N’Rateh takes a deep breath and steps in the library. The smells of old books brings her back and her eyes fill with tears as loss hits her.
Hands empty, she moves to the center of the room. With a soft and frail voice, she pleads: ”We do not wish you harm. We too are prisonners here. We wish only to pass through. Would you let us pass through? Is there anything you would like in exchange?”
N'Dateh is not immediately set upon when she enters the room, rather she hears whispers atop the bookshelves.
The voices speak up after a moment of whispering. At the same time a small Ratman appears atop the bookshelves.
The creature makes his way a bit deeper into the library.
Mara waited anxiously by the door. She listened intently, in case N'Dateh needed assistance. The language spoken seemed familiar, somehow, but the meaning eluded her.
N'Dateh cannot make the whispers, but when asked, she extends a fragile hand to ask the others to wait, and moves forward towards the Ratman, following it.
"Be careful!", Mara urged in a low voice. "Don't go too far!" She didn't like the idea of getting separated, and hoped the old woman knew what she was doing. For now, Mara waited.
N'Dateh hears Mara's advise and nods. She focuses her attention on the ratman, trying to discern its intentions.
Oscar finds it hard to let someone leave. "Stay in sight." he says.
After making it roughly ten feet into the library the double doors slam shut on the rest of the party. The rat-man that had been leading her turns and hurls a book at her head.
Missing horribly it hisses at N'Dateh, spitting at her and cursing.
"N'Dateh, look out!" Mara shouted.
"Dervak! Door!" Oscar shouts as the doors slam shut.
"Right. I thought so..." says N'Dateh flatly as she ducks under the book, drawing knives as she moves in and stabs the ratman.
"On it!"
Dervak kicks the door open (standard action) and moves in, getting between N'Dateh and the ratman.
If the ratman tries to 5' step and do anything (throw a book, use an ability that would provoke AOOs, etc), Dervak will invoke his Pugnacious trait as an immediate action, gaining an extra 5' reach.
One of the books in the library flies off the shelf, clips a corner and goes spinning wildly past his intended target. "Damnitall!" he curses. "Still have the jitters."
Mara followed Dervak through the door, but headed left instead of right. She looked around for a grouping of enemies.
Two rat-men appear on one of the shorter bookshelves in the center of the room. One of them pointing towards Mara and one towards Oscar, the initial one scurry's back away from Dervak and N'Dateh. And begins gesturing.
Both Mara and Oscar shake of a creeping dread that had been pulling itself over them.
"The one in the corner might be summoning more rats!" Mara shouted. "Strike it, while I deal with the other two!"
"Daddy, let them see the glory of the heavens!", she cried. Her eyes turned black, the colors around her drained, then shot from her fingertips in a spray of clashing colors at the two rat-men near her.
Oscar draws on his new charm, pointing with his hand at the casting creature, a thin ray of electricity shooting from his fingertips and lancing into the fuzzy spellcaster.
"Oh no, we'll have none of that!" he calls to it.
Dervak tries to push over the center bookshelf with the ratfolk on it. He lowers his shoulder and gives a shove.
One of the ratlings on the bookshelf slumps and falls, seemingly unconscious. The other merely hisses and blinks its eyes for a moment before Dervak tips the table over.
The ratling that remains standing falls and lands prone as the bookshelf topples. The Ratling that Oscar attempted to interrupt-
-Fails to maintain his spell.
N'Dateh dashes to the ladder, climbs up a few feet and stabs at the Ratling.
She sadly misses.
The Ratlings that are still awake take a last ditch effort against the party and cast another spell each.
Miss
Mara shook of the Ratling's spell. Leaving Dervak to take care of the enemies on the ground, she moved so stab the one still on a bookcase.
"You should have acted in good faith!", she admonished it, although she didn't think it understood her.
"Trying to mess with my head, little rat? HA! It's too messed with already!"
Dervak moves around the fallen bookshelf and takes a mighty overhand chop at the ratling.
Oscar moves up to the prone but not unconscious rat-thing and stabs it with his short sword.
The rattling on the bookshelf collapses as Mara digs her spear into the creatures stomach, falling into the spear and off the bookshelf. The Ratling on the ground seems to panic a quite a lot as Dervak carves of a long stretch of flesh from its arm, its eyes darting around to all the larger foes surrounding it. It screams "WAIT!" leans over to the unconscious Ratling beside it and bites into its throat, ripping the flesh asunder and almost certainly killing it. "Two tails help!"
Dervak lowers his sword. He tries to speak as slowly and simply as possible so the ratfolk can understand him, and as a result sounds even dumber than usual.
"Okay. Two Tails help. Tell us:
Other humans trapped or hurt?
Other monsters nearby?
Secret passages?"
Mara walked around the fallen bookcase to get a better look at the creature Dervak was talking to. She couldn't help but to look at its tail, given what it was calling itself.
After the Two Tails responded to Dervak, Mara asked, "Why did your group attack us? We were trying to be peaceful!"
The rat face'd beast does indeed live up to its name, having to tails it grasps one in each hand squeezing them like a child would a blanket. Two tails answers Dervaks questions, their entire body tremmoring with fear.
"You only humans we see, stay in library, nothing else try come in! Secret way's? There's door other side of shelf, nothing else big people fit in!" Mara's question only brings about more shaking as two tails starts to plead for her life. "Please! Scabeye told us too! Stuck outside warrens! Trying too get back!"
"Where are the warrens?", Mara asked. "We might be able to help you, if you will help us. We're looking for information about what has happened in this place, and the source of the yellow fog outside."
N'Dateh keeps to the shadows. The Ratman had proved false beyond her hope and she cursed herself for having dropped her guard down. At over a hundred years, she should know better. As she stood in the corner, she could feel the shadows hugging around her, like a comforting cloak. this was strange, yet pleasant.
Oscar looks around the library, marveling at the knowledge stored there and also feeling a little disgusted at the fact these ratlings were EATING the books.
"Hmm... no books of spells here. Ratlings? Why do they have to EAT the damn books..." Oscar grumbles, not really aware of what he's saying. He picks up a munched-upon tome and sighs, dropping it. "Still this place should possess ample information should we take the time to search it."
"D-don't know about fog, books only thing to eat! Don't like eatin them, hard to pass..." She takes one of her tails in her mouth and begins sucking, Seems to Mara that she's to scared to lie.
While they did eat and use the books for nesting, most of the expansive library remains intact.
Mara looked on the frightened ratling with pity. She didn't trust it (the willingness to turn on its compatriots didn't inspire confidence), but it could have useful information, she was sorely lacking. "Here, have some of my rations," she said, handing Two Tails some food, and offering some water. "No more eating books!"
Mara picked up one of the books from the overturned bookcase and opened it, glancing at the pages. "I agree, Oscar," she replied to her new friend. "We might be able to learn something useful from these volumes."
N'Dateh keeps to the shadows, but makes her way to the doors on the opposite side of the library and inspects them.
"Ever wandered through those doors?" she asks the ratman.
Dervak would prefer to continue exploring - he feels great.
He follows N'Dateh and takes a look through the doors.
Mara moved up behind Dervak, her spear at the ready. She listened intently for sounds beyond the open doors.
The door swings open with ease, opening too an L-shaped hallway with multiple doors with strange fluid trailing between three of them.
Two tails lets loose a shrill "WAIT!" Pulling on N'dateh's shirt. She shakily reaches into one of her pouches and slowly hands over a set of harrow cards to the old woman. "I-I wait to give to you. Thought you was lying about letting live. Don't know what it is... maybe you figure it out."
Mara came over to N'Dateh to look at the harrow cards, checking them for magic auras.
"Where did you find these, Two Tails?", Mara asked. "Anything you can tell us will help."
“Thanks. But you have not answered my question: Have you been past these doors?”