and he makes deep guttural noises with his throat, unlike the draconic sibilants he’s been telling the tale in. When he describes how we slew it, and chopped its head off, everyone is very impressed with us.

There is a great feast, although there is less food than there was at the feast on Denev’s day. The food is somewhat less edible or appealing, and only Stone partakes of the live mice. Nonetheless, we are the heroes and guests of honor, and everyone is very happy.

The feast ends in the late afternoon. Miriel asks Telryn to help her speak to the cook. It goes well, and she leaves some rice soaking in the lizard man kitchen.

Miriel steps outside to perform her rituals, which are particularly important since it is her patron deity’s day, Madraday, of her month, Madrer. The rituals take her through sunset, as she performs the evening rituals as well. She gets a strong feeling that the golden armor we found in the crypt was a test, and feels approbation from the goddess, as through we passed.

Paks also goes outside, to offer a sincere, silent prayer of thanks to Madriel. It is the first time she has prayed to the goddess, outside of the heat and stress of battle, and when she comes back inside, she seems more at peace with herself.

The others, inside, get great amusement when they recognize some lizard children playing “Hands of Fire and the dry-landers.” It’s very cute, and it seems to be a popular game.

Chuck meets with the chief, Eyes of the Snake, and asks about the status of the rat man town. Hands of Fire and Telryn accompany him. Eyes of the Snake calls over one of the scouts.

“Just yesterday,” the scout tells him, through Telryn’s interpreting, “A small band of about five rat men arrived from the southwest. They were larger, and seemed a little better dressed than the others, and they caused a great stir.”

“Do you know where they came from?” Chuck asks.

“There are big towns much further to the southwest, deeper in the swamp, so one thinks that they came from such a town.”

Hands of Fire explains, “The swamp gets much worse in that direction.”

The chief says, “After hearing Hands of Fire’s tale, two more warriors have volunteered to go with you.”

Hands of Fire and the chief have a quick discussion, which Telryn interprets blow-by-blow. “Hands of Fire asked who, and the chief said ‘Fists of Fury’ and ‘Swims with Fishes’. Hands of Fire seems very displeased, he doesn’t seem to like them. They were speaking too quickly after that, and I couldn’t quite hear what they said.” From body language, we guess that Hands of Fire has had to submit to the chief’s will.

Miriel and Paks have both returned by this time. Chuck asks the scout about the population of the town, and hears that there aren’t as many as in the past, before the siege of Kratys Freehold, but that there are still quite a lot.

Meanwhile, Goldpetal asks the shaman for some dove feathers, which the shaman is able to supply from his store of spell components. Paks found herself carrying two long swords when we divided up the treasures. She offers to trade her old longsword for another pearl, to help Telryn’s effort to identify magical items when we find them, but the lizard men are not interested.

Finally, well after sunset, when all of our little band have gathered in comfort, Novalia asks about our history with the rat men. We spend the remainder of the evening regaling her with our adventures.

Before going to bed, Miriel stops in the kitchen to grind the rice and leave a sourdough starter rising. We rest for the night.



In the dark hours of the morning, Stone, Telryn, and Goldpetal wake up. They can hear someone coming stealthily into our cave. Each tenses in his own way – Telryn with a spell on his lips, Stone ready to lash out with his feet, and Goldpetal feeling for his scimitar.

The stealthy explorer is Chuck, and each of them relaxes. The Vigilant looks exhausted. He is covered in mud, and his clothes look wet. He looks like he’s been gone all night.

Telryn rolls over in his bedroll, and asks, “Did you find the duck?”

Chuck sits down, taking off his pack, and puts on his best air of innocence. “What are you talking about?”

“Go to sleep!” Stone grumbles sleepily.



With the fresh light of the new day, a bright and chipper seven-foot-tall lizard man arrives in our cave. Miriel and Goldpetal are close behind him, having just completed their respective dawn rituals. It is Taniday, the third day of Madrer.

Hands of Fire speaks in rapid Draconic, sounding awake and cheerful. Telryn, half-asleep, translates grumpily. “He wants to know if we’re ready to set out,” he says

“I want to wait another day,” Miriel answers, stepping past the lizard man and into the cave, “So I can finish making bread. When I’m done, I can bless it, so that anyone who eats it is healed of their wounds, and one chunk of bread will be all any of us need to eat in a day.”

Telryn sits up, rubbing his eyes. “I like the idea of waiting a day,” he says. “I can transcribe spells, and study.” He laughs to himself, and says under his breath to Paks, “Not to mention putting off tramping through the swamp.”

“Let me sleep,” Chuck grumbles, pulling his cloak about his head and rolling over to face the wall.

“I’m worried that every day we wait is more time for the rat men to reinforce,” Paks tells the others.

“That’s not good,” Stone comments.

Goldpetal observes, “They might have already reinforced.”

Miriel asks, “How far is the big city of rat men?”

Hands of Fire says, in heavily accented Common, “Many days travel.” We all look at him in surprise – clearly he is starting to understand our language, though only Telryn has made any strides into Draconic.

“I think we should do both,” Novalia chimes in. “We could leave Miriel and Telryn here, and let the rest of the party go look at the town.”

Miriel shakes her head. “I don’t think that is a good idea,” she says.

Hands of Fire says, “Healer good. Lots of healing good. Lots of rat men. Many rats. Sharp claws. Sharp teeth.”

Hands of Fire’s advice sways Stone and Goldpetal, and we decide to wait a day.



Stone, Paks, and Novalia join the others in wakefulness, while Chuck and Telryn try to get some more sleep. During the day, the rest of us discover that we all have errands to run in and around the lizard man caves.

Miriel bakes two loaves of rice sourdough bread. The smell of baking bread wafts through the complex, giving the lizard man warren a nice, homely smell. The scent eventually entices Chuck and Telryn out of bed, although the priestess turns them away, saying that they may have their share tomorrow.

Goldpetal goes for a long walk through the swamp. At first he walks with Hands of Fire, learning as much as he can of the swamp through the disjoint communication he and Hands of Fire can make. Eventually, they exhaust the learning which can be communicated through broken Common and hand gestures. When Hands of Fire returns home, Goldpetal explores further into the swamp. He is growing ever more comfortable in the strange environs of the Mourning Marsh, and, with his two hawks circling and keeping an eye out, he feels perfectly safe.

Chuck wakes up a few hours later, and he, too goes out to explore the swamp. Starting so much later, he does not see any trace of Goldpetal’s passage. He is curious to see if he can find an animal companion, something which his Vigilant elders had taught him would be possible when his powers were sufficiently advanced. After several hours of walking and wading through the mud, he pauses – in a tree directly across from him is a small, black snake. Their eyes make contact, and the snake shows no fear. Chuck recognizes it as a poisonous swamp viper, but he feels oddly drawn to it. He extends one hand towards the branch, and the snake crawls up his arm, wrapping itself around his forearm. He pets it with his left hand, and it looks at him, flicking its forked tongue in and out to smell him. A strong bond forms between Chuck and the small snake, and he carries it with him for the rest of the day.

During the early afternoon, Paks asks Miriel to accompany her for a walk. They do not wander as far as the ranger or druid, staying close to the weeping willows which mark the lizard man complex, but ranging far enough afield that they can talk privately. As they walk, Paks tells Miriel of a strange vision she had the previous night.

“I had a dream last night,” she says. “I was outside, in a great dry forest. I walked past a waterfall, above a pool which sparkled in the bright sunlight. I walked to the edge of the woods and came upon a vast fertile plain of grains and grasses. I looked up into the bright, glowing sun and a huge white swan flew down upon her. It was almost frightening, but then it entered me and I felt wiser, somehow. I looked up at the sun and saw Madriel’s face smiling down upon me.

“This morning, I found that I knew, almost instinctively, how to invoke some powers.”

They discuss the powers which Paks has learned, which Miriel quickly identifies as being divine spells. They discuss the spells Paks knows and discover that some of them are similar to those that Miriel knows, but some are unique, very different, such as the ability to bless a weapon.

Paks asks Miriel to keep this to herself, and they walk back to the lizard man town.

Telryn spends most of the day studying and writing. He transcribes some of the spells we have discovered from the scrolls into his spell book. He is extremely focused on the task, and irritable when interrupted, as Paks discovers to her chagrin. A lunch left near him by one of our well-meaning hosts goes completely uneaten, unnoticed.

Stone grows quickly bored with sitting around the lizard man caves, until he meets up with a group of several younger lizard men, warriors who have not yet proved their worth. He spends the afternoon and evening getting very drunk with them. They have a fine lizard-berry wine, and, though they start the evening with no shared language, that hardly seems to be a barrier to enjoyment. Physical humor makes both lizard man and half orc laugh uproariously, and as they drink, Stone starts picking up some slight Draconic, and at least one of the lizard men makes an effort to learn some Common.

Chuck returns in the mid-afternoon, carrying a small black viper. This draws amazement and consternation from our hosts, but their shaman explains something to them. Without Telryn to interpret, none of us understand what he said, but they stay clear of Chuck and his viper. Chuck explains that the viper will be safe in the cave with the rest of us, and will not bite us.



In the evening, Goldpetal returns at last. He does not speak of his travels or what he has found, though he is very interested to discover Chuck’s animal companion, and spends no little time examining it. The snake puts up with his attentions with good grace.

Telryn, finally done with his studies, takes Hands of Fire aside to ask, “So, what do you think about the other two guys?

