rat-men

[cellio]

Last week, after agreeing to rid the space under the tavern of vicious rat-men, our party headed down. The party consisted of Turok (the fighter), Liandra (druid), Prolix (illusionist), Kyle (rogue), and Larissa (sorceress). The cleric and another rogue from that first night in the tavern did not join us. (Steve and Ruth weren't there.) Liandra and Kyle are actually newcomers; they wandered into town the morning after the great cave-in.

So anyway, we headed down in search of rat-men. We got ambushed. We killed nine of them, but at least one got away and both Prolix and Larissa were knocked into negative HP. (So was Turok, but Liandra was able to heal him some and he kept fighting.)

So we spent a couple days resting from that and getting ourselves patched up, and then it was time to head down and finish the job.

We first investigated a locked stone door. This turned out not to be related to the rat-men; the room (when we finally got the door open) contained some skeletons that animated when we entered. They had been arrayed around a pedestal with a statue that we didn't recognize. This room led to two others, one of which appeared to be a torture chamber. We dismantled the scariest parts. (Turok used his sword; Larissa removed bolts and screws.) The other room contained what looked like stone benches, but one of them was only pretending and was actually alive. We beat it down and found some coins for our trouble.

This whole complex exuded a faint magical trace, and everything was very, very clean. My thought had been that airtight rooms are like that, but Prolix thinks it's some sort of magical stasis. We got out of there. (On the way in, I had insisted that we wedge the door so it couldn't lock behind us. After all, getting trapped in what could be an airtight room is no way to start one's adventuring career.)

So from there we moved on in search of rat-men. We eventually found some very frightened (but armed) females, including the one who seemed to be in charge of the whole colony. We were going to attack, but they hadn't actually attacked us, and we felt the weight of a moral quandry. Killing them was, effectively, also killing the children that we inferred were there (we were right). They seemed to be hungry, not inherently hostile. So we tried to find an alternate solution.

Through the use of a "silent image" spell, lots of gesturing, and some demos, we finally conveyed to them that they could *buy* food. (We saw that they had a stash of money.) The process of getting to this point was quite entertaining for the players (and, I think, the GM). We eventaully convinced them to send one of their number with us and we would take him to Jehan (the innkeeper).

At this point Larissa and Liandra ran ahead to explain this to Jehan. "We have good news -- the rat problem is taken care of." Oh good, Jehan said, I'll get you your money. "It's not quite that simple." Huh?

"Well, you're in the business of selling food, yes?" Yes. "So we have some new customers for you." (Pause) You want me to sell to *rats*???

It took some work, but we managed to bring him around to the idea. The fact that the rats don't seem to really know the difference between the different coin types, let alone knowing the going rate for things, probably helped.

This isn't over; this is not a stable setup, and they will run out of money eventually. And we have to find or dig them a tunnel that leads to the outdoors, instead of the hole in Jehan's floor. (And we should help him get that boarded up.) But these are problems for another night.

Comments

[ralphmelton.livejournal.com]

Thanks for posting these notes; I appreciate it. (I'd meant to repost the notes I e-mailed, but I haven't done so.)

[cellio]

You're welcome. I think it would still be good to post your notes, as I hand-waved past a lot of details from the first set of encounters. (I was being lazy, and the memories are starting to age.)

Eventually maybe I'll post an in-character Larissa's-eye view of the goings-on. It sounds like it would be fun to write.