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[Memory] River Rats
Posted: Sat Oct 22, 2022 10:24 pm
by Masagh
60th Day of Ash, 359th Year of the Age of Sundering
Faces contorted in silent agony. Pressed together and sometimes indistinguishable from one another, the ghoulish figures seemed almost to move. The silence of the Great Hall of House Creth was broken with the steady rasp of the whetstone on cold iron. Masagh drew it across the unperturbed silhouettes of his blade.
Was he mistaken? Were the faces exultant? The manifestation had been shifting since it first appeared. Perhaps they had not decided if what they felt was agony or ecstasy yet.
“I know the feeling.” He frowned down at the blade.
The sound of heavy footfalls drew near. Masagh laid his hand on the hilt. Someone was running through the tunnels from the Well exit. The ghoulish knight stood eagerly, looking towards the door expectantly. Everyone was gone from the Compound, and Masagh had been left to stand guard in the Great Hall as the only bound house member.
His distraction came in the form of a thin and reedy Bonecaster. It was Virgil, a bookish man whom Masagh had found little reason to bond with. Of course in a small house of a few dozen over the course of a few centuries one learns their housemates well enough regardless. Virgil was not a pure blood, but the son of a ghoulish mother and human father, nearly fifty years of age.
“What’s the rush?” Masagh stood and hefted the claymore in his hand. He glanced briefly at the changing sheen of his blade before sliding it home with a frown.
Virgil could not be out of breath as a ghoul, or more accurately, he was always out of breath. He did lean over and clutch his knees. The glowing embers of his green eyes were wide. Words tumbled from him in a chaotic jumble.
“Sir Masagh, my brother is dead! We were on delivery and they killed him!”
“Hold on, what happened?”
Virgil straightened and his hand went to the necrotic focus around his neck.
“The wands! Negation wands made for the Underking.” The words were more paced now. “I was tasked with delivering the shipment. They, they attacked us and killed my brother Vincent.” Virgil trailed off at that and his eyes drifted out of focus. Vincent had been even less familiar to Masagh, being a civilian house member. He had nevertheless been eager to help in any way he could. Perhaps someday he would have made a good Bonecaster or Maligner. But no more.
“Hey!” He barked, shaking the junior Bonecaster. “Virgil, tell me who attacked you, how many there were, and where it happened.”
Virgil blinked. Masagh watched his eyes refocus and his mind return to the present. “I need to know if I’m going to help.” He made sure his words were even and calm.
Nodding Virgil began again. “Some sort of beastly men, there were about a dozen. In the river docks, those trench alleys we use for deliveries.”
A mugging then. “And you are sure Vincent is gone?”
Virgil nodded again. “They swarmed us. They took his head because he wouldn’t give them the case.”
“I’m sorry.” He gave Virgil’s shoulder a gentle squeeze. “I need you to show me where it happened. Can you do that?”
Though hesitantly, Virgil agreed.
“We don’t have much time before moon fall.” Masagh said later, glancing up at the open sky. The two walked amongst the shabby streets of Gel’Grandal’s Northside slums. It was especially dangerous territory for ghouls because the area called the trench alleys was a very poor part of the city named for the debris and grime lining the predominantly fishing neighborhoods near the river. Though not usually vulnerable to the seedy muggers that roll pedestrians in the area, the ghouls were vulnerable to being spotted during their nocturnal forays by sailors who were notoriously early risers.
“We’re close. He’s just around here…”
They turned another corner into an alley thick with muck and debris. A pale grey liquid pooled in the alley around what was unmistakably a corpse.
Virgil began to tremble. Boney fingers gripped Masagh’s forearm. He gently removed Virgil’s grip and drew his claymore.
“Do you know which way they went?” Virgil took a hesitant step forward, staring down at the headless corpse of his brother. “Virgil!”
“I- I think they went that way.” He pointed towards the river at the distant end of the thin street.
Masagh bent beside the corpse. With a trick Sabrione had taught him, he scanned the surroundings from right to left slowly. The eye caught more if you moved your vision in the opposite direction than you read in. The corpse bore no other wounds besides the grisly severed neck. There were many footprints going in both directions.
What’s more, Masagh didn’t have the skill to tell how old any of it was. “You said they were beast-like. What does that mean?”