Hands of Fire shakes his head. “That Swims With Fishes, dumb as a newt.”

“What do you mean?”

“They’re both strong and brave,” Hands of Fire explains, “But Swims with Fishes doesn’t have much sense.”

“Is that good or bad for our quest?” Telryn asks.

Hands of Fire shrugs, a human gesture he has picked up from Telryn. “Strong club good, weak mind bad.”

After dinner, most of us turn in. Miriel asks her hosts to wake her a few hours before dawn. Stone and his lizard man companions are still drinking heavily when the rest of us turn in, and he waves away Chuck’s entreaty that he come to sleep.

When Miriel is awoken in the wee hours of the morning, the half-orc is snoring heavily. She pulls a blanket over him, and slips out to go to the kitchen, where she works over her two loaves of bread. She prays for Madriel’s blessing, and enchants the loaves into four healing rations of food each. The ritual exhausts much of her strength, and she goes back to sleep to recover what she can before morning.



Dawn arrives on Hedraday, the fourth day of Madrer. As the previous day, Hands of Fire arrives in our cave just after Miriel and Goldpetal complete their dawn rituals. The rest of us roll out of bed and begin stowing our things in packs, all save Stone.

The half-orc looks very unwell, and rolls over to burrow into the wall. Miriel takes a minute to examine him, and when she returns to the rest of the group, she tells us, “Stone isn’t feeling well - he drank a lot of lizard-berry wine last night, and didn’t realize how strong it was. He’s going to wait here and rest, and catch up with us later. It seems that lizard-berry wine and half-orcs don’t mix.”

“Should we wait for him?” asks Chuck.

Even as Paks shakes her head, Miriel answers, “No. I think we should press on. Here, everyone take a chunk of bread – this should be all you’ll need to eat today, and if you are injured before you eat it, it will help to heal your wounds.” She distributes the healing bread chunks, one to each of us, and two to Hands of Fire. Hands of Fire keeps one for himself and gives the other to Fists of Fury, one of the lizard men who will be accompanying us. Miriel packs up the sourdough starter to bring with her.

Within minutes, we are packed and ready, and with the three lizard men, we work our way to the surface.

Underneath the great hanging willow, we find the chief waiting for us. He offers his blessing on our departure. “I wish you good luck,” he says, through Telryn’s interpretation. “I hope you kill all the rat men, but, regardless of your success or failure, please do not return. I worry that you might lead the rat men back to the lizard people’s home.

“If you come back to the swamp in the future, please do not come to our door without permission and a guide.”

Miriel asks, “How can we find you, if we need you?”

“If you need to find us, come nearby. Our scouts will find you.”

We depart, and it feels like leaving home, an oasis of comfort in the muddy misery of the marsh.



The day starts hot and humid, with very little breeze. There is a light mist rising from the muddy ground, much as almost every day in the swamp has started. With Hands of Fire leading, and the assistance of the other lizard men, we make much better time than we would have been able to make on our own.

As we walk, Goldpetal forages off to the side of the path, searching for ninequine berries. Chuck keeps an eye out for trouble, while Paks asks Telryn to teach her Draconic. Telryn is very jumpy, keeping his crossbow out, but, with Fists of Fury and Telryn both working with her, Paks begins to make some progress. In all, it’s an unorganized line, with people stepping off to either side to look at things, even the other lizard men. We travel for over two hours without any difficulty.

We are wading through water a foot deep. There are a lot of tall grasses around us, their tips waving in the wind. Swims with Fishes wanders off to the right to look at something, and trips over a log.

We hear a big roar from the log, which whirls to challenge him! It’s the tail of a giant alligator, unlike anything we’ve seen before, with spines on its back and a mace for a tail.

Swims with Fishes draws his club and roars back at it, and that provokes the alligator to charge at him! Somehow, the clumsy lizard man manages to dive out of the way, falling into the swamp water with a splash. The rest of us scatter, trying to back away from the great beast.

Telryn fires his crossbow at the alligator just as his owl flies up to get out of the way, and the sudden movement of the owl spoils his aim. Paks brings up her bow and fires, hurrying the shot, which goes wildly off into the swamp. Goldpetal’s two hawks dive at the alligator to attack it, and one of them impales itself on the spines of the alligator! It dies, its body stuck on the spine of its intended victim. The other hawk went for the eyes, and so was spared the same fate, but also failed to injure the alligator.

Swims With Fishes staggers to his feet, dripping wet, and rushes the lizard from behind. He hits it with his club, but can do no more than just bruise it, and he also injures himself on the spines. He roars again, in fury, as it looks that his attack has wounded him more than the alligator! Fists of Fury sees this, and pulls out a javelin to throw at it, but he also misses. Miriel shouts, “Is it intelligent?” as the surviving hawk flies up to join the owl in the safety of the trees above the battle.

Hands of Fire yells “No!” as he fumbles backward and draws his javelin. Chuck’s viper slithers down into the murky water under the thrashing alligator, but we can’t see how he fares. Chuck fires his bow twice in rapid succession. He hits both times, but doesn’t do much damage. Novalia also hits with her arrow, while Miriel slings a bullet at it. The small iron ball bounces harmlessly off of its thick skin.

The alligator whirls its body around, swinging its mace-like tail at Swims With Fishes, the only one who is still close to it. He tries to duck, but the ball of the tail catches him across the temple, and he collapses face-first into the water, unconscious.

Goldpetal looses an arrow at it, and hits, the arrow burying itself deeply into its side, and Telryn casts a magic missile. It is clearly wounded, but this seems only to enrage it, and it begins to advance on the rest of us. Hands of Fire throws his javelin at it, but it takes an unlucky bounce off of the spines, and sinks into the swamp. Paks fires her bow again, but the arrow fails to penetrate its hide.

We retreat before it, continuing to fight. Fists of Fury throws another javelin, just missing its head. Chuck fires twice more, hitting it once. Hands of Fire steps dangerously close to the monstrous tail to pull Swims with Fishes’ face out of the water, so that the luckless lizard man doesn’t drown.

Finally, Miriel casts a sound burst, centered directly on the great beast’s head. The thunderous noise, at such close range, completely stuns the vicious alligator, leaving a heavy ringing in all of our ears as well.

With the great beast stunned, Novalia steps up close to it and shoots at the head of the lizard. She hits it right through the eye and kills it.

Paks, Novalia, and Fists of Fury remain alert and on guard, the lizard man with a javelin ready, and the two women with an arrow knocked, while the rest of us take care of things.

Miriel steps around the corpse to Swims with Fishes, and asks Madriel’s healing for him. This closes the wounds from the spines, and wakes him up, although he is disoriented and dizzy for some time. Chuck also finds that his viper was wounded under the monster’s claws during the fight, and he brings the snake to her. The healing arts work just as well on an animal as they do on us humans, and it looks like it is completely healed when she is finished.

Goldpetal retrieves the body of his dead hawk, and sadly buries it on a nearby island, finding a dry spot for the burial.

Telryn cuts off some of the spines, which he thinks might be useful, although he doesn’t indicate whether he thinks they would make a good dart, or be useful as a spell reagent.

When Swims With Fishes is recovered, Hands of Fire starts cursing at him. He speaks too rapidly for even Telryn to follow, but he is clearly irate. Paks comments to Chuck, who is standing near her, “He sounds more angry than the most terrifying drill sergeant I’ve ever had.”

When the lizard man is finished, Swims With Fishes stands with his head down in silent submission. Hands of Fire glares at him, then looks away dismissively and recommends that we move on.

 

[Elder-Basilisk]

Swims with Fishes eh? Is that name foreshadowing?

 

[Amaroq]

Issue #13: The Rat Man Warren, Pt I - Episode 2 of 5

We walk for another two hours, maintaining a much more disciplined column. The humans are careful to step where the man in front had stepped, and the two other lizard men maintain an equal discipline. Only Goldpetal ranges afield, and that to a more limited degree.

We can tell when we approach the rat man town. We can see rats, some small, others large, scurrying around. They flee the hard ground Hands of Fire leads us on, diving off into the water at either side. They’re adept swimmers.
Hands of Fire puts his hand up in the air, bringing our little column to a halt. He sniffs the air and turns to Chuck. “Wind’s changed,” he says in Common.

Chuck nods. “Yeah.” The breeze is now coming from the east, and we can smell a slight tang of the ocean. “And look,” he continues, pointing at the ground. “I can see lots of rat man tracks.”

“We’re close,” Hands of Fire says. He shifts out of common, and says something in Draconic to Telryn and Fists of Fury, who both nod in agreement.

“Hands of Fire says that the entrance to the warren is atop a small hill, and suggests we circle around to get down wind of the town,” Telryn informs the rest of us.

We follow this sensible plan, spending half an hour working our way around the village. We are careful to stay out of sight, and Chuck works with one of the lizard men to try and obscure as much of our trail as possible.

Hands of Fire stops the expedition at a little blind, where another lizard man is watching. “This the scout,” Hands of Fire says, “My friend Red Scale.” He quietly introduces us each in turn.

Red Scale speaks in Draconic, which Telryn translates. “Red Scale tells us not much is going on,” he says. “He will show us a clearing, just to the south of us, where we can see the village.”

As Red Scale begins leading us toward the clearing, Telryn casts a quick incantation.

“What was that?” whispers Miriel.

“Mage armor,” he replies.

