more from Larissa's diary

[cellio]

August 12 (Thursday)

After another day of rest, we were all feeling much better. So we headed back through the hole in Jehan's basement in search of the remaining rat-men. We expected ambushes and barricades this time.

We came again to that stone door. I thought leaving (potentially) rat-men behind us as we moved on would be a bad idea. I guess others thought so too, because we decided to try this door again before going on. Liandra and I kept an eye on the corridor, and Turok was ready to fight, while Kyle set to work. Eventually he was able to get the door open, but we didn't see rat-men. We saw skeletons lying on the floor surrounding some sort of weird statue. It was a temporary condition, however. Ambulatory skeletons. Whee. I've heard of those, but I thought Brion was maybe drinking a little more wine during services than he ought. I guess I was wrong.

Turok and Liandra and Slade killed them, and then we got a better look at the room. It was not at all dusty, like the rest of this place was. I thought this might mean the room was sealed extremely well, so I asked Kyle to do something to the lock to keep it unlocked, and I jammed some stuff into the hinges. I didn't want to get stuck in there if it was airtight.

There were a couple of rooms off of this one. One had all sorts of disgusting implements of torture. I didn't want to spend much time with *those*, either, so Turok and I dismantled what we could. Turok was more destructive about it than I was. Come to think of it, I don't think I've seen him use a tool smaller than his sword yet. I wonder if he knows how.

The other room contained stone benches. Well, mostly. Stone benches aren't supposed to move on their own. Near as I can tell, one of the benches was some sort of critter *pretending* to be a bench. Weird. It was hiding some money, though. I can't complain.

So, no rat-men here after all. So we kept looking. We found the remnants of the barricades they had built and ambushed us from before, but no rat-men. We kept going. Eventually, we came to a room with some shoddy barricades, and we saw rat-men. They didn't actually attack us, so we didn't attack them either. We stood and stared at each other for a while. There was a female who seemed to be in charge; she was waving a crystal ball or something at us, but that was it. We didn't see any of the warrior rats like on Tuesday.

So there we were in a stand-off. We promised Jehan we'd kill the rat-men, but how could we kill these ones? It seemed pretty clear that they weren't really hostile so much as hungry. Then we hit on an idea: we fed them. They didn't trust us, of course, but the flunky who ate some of our food didn't keel over, so the queen or whatever she is seemed to think that helped. I said we should try to get them to buy food from Jehan -- I mean, he's an innkeeper, right? He sells food; why should he care who to? So Prolix created an image showing us giving them food and them giving us coins. (Kyle had been skulking around during all of this, and he reported that they had some treasure.) This took a long time, but eventually, somehow, we managed to convince the queen to send one of her flunkies with us (with coins). I'm guessing she didn't expect to see him again.

Liandra and I ran ahead to warn Jehan. It wouldn't do to have him put a crossbow bolt through the flunky's head, after all. He *really* didn't want to go along with this, but we pointed out that it solved a lot of problems and even gave him some distinction, which has got to be good for business, and eventually he agreed. So the rest of the group came up, and he gave the rat-man food and took the money, and we escorted the rat-man back, and the queen seemed to accept this.

This is kind of neat. I do hope the peace lasts. We've got to find another tunnel for the rat-men to get out so Jehan can rebuild his floor, though. We'll look into that tomorrow.

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August 14 (Saturday)

People are talking about us and the rat-men. I haven't had to buy a drink in a week. Even my family is impressed. (But Mom asked me if they had any males, and that made me so mad that smoke actually came out of my ears. Hmm, I didn't know I could do that.)

The rats found another tunnel out, so that's taken care of. Jehan has started to repair his floor. I heard that one of the rat-men was caught stealing food from Jehan and the queen whacked him. This is encouraging. We may have actually achieved communication here!

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August 15 (Sunday)

Brion is unhappy. Apparently the rat-men don't know the difference between gold coins and silver coins, and Jehan hasn't been clarifying it for them. So Brion said something about finding Jehan to enlighten him. I hope he doesn't blow this. I mean, I want Jehan to treat the rat-men fairly too, but he probably thinks they owe him for a floor or something, even though that was just coincidence. With luck, this will all work out.

I stopped by to visit Colm's shop (really wagon) again today. He said he's probably going to stick around for a couple more days and then head out. I bought a little more jewelry from him, and also some small toys. He has these little leather "bugs" -- some are spiders and some look like flies -- that he apparently makes out of stray scraps and the like when he's sitting around bored in the shop. (Being tied to a shop has got to be dull, but I didn't say that.) I asked him what they were good for and he said sometimes kids like to play with them. (He also has some wooden animals, but they look obviously fake.) I still owe Maria for the incident with the ink-pot, so I bought a bunch of them. In the last day or two I've had an epiphany with moving small objects, and I've even figured out that I can change colors and make sounds and stuff. I think a small swarm of bugs, complete with sound effects, is doable.

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August 17 (Tuesday)

I noticed that Colm was starting to pack up tonight, so I stopped by to say goodbye. He asked me to come back after dark. When I did, I found that he'd gathered the others too -- Liandra, Kyle, Turok, and Prolix.

He thinks that while we did a daring thing with the rat-men, we also maybe did a dangerous thing and that we don't want to be here when the townsfolk get upset about it. Well yeah, I figured that, but what choice do I have? I'm having trouble with the folks on top of all this, so some time away would definitely be good for me.

Well, he offered us an alternative. He's heading north soon to deliver supplies to a town with a plague problem, and he needs guards for the trip. (And future trips, if we want.) Going near a plague is kind of scary, but it sounds like an appealing offer otherwise. He is going to pay us, and food shouldn't be a problem. Between his basic cooking skills and my flair for spices, we should be able to keep everyone's taste buds happy.

So we talked about it and all agreed to do this. I went home to tell my parents that I got a job out of town, and they were happy for me. In fact, they were so happy for me that they gave me my dowry! I promised to stop back and visit as soon as I could, and they said to enjoy myself and not worry about them.

They also gave me Uncle Viktor's armor. I didn't know Uncle Viktor *had* armor. Apparently a long time ago he was a guard in Petersburg, before coming to Shepford with mom. (I don't know what happened to his sword, though.)

---

August 18 (Wednesday)

The rat queen came to say goodbye. (Wow, news travels fast.) She also came bearing gifts: she gave us a wand, and that bright crystal ball she had, and some money, and a suitcase. I felt bad that we were taking all of this stuff from her without giving her anything in return, so I gave her a couple of bright shiny bracelets that she seemed to like. I also gave her my floppy hat, because she was having trouble with the bright sunlight. Kyle made fun of me, but I thought it was only fair. (And besides, I have a couple more at home.) Prolix gave her a wand that I didn't know he had. I wonder what it was.

The suitcase (which was locked) contained a very nice crossbow. Turok, Prolix, and I all use crossbows; we eventually decided that Prolix should use it for now. (I took the suitcase, as I have some packing to do before leaving home anyway.)

Prolix also ended up carrying the crystal, which -- after quite a bit of experimentation -- we determined magnifies the "flare" spell, which he knows. It seems to do funky things with light in general. It doesn't glow in the dark on its own, but it does seem to soak up a lot of light.

We're pretty sure the wand does magic detection. Prolix and I both know the spell, but the wand could be useful too.

Brion also came by to wish us well. He gave us an inspired speech about Pelor and the forces of light and a bunch of other things that I've heard him say before, and then he gave me the Staff of Pelor. Well, it's a short staff, sort of torch-length, with a gold-plated sun on the end. And it glows. All the time. This will be handy most of the time, and I'll make a little bag for when it's not. Brion also gave us two healing potions.

---

August 19 (Thursday)

We packed up and left this morning. Maria was pretty upset about the bugs, but I was in the kitchen at the time gathering spices, so it obviously couldn't have been me, now could it?

Comments

[ralphmelton.livejournal.com]

Thanks so much for posting these.

One small clarification: the case that held the crossbow had padded slots for all the pieces, so it's a "crossbow carrying case" more than a suitcase.

[cellio]

Ah, thanks. I missed that detail. Ok, then Prolix gets to have custody of the case, and Larissa will pack her worldly possessions into a couple of sacks or something. (Whatever the local convention is.) :-)