Hello, Everyone!
Last we encountered my dearest Mary Windfiddle , we had a three-part story - a snippet of her past, where she disrupted some kind of a demonic ritual, gained a friend named Karina and then lost her to the adventuring life.
(Damn, that sounded like Karina died! I swear, she just went away to seek adventure and left Mary alone. She might as well be alive and prospering! Check out this awesome art post I made for the short story!)
Anyway, before that, in our present-day adventure, our heroes (Bruno, Aurum, Agatha, Tesaya and Mary, now grown-up) were trudging through the Swamp of Agony. They were currently on their way to disrupt another ritual – that of freeing an Ancient dragon from its half-century prison. They had a few interesting encounters with the Swamp's inhabitants, and noticed an ominous trail of fallen trees that crossed their path, with no sight of what had made it.
But last last we saw them, they were about to have a well-deserved rest under the branches of Mary's magical tree. Mary decided to eavesdrop on the fairies who lived in the tree, but… well, let's say that she didn't like what she heard 🤣
The fairies kept talking but without the Comprehend Languages spell, Mary couldn’t understand them anymore. Somehow that was both a relief and a horrible trepidation. What if they were talking about her love life?
And… what would they say? She stole a quick glance at Aurum and tried to push away the thoughts that flooded her mind.
This was neither the time, nor the place.
She joined the conversation around the orange tree and soon, the fairies and their silly antics were rendered unimportant.
“Did you see the way that thing in the cloak was looking at us?” Agatha said. “What if it’s got our scent now, and continues following us even after we’re done here? Imagine lying in bed after, say, ten years, and suddenly hearing that whimper in your ear?”
Mary shuddered. The others protested, saying that was highly unlikely, but nobody rejected the notion entirely. Mary wrote down Agatha’s speculation in her journal and added a huge question mark next to it. She had to do more research on that weeping creature!
Soon, her friends began calling it a night. Mary was going to keep watch, as usual, but this time she promised that she was going to wake them up at the first sign of trouble, without trying to settle anything on her own.
She barely waited for them to start breathing evenly, and flipped through her book to look for messages from Gillean. Once again, there were none. Mary remembered that she’d been too flustered to ask the fairies about him, and mentally kicked herself. They might have known something!
After a few moments of thumbing through her book, she realised that she was hearing something. There was faint shuffling outside of the tree, as well as some small voices. With her heart suddenly in her throat, Mary came closer and leaned towards the source of the sounds.
“I can’t see anything inside!” a high-pitched squeak came in. “Darn this cursed tree!”
“Should we make them come out?” another voice said, just as squeaky as the other.
“They looked very strong!” someone argued. “What if they try to kill us instead of helping?”
Whoever was outside of the orange tree, didn’t seem all that dangerous. While they were continuing to speak, Mary sent a Message in her friends’ heads to wake them up. When they started shuffling up, she put her finger to her lips and wordlessly pointed towards the voices.
“But Shoo said they seemed all right!” someone was just saying.
“What does Shoo know? We should take them to the King.”
Mary didn’t want to scare off whoever the creatures outside were. From their words, they seemed small and harmless, and easily-frightened. She thought of the least intimidating of her spells and summoned four Dancing Lights in the form of butterflies.
The moment they went outside of the dome, they were met with cries of sheer horror, and the receding patter of tiny feet.
“Oh, no! I didn't mean to scare them off!” Mary exclaimed. “What do we do now?”
“We can just leave them and go back to sleep,” Agatha said, yawning.
“Noo, they said they needed our help!” Mary insisted.
“Then go after them,” the tabaxi said.
“But that’ll frighten them even more!”
“Can’t you use your familiars?” Bruno suggested.
“Oh! Yeah.”
Mary felt stupid for not thinking of that herself. She sat on the ground and conjured one of her familiars – Atti the owl. With its night vision and noiseless flight, it was the perfect one to use.
Mary merged her senses with Atti's and the owl flew over the canopy. The predator’s movement was silent and its eyes and ears were sharp. It had no trouble finding the small squeaking creatures. They turned out to be rats.
When Atti saw them, her talons instinctively flexed.
In her own gut, Mary felt the owl's urge to swoop down and grab, to tear and consume… but she stopped it. She wasn't a predator, and this wasn't her prey. And the rats were standing on their hind legs and gesticulating like humans. Yet another reason not to let the owl have its go at them.
Although… maybe that was the thing to do here. Mary couldn’t speak through her familiar’s beak. There was no way for her to communicate with the rats and tell them that she wasn't a threat. So, she angled the owl in a way that there’d be a straight line between it, the rats and the orange tree, and made it drop down from the tree.
The creatures screamed and scattered. The owl squared on one particular rat and followed it, and when it was close enough, its talons snapped around its soft body.
Don’t squeeze, Mary reminded herself. You’re not a real owl!
She made Atti fly inside the dome of the orange tree and land on the ground, pinning the rat under its legs. It squirmed and screeched, its movement so erratic that it was getting hard to keep it in place.
“Calm down!” Mary called out. “We’re not going to hurt you!”
She tried casting a spell to calm its emotions but it didn’t catch on. The rat was still trying to get out of the owl’s grasp.
“Oh!” Agatha said menacingly. “You brought me a toy?”
“No!” Mary exclaimed. “It’s a guest, I just want to talk to them!”
The tabaxi looked at her and then at the creature. She bared her teeth.
“Stop squirming!” she said firmly.
The rat froze in place, ears flattened and eyes bulging in fear. Its gaze swiftly travelled between Agatha and the rest of Mary’s company. A decision seemed to come to it. It cleared its throat and spoke.
“I-I am a d-diplomat on a v-very important m-mission!” it squeaked. “M-my n-name is Shoo and y-you’re encroaching on the t-territory of the M-moon Rats! There’s an army s-stationed outside of your t-tree.”
A great way to begin our chapter, isn't it? The Moon Rats are such a funny and cute concept! You'll see next time :-)
Take care and be well!
(Also, here's a link to the Chapter Guide, the Glossary and the Map for the series. You're welcome!)
An important disclaimer: Mary Windfiddle's story is my notes from a D&D game turned into a narrative. All the worldbuilding and NPC encounters belong to our DM, and all the actions of the other main characters (Aurum, Bruno and Agatha) belong to my co-players. My contribution to the story is only everything Mary-related (actions, reactions, inner thoughts), as well as the writing itself.
An army? Seriously?! 🤣 On the other hand it might be a question of numbers...
However, I'm wondering what help the moon rats may seek from our heros. It definitely is an interesting encounter. Genius @marydm amazes me again with another surprise. 😉🥰
Looking forward to part 2! 😁
Have a lovely day!
Oh, stahp it you...
I hope that rat rolled above it's Bluff check ! Oh wait, that's a D&D 3.5 thing.... I guess 5th Ed has something similar....
It's 'deception check', pretty much the same thing, I think.