Startled at the sudden shouting from the other end of the room, Dhamiskeanus recoiled with a pained expression on his face.
"What? What's wrong? What did I...oh, the books!"
His round face started to turn red and sweat began to bead on his forehead. "I'm sorry! I just, I mean they're books. How can books be dangerous? I'm sorry! I couldn't help myself. I can't remember the last time I was in a library, much less one I was unfamiliar with."
Nova starts hustling towards Carter, and yells (In aklo) "Carter! What's wrong? Are you okay?"
As Dhamis reaches for the books and everyone rushes to intercept the strange man, Carter lets out a terrible, awful racket the reverberates throughout the room. Also, there in an undertone of pained squeaks from the same area Carter indicated he had heard voices. Suddenly a strange creature appears at the top of a bookshelf, holding its rat-like paws over its ears! It begins chittering in the same terrible language Carter and Nova are currently speaking.
"Stop! No more! What you do this to us?!"
"..͠.̟d͉̖o͚̣͖͎͎̬ ̻̙̬͈̳̼̟̀w͚̙͖̻̲̬̹h͇͔̝a͟t͇̹͔̳̰ ͖̦̮̱͓̫ͅn͏̖͈̱o̦͕̻̞̩w̪̲̻͜?̟͓" Carter said in a language that sounded like it should be spoken with at least one extra tongue.
"Oh look at this lil guy. He looks adorable. Hiya there. I thought you were a monster." Squees Nova.
Drafton looked vexed by the creatures appearance. Flashes of the yellow eyed creature he'd faced on his own haunted his memory as he snapped a dagger into his hand.
"Rats! There just had to be more rats!"
Nova goes back into the common tongue when she addresses Drafton. "Easy Drafton. It's just a cute little talking rat. It couldn't hurt us."
Nova goes back into the common tongue when she addresses Drafton. "Easy Drafton. It's just a cute little talking rat. It couldn't hurt us."
He eyed Nova incredulously.
"This rat thing is talking? I probably shouldn't be surprised... but I am surprised by your smitten attitude toward it, Nova! I wouldn't drop your guard so easily." he said with a curt reply.
"Talking rats? No, no, no...not rats. No elongated snout, no whiskers, why I'm not even sure it's qualifiable as a rodent at all, especially since they can speak. I think I may have read about these once..."
"Tch, close enough to one."
Dhamis you recognize these creatures as ratlings; you recall that they are beasts of a magical nature, a sort of amalgam of human and rat physiology. They have a host of magical abilities and have an affinity for magical items.
The ratling glares from the top of the bookshelf at Nova. "Not so patronizing! You all go away from our books, or we eat your noses and fingers!"
Nova translates for the rest of the group. "They're threatening to eat our noses and fingers unless we leave the books."
She'll take a step back and replies in Aklo "We don't want to hurt you lil' one. Can't we be friends?"
The large man sighed. "Oh very well. I hardly see what all of the fuss is. I will endeavor to keep my hands to myself. Perhaps they will let us pass into the next room unaccosted? Hmm, they also like magical items. Maybe you can use that to bargain with them?"
Nova will translate to the Ratling that they won't touch the books, and that we could bring them magic items if they'd like to barter.
Drafton glares back at the Ratling creature. "Oh, they're threatening us are they?! Stay out of our way!
Isn't there anywhere we can go without being immediately threatened?! I don't care about the books, but I won't be demeaned by every little thing we run into!" he looked at Nova. "You're going to teach me that language so I can give them a piece of my mind!" Drafton was grinding his teeth by the time he finished his tirade.
Carter just sighed, ignoring Drafton.
"We don't want your books." he said in Aklo. "We really just want to leave. Do you know what happened to this place?"
The ratling bares his fangs at Nova's words, but then suddenly squeaks in fear at Drafton's brutal tirade and disappears quickly from the top of the shelf. You all hear the sound of several sets of scurrying feet in the walls heading out of the library towards the northeast...
Nova shifts uncomfortably and she tries to get a sense of the rest of the party and what they should do.
Beast says "I wanted to eat it."
Carter gave Drafton a cranky sidelong look and headed for the door out of the library.
Carter finds the northern door to be unlocked and untrapped. They open into an 'L' shaped hallway with several closed doors down the hall to the left and several more ahead. Further to the left you can see the hallway ends in a pile of rubble from the collapsed hallway.
Carter glanced down the hall, but seeing that it ended in rubble, started checking the hall doors instead.
Seeming at least moderately pleased that the Ratlings had chosen the better of two options, at least in his mind, Drafton took Carter's cue and followed along after the man.
Noting the strange smears on the wall, Drafton comes over to examine it more closely before he scrunches his nose in a sharp turn of his head in disgust.
He shook himself before looking back at the others.
"Someone's hacked up some sort of medicinal liquids. Probably mistook it for water."
He glanced around at the doors in the hall with a sigh.
"So many options to choose from here. Might as well stick to the right wall as it affords us the greatest avenue of escape if we need it." Drafton said, facing the closest door on the right wall.
"I'm ready. Open it." Says Beast, lowering into a pounce.
"Well, see. No escalation of hostilities. They seemed quite reasonable, although I don't understand their overprotection of such invaluable literature. Books are meant to be read, after all" Dhamiskeanus said with a blush.
"Well then. Onward? I suppose?"
Carter looked like he'd bit into a lemon as Drafton identified the puddle. "Is there anything in this place that isn't disgusting?"
Carter checks all the doors in the area and finds that none of them appear to be trapped and they are all unlocked. Once that is confirmed, Beast takes up position right outside the first door to the right, coming out of the library. Drafton leans over and opens the door into a small office where the sagging ceiling rests largely upon a pair of sturdy bookshelves. A desk and a set of chairs skirts the edge of a sizable fissure in the floor. Further, on the top shelf the bookshelves are three ratlings watching you with fangs bared and two massive rats stand with fur bristling between the doorway and the fissure! A small voice draws your attention to another ratling who is sitting in the chair in front of the desk, facing the door. The ratling glares at the door with its hands steepled in front of it. "Who are you?! Why have you threatened my people and entered my domain?!"
Drafton glanced around at the surrounding room and rats with disdain and then he stared at the... leader?
"Your people? Your domain?" he said glancing around again and then back at the Ratling sitting in the chair. "And who are you supposed to be? Their King?!"
"Gahhh I hate talking. Call me when the fight happens."
Beast rolls his ectoplasmic eyes like a teenager and stalks away. He finds a little place to curl up and take a cat nap.
Nova watches Beast in disappointment, but doesn't say anything to him. She pokes her head around the door frame and says "Please sir, we're just trying to get out of this place. My name is Nova, and this is Drafton."
The seated ratling snarls at Drafton. "Yes! My people!" He gestures towards the other ratlings. "My domain!" He gesticulates around the small room and towards the nearby library. "As for who I am, you may call me Ratch Mamby and I have no use for ridiculous titles such as 'king'. Nay, they just call me Ratch. Now, I ask you again; who are you and why do you threaten my people?!"
"Everyone, I think we should leave..."
Drafton eyed Nova, but when she turned to leave, Drafton did not move. Instead, he planted his feet and turned his attention back at Ratch Mamby. After a moment, he cocked his head and his eyes narrowed and he grinned like a shark. "Well then, Ratch, as my companion, Nova has just pointed out, my name is Drafton.
Since I woke up here in this god-forsaken place and can remember, we have met precious few who didn't immediately threaten us. Doppelgangers, paranoid armed humans, haunts, overly large insects, and a Zoog. So when your people threatened to eat our fingers and noses, I was livid and I told them to keep back!" Drafton took a deep breath and dropped his voice as he leaned in to stare at the Ratling king.
"So, Ratch Mamby, you want your domain? You want your books? Keep them, but tell your people to never threaten us again because we're still here and everything else that threatened us isn't."
"Fascinating, I must say" Dhamiskeanus muttered to himself. His hand raised up as if to interrupt but quickly thought better of it when Drafton began speaking.
I wonder what kind of creature they are... he couldn't help but wonder.
Ratch bares his fangs once more, but also seems to shrink a little from the verbal onslaught of Drafton and his face goes slack a little as he simply stares at Drafton. The other ratlings look back and forth between Ratch and Drafton as if waiting for some sort of direction. There is a heavy tension in the air that threatens to take away all your breath...
Drafton smirked at Ratch.
"It seems we've come to an understanding with one another, Ratch." he said as much to his companions as to Ratch Mamby and his entourage. "You don't attack us as we travel through your domain and we won't have to fight you either. We'll be taking our leave now, Ratch." Drafton said while gesturing for his group to back up and leave.
Nova follows Drafton's idea, and backs away. Beast is practically rolling in frustration.
Beast grumbles to himself. "Goody two-shoes. Oh yes, let's just all be friends. We can dance and sing songs and all that crap. If only I could slit their throats and chew on their bones. I hate being on a leash."
Carter was happy to avoid a fight. He backed away with Nova and headed toward the next door.
Drafton's ears picked up as he heard the mutterings of Beast. "Friends? You think we're friends with that mangy ratling? No, that thing is what you call hard negotiating. We are on about as thin ice with Ratch Mamby as we can possibly get away with. Learn to read the room, Beast, he could have killed us if things had gone any differently. He likely would have if I hadn't given him some things to think about. Now he knows to be afraid of us because he experienced what I just did to him. If he's smart, and I think he is, he'll accept my proposal and tell his people to stay away from us."
I hope he's smart and not just a tyrant anyway.
Drafton kept his face neutral as he spoke. He didn't know for sure if his projected confidence was real or false bravado but for the sake of the others he kept up his demeanor to keep them feeling like they could have a spear point to follow.
"Well then...which we do we go now?" Dhamiskeanus asked nervously. While his head would normally be darting this way and that, now it continued to stare straight ahead towards the ratlings.
"I wonder if they have any food" he wondered aloud.
Drafton shrugged. "Wherever we're going should be away from this area for now and fast. If we're running low on magic we should head back to Winter's camp where hopefully we can rest up and plan a new strategy. If you're all still good to go however, I'd say straight ahead and out of this area." as he spoke he eyed the door they had just left. He hoped it would stay closed for now.
"Beast, let it go." Says Nova as she sense his rising hatred.
Beast growls and launches himself at Drafton with everything he's got. Just as he's about to claw at the Halfling, his form melts away into goo, then is sucked up into Nova's mind.
Nova seems to be busy with an internal conversation, likely argument, with beast, but after a minute she starts channeling him back to physical form.
Beast glowers at Drafton and bares his fangs, but refuses to attack.
"Sorry about that, Drafton. He's a bit of a wild card. I have all my spells, so I'm okay to keep exploring if you're up to it."