The air is very thick and humid, and as we approach the warren, becomes ever-increasingly filled with flying insects. There are numerous rats diving out from underfoot. When we reach the edge of the clearing, we hide in a batch of thick reeds. Peering through the reeds, we can see a wide expanse of water, perhaps five hundred yards across. In the middle of the water is a small hill, and atop the hill we can see three little huts. There are some rat men walking around them, but it is hard to get a precise count at this long range. We watch for a few minutes, and then Hands of Fire motions us back away from the edge of the clearing.

Red Scale leads us back to the blind. Through Hands of Fire and Telryn, he explains the situation and sketches a little map of the area in the dirt.

“How many rat men are there?” Goldpetal asks Red Scale, through Telryn, “And is there anything growing in the area?”

Red Scale speaks rapidly in Draconic. “He says recently he’s seen maybe twenty rat men at a time,” Telryn translates, “And the area is completely cleared.”

“So, how do we want to do this?” Chuck asks.

Novalia pats her trusty bow, and says, “I don’t like the idea of going into that warren. Let’s pelt them with arrows from a distance, and make them come to us.”

“The swamp is their turf,” Goldpetal says, watching a distant bird. “So I think that's a bad idea.”

“We’ll fight better on solid ground,” Miriel adds, by way of agreement.

Paks nods. “Taking the hill is an advantage.”

Hands of Fire says something to Telryn, who translates. “Hands of Fire says there might be too many of them, and inside a tunnel we can take them one at a time.”

Paks studies the lay of the land, on the little dirt map, and stabs her finger at part of it. “Could we climb this hill?” she asks.

Telryn explains to Red Scale, who nods his head yes.

“Okay,” Paks says decisively. “Here’s a plan. If we circle around to the west, we stay downwind of them. When we get here, due south of the hill, that’s the closest approach we can make under cover, and if we’re lucky the ‘shadow’ of the hill will make it harder for them to see us as we cut across this open space. Then we rush up the steep south hill.”

“That’s dangerous, if we get caught on the slope,” Chuck says, “But I think it makes good sense.”

“We’ll just have to move quickly,” Paks says.

Telryn has been explaining her words to Hands of Fire, who puts out his mammoth paw with the thumb up, nodding his head in approval, and so the plan is made.



We circle around to the west, well out of sight of the hill town. To the south of the village, the swamp becomes thicker and more difficult to wade through, but we reach the position at the last of the vegetation to the south, perhaps fifty yards from the base of the hill, undetected.

“Hold on a second,” Telryn says, before we step out into the open. The young mage pulls Paks aside and motions for her to stand still. Paks looks on with curiosity as he takes out a few hairs from a pouch on his waist and speaks some mysterious words. His spell cast, Telryn touches Paks’ shoulder, and she feels as if her armor is getting tighter. She feels invigorated and ready to fight. “This should help a bit with the upcoming battle,” he says.

“What was that?” she asks, looking at her arms, which seem to bulge with muscle.

“Bull’s strength,” he says with a big smile. “I’ve just figured out how to cast it.”

While they talk, Novalia draws her bow and casts guidance on herself.

We can’t see any rat men from where we are, and we hope that means that they can’t see us. We step out and begin crossing the clearing, making as quick a time as we can without making tremendous splashing. No alarm sounds.

As we approach the hill, we come upon a muddy sewer of rat man waster. It is putrid, and likely to give us all disease, but we slog through it. Telryn grumbles, “If the gods are kind, we’ll spend the rest of our lives somewhere dry.”

We start up the hill, and Paks motions us to spread out. We all have our bow, crossbow, javelin, or sling ready, and we lope quickly upwards. There’s still nobody in sight.

We crest the hill, and to our great surprise, there’s nobody there. The huts are fairly closely grouped. They appear to be made of straw and mud. They have small doors, covered with leather hangings, facing towards the central area.

Goldpetal places his bow on his back, and draws his scimitar, quietly moving to the entrance of the furthest hut. Chuck puts away his bow and draws both swords, moving to the door of the nearest hut. No alarm sounds, and they motion the rest of us to join them. Swims with Fishes joins Goldpetal, while Fists of Fury joins Chuck. Paks moves to the third hut. We all have our melee weapons out now, save Telryn and Novalia, who wait where they have a clear line of fire to cover all three of the doors of the huts. The hawk and owl circle overhead, watching for any unpleasant surprises.

Hands of Fire comes up alongside Paks, and gestures to Red Scale to circle around the outside. Red Scale loops around the back side of the huts, but he doesn’t see anything obscured behind them. He stops with Paks as Miriel comes up next to Chuck.

Goldpetal motions to us to listen, and as we hold silent, we can all hear rat men talking inside the huts. Paks signals to Goldpetal and Chuck to go in, on her count. With her fingers she counts, one, two, three, and we all burst through the doors of the huts with weapons drawn. Telryn and Novalia wait outside, watching our backs.

Goldpetal steps through the door into the first hut, scimitar drawn. It’s very musty inside, and larger than it looks from outside. There is little light, provided by some small lanterns, but his elven eyes can see clearly. Smoke is coiling up from one of two holes in the floor. Supports resembling a row of decaying trees brace the roof. There are three rat men working on things hanging from the ceiling. Before they can even react, Goldpetal steps to the closest one, swinging a scything blow with his scimitar. He hits it, chopping deeply through the neck, nearly severing its head with his first blow, and it collapses, dead. As the two ratmen turn towards their attacker, Swims With Fishes steps through the door behind him, and attacks the rat man closest to the holes. He cudgels it to the head, and it goes suddenly and senselessly limp. Goldpetal steps to the last rat in his hut, but it dodges backwards, and he misses. Outnumbered, it backs away from them, trying to circle around towards one of the holes or the doorway. Swims with Fishes gets a solid blow to its chest, cracking a few ribs with his great club. Chattering in fear, or warning, it dives towards the smokeless hole, past Goldpetal. Goldpetal brings his scimitar down across its back, a deep wound, and it dies on the dirty floor just at the rim of the hole. Flushed with triumph, Goldpetal holds his scimitar aloft and casts a new spell he had not previously known. The ululating wailing of a wolf’s cry fills the air.

Paks steps into the second hut. The hut is about thirty feet across, decorated with geometric designs made of wood, and full of containers and some small sledges. There are tools hanging from racks, and five rat men are working, hanging things along the far wall. Two holes in the ground promise entrance to their warren. Paks steps across the hut, and swings at the nearest one as it turns towards her. With the bull’s strength Telryn had cast on her, her sword bites deeply into its ribs, and it dies silently. Hands of Fire, just behind her, crosses the room and bludgeons a rat man in the center of the line. It gets its arms up to protect itself, but the crunching noise of a breaking bone echoes through the hut. Red Scale steps between them, and swings at the rat man nearest to Paks. He catches it solidly on the skull, and it collapses, unconscious or dead. The surviving ratmen have no weapons, but the counterattack is no less vicious as they leap with claw and tooth. Two attack Hands of Fire. The wounded one misses him, but the second bites him in the arm. The third one leaps at Red Scale, but he steps out of the way. Paks attacks the wounded one, and hits it hard, killing it. Hands of Fire swings at the rat man who had bitten him, and he kills it with a single blow. Red Scale backs away from the last one, keeping it at bay with his club, but unable to hit it. Suddenly, the piercing howl of a wolf fills the air, sending chills down Paks’ spine, and startling the two lizard men. However, the effect on the rat man is dramatic. Its eyes go wide with terror, and it completely misses Red Scale with its attack. It begins backing towards the hole, looking wildly around for the wolf, and paying too little attention to the warriors already before it. It never sees Paks’ sword as her blow lops off its head.

Chuck bursts into the third hut, tossing his viper to the packed earth floor. Like the other two, it is also about thirty feet across. This hut looks like a forest at night. It is cluttered with many things, hanging lanterns, clothing, a thresher, and metal items in reed baskets. There are five rat men, scattered through the hut, intent on their work. There is one hole in the ground, on the north side, far from the entrance. Chuck swings both swords at the rat man right in front of him, but it steps back in terror, and he misses. Fists of Fury clubs at the rat man Chuck attacked, hitting it and wounding it. Miriel steps in behind them, stabbing at the injured rat man with her peacock-feathered spear. She skewers it, and it collapses, dead. Chuck’s viper bites a second one, and as it looks down at this unexpected threat, Chuck rushes at it. His long sword thrusts deep into its chest, and it dies with a look of surprise on its face. Two of them rush at Miriel, while the one closest to the hole tries to dart down it. Miriel steps forward, exposing herself to the attacks of the onrushing rat men to try and prevent the third from getting into the hole. She wounds it, but doesn’t kill it, and Fists of Fury’s club hits the lip of the hole a moment to late as the rat man whips out of sight. The two attacking Miriel both hit her, and she is clawed once and bitten twice. She is nearly knocked down, but manages to throw off one of the ratmen, which crouches on all fours, snarling at her.

Fists of Fury whirls to Miriel’s defense, engaging one, though his club bounces harmlessly off the hard-packed earth floor. Miriel wounds the crouching one, and yells “Okay, Chuck, get over here and kill this rat for me!” The rat man is about to leap when the terrifying howl of the wolf’s cry fills the air. It scares Chuck and Miriel, but it visibly raises the hackles on the two rat men, and the crouching rat man pauses. It is a fatal mistake, as Chuck steps between it and Miriel, and deals it a vicious stroke with his long sword. It collapses at his feet. The remaining rat man attacks Fists of Fury, and bites him on the shoulder. He tries to swing his club at it, but the range is too close, and he loses his grip on the club. The rat man bears him to the ground, but the heavy club falls right across the back of the rat man’s head, killing it.