“Covered in fur, they had long tails and snouts and claws, dark red eyes.” Virgil said. “They’re horrifying.”
It was the ichor that finally told Masagh something. While there were many footprints strewn across the debris, only a few were wet with ichor beyond the scene of Vincent’s corpse. They all lead towards the river way.
Standing straight again Masagh settled his hand on the hilt of his sword.
Re: River Rats
Posted: Sat Oct 22, 2022 10:25 pm
by Masagh
“Take your brother home, Virgil.”
The Bonecaster did not need telling twice. “You’ve only got about an hour of light left… Maybe you should come with me.”
Masagh turned to see the Bonecaster hunched over his brother’s headless corpse, now decaying more rapidly. His pale hands were gripping the dead man’s tunic about the shoulders with a vice grip. But his face was looking up at Masagh with worry.
Masagh gave a soft snort of laughter. The knight had always found it interesting to note that while ghouls do not breath, and thus lack many of the living mannerisms, they share in both laughter and crying. “No, Virgil. I am bound by duty to retrieve these wands.”
“Your mother would say otherwise.” Virgil muttered. He was certainly making a valiant attempt to dissuade him from danger.
Masagh cracked his neck and drew his sword. “Yes, she would. Can you get him home safely?”
Virgil nodded.
Masagh found the trail again at the end of the alley. In the moonlight he could make out a crowded streak of thin footprints not quite human. Upon closer inspection he saw thin protrusions faintly imprinted into the mud. Claws? He decided to follow them towards the line of dilapidated warehouses along the reinforced stone riverbank.
He proceeded to wander there for another ten minutes, cursing his ineptitude. It was really chance that saved him. He was creeping along in the heavy shadow of a building when a battered side door opened on the warehouse directly ahead of him. A figure stepped outside and Masagh knew he was in the right place.
The figure walked similarly to a human, and appeared to wear a ratty tunic and hoes, but was decidedly inhuman. It had a long head with whiskers and bulging red eyes, a naked tail, and dark brown fur covering its body.
In short, a beastly man. Masagh recognized what it must be, a Rathari. A race of shapeshifting humanoids he had read about in the Creth library. Seeing one in the flesh for the first time he stared in fascination. It was unfortunate the circumstance was so dire. Masagh watched the Rathari lean against the wall of its warehouse hideout with one had and piss. Then it walked back in through the door and closed it quietly.
He approached cautiously. The warehouse was old and equally dilapidated as the others, but he could see upon closer scrutiny that many of the small, high windows had been more recently boarded up. The large swinging front doors would of course make a bad entry point, surely being guarded. Masagh spent another few minutes of his precious nighttime inspecting the building from all sides. There was only one other door.
On the north side of the building. It was a squat entrance and favorable as an avenue of approach because there was a lot of cover nearby. Barrels and crates were stacked in haphazard piles and all manner of fish netting and other sailing paraphernalia. Masagh decided this was his best option and began to creep forward.
Masagh prided himself on being light on his feet. He kept his head low and was careful not to allow a moving silhouette to be visible. He moved from cover to cover, approaching the hideout.
Creak.
A noise and a shadow of a movement above sent Masagh belly down in the shadows.
A faint glow shifted within a narrow, long gap in the boarding of the second story he hadn’t seen. Then he made out the form of a large rat’s head poke out of the space, nose wiggling in the gap. Then the light within moved on.
Looking at it with a closer eye, the gap in the wall was clearly by design rather than neglect. There was almost certainly some sort of guard posted on all entrances. He dropped his fist into the dirt. It had been idiocy to assume an entrance would not be guarded. Now the crowded area around the door looked like sign of a heavily trafficked area rather than good cover.
After a moment spent fuming and staring malevolently at the door, Masagh still couldn’t come up with anything. Pushing himself back up off the ground, he made his way as silently as he could back to the shadows of the neighboring building.
He had to assume all the entrances he could see were guarded. Trying to ignore the faint glow at the horizon, Masagh’s mind raced. If every conventional entrance was guarded, he would either have to find an unconventional entrance, silently, or somehow remove the guards without alerting the rest. Then he still had the issue of finding the wands inside the hideout while the sun rose and he was stranded away from the Compound. Not a good situation to be in.
Re: River Rats
Posted: Sat Oct 22, 2022 10:27 pm
by Masagh
Masagh decided to ignore that particular problem for the more pressing one. Getting inside the warehouse. Truth be told, there was probably no way he would be able to sneak past one of them. Coming to that conclusion he knew he needed to remove some of the guards from their posts. But how?
For what felt like too long, Masagh stared to the brightening horizon. For a long time all hen could think of was how soon the sun would come and bring its killing light. Then, as if by desperate chance an idea came to him. Light. He could set a fire somewhere and draw them out, then enter from the side.
With more of a plan than at any time before tonight, he still felt ill prepared. But the sun was rising and more of a plan was better than no plan. Masagh maneuvered carefully and quietly back up to the nearest cluster of crates and fish nets. With a few quick strikes of the flint and steel, sparks caught on the nets.
Masagh didn’t wait around to draw attention to himself. Fleeing the scene as quietly as he could, the ghoulish knight made his way back around the other side of the warehouse. Stepping up to the first door he had seen, and avoiding the ratman piss, he pressed his back against the wall. After a few moments he heard activity within.
The patter of footsteps. A scraping of door on an uneven floorboard.
“What is it?”
“A fire.”
“You see someone?”
“No one, Rinser. Go get Rotmaw and Fleaback, take them to the dock storage and make sure the room is safe.”
“Who’s out there?”
“I don’t know! Just do it.” More pattering feet.
“It’s no coincidence, stay on guard!” The voice giving Rinser orders said in a louder tone. “To the windows, check outside the doors, they’re trying to draw us out.”
Masagh heard feet coming towards him now and saw the error of his plan. They clearly wren’t imbeciles. They knew a half-cocked attempt at distraction when they saw one. Now he was exposed and the entire pack was on guard. What was more, he was about to be discovered. Then, as though by divine gift, a new idea dropped into his mind with the weight of a boulder.
Masagh grinned savagely and set his blade down in front of the door. Hearing the feet on the other side approaching, he ran towards the river as quickly as he could. Without hesitation he crouched and slipped over the side of the stone embankment. He plunged into the water and sank immediately.
He was immediately plunged into complete darkness, the muddy floor of the river rising to meet him invitingly. At least in the depths of the riverbed the sun’s touch would not damn him. The ghoul began to gather his aether about himself even as his legs sunk in the river muck to the knee. He let it swirl within himself, gathering momentum before casting the spell.
Covering his eyes, Masagh released the Projection spell. His vision dimmed and refocused.
He was inside a cramped, dark hallway. There was no light source, but the flickering orange glow of a candle or fire danced under the door just ahead. A Rathari rat stared down at him, nose quivering. It opened the door and brought him inside a much larger storage room. Barrels were stacked two of three high in haphazard mounds. More rat Rathari crowded around a fire made in the center of the room. Above, lining the high ceiling, makeshift walkways and scaffolding were in place. More Rathari crouched or sat up on the planks with battered crossbows, clearly sentinels. The river-facing wall had an open face and a portage where someone long ago probably offloaded legitimate goods. There was even a crane with a heavy chain that sunk into the inky water.
“What is it, Mossclaw?” Someone asked.
“A sword. It looks magical… or better yet, expensive!” Mossclaw said eagerly. He bent and sniffed Masagh’s form.
“It looks evil.”
“Mossclaw, how did you find it?” The authoritarian voice asked. A white Rathari rat-man stepped forward. He carried a pair of curved blades at his waist and a vicious scar ran down his face and over one milky eye.
“It was just laying outside the door, Vilepaw!” Mossclaw explained. “Nobody out there.”
Vilepaw stepped up and took the sword from Mossclaw with no resistance. The one good red eye bent low to inspect the blade. “Could be worth good coin, maybe Thakic’s boys down south can give us a good price.” Masagh was tossed back to Mossclaw.
“Take it down with the other loot.” Vilepaw said. “And you lot keep your eyes facing out! That fire didn’t start itself!”
Mossclaw turned towards the portage and for a worried moment Masagh thought he was going to throw him into the water, but the Rathari turned at the last moment. He walked past the dormant crane and bent to pull up a rusted, grated trapdoor in the stone floor. Setting Masagh down carefully at the edge of the trapdoor, Mossclaw began to climb down the old metal ladder below. Grabbing Masagh at the last second, Mossclaw brought him down into a squat storage room filled with more crates and barrels.
The rat Rathari wound down a set of narrow paths towards a damp corner. A space had been cleared and a neat pile of clearly more prized items had been made. Mossclaw glanced over his shoulder. He leaned down to set Masagh on the pile of loot.
To Masagh’s surprise, he was swung through the air instead.
“Back vile beast!” Mossclaw whispered. He swung Masagh again in a series of sloppy strikes at something the ghoul could not see. For a fleeting moment he thought the spell had broken in someway, before he realized the Rathari was pretending. “I am the hero, Mossclaw the Mighty!”
If Masagh could laugh as a sword, he would have. Instead, he let the spell fall away.
Re: River Rats
Posted: Sat Oct 22, 2022 10:28 pm
by Masagh
His vision dimmed and refocused in the murky dark of the riverbed. He had found his alternate entry point. The fire may have been a flimsy distraction, but it had provided inadvertent intelligence. He now knew where the wands were likely to be. He made his way over to the portage of the warehouse. It only took a few moments to find the thick chain in the water.
Breaking the surface carefully so as not to make a noise, Masagh was met with a familiar sight. The small fire was still lit and a few Rathari huddled around it, this time busy with some sort of meal. In the makeshift scaffolding more kept watch. Masagh pulled himself carefully out of the water, slipping behind the crane.
He found the grate open where Mossclaw had left it. The undead knight descended.
By the time Masagh found Mossclaw, he had stopped his fantastical battle against the foes of his mind. He was scratching experimentally at the ghoulish pattern of the blade.
“Quite the weapon, is it not?” Masagh commented conversationally.
Mossclaw jumped and turned to face him. He screeched and took a few steps back, raising the sword. “Who are you?!”
“Just drop it, Mossclaw.” Masagh said quietly.
“How do you know my name, zombie?” The Rathari asked, short body trembling.
Masagh ought to kill the thing. They had murdered one of his own in cold blood, so to speak. He was reasonably sure this one hadn’t participated in the killing though. He didn’t seem to have the hard-bitten heart that was needed for such work. “I know you all. You and Vilepaw, Rinser and… the others.” He finished lamely, failing to recollect the other names he had overheard.
The Rathari’s eyes widened and he began looking around for an escape. That couldn’t be allowed, unfortunately. Masagh raised his hand and cast the Returning. The claymore flew out of the Rathari’s grip and into his hand instead.
Mossclaw gave a whimper and rung his small claws. He seemed to have not even the grit to yell for help. Masagh could not help but feel a pang of pity for the Rathari. He clearly wasn’t a killer. But he couldn’t let him go, he would alert the pack and they were much less harmless. “You stole from the wrong people, Mossclaw. ”
“It wasn’t me, please don’t kill me.” Mossclaw’s voice was no longer the bold tone he had assumed when playing with Masagh’s sword.
“Tell Vilepaw, next time he kills one of the White Hand, I’ll come kill ten of his.” Masagh threatened, his voice a rasp.
The ghoul considered him briefly. Then he swung his blade at Mossclaw’s head. Turning it at the last moment, he struck the Rathari with the flat of his blade rather than the edge. The rat-man collapsed across the loot, sending everything tumbling. He approached the still form. After checking that he was still breathing Masagh dragged him off the pile.
The small box of wands was right at the top. He collected it and left Mossclaw where he lay. Still dripping river water, he crept back up the ladder. No one had moved in the brief time he had been below. The sun had though. He saw the blue of day moving steadily up the sky over the cityscape. He would not make it back to the Compound before daybreak.
At least he could make it out of this rat den. Masagh carefully slid back into the water, leaving only a series of inky ripples behind as he let his body descend back to the filth and muck of the river bottom. As he fell into the darkness and obscurity a sense of profound relief washed over him. At this depth the rat-man would never make him out and the light ofd say would not damage him. He may have to wait in the river for hours, but at least he survived.
The ghoul began struggling through the kelp and muck in the vague direction of the Compound, in good humor despite the situation.
Re: [Memory] River Rats
Posted: Wed Nov 02, 2022 11:48 pm
by Rune
R E V I E W
Lore:
Points: 10 (+2 due to this being twice the length of the solo requirement)
Injuries/Ailments: None
Loot: None
Notes: Great storytelling! Your use of characters really brings these solos to life (undead pun, whoops).