Episode 190 - Much To Do About Rats

## Synopsis

In a secret room behind the restricted section, the cranium rat swarms stood off against Winsler, Integrity, and Mr. Wiggles. Trenthus acted quickly, squeaking and magically summoning spectral rats to harass the students. They chewed at Integrity, who yelled in pain and *Hexed* Ratthus before backing up into the cavern. Menthus' eyes glowed as he looked at the magical aura surrounding the students. Seeing the many magical items the students had on them, they commanded the other rats to knock them out and take their things.

Ratthus agreed, and attempted to drive a mental spike into Winsler's brain, to little effect. In response Winsler vanished from sight, much to the surprise of the rats. Penthus looked over to Integrity, lit a piece of incense, and caused a *Hypnotic Pattern* to appear in her space, unknowingly catching Winsler as well. Luckily the meagre magics of the rats were no issue for the big brains of the students.

As Winsler reappeared, he raised his arms and animated the cage and two books, bringing them to life. He commanded them, "*Slay the rats*."

The books ran over to Ratthus and Penthus, while the cage lumbered over to Menthus. The cage blasted through Menthus, scattering rats over the ground. One of the books slammed into Ratthus, but the other had trouble attacking the dancing Penthus.

Trenthus pointed their tails at Integrity, and let out an awful screech. Nothing happened. As Integrity looked back at this angry rat, she charged at Trenthus with her jade dagger drawn, and stabbed the rat. As several rats fell dead from their body, the spectral rats that Trenthus had summoned dissipated.

As Menthus recovered themselves they scurried and swarmed onto Integrity, suffering a blow from the massive cage as they did so. They tried to bite at her, but were unable to pierce her clothes.

Ratthus followed their leader, and ran to Winsler to swarm and bite him as well. They were able to bite into him, sending spikes of pain through his nerves before he once again turned invisible.

Penthus insulted the students' brain sizes again, then turned to Integrity and releasing a puff of poisonous gas. She held her breath and avoided the pitiful attempt at an attack.

As Winsler slowly faded back into visibility, he fumbled in his component pouch for a moment before sending a flood of negative energy into Menthus. As the black ribbons of necrotic energy disappeared, only the head of the rat swarm remained, his literal brothers in arms dead on the ground. Winsler brought one of his books over and had it smack them, and sent the other over to Penthus. Both books missed, but the animated cage bashed into Penthus, sending even more rats flying dead from their body.

Trenthus looked upon the towering orange tiefling, and began to swarm over her, rooting through her pockets. She was easily able to slap the rats off her form, along with 30 gold coins that clattered to the ground. The rats carried the coins to a rat hole in the wall and retreated.

Integrity bent down to see the broken form of Menthus laying at her feet.

*"Listen, we did not intend to get hurt when we went in here, but clearly you don't care about that do you?"*

Menthus wheezed and squeaked, *"I did what needed to be done!"*

Integrity sheathed her blade in booming energy, and skewered the leader of the rats. As she sent his body flying across the room, the other swarms let out gasps and squeals of shock and anguish.

*"Who else wants to fight?!"*

Ratthus turned to Penthus, and implored them to return to the Lady of the Deep to explain what had happened, that they knew about the plot to poison the water. Penthus looked at the horrific massacre in front of them, and turned back to Ratthus with tears in their eyes.

*"They will rue the day they came to us."*

Penthus scurried towards the rat hole, taking one final blow from the cage before returning to safety. As they ran away they yelled curses back at the intruders who had murdered their friends.

*"Your cheese will forever be mouldy, you crackers moist and damp!"*

Ratthus dropped to their knees in front of the students. *"Please, please, I wish no more hostilities! I am the youngest of the cranium rat scholars, please! Take me prisoner if you need be, please! But spare us! Spare us, you've killed our greatest scholar ever of our lives! Menthus, may he rest in the Lady of the Deep's pools forever, please please!"*

Winsler ignored the grovelling figure in front of him as he looked for a jar with air-holes in the lid. He reached into his portable hole and pulled out the jar, previously containing the squirrel heart. The rats grimaced and coughed as Winsler pried the speaker of Ratthus free, and sealed them into the jar. The rest of the swarm lost cohesion and ran into the rat hole.

At Winsler's suggestion, Integrity checked out the book currently placed on the lectern. It talked about various poisons, and seemed to be opened to the section on powerful but short lived poisons. Three names were highlighted: The Rat-Catcher's Dust, Grindlebub, Powdered Bone. With her alchemical knowledge, Integrity realised that while these poisons were dangerous, none of them were particularly fatal.

*"Well these are the poisons that they're looking at, but none of them really seem like they want to kill. Ratthus, why? What's the point? You say there's this Lady of the Deep, are they also like you, or are they human?"*

Ratthus pressed their grubby rat palms against the glass and spoke in the minds of the students. *"The Lady of the Deep is nothing like us, she is a great and powerful being that bestowed upon us—her humble rat servants—the power of cognition and insight. The Lady of the Deep, you needn't concern yourself with her, she is no danger to you. The poison was selected so you would all be rendered unconscious—but of a deeper sort than when you sleep—so that we could sneak about and connect you to the Network itself."*

Winsler asked, *"What's this Network that you're talking about?"*

*"Well the Network is a means to further our knowledge by using your big, well-developed brains, to bolster our information!"*

Winsler shook the jar. Ratthus fell over and rattled around.