The noise of the wolf’s cry alone has probably alerted the entire warren, and the escapee from the third hut likewise. As the last rat man dies in each hut, we step to guard the rat holes with our weapons ready for any sign of the enemy.



A minute of tense watching passes, with no sign of counterattack. Miriel slips out of her hut, and, leaving two guards in each hut to watch the holes, gathers Paks, Telryn, and Novalia. We convene in the center to discuss what to do.

“Should we go down one of the passages?” asks Paks.

“I’m not sure,” Miriel says. “They know the warren, and we don’t.”

“We’re pretty exposed, up here,” Telryn points out.

“Let’s collapse the buildings,” Novalia suggests.

“Good idea,” Miriel says.

While the others are talking, Chuck takes a closer look at the third hut. He finds lots of straw and mud and excrement. It looks like they make bricks and baskets here. They have some iron implements, and there are shoddy manacles hanging from the ceiling.

Chuck steps out of the third hut and asks, “Does anyone have lamp oil?”

Just as he does, a group of five rat men come up out of a secret hole behind the third hut. These rat men are different from the others. Their fur is lighter in color, and they're armed with scimitars and wearing leather armor. They rush towards us, screaming something in their rat tongue.

Telryn and Miriel are the first to react, stepping towards them and beginning to cast spells. The rat men charge towards the two spell casters, but just before they can reach them, Telryn casts color spray. A cone of brilliant light, shimmering through all the shades of the rainbow, extends from his right hand, directly across the five ratmen. Two are knocked unconscious. Miriel casts sound burst and the explosive percussion of noise stuns the rest.

Hands of Fire comes rushing out of the second hut, yelling his war cry. He charges at one of the stunned rat man, hitting it across the back. As Paks sees this, she yells to the rest of the group, “We have it under control! Keep watching your holes!” Fists of Fury comes running out of the third hut as she shouts this.

Telryn echoes her order in Draconic as he loads his crossbow, and the command comes just in time, as all the other guards had just begun to step away from their holes towards the commotion outside.

Paks steps between Miriel and the rat men to attack one of the stunned ratmen. Again, her bull’s strength makes her first blow lethal. Chuck steps from the doorway of the third hut with his bow out, and fires at the two rat men still standing. He wounds one. Fists of Fury rushes the stunned rat men, getting in between Novalia and her shot. He brings his club down in a great overhand strike, but misses badly.

Telryn circles around behind the rat men. He fires his crossbow at one of the stunned vermin, piercing its heart. Miriel comes over with her short spear and finishes off one of the unconscious rat men. Chuck’s viper slithers up to the last conscious rat man, biting at its ankle. He shakes himself alert just in time to dodge the viper’s fangs, and takes off into the swamp at a dead run.

Hands of Fire shouts an order in Draconic, and then chases after the fleeing rat man. Paks steps over to the outdoor hole, yelling to Novalia, “One is getting away!”

Novalia was training her bow at it already. As the rat man dodges Hands of Fire and gets clear of the rest of the group, she unleashes a powerful shot. The arrow takes him through the back at a distance of over forty yards, and he tumbles into the muddy swamp. His fall splashes water in a great wave, and he lies still.

When Hands of Fire gets there, he checks it, and stands up. “Dead,” he calls. Back on the hilltop, Fists of Fury kills the last unconscious rat man, and we regroup to plan again.

 

[Amaroq]

Issue #13: The Rat Man Warren, Pt I - Episode 3 of 5

Miriel, Paks, Telryn, and Chuck gather over the outside hole, to discuss the plan, while Novalia, Goldpetal, and the lizard men watch over the holes inside the various huts.

“Let’s collapse all three huts,” Telryn says, “And go down the outdoor hole.”

Miriel nods in accordance. “I agree with Telryn.”

Chuck shakes his head. “If we collapse the hut with smoke coming out of it, we’ll fill the warren with smoke, which is just as bad for us as it is for the rats.”

“Okay.” Paks suggests, “Then, how about we collapse the other two huts, leave a guard or two at the third hut, and the rest of us go down the outside hole?”

Before anyone can respond to her suggestion, a battle cry shatters the air. It sounds like a lizard man, and there is a sudden flurry of movement within the third hut, which Hands of Fire was watching alone. Miriel starts running towards the door of his hut. “Watch the hole,” Paks yells to Chuck, as she follows the priestess.

Miriel reaches the door of the hut first. Within, she sees three dead eaters which have burrowed up from the ground around Hands of Fire. The huge lizard man is locked arm-in-arm wrestling with one on the floor. The other two try to pile on, but he throws them both off.

Madriel’s priestess quickly takes in the scene, and shouts, “Dead eaters! Help!” She steps aside, out of the doorway, as Telryn and Paks rush into the hut. Telryn fires his crossbow into the melee, catching the hard-packed earth, and Miriel casts sound burst. Concussion rocks the combatants, and the two dead-eaters getting to their feet are stunned.

The dead-eater grappling with Hands of Fire rolls over on top of him. Even the mighty seven-foot lizard warrior cannot resist its unnatural strength, and it claws and bites him. The warrior is badly injured, and slumps back, stunned. Paks steps over him, trying to bring her sword down on the dead-eater to protect her friend. It turns its attention to her, catching her sword-arm with one arm, and ripping the other a claw across her thigh, tearing muscle.

Chuck and Fists of Fury have both abandoned their holes, and Chuck pushes in through the narrow door of the hut, leaving Fists of Fury stuck just outside the door, looking for an opening. The Vigilant tosses his snake towards the fray, and draws his sword. His viper bites the dead-eater which is engaged with Paks. Splitting its attention between Paks’ sword and the snake, it doesn’t notice that Miriel has drawn her spear until she skewers it, and it collapses, dead, at the priestess’ feet.

Hands of Fire rolls over, trying to stagger to his feet, and clutches at Telryn for stability just as the mage looses a crossbow shot. The shot goes wild, burying itself in the far wall of the hut. The other two dead-eaters attack the wounded lizard man, and one of them scores him deeply across the ribs. Bleeding heavily, he stumbles towards the door, trying to get behind the protection of the others.

Fists of Fury and Chuck step around him, standing shoulder to shoulder and buying the wounded lizard man a space of safety. Fists of Fury swings his mighty club at one of the two remaining dead-eaters. It dodges his blow, but steps into Paks’ range, and she delivers a hard slashing blow across its chest, killing it. Chuck steps past him, bringing both swords onto the last dead-eater. The short sword in his left hand catches its chest, while the long sword in his right slices through its spine, and it collapses, nearly severed in two.

Behind them, Hands of Fire eats the magical bread which Miriel had prepared, and as he eats it his wounds begin to close. In moments, all of his wounds have improved, and he is no longer bleeding heavily, but he still doesn’t look well enough to return to the fight.

Outside, Novalia abandoned her hut, standing in the middle of the trio of huts with an arrow knocked in her bow, to better watch for any sign of trouble. While the battle still rages in the third hut, she hears a scream of terror from her hut, and the noise of combat erupts from the first hut as well. Red Scale bursts, fleeing, from the second hut, eyes wide with fear.

In the first hut, two more dead-eaters are digging their way up out of the ground. As Goldpetal shouts a warning, they both attack Swims With Fishes. The lizard man dodges the first, but doesn’t see the second, and it claws him brutally, dropping the huge lizard to the ground. Goldpetal draws his scimitar to attack, but finding himself outnumbered, he is pressed back against the wall. He is hard-pressed for a moment, but then Novalia arrives at the doorway of the hut, her bow at the ready. She quickly unleashes an arrow, but her hasty shot misses high.

Red Scale’s arrival in the center of the three huts, yelling in Draconic, comes just as the last dead-eater in the third hut dies on Chuck’s swords. Miriel, closest to the door, yells, “There’s more of them! Follow me!” Stepping into the courtyard, she runs to the door of the second hut. Rather than rush blindly in, she stops just outside the door, setting her spear in front of her in case anything comes out. Paks, next out, sees Novalia firing into the first hut, and runs towards her, while Fists of Fury follows Miriel. Chuck is the last one to step out of the third hut, and he looks significantly at Hands of Fire and kicks the doorframe on the way out. The wounded lizard man stares after him blankly.

A dead-eater charges out of the second hut, rushing at Miriel with its jaw open and its arms spread wide as though to claw at her. Her set spear saves her, as it impales itself on her spear, and dies a scant foot from her. She struggles to free the spear, which is stuck deeply into it, as Fists of Fury reaches her side. Hands of Fire and Telryn wait in the central courtyard, looking for targets.

Inside the first hut, the two dead-eaters have pushed Goldpetal up against the wall. Swims With Fishes is bleeding heavily, and the slight elf fights grimly. He parries a blow from the first dead-eater, but the second ghoulish enemy scores him down the back with its claws. Novalia grabs an arrow from her quiver and runs into the hut, leaping on the back of the dead-eater and trying to stab it with the arrow. It brushes her aside. Paks reaches the door, her bloodied sword in her right hand, and yells back over her shoulder, “There are two in my hut!”

Goldpetal cannot spare a glance for the reinforcement, but he deals a scything cut to one of his opponents, killing it in a single blow. The other dead-eater attacks him, but he nimble dances around the slower creature, leaving it trapped between he and Novalia. The archer stabs her arrow into its back, and it staggers, but doesn’t go down. Chuck steps into the hut as well, and Paks, seeing that it is outnumbered four to one, turns to check on the others.

