Monster Party Novella Nosos: But what happens when the gears, get sick of the machine?
Chapter Six: Come grab your mates and join us, where the rats rejoice!
"Let me see the chart." Alexander insisted.
"You know someone as big as you has no right being so quiet." Alrek muttered as from his point of view Alexander might as well have been under an invisibility spell up until he'd spoke.
"Sorry my neck region is already cluttered enough with this tie, so I don't have room for a bell." Alexander noted in an offhand manner as he inspected the chart keeping track of who had shown up for work today and who hadn't.
There were a great many check marks and his eye lazily scrolled down the list, until it stopped at a singular ugly "X" symbol.
"Benjamin Taylor didn't show up for work today." Alexander growled handing the chart back.
Mr. Deep-Minded double checked it himself and then slowly nodded.
"That's right." He admitted.
"Did he tell you, or did anyone else tell you he was quitting?" The silver haired man inquired.
The dwarf shook his head.
"Anyone know if he was sick?" Alexander further pressed.
"Nobody told me anything about it, and I'd vastly prefer it if you don't go crawling around the mine asking every single one of your 'omegas' to try and find out. It'd be nice to have a simple proper work day with no distractions." The manager pleaded.
"You're right that would be an inefficient approach. Do we know where he lives?" Alexander suggested.
"Do I look like his mother? Probably somewhere on the west side of town, that's where most of the workers live." Alrek Deep-Minded replied.
"Well then I guess I'm going for a stroll..." Alexander decided.
XXX XXX XXX
"You're walking through the wrong part of town rich boy..." A gruff voice called out to Alexander from a nearby alley.
"Yeah, fancy pants 'gentlemen' like you normally are smart enough to bring a few bodyguards with them!" A voice cackled from behind him.
"We should be careful blokes he's got himself a sword..." Another voice mockingly noted.
Alexander Diamondclaw sighed and rolled his eyes.
"Thank you." He said, calmly looking around and making note of the various different directions he might be attacked from in the near future.
"No need to thank us yet 'mi-lord', save that for after we've made your purse a great deal lighter." The first voice promised him.
"No I think I'll do it now, while you can still hear me. You'll have a hard time doing that once the screaming starts.
So from the bottom of my heart, I thank you. Some of my subordinates become much much more testy when they're forced to go without entrainment. I'd wager you lot should be able to keep my companion amused for all of... well I'll guess thirty seconds or so." Alexander predicted as wisps of white mist began to curl around his boots.
XXX XXX XXX
There was a lot of screaming.
"Leave them alive." Alexander Diamondclaw insisted as he stood there with his arms crossed, as yet having had no need to straighten them.
A fully grown man was tossed through the air like a child's doll and slammed into a wall.
"Did you miss the part where I said I want them alive?" Alexander repeated his command for emphasis.
"He'll live. His spine might even still be intact... Any particular reason you care?" Mirri Catwarrior hissed back.
"It will save us time in the long run." Alexander pointed out, watching the "fight" (if you could call it that) with something verging on boredom.
One of the muggers began pitifully waving his sword about in Mirri's general direction.
The white clad woman stepped into his attack, the blade burying itself up to the hilt in her stomach. Then she wrapped a single hand around his throat and lifted him into the air.
"Was that supposed to hurt?" She asked in a sing song mocking voice.
The would be thief was much too frightened to say anything.
"Toss him with the other, gently." Alexander commanded.
The man went flying, slammed into the wall and collapsed on top of the other one pinning both in place.
Another one of the thieves who had taken up position on a nearby rooftop was desperately trying to reload his musket after his first shot had ended going wide when he drastically underestimated how fast a centuries old vampire could move.
He was still underestimating her speed in fact, after taking a moment to pull the sword out of her chest and toss it away, Mirri shot up the side of the building without even bothering to check for handholds, and yanked the gun out of his hands.
Wood and metal alike twisted and broke beneath her crushing grip.
Then she seized the unlucky thief by his collar and lifted him off the ground as well. It was cliche, but for some reason Mirri never quite got tired of the sight of a grown man helplessly flailing his legs about.
"Can I put him with the others?" Mirri pleaded.
"He won't survive if you do it from up there. Come down first." Alexander suggested.
Mirri jumped back down to street level and tossed yet another of her victims against more or less the exact same portion of the wall as her previous prey.
"You're slipping, one of them got away..." Alexander pointed out, gesturing in the direction that he'd seen the final bandit beat a hasty retreat after Mirri had pull herself together out of a seemingly ordinary (except for how "clean" it was for Nosos) cloud of mist.
"It's only fun if they run!" Mirri growled as she got down on all fours.
XXX XXX XXX
A short while later the brigand rejoined his fellows and Alexander. He clearly did not want to, but he equally clearly did not have a choice in the matter.
When a fully grown lioness grabs a man's neck in her jaws and starts dragging them around fighting back isn't much an option. It especially isn't when the lioness has used her paws to buffet the man into state of near unconsciousness first.