Integrity thought on what Ratthus said, and felt they were hiding some of the truth from them. She brought her face right next to the glass of the jar, staring deep into Ratthus' soul. *"You may have a great sense of smell, but I have it better. And you know what I smell? I smell a big, fat, stinky lie. What is the Network, or you will feel pain, just like Menthus over there."*

Ratthus started trembling and begged*, "Please don't kill me like you killed our great scholar Menthus! I beg of you"*—They dropped to their knees and raised their hands up, clasping them together—*"The Network is just a hive mind, a means for the Lady of the Deep to extend her reach! We thought now to be the best time— all of those scary constructs are gone, and replaced by simpler ones that seem to not mind us scurrying about in the shadows! So we thought now was the proper time to expand, capturing all the students and professors and staff in our Network, in our little trap— not a trap! It's not a trap! It's like a net, it's like you and I speaking right now, but there's thousands of us!"*

*"A net's a trap you know,"* Winsler told them.

*"But a net not in the sense of a trap— please, please, please believe me!"*

Integirty grinned as she looked at the pitiful creature before her. *"No we're keeping you."*

*"Well... I don't know about that Integrity."*

Ratthus sounded close to tears. *"You'll make a pet of me, oh no oh no."*

*"Nah I don't want to do that Integrity. I think what we need to do, we need to find our way out of here now—"*

Ratthus squeaked up. *"I can tell you, I can tell you! I can tell you the way out, just please don't make me a pet, please!"*

*"Aren't these just the back of the bookcases in the—"*

*"No! Don't listen to him, listen to me, please! Orange one, orange one"*—Ratthus put his hands against the glass again—*"Please don't listen to the short one! Please please please! You are benevolent, you are kind! You, Menthus rat-slayer, you would give us a chance to tell you how to get out of here before listening to the other one, please!"*

*"Why do you care how we leave?"*

*"I don't care how you leave, I just want to be of assistance so you don't make a pet of me! There is no greater disservice to a cranium rat—a scholar of our kind—than to make us a pet!"*

*"Well, my friend convinced me that we're not going to keep you for a pet. And I was never intending to take you as a pet, I just wanted an easy resource in case anything was to happen."*

*"Well that's very comforting. Our knowledge of your big-brainedness is I guess, mistaken. We were under the impression that you would make pets of us all if you could!"* Ratthus started hyperventilating in relief.

Integrity and Winsler tried to decide what to do with their rodent prisoner, quickly agreeing to turn him over to Archive security. They walked back through the tunnels to find the illusory wall still an illusion, as the rats didn't have enough time to brick it off before they started fighting. The students stepped back into the main Archives, finding it mostly deserted at the late hour. They found a spherical modron, who upon seeing Winsler began to click and gesture angrily towards him.

*"I'm sorry to bother you, modron sir, I don't really know your name if you have one, but I just came to alert you to a situation that's happening in the Archives. There appears to be a swarm of rats that have carved out the walls in the Archives and have been stealing books."*

The modron stared at Winsler, disbelief somehow written all over its unmoving face.

*"I'll offer proof, we caught this rat here."*

Winlser handed the jar to the modron, they took it and looked at Ratthus, who was cowering in fear behind the glass. It clicked three times at Winsler, then flew to the roof of the Archives, where many other modrons flew between small doorways only accessible to them. As it vanished from sight, Winsler felt relieved, as though his feud with the modrons might be over.

*"Well it seems like that might be solved by the modrons, so hopefully they'll look into it. I hope they're alright, I hope the rats don't give them any trouble. We should probably get going, I don't want to stay here any longer than we have to. It's so late, I'm tired, I smell, I feel sick."*

Integrity looked down at her friend. *"You don't smell that bad, I've smelled worse."*

*"I smell like pickled squirrel heart, and so do you!"*

*"Me?! I never smell!"*

They carried on talking as they left the Archives, past Ava Redding as she waved them goodnight, and hoped they wouldn't tell her any more bad news. As they approached the dormitories, they heard the loud voices of Serinepth and Mira talking about all manner of things. Winsler and Integrity briefly explained how they went to the Archives, the cranium rats, and the plot the poison the schools water. After getting over their initial shock, Serinepth moved downwind of the pair, as they all agreed this problem warranted further investigation. Mira asked if Serinepth's scrying amulet could be used to find the '*Lady of the Deep*', but Serinepth told her she didn't think she could use it for a while, and that it might help if they had something belonging to the Lady of the Deep. Winsler and Integrity regretted giving Ratthus away so quickly.

Serinepth also told the group about the meeting they had set up with Crowe, saying that after that she would be able to pick up one of the many dead rats they had left, and try to scry on the Lady of the Deep. Integrity looked around in her coin purse, finding hundreds of tiny rat hairs that she offered to Serinepth for the spell.

They finished talking, Serinepth begged Winsler and Serinepth to take a bath, and they all headed back to their dorms. Mira spent part of the night drafting her campaign platform and potential slogans.

## Trivia

* For this episode, Sam played Penthus and Sarah played Trenthus