Another dead eater rushes out of the second hut towards Miriel, reaching her before she can free her fouled spear. It claws her shoulder, just as she gets the spear free. She steps back and calls, “There’s just one over here!” Red Scale and Fists of Fury drive it back from her with a flurry of club blows, as Chuck’s viper reaches the fray.

Just as it looks like we have the situation in hand, four more ratmen crest the hill from the south. They are each armed with crossbows, and the reddish-furred troupe lets loose a vicious volley. Hands of Fire dodges the first bolt, but the next three all hit Telryn. The mage is knocked to the ground unconscious and bleeding.

Paks yells, “Miriel! Telryn’s down!” and charges towards them with Hands of Fire at her heels. She reaches the closest one while he is still struggling to reload his crossbow. Before he can bring it to bear, the young warrior reaches him, hewing him down. Hands of Fire comes up beside her to attack the next one, but his earlier injuries are still bothering him, and he fights defensively, cautious, staying out of range, and giving his opponent time to draw a wicked curved blade.

The floor of the first hut is becoming damp and slick with Swims with Fishes’ blood, and the three heroes inside fight grimly to try and buy time enough to heal him. Chuck charges across the hut with his longsword and wounds the dead-eater. Goldpetal also cuts it with his scimitar. Wounded in three places, it looks weakened, but continues to struggle on, shaking Novalia off of its back and making her miss as she tries to stab it with her arrow again.

At the door of the second hut, the dead-eater attacks Fists of Fury, but it stumbles, falling against the door frame, and it is briefly stunned again. Red Scale turns to go deal with the new threat from the south, while Miriel rushes towards Telryn. Chuck’s viper and Fists of Fury are left on their own. The snake misses, but Fists of Fury finally hits the dead-eater with his club. It snarls at him and fights on, though the lizard man has the advantage of reach.

Red Scale throws a javelin at the ratman on the far end, but his spear misses, flying further on down the hill. Miriel reaches Telryn’s body and begins trying to bandage him, but blood quickly soaks through the cloth.

Another group of ratmen appears from the west. These five are armed with short bows. Two shoot at Fists of Fury, both missing. One misses Miriel, while two more shoot at Red Scale. Only one hits, wounding Red Scale. One of the other ratmen’s bow string breaks, while another drops his bow, wringing his left arm as though it were in pain.

From the southern group, the three survivors attack Hands of Fire and Paks. She blocks one blow with her shield, but Hands of Fire is further wounded as two of them attack him at once. Paks ignores her opponent to help protect the injured lizard man, who is having trouble raising his left arm. It hangs, useless, at his side. She kills the one which delivered the blow, and Hands of Fire brings his club down one-handed, killing the second one. Only one ratman remains before them.

In the first hut, the dead eater grabs Chuck and bites him, a deep wound to Chuck’s left shoulder. As it hangs onto him, he swings at it with his short sword, but the wounded arm cannot get enough force to wound it. With his right arm, however, he runs it through with his longsword, killing it at last. As Chuck pushes its body to the floor, Goldpetal drops to his knees beside Swims With Fishes. He starts bandaging the wounds, but the lizard man is bleeding very heavily and from the elf’s grim look, the others aren’t sure he will be in time.

Outside, Red Scale charges the new group of ratmen from the west. He clubs the ratman whose bowstring broke, but doesn’t kill it. One of its compatriots tries to step between them, to attack him tooth and nail, but the great club has the advantage of range, and it cannot get close enough. The other two bowmen continue to fire, one at Red Scale and one at Miriel, but both miss. Miriel ignores the arrows coming down around her, and finishes bandaging Telryn, who is no longer bleeding as heavily. Novalia steps out of the first hut with her bow, and quickly fires at the archers to the west, trying to provide some protective cover fire for Miriel.

Along the southern ravine, Paks and Hands of Fire have circled around the ratman so that they are flanking it, attacking from opposite sides. It swings at Paks, but she blocks easily with her shield and delivers a slicing blow across its chest with her longsword. Moments later, Hands of Fire’s great club cracks across the back of the hapless ratman’s skull, and it pitches onto the ground face-first, unconscious or dead.

Fists of Fury and the dead-eater at the door of the second hut seem to be stalemated. He fights timidly, frequently missing the dead-eater, while the luckless creature fumbles for a third time, stunning itself again! The snake takes advantage of its momentary distraction, biting it on the ankle, but the viper’s poison has no apparent effect on the diseased monstrosity.

The ratman Red Scale had wounded drops its useless bow to leap at him with claw and fang. One claw scores him along the flank, and the lizard man looks visibly weakened. The other ratmen on the western side of the hill continue to fire their arrows into the rest of the group, but they seem inexpert with the bow, and their shots fly wayward.

Inside the first hut, Chuck helps Goldpetal bandage Swims With Fishes, and together they staunch the bleeding. Goldpetal draws his bow and gets up, running out the door of the hut towards the battle. Chuck looks after him with frustration on his face, and looks back down at the helpless lizard man, clearly torn, but he decides that he can’t leave a companion helpless and unguarded. He begins dragging Swims With Fishes out of the hut.

As he steps outside, Goldpetal shoots an arrow at the three archers to the west, grazing one. Red Scale continues to fight the two ratmen between himself and the archers, and his next club swing is rewarded with a satisfying crunch of breaking bone as he crushes the skull of the injured ratman. His remaining adversary looks intimidated, but claws at him resolutely, missing. It looks as though we are in control, but again the tide of battle shifts against us.

Miriel drags Telryn into the third hut, out of the line of the arrows, and watches outward from the doorway. Two ratmen come up the unguarded hole behind her, and leap upon her. Both bite her, one at the neck, and the other into the soft flesh of her side. “Help!!” she yells, shaking them off and turning to face her tormentors.

Just at that moment, the three archers to the west unleash a volley of arrows at Fists of Fury, who is engaged with the dead-eater outside the second hut. One of the arrows hits him in the head, knocking him unconscious. Suddenly, the lizard man is down. The dead-eater leaps upon him and bites at his throat. While it is so occupied, the snake bites it twice, but it looks like Fists of Fury is dead.

Hands of Fire and Paks have finished off the ratmen from the south, and they split up. Paks runs to the west to help Red Scale, while Hands of Fire dashes east to the third hut to help Miriel. Novalia shoots at the archer Goldpetal had hit earlier, and she hits, just grazing it again.

Paks charges at the ratman which is fighting Red Scale. With the force of the charge and Telryn’s spell, a single blow from her long sword lops off its head, and she continues towards the three archers. One of the archers fires an arrow at Goldpetal, wounding the slight elf.

Chuck drags Swims With Fishes out of the doorway of the first hut by his legs, and leaves him at the feet of Novalia and Goldpetal. Goldpetal shoots at the sole surviving dead-eater, but just as he fires, Chuck bumps into him, spoiling his aim. Goldpetal is lucky to stay on his feet and hang on to his bow. Novalia and the ratman archers exchange arrows, but none can hit.

Red Scale runs towards the second hut, charging recklessly at the dead eater. He reaches it as it continues to rend Fists of Fury’s body, and delivers a mighty blow with his club. The dead-eater shakes its head and drops Fists of Fury’s body, his blood staining its mouth as it gets ready to attack Red Scale. It launches itself at Red Scale, and though he dodges its bite, its left claw catches him across the temple, knocking him unconscious. Chuck draws his bow and fires, but his first shot misses. The Vigilant shoots a second time, and this arrow flies true, pegging the dead-eater directly between the eyes, and it collapses beside the bodies of its two lizard man victims.

At the third hut, Miriel stabs one of the ratmen, but she is forced back to the door and steps backward out of the hut. With lightning quickness, the two ratmen grab Telryn and drag him away, down the hole. “They’ve got Telryn!” she shouts in a panic just as Hands of Fire reaches the doorway. The lizard man lieutenant yells something in Draconic over his shoulder as he enters the hut, and Miriel sees him follow the ratmen down the hole.

Paks charges at the three archers to the west. They all fire one last volley as she approaches, and although two of the shots deflect harmlessly off her shield and armor, the third catches her in the shoulder of her sword arm. Just as she reaches them, Novalia’s arrow flies over her, wounding one of the archers. Two of them are wounded, but Paks goes directly after the uninjured one. He tries to parry with his bow, but her blade slices through the bow and deep into his shoulder. His left arm dangles uselessly from the wound.

Miriel and Goldpetal run over to the two wounded lizard men. Miriel reaches them first, and tends to Red Scale. She quickly recognizes that the bleeding, although it looks bad, is normal for a head wound, and she quickly wraps a bandage around his head, stabilizing him. Goldpetal looks at Fists of Fury, and says, “He’s alive!” He presses his hands over Fists of Fury’s neck, trying to limit the bleeding, but crimson blood continues to spurt around his hands.

Meanwhile, Hands of Fire crawls down the tunnel after the ratmen. After about fifteen seconds of crawling, the tunnel opens up into a small room. He finds himself in a small cave, perhaps ten feet wide and twenty feet long, filled with piles of cloth and twine. He spots three ratmen dragging Telryn back into the warren. The ceiling is too low to use his club, so he runs past Telryn’s body and attacks one of the uninjured ratmen with his claws and teeth. It doesn’t see him coming at all, and he hits with all of them, killing it. His momentum carries him on to the injured one, and he bites it, killing it as well. The largest ratman drops Telryn and turns to fight the enraged lizard man.

The ratman and Hands of Fire launch themselves at each other with animal roars. The ratman’s first attack fails, and Hands of Fire presses the advantage with claws and teeth. As the ratman gives ground, Hands of Fire trips over the body of one of his other victims. His head hits the rock ground hard, and while he is stunned, the ratman leaps on him, clawing and biting, and Hands of Fire slumps into unconsciousness.

Goldpetal and Miriel continue desperately trying to perform first aid on Fists of Fury. He is bleeding from numerous wounds, and the bite to his neck seems to have gotten the jugular. His life blood is pouring out before their eyes, and nothing they try works. Bandages soak through, but they continue to work at it.

On the western side, Paks is outnumbered three to one. The three wounded ratmen circle around her, trying to surround her, but her shield and sword are everywhere in a steel barrier. As she holds them off, Chuck fires two arrows in rapid succession. The first arrow catches one of the ratmen through the throat, while the second penetrates the heart of another. Both collapse, and the odds are even.

Novalia fires an arrow at the last one just as Paks steps between her and it. Her arrow bites deep into Paks’ back, and she falls, losing her grip on her sword. The sword flies out of her hand, and goes straight into the ratman’s heart. It falls back in shock and dies, and Paks offers a silent prayer to Madriel.

Miriel offers a quick prayer to Madriel of her own as she and Goldpetal work grimly on Fists of Fury. Finally, with her help, Goldpetal stabilizes Fists of Fury. He’s no longer bleeding to death, but he’s lost too much blood and hovers right on the verge of death. When they look up, the fight is over. All of the ratmen are dead, and there are no dead-eaters remaining.

Chuck straps his bow to his back and picks up his snake. He rushes into the third hut to look for Hands of Fire and Telryn. The hut is empty, save the bodies of the three dead-eaters, and he walks to the edge of the tunnel. The young Vigil grimly pulls out his magical dagger and crawls down the tunnel.

Miriel prays to Madriel for healing, and revives Red Scale. She hands him her bread, which he eats. Goldpetal pours a healing potion down Fists of Fury’s throat, while Novalia prays to Tanil for healing for Swims With Fishes. The magical healing from different sources gradually works on all three lizard men, and they revive. Swims With Fishes still looks hurt, but he staggers to his feet. When Fists of Fury wakes up, though he looks extremely weak, he asks Red Scale a question in authoritative Draconic. Red Scale gives him a quick answer, pointing at the third hut, and Fists of Fury issues something that sounds like a command. Seeing the gesture, Paks starts running towards the third hut, and Red Scale leaps to follow her.

Chuck bursts into the underground chamber, where he finds the solitary ratman standing over Telryn and Hands of Fire, its muzzle red with blood. The magical dagger glows in his left hand, and he throws the snake at the ratman with his right. He misses, and the snake hits the far wall of the chamber, and falls to the rock stunned. The ratman hesitates, giving Chuck the time to climb to his feet. As he stands, he draws his long sword. He looks like a grim king, and the ratman bolts through an opening in the far wall, leaving Chuck in possession of the room.

Chuck steps into the underground room and kneels beside the two bodies. He checks to see their condition. Both are alive, unconscious and not bleeding. Paks and Red Scale arrive in the room moments afterward. For a brief moment, all is quiet both above and below ground.

 

[Amaroq]

Issue #13: The Rat Man Warren, Pt I - Episode 4 of 5

On the surface, Novalia climbs up on top of the first hut. After struggling and sliding a bit on the sloped roof, she gets up on the top of it, where she can see clearly in all directions. “I’ll keep a lookout from here,” she shouts.

Goldpetal gives Swims With Fishes his chunk of the healing bread. The lizard man eats it, and his wounds magically close. Fists of Fury also, despite his injuries, goes down the hole.

The room underground contains cloth, twine, and tools. It is littered with reeds, straw, flat rocks, and wooden bowls containing noxious fluids. There is a layer of filth over everything. Chuck and Red Scale guard the entrance to the little chamber, while Paks tends to the two injured. She lays her hands on Telryn and prays for healing from Madriel. She can feel the healing power course through her fingers as her prayer is granted. His flesh knits, and he wakes up. He takes his healing bread out of his pack, and eats it while she repeats her prayer over Hands of Fire. The lizard man also is healed, and he wakes up just as Fists of Fury enters the room.

“Where are we?” Telryn asks.

Paks gives her healing bread to Hands of Fire, who eats it as Red Scale tells him what has transpired above ground. Paks tells Telryn, “You’re underground, in the ratman warren. We fought them off above ground, but you’d been taken. Hands of Fire tried to rescue you, but he fell by your side, and Chuck saved you both.” Hands of Fire finishes eating the bread, and he looks better, if not exactly healthy.

On the surface, Miriel and Goldpetal begin to search the huts. Miriel enters the first one, while Goldpetal goes to the second. In the first hut, Miriel sees dark shapes hanging from the ceiling. Examining them more closely, she gasps in horror when she realizes that they are dried carcasses, human, or maybe elven. Forcing herself to concentrate despite the bile rising in her throat, she continues her examination. The bodies have been drained of blood, which has collected in pots underneath them. Noticing tanning tools, she realizes that she is in a gruesome tannery, and in a cascade of comprehension, she recognizes the pink leather hung on the walls as tanned human skin.

In the second hut, Goldpetal finds a much more normal scene. The elf finds racks of tools, scoops, chisels, picks, and hammers. He finds little interesting, and a brief examination of the tools reveals that they are, as expected, made of stone and wood. There are a few carved of bone, as well.

The two searchers meet in the third hut, the one which the others have gone down into the warren through. There is brick making equipment - mud, reeds, and rat excrement, and also manacles. The walls of the rooms are covered with layers of dried excrement. It smells terrible, and there are slimes and mushrooms growing on the walls. “This is not healthy,” Miriel says.

As soon as Hands of Fire and Telryn feel well enough to walk, they, Fists of Fury, and Paks come up from the underground chamber. Chuck and Red Scale stand watch over the dark opening, each flanking the side of it so that they are out of sight of any archers, and can watch each other’s back if more dead-eaters show up.

Upstairs, Paks says, “We don’t have time to debate. We’ll be attacked again if we do. Chuck and I think this is the time to press the advantage. All who are healthy enough, come with me. If you need to rest, stay up here and watch our backs.”

The others agree, although we’ve all been wounded, and Miriel and Telryn are exhausted from their furious spellcasting.

“I’ll stay up here,” Novalia says, “But let me offer you my healing.” She comes down from her perch on the rooftops, gives Miriel her quarter-loaf of bread, and heals Hands of Fire until she has exhausted her spell-casting ability. “There, that should help,” she says. “I’m almost out of arrows. Can anybody sell me some?” Goldpetal gives her ten arrows, and she gives him two gold pieces.

Paks, Telryn, Miriel, and Hands of Fire go back underground to join Chuck and Red Scale, while Swims With Fishes and Fists of Fury collapse the other two huts. Goldpetal and Novalia stand watch with bows drawn from the roof of the third hut, where they can see all of the surrounding area.



Underground, the four of us and two lizard men begin walking down the tunnel. It is tall enough for the humans to stand in, but the lizard men are hunched over and uncomfortable, and even Paks occasionally hits her head. Chuck leads the group by the eerie blue light of his magical dagger. Paks follows with a lit torch in her right hand and her shield in her left, her sword sheathed. The two lizard men follow behind. Telryn starts mapping the warren as we walk, and Miriel carries a torch for him.

After about ten feet, the tunnel branches in three directions. With nothing but instinct to go on, Chuck chooses the western passage, the leftmost one. As he starts down it, Paks hears voices calling out, with a Veshian accent, “Here, this way – help, help!”

“Chuck!” she hisses. When she has his attention, she motions towards the rightmost passage with her head. She starts down it by the light of her torch, and the others follow, with Chuck falling in to cover the rear.

Paks quickly comes into another rough-hewn room, irregularly shaped and perhaps a dozen feet wide. There are five human slaves chained to the wall. The chains let them move around, but don’t stretch far enough to let them leave the room. There are scraps of cloth and food on the floor, and the room is stifling. There is a passage leading off to the northeast and two leading off from the southwest corner.

Paks steps to the double corridor, keeping her shield before her and sword out. One of the slaves calls, “Thank you for saving us! Please free us! The ratmen have chained us here.” The rest of us begin stepping into the room, and Hands of Fire guards the eastern passage. The slaves recoil in terror from the lizard men.

Paks notices this, and gives a wry smile. “You’re going to be okay,” she calls back to them. “These lizard men are our allies. Miriel, see if you can unlock them.”

One of the slaves is covering his eyes from the torchlight, and another exclaims, “Light! I haven’t seen light in forever!”

Chuck casts about for heavy metal tools and finds a pickaxe. He passes it along to the others to break the chains. Telryn tries first, but the chains resist his blows, and he says, “I’m not strong enough. Don’t be afraid of him, Red Scale here will free you.” Red Scale takes the pickaxe and begins breaking the manacles.

The first slave freed says, “Thank you, thank you!” As Red Scale frees the second one, he tries to rush out the way we came in.

“Chuck!” Paks yells, “Don’t let them out until we warn the people upstairs.” Chuck restrains them as Red Scale frees the not to let them out until we warn the people upstairs.

The fourth slave freed is the one which had spoken first. He says, “Thank you, kind sirs... and ladies. You’ve saved us, but we still have to get out of this swamp!”

“We have friends,” Paks tells him. “We’ll help you get out after we’re done here.”

“There are many slaves here,” he tells her.

“We’ll save them,” Paks assures him.

Chuck asks, “What can you tell us of the layout of the warren?”

The slave tells us that there are two factions in the ratman hierarchy, the priests and the military. He says that the military quarters are on the eastern side, the direction we’re going, while the priests live on the western side. The area we are in is a common area between them. He points out which corridors lead to the military, priest, and common areas. He finishes with an ominous warning. “Be very wary of the priests’ area; slaves go in and they don’t come out.”

All five of the slaves are freed by the time he finishes. One is having trouble walking, but the others can support her. Chuck leads the slaves out to the hut, yelling out “I’m coming up!” before he exits the last tunnel. Red Scale goes up with him to take over protecting the slaves above ground, and he sends Fists of Fury down to help us explore the warren. Goldpetal asks the slaves to help demolish the huts, a task which they are gleefully happy to contribute to.

Those of us underground head down the northeastern passage, towards the military areas, by the light of Paks’ torch. It curves to the north, but only ten feet down the passage Paks steps into another room. This one is roughly twenty feet by ten, and kidney-shaped. There are reed mats hanging from the ceiling which conceal the far side of the room. There is another passage to the left. The hanging reed mats move slightly, as though there is something behind them.

Paks and Hands of Fire step in. Paks keeps her torch at the ready and motions Hands of Fire towards the reed mats. The lizard man pushes the reeds aside. Behind them, he sees a bunch of female ratmen with babies, cringing and terrified of us. There are two blindfolded slaves in there.

Paks gets a grim look on her face and shakes her head. She steps away to guard the exit corridor, but Hands of Fire has no such squeamishness. He lays about with his club. Neither the mothers or the children protect themselves, and he kills them all quickly.

Miriel arrives as he’s finishing the gruesome chore, and she goes over to the slaves. They are clearly terrified. She removes their blindfolds, but they cover their eyes, and one cries, “No! It’s against the rules to look at the hairless children of the ratmen!” Miriel leads them back out to the surface.

Telryn shakes his head at the sorry sight, and utters a prayer to Madriel.

 

[Amaroq]

Issue #13: The Rat Man Warren, Pt I - Episode 5 of 5

When Hands of Fire has finished his bloody task, and Miriel has returned from escorting the slaves to safety, we prepare to proceed down the next corridor. With Paks in the lead, we follow the right-hand wall. The passage curves to the left, then opens into another room, this about twenty feet in diameter. There are a number of mats on the floor, made into nests about the size of a bed. It looks like sleeping quarters for the adult ratmen.

Drawing our immediate attention are seven giant rats, each larger than a tomcat. They are milling about in the room, rustling through the bedding, and don’t seem inclined to fight. Paks stops at the entrance, where she notices that two more corridors lead off from this room, one back to the left, and one from the far right corner. She yells back, “Telryn! It connects. Send the lizard men around the other passage.” Telryn translates her command into Draconic, and the two lizard men work their way around, proving her theory correct.

Hands of Fire bursts into the room, leaping upon the nearest two rats with tooth and nail. He pins one to ground with a claw, breaking its neck, and bites the second, killing it as well. His momentum drives him through to a third, which he kills as well. Fists of Fury follows right behind him as Paks and Chuck step in from the other passage. Fists of Fury swings his club at the rat in front of him, but misses. It leaps at his crotch, but he knocks it aside. The other three rats bolt out the unblocked passage.

Paks stabs with her torch at the one remaining rat, but it dodges away from the flames. Chuck steps to the far passage with his bow. As his snake pursues the fleeing rats down the corridor, Chuck looses two arrows down the corridor. One kills the trailing rat, but the second shot misses. The viper catches one and bites it, but it lives. It turns as though to fight just as Hands of Fire runs down the corridor after it, battle rage hot in his blood. He attacks it and kills the hapless rat.

A hail of crossbow bolts comes down the corridor towards Hands of Fire just as he stands up. Two of them hit him, and he collapses on the cold stone. The last fleeing rat escapes into the darkness.

Chuck steps aside as the other bolts skip harmlessly into the room, alerting the rest of us to the new threat. Fists of Fury steps to the opening of the corridor and looks down it, but it is pitch black and he can’t see anything. Hearing the noise of crossbows resetting, he ducks back. The last giant rat, forgotten momentarily, leaps at him again. The lizard man sidesteps it, and as it lands he bashes it with his club, crushing it.

Telryn takes out a crossbow bolt and casts light on it, causing it to glow with a golden radiance. Paks drags Hands of Fire back out of the corridor and into our little room. Chuck throws his bread to Paks and moves over next to Miriel. He picks up his viper with his left hand. We’re all out of the line of fire now.

Miriel runs over to Hands of Fire, and two more crossbow bolts come out of the dark at her. They both miss, and she quickly studies the lizard man. Two crossbow bolts protrude from his chest, and she deftly removes the bolts and bandages the wounds before they can bleed too much.

Three crossbow bolts fly from the other passageway, from between us and the exit. One hits Chuck, while another lodges in his leather armor without hurting him. The third skips off the wall just beside Fists of Fury’s head. We can hear a ratman scream from down the corridor, but it sounds more like pain than a battle cry.

Telryn begins casting a spell, and he gestures down the hallway. We hear the snarling of a wolf, and screams from ratmen. Telryn calls out, “Charge ’em!” Chuck drops his bow and draws the glowing dagger and his longsword.

Paks sticks Miriel’s healing bread in Hands of Fire's mouth. Again she lays her hands on him and prays to Madriel, and for the third time today, her prayer is answered. He wakes, and quickly eats the bread. The combination of healings helps, and he looks much better. Paks stands and draws her longsword, dropping her torch on the floor just as Miriel lights a torch of her own.

Chuck charges down the corridor between us and safety, longsword at the ready. By the light of his glowing dagger, he sees another narrow room with corridors opening off to the north, east, and southeast. He thinks he can see another cavern to the east. There are three ratmen standing in the room, with crossbows. One more lies dead on the floor, a bolt embedded the back of its head. It looks like one of the others shot him accidentally. Only one of the ratmen has a bolt ready as Chuck runs in. It looses a hurried shot, but the bolt caroms off of his leather armor without injuring him.

The Vigilant screams a battle cry and attacks that one with the dagger. He wounds it, and his momentum carries him to the next, which he slashes across the chest with the longsword. At his feet, the viper bites the third one. Fists of Fury runs into the room behind him, swinging his club at one of the ratmen, but he misses. The ratmen drop their crossbows and claw at the lizard man, one of them scoring him on the left arm.

Telryn fires down the other corridor with his lighted crossbow bolt. He intentionally aims high, and the bolt sticks in the far wall to light the room with a magical, golden light. In its light we can see part of a large, rough room, probably about forty feet in diameter. About half of the area is lit, and in the darkness, we get hints of quite a few ratmen waiting. It looks like they’ve turned over some low tables to provide cover. At the moment we can see only four, and they are all battling a great grey wolf. Only one hits, and the wolf bites that one, injuring it much worse than it had done to him.

Paks charges down the corridor, swinging her longsword at the first ratman she meets. The strength of Telryn’s bull’s strength spell still powers her muscles, and her first stroke lops off its head. Hands of Fire and Miriel are right behind her. The room they have entered opens into a cavern about the size of a great dining hall. It is an oval shape, perhaps fifty feet long and forty feet across, and the ratmen have set defenses in it. Overturned tables and troughs perhaps ten feet into the room provide cover for crossbowmen and archers that kneel behind them. Most of the ratmen are a sickly grey, but there are a group of larger, whiter ones. They carry crossbows and wear black robes over armor. An older ratman stands in the middle of the room, surrounded by the larger warriors. He wears the black robes, and his fur is of light silver. A huge albino, as large as any of the lizard men, stands by the overturned tables. Strapped to his back is an evil-looking scimitar which would be a two-handed weapon for anyone of human size, but he has a long bow drawn with an arrow knocked.

In the western room, Chuck whirls through the ratmen in a deadly dance. He kills one with his longsword, and steps further into the room, but his dagger misses. The snake bites the third ratman again, and the poison of its venom kills it. As the last ratman leaps at Chuck, Fists of Fury’s club catches it in the face, smashing it to pulp. The ratmen all lay dead, but before the victors can even draw a breath, four more crossbow bolts whistle out of the southeast corridor at them. All of them miss, caroming wildly off the stone walls and floor. Chuck charges towards the crossbowmen before they can reload.

In the cavern, the shaman pounds the floor with a claw and shakes the ground under Paks, but she manages to keep her balance. Paks steps into the cavern and casts her first spell, protection from evil, on herself. One of the ratmen swings at her, but Madriel’s protection causes it to miss. Hands of Fire steps in past her to attack that ratman, but it parries his blow. The wolf continues to fight viciously with three ratmen. Not only can they not hit it, but the wolf bites the one it had previously wounded, and presses the ratmen back out of the corridor opening. Telryn comes up behind Miriel, but he can’t see much through her and the tall fighters in the doorway.

Chuck bursts out of another corridor perhaps fifteen feet to Paks’ left. He reaches the turned over tables and attacks the crossbowmen that shot at him. He hits one with his longsword and kills it. The one next to it is holding its arm, a crossbow bolt protruding from its shoulder, as though it, too, had been shot by a comrade. Chuck’s viper attacks that one, and bites it. It squeals as poison courses through its veins, and it collapses, writhing on the floor. Fists of Fury follows Chuck into the cavern, and clubs the next crossbowman. He hits it hard, and it turns as though to run from him. Before it can escape, the lizard man’s club hits it again and kills it.

Miriel calls out, “Madriel, bless your allies in this battle!” One of the larger warriors, behind the tipped over troughs, shoots at Hands of Fire, but misses, while another lunges at him with claw and tooth. The two fighting the wolf miss it, while another attacks Paks, but she parries its blow easily. Two of the crossbowmen shoot at Fists of Fury. Both bolts hit him, but the lizard man stays on his feet.

The shaman casts another spell, clearly directing it at Paks, but it doesn’t seem to affect her. She laughs aloud, a clear and ringing laugh, and gestures for him to come at her. He blanches.

Telryn steps past Miriel and tosses a vial of Alchemist’s Fire over the barriers. He’s aiming for the shaman, but he misses. Madriel’s blessing ensures that the vial hits one of the larger warriors anyways. It catches on fire, while the flaming liquid splashes on other ratmen in the area.

The albino shoots an arrow at Hands of Fire, and it hits the big lizard man. Badly wounded, he retreats past Miriel, back down the passageway. The ratman nearest to him takes one last claw swipe at him, but the lizard man’s luck holds, and it misses.

Telryn’s wolf attacks an uninjured ratman and hits it, but then the magically summoned beast disappears, back wherever it came from. Paks swings at the ratman nearest her, his fur alight from the Alchemist’s Fire, but she misses as he drops and rolls to put out the flames.

Chuck leaps over the tables, deeper into the room; one ratman swings at him and hits. Chuck’s two blades whirl about him with deadly accuracy, and he kills two injured ratmen. A look of joy suffuses his face as he dispatches more of his favorite enemy. The viper slips under the troughs and bites at one of the ratmen behind them, but misses. Fists of Fury steps up as well, at the far left of the line, but his wounds must be troubling him, as he misses. Two arrows whistle past him. One of the archers leaps over the low wall, away from them, and shoots at Chuck. His arrow catches the Vigilant in the back just as another archer fires from deeper into the room. This arrow, too, hits, and Chuck collapses.

Miriel pulls out her scroll and casts protection from evil on herself. The albino notices that she cast a spell, and tries to shoot her, but the arrow hits the wall just past her head. Right in front of her, two ratmen swing at Paks. She parries one blow with her sword, and blocks the other with her shield. She steps inside the reach of one of her enemies and stabs a wounded ratman, running her blade through its heart.

The shaman readies something. Beside him, the burning warrior rolls on the floor to try to put out the flames. He succeeds in dousing the flames just as Telryn throws a flask of acid at the shaman. The acid hits the shaman, and splashes over the prone warrior.

On the left front, the snake bites at the same ratman and hits it, poisoning it. Fists of Fury swings at the ratman in front of him and hits it, caving in its skull. He leaps over the trenchers, deeper into the room, where one of the larger warriors swings a sword at him. A smaller ratman attacks him with his claws, but the lizard man dodges both of their attacks. The shaman rushes towards Fists of Fury and tries to touch him, but the lizard man dodges away.

Three of the warriors shoot their bows at Paks. Two hit her, hard, and their arrows penetrate her chain mail. She slumps unconscious at Miriel’s feet. One of the smaller ratmen steps over her and claws Miriel as the albino shoots at the priestess again. Both of them miss. The priestess rushes past Paks’ body and dodges around the smaller ratman to reach Chuck. She kneels beside him, and quickly bandages the worst of his wounds, stabilizing him.

With Chuck and Paks down, and Miriel and Hands of Fire having left him, Telryn finds himself standing alone at the mouth of the right hand corridor. He resolutely casts a magic missile at the nearest ratman. Two iridescent blue bolts hit it, wounding it badly, but it stays on its feet. Hands of Fire comes running back down the corridor with a potion of healing ready, unstoppered. He tries to reach Paks to heal her, but the ratman standing over her body claws him before he can, and he collapses by her side. Things look very grim.

The gods do not desert us, however, and at the moment of our darkest need, Fists of Fury brains the shaman with a critical hit. His club crushes the shaman’s skull and kills it. The snake hits the injured ratman attack Fists of Fury, and poisons it, and it, too falls. Two warriors attack Fists of Fury, but he fights like a madman, and not only do they miss, they give ground before his onslaught.

The last two archers shoot at Telryn. Not only do they both miss, but one hits the injured ratman standing over Paks, and kills it! With a brief opening, Miriel grabs Hands of Fire’s potion of healing, which has miraculously neither broken nor spilled, and pours it down Paks’ throat. As she comes to, Paks lays hands on Chuck and wakes him up, then lays hands on herself to heal herself. Miriel gives Chuck a chunk of bread, and he eats it.

That easily, Chuck and Paks are both ready for more action. They climb to their feet just as the albino steps closer and shoots Telryn. His arrow hits, and Telryn collapses. Two more arrows, from the archers at the back, glance off of Paks’ mail.

Fists of Fury hits one of the warriors hard. He’s pushed them most of the way across the back of the room, and is approaching the other two archers. Chuck’s viper remains with the lizard man, and wounds the other warrior. One of the warriors fumbles, falling in front of the snake, but the other warrior’s blow strikes Fists of Fury, and he goes down.

Miriel reads the scroll and casts searing light at the albino. A bright white light flashes from her palms, and its white fur shows clearly the pink, as though a sunburn, which she has done to it. It is badly injured, but neither blinded nor stunned. As Paks and Chuck head towards it, the albino draws its scimitar, which is a great, evil-looking weapon. It’s silvery, and has a nasty shimmer to it.

Paks steps up to it, and yells, “Madriel, guide my blade!” She smites it, a great overhand blow with the force of the bull’s strength and Madriel’s blessing behind it. Her blade bites deep into its left shoulder, and the albino’s left arm dangles uselessly by its side, but it is still standing. Chuck tries to hit it as well, but the albino’s parries his blow with the scimitar.

The albino takes a great swing at Paks, and hits her. It slices through her armor, as hard a blow as she has ever taken, but she stays on her feet. She can feel a deeply evil power coursing through the blade, but whatever it is has no effect on her. The albino looks at her as though this, more than anything which has transpired before, has shaken him.

Red Scale and Swims With Fishes arrive, running in through the passage on the left. Red Scale reaches the albino, and swings his club at the great ratman, but he misses. The albino has its back to the wall, and lays about itself with the great scimitar, trying to keep its attackers at bay.

Further into the room, the viper bites one of the ratman warriors. That one tries to attack the snake, but the slithering serpent evades his blow, which strikes a bright spark when the steel blade hits the rock floor. Swims With Fishes rushes it, and his club catches the back of its skull before it looks up, and the rat warrior is dead.

The other two warriors aim at Chuck. One fires a bow, while the other steps forward with a scimitar. They both hit, and he goes down. He is only out cold for seconds, as Miriel runs over to him. She takes the healing potion, which he has in a flask at his belt, and pours it down his throat.

As his eyes open, Chuck finds a bow at hand. It isn’t his, which lies on the floor of another room, but he picks it up and draws an arrow from his quiver. Still lying on the ground, he fires a single shot at the albino, and this unexpected blow catches it in the throat. The great albino warrior topples backwards, dead.

The remaining three ratmen, warriors all, turn to flee. The snake bites at one, while Red Scale swings at another. Both miss. Swims With Fishes chases them towards the corridor, wounding one of them with his club before they can make it around the corner. He traps one in the room, while the other two sprint down the corridor.

Paks steps back to Hands of Fire and gives him her healing potion. Miriel runs over to Fists of Fury. She finds him bleeding, but is able to stabilize him easily.

Chuck runs over to the far opening, and shoots down the corridor at the fleeing rat warriors. He wounds both, but they dodge around a corner and out of sight. The one trapped in the room swings at Chuck, but it misses. It doesn’t see the viper as the snake slithers up and bites it. The poison quickly fells the warrior, and suddenly the room is ours.

Paks kneels beside Telryn and prays for healing again. She is exhausted, and can tell that she will not be able to heal again today, but once more wounds close under her hands and the mage wakes. Miriel uses her last energy to heal Fists of Fury back to consciousness as well. Hands of Fire is unconscious, but stable. He is too injured for either of the exhausted healers to treat, and both their prayers fall on deaf ears. He remains prone, and pale.

It has been an epic battle, but we are now in possession of the hall. The shaman and the albino lie dead with perhaps twenty of their fellows.

 

[Graywolf-ELM]

Ouch, A couple of times I thought you might have a TPK coming in that running battle.

 

[Fulcan]

Ouch, A couple of times I thought you might have a TPK coming in that running battle.

So did we. There were several times where one of us would get knocked unconscious and that person would have to get up and walk around because the stress level was so high. I would have hated to see what would have happened if the ratmen hadn't been clumsy enough to shoot themselves in the back (yay critical fumbles!). We use a spell point system and I think that all of our spell casters were out of points with 1/3 of the battle still left to go. It was great fun *grin*.

 

[joshwitz]

Ouch, A couple of times I thought you might have a TPK coming in that running battle.

Yeah, that was quite a close one. I remember one player's hands were actually shaking while rolling the dice. I was kinda proud of myself...