Three groaning thieves lay in a pile on the ground, Alexander lazily resting his cane on the top most's stomach to keep them all pinned in place.
"Ahh, full marks." He congratulated the cat, lifting up his cane and taking a step back.
The lioness rose up onto its hind legs and transformed swiftly into Mirri Catwarrior, teeth still buried in her captive's neck. Once more in possession of proper hands she slammed the man against the wall to finish knocking him out cold and stood back to watch him collapse on top of his companions adding a fourth body to the pile.
"Now that we've got that out of the way gentlemen, I'd like to have a polite conversation with you. I should note however, that it is impossible to have a polite conversation if the other party is busy screaming, pleading, crying, or otherwise whimpering. If we can't have a polite conversation then I may have to let my somewhat impolite companion carry you off to the nearest prison to pay for your crimes." Alexander explained, keeping his voice dry and emotionless.
The general collection of horrified sounds slowly began to die off.
"That's better, now then, can you lot see this?" Alexander asked, taking a moment to get down on his knees and wave the silver armband he wore in their faces.
There was a trio of frantic nods from the thieves who were still conscious.
"Good. It represents my pack. After today if I discover any of you have ever inconvenienced anyone wearing one of these armbands... well I'll be quite cross with you. You gentleman wouldn't want to make me cross now would you?" Alexander asked with a faraway bored look in his eye.
Now there was a lot of head shaking.
"I'm glad we understand each other. I mean, I'm not especially surprised to discover people turning to thievery in a situation like Nosos' but my compassion for your suffering terminates at the point when you try to impose any form of suffering on my pack. At that point..." Before Alexander could continue Mirri cut in.
"We make you do the suffering." She concluded, kicking a section of the cobblestone street up into her waiting hands. It was swiftly crushed and its remains sprinkled over the prone bandits for effect.
"Quite. By the way are any of the three of you familiar with a man by the name of Benjamin Taylor?" Alexander couldn't help but ask.
Still more head shaking.
"Pity. I had hopes that 'men of the street' such as you might know a thing or two about who lives where among your fellow renters. I don't suppose you could tell me where I might be able to find a few more of your companions, or even those thieves you aren't especially fond of?" There was a lot more nodding now.
"Splendid. Mirri make sure they're telling the truth. By the way gentlemen, when your wounds heal, do consider seeking a more lawful lifestyle. Amalgamated Diamonds is most likely down one worker at the very least." Alexander pointed out.
XXX XXX XXX
The Nosos School of Human Studies looked like no one had taught classes inside it for years, primarily because no one had.
Its door was already sagging on its hinges when Alexander first laid eyes upon it.
It took exactly one good solid kick from him to transform it into a pile of splinters.
"Hello my good gentlemen, sorry about your door, don't worry I can afford to buy you a new one." Alexander proclaimed in a booming voice, doing his best impression of Edward Resten as he ducked slightly to enter into the decrepit and semi-deserted house of learning.
A number of unfriendly eyes gazed out at him.
XXX XXX XXX
A number of frightened eyes gazed down at the monster that had been Alexander Diamondclaw.
"What are you?" One of the thieves cried out in horror.
Alexander paced back and forth before them. He'd made sure to remove his top hat before getting down to business and once he was done fighting he'd put it back on.
"Upset." He answered.
He'd made sure to bring Devi's bag of holding along with him, and sure enough of her nearly endless supply of rope had proved useful. There was nothing quite like being knocked unconscious and waking up with your hands bound while hanging suspended from the ceiling to make it abundantly clear to a man he was no longer the master of their own destiny.
Alexander held out a silver armband in his left 'hand', his right eye flashing dangerously.
"Which one of you is responsible for this?" He demanded.
After they'd dealt with the initial fight Alexander and Mirri had searched the unconscious bodies, along with a little money and a few other unremarkable nick knacks they'd also discovered a silver armband with "Benjamin Taylor, Omega" written on it.
The discovery of that armband had not done wonders for Alexander's mood to say the least.
The collection of thieves began to sway back and forth likes leaves in the wind, each one determined to say as much (and thus blame the others) as they possibly could.
"Which one of you killed him? Whoever speaks first, I'll take that as a confession." He warned them, figuring this would at least cut down on the horrified babbling.
Sure enough, now only one of them was willing to speak up.
"None of us, none of us killed him. I found it... but he was already dead when I did!" A blond haired man pleaded.
"Can you prove it?" Alexander demanded to know.
"Yes, yes!" The man promised with a frantic light in his green eyes.
"Well this should be interesting. Mirri lets let this one down. The rest of you just... hang around for a while." Alexander decided.
XXX XXX XXX
After readjusting his eyepatch and "freeing" the thief, he lead them deeper in the Nosos School of Human Studies.
Alexander insisted that their "guide" lead the way, and had made it abundantly clear that if he failed to trigger any traps that later harmed Alexander or Mirri, he would not enjoy the result.
Eventually the thief took them into a room where a dead body lay wrapped in a rather threadbare blanket.
"He wasn't the first to do this, we tend to get renters trying to save money by sleeping down here every so often. