Jasper has one option, so he flings another gout of acid at the intruder.
Reekis decides it's now or never, and swings his mace at the little thing's head. But his hesitancy and natural cowardice means he barely gets close enough to hit it.
Adalwin slashes at the creature again.
Neither Reekis nor Adalwin is able to land a solid hit on the hooded attacker – but Eljoy strides into the fray and fells it with a solid downward blow from his axe.
The thing falls to the ground, its hood and the head beneath split open, leaking foul smelling, sluggish blood and brain matter onto the dead leaves. However, something still continues to writhe and wriggle within its robe.
Oliver steps forward, his spear presented before him, and sticks it into the cloth on the ground. He swirls the tip into a small circle before dashing it up off the thing, holding the robe up off the ground so everyone has a chance to look on what still writhes beneath.
Anor will delay to see if there is anything else afoot.
Oliver flicks aside the dead enemy’s robe with his spear, revealing the corpse of a small, reptilian humanoid. Its scaly flesh sags from its bones, with scales missing in patches. The blood that leaches from the wounds you have inflicted on it is sparse, black and foul smelling.
Scurrying about on the reptilian corpse’s back is a big black furred rat. It hisses at Oliver, the fur standing up straight on its back.
"What . . . ?"
"Gah! I hate rats!"
Oliver is taken aback at first, before he draws a confused expression. Why would a rat be riding the possibly undead thing. Then he has an idea, "Wait! Don't kill it. What if it's sentient, like say a familiar.... maybe the witch's familiar?" Turning to the rat, he directs, "Can you understand what I'm saying?"
The rat just hisses, the fur still standing up on its back, making it look bigger than it is.
As the others consider the conundrum of the rat, Jasper sits down rather heavily on a nearby log. "A normal rat would flee, but I don't think most familiars can communicate with anyone but their witch. ShadowWing can't talk to me or anything, but if he could, I don't think he could talk to you. That's what the old hedge wizard used to tell me when ShadowWing showed up, anyway."
"I agree with what Jasper says. I doubt we could communicate with it except though magic. The sort of magic I don't have. Perhaps we should just leave it to it's master's corpse and move on. But why would it's master have wanted to attack us?"
"What if it was controlling the corpse? I say kill it, unless you fancy walking around dead with a rat in your skull when it goes for one of us."
"Whichever. I'm going back to bed, I'm sure you can handle a rat."
Although Anor doesn't actually make any sort of move.
"So... Who wants to kill it?"
Yes.
"It's almost time to get up anyway. We can keep an eye on the rat while we break fast and break camp. Let it protect its twice-dead master, I think."
"It's almost time to get up anyway. We can keep an eye on the rat while we break fast and break camp. Let it protect its twice-dead master, I think."
Adalwin nods. "I don't see any reason to kill it. Though if we were able to search the body we may find more clues to help us decide what to do with the thing."
The young man casts an eye over the corpse appraisingly. He goes to his backpack, grabs his sack, and returns. "I'll try to grab it in this, and give us some time to search this thing."
The rat tries to bite Adalwin as he lunges at it with the sack.
Adalwin nimbly avoids the bite and plunges the rat into the sack, where it wriggles impotently.
The body of the small reptilian creature looks (and smells) like it has been dead for a week or more. It wears a tattered and torn brown wooden robe, holds a bent spear, and wears a crude wooden sign on a short length of rope around its neck, with strange symbols etched into it. Adalwin’s search reveals nothing of apparent value.
As it happens, Anor and Reekis both recognise the symbols as letters in the Draconic alphabet.
When the sign catches her notice, Anor wanders over. ""Shaman?", how odd."
Jasper watches with interest from where he sits.
"Yeah, weird," says Reekis. "It says 'shaman'. So... What's a shaman?"
Anor recognises the dead creature as a kobold, one which has been decomposing for about a week or two.
"So what do we do with this?" Adalwin shakes the sack a little, a hint of his disappointment at not finding anything valuable on the corpse. "Should I just let it back out?"
"I suspect you shouldn't plan on getting that sack back..."
Oliver raises his eyebrows in delight at the opportunity to educate, "Well, Reekis, a Shaman is term commonly used to refer to a holy man, but of a more tribal nature. They do not venerate the Gods themselves, as much as things like their ancestors or the spirits of the land around them. They can also be seen as the wise man or give council to a chieftan, but rarely hold the position themselves." He ends with a finger raised as he speaks.
"Jasper's got a point. We could whack the fey-rat right now while it's still in the sack."
Adalwin looks at the sack a little guiltily. "That doesn't seem very sporting, but if you want to..." He holds the sack out to Eljoy.
Reekis loses interest half-way through Oliver's explanation. "Yeah, splat the rat, Eljoy."
"Something must have been animating that Kobald corpse. It just be fey, but it's feeling more like a prolonged attack."
Eljoy finishes off the rat.
Once everyone is awake, Anor looks off towards the Crag. "We should be able to make it to our destination today, let's get moving."
Jasper finishes his watch with Adalwin if the others return to their bedrolls. Eventually, he says, "I don't feel too good. That thing got me pretty good, I think."