'Neath a Crimson Throne, Session VII

 December 6^th, 2021/Worms 6^th, 749

Heroes present:

•Beowulf, level 1 fighter, played by J

•Joan, level 1 magic-user, played by A

•Pendor, level 1 fighter, played by R

Their entourage:

•Moorgreene, level 1 cleric

•One donkey

•Three horses

Anathar remained behind at the House of the Squared Circle. He would enter the ranks of its students. Before parting ways with the rest of his party, however, he gave Talon's book to Pendor and told him everything he had learned about it from the archmage.

Joan arrived and rejoined the party. She, Beowulf, Pendor, and Moorgreene set off on the road to Regdar's Rest.

When they arrived, this is what they saw:

Regdar's Rest was a large village surrounded by a wooden palisade. When they passed through the village gate, they found that villagers were loading dead bodies onto stretchers. Many of the living people looked sickly and malnourished. In the middle of the village stood a hill, and on that hill, surrounded by another palisade, was a longhouse.

There was a guard at the inner palisade. He insisted on checking the tongues of each party member before they could enter. Apparently, if they were “infected,” they would have spots on their tongues. Since they were all clean, he let them in to speak with Lord Norbert.

His Lordship explained that every night for the last four nights, his village had been attacked by a swarm of dog-sized rats. The beasts had killed most of the village's livestock and many of its people. In addition, a fever was spreading among the residents, and he was sure that was no coincidence.

The previous day, the villagers had killed one of the giant rats and set it up on a spike just outside the village walls, hoping to scare away the rest of the swarm. The party decided to set an ambush for the rats there. They asked Lord Norbert to lend them a dead body which they could use as bait.

They went out to where the giant rat was spiked and waited. Soon, a couple of villagers brought them a corpse. Although the body was mangled, it was well-dressed and had clearly once been a beautiful woman. The heroes asked who it was, and the villagers said it was the corpse of Lord Norbert's wife. The heroes thought it was odd that Norbert would use his own wife for such a purpose. The villagers agreed, but offered no explanation. It did come out that this was his second wife. His first had been executed as a practitioner of the dark arts.

The sun set and cold rain began to fall. As expected, a mass of giant rats scampered across the hills toward Regdar's Rest. The heroes fought and killed most of them (each suffering some bites in the process), but let one flee. They followed it as it ran back the way it came.

A few miles east of Regdar's Rest, it slid into a muddy hole which was four feet in diameter. One at a time, the heroes followed it.

The hole opened up into a large cavern. The floor was covered in animal bones and rat shit. On the far end of the cavern lay a dead rat the size of an elephant. Its belly had been cut open. In front of the titan-rat, a teenaged girl in a tattered and filthy velvet dress sat at a campfire.

She asked them if they were here to join her or kill her. They did not give her a straight answer, but asked her who she was and what she was doing here. She was quite open with them.

Her name was Muungifu. She was Lord Norbert's daughter. A few years ago, His Lordship had become infatuated with a woman who was not his wife. He had falsely accused his spouse of practicing black magic, and she had been executed. Not long after that, Norbert had married the woman he fancied – the same one who's dead body he would later offer to use as rat-bait.

Muungifu knew that her mother had been innocent. As Her Ladyship burned on a stake, Muungifu fled Regdar's Rest. She wandered into the wilderness and found the cave where the giant rat corpse lay.

She intuitively recognized it as an old god of the primordial wilderness. It was dead, but even dead gods had power. It was also pregnant; she cut open its belly so that the young rats inside could escape.

As the newborn rats suckled at the tits of their mother-goddess, they grew bigger and stronger. Desperately hungry, Muungifu followed their example. As a result of drinking milk from the rat goddess, she had been turned into a wererat.

When she reached this part of her story, Muungifu transformed into a hideous half-human, half-rat creature.

Beowulf was intrigued by this power, and asked it he could become a wererat. Muungifu said that she could make that happen, if they helped her kill her father.

Although Moorgreene was sympathetic to Muungifu's situation, she was not willing to break a contract she had accepted through her guild. She made to leave and warn Lord Norbert. Beowulf helped Muungifu run Moorgreene down and killed her. Joan and Pendor did not intervene.

Joan and Pendor decided that, since their contract had been to specifically kill the giant rats, and they had done so, they could help Muungifu without violating it. Muungifu revealed that she could also shapeshift into a form that looked just like the regular giant rats. So, the party made a deal with her: she would take on her full rat form and play dead. They would carry her back to her father and tell him that they had killed all the rats. After he had paid them, she could then surprise and kill him.

The party carried Muungifu, in her rat form, back to Lord Norbert's longhouse. It was the most secure place in Regdar's Rest, so most of the villagers had taken shelter there. The party displayed the “corpse” of the wererat and assured them all that it was safe for them to go home.

Gradually, all the villagers left the longhouse. Soon, the party was alone with Lord Norbert, who paid them a total of ninety silver coins. Once the money had changed hands, the party laid Muungifu on the floor and back away a few feet.

Muungifu took on her hybrid form and attacked her father. In a moment, he was dead.

The girl then told Beowulf that she would grant him the power of the wererat. She bit him on the neck, leaving a deep wound. She told him that the infection would take hold in about a week. Pendor decided to also undergo this treatment, but Joan declined.

Muungifu bit Pendor, then took on her full rat form and skittered out of the building. In order to cover up any evidence of what they had done, the party set the longhouse ablaze, then left Regdar's Rest under cover of night.