Mandraiv's Diary 9

Before delving into the sewers to kill this rat, we decided to pick up a few silver weapons.  Seems like some of my common sense is finally rubbing off on this band of misfits.  Or that they are starting to listen to me.  Either way, it seems that as a group we are developing some level of cohesion or cooperation that has until now been fairly elusive.  Actually, it might just be that they have seen how hard it is to take down creatures without using appropriate weapons, but then again, this translates, for me, to growing a little sense.  After our little shopping venture, we headed into the sewer and quickly found the lair of the rat army.  Hilarity ensued.

Since the old woman wererat asked us to try to spare everyone but the ringleader, four-arms was hell bent on not killing them.  He went in with a sap, hoping to knock the “innocent” wererats out.  The warrior was also using the flat of his blade, and there was some general consideration towards non-lethality from most of the group.  Seemed like a bad idea to me – reducing one’s effectiveness in order to save the lives of a few sewer rats planning to infect the city’s population with a curse like lycanthropy seems insane, and since Artox agreed with me, it was full effectiveness from us from the beginning.  The hilarity came from good old four-arms, who’s altruism towards the “innocent” wererats lasted until he was hit in the combat.  The smallest scratch, and suddenly he was all about killing them.  Artox’s comments were made primarily across out telepathic bond, but I was unable to hold myself and laughed quite a bit at this bizarre foolishness.  How can someone know themselves so poorly?  The other amusement came at four-arm’s inability to accept that the leader of the rats was competent with his rapier, and was handing out some nasty wounds with it.  Apparently four-arms thinks that the size of the hole left by a weapon is the only determinant of effectiveness.  I’ve not trained with arms much, but even I know that there are vital organs, joints and depth of wound as factors / places to stab that will make the tinniest hole into a lethal wound.  Makes me wonder at his own choice of weapon too, as he tends towards light options rather than what, in his apparent logic, must be the only way to hurt something – a greatsword, or perhaps greataxe.

After defeating the wererats and their friends (a couple of dire rats and a swarm or two of your normal, garden (sewer?)-variety rats) and looting, it was time to head back to our inn.  In the morning we discovered that the plague was running rampant through the group, and that there was a possibility of some of us becoming wererats.  We sorted out the wererat problem with the help of the Archbanker of Abadar, and spent a day or two trying to beat the plague, before concluding that we’d be better off trying to live with it until we could discover its source and eliminate the spread, as healing magic is hard to come by, potions of remove disease are not terribly effective and for every one of us who manages to shake the disease, another comes down with it.   I am still in shock.  A tiny blood-blister marring my perfect visage.  If this plague leaves a scar, I’m going to be pursuing its perpetrators into hell and tormenting their spirits for all eternity.  And clearly, marring the face of someone as really, really, really ridiculously good looking as myself, even if by accident, should be enough to condemn the souls of all connected with the people who started spreading the plague, those who developed it and all of their friends and families to torment for the rest of time. 

We decided to continue our investigations, and were becoming quite impatient for the arrival of the old woman wererat with our new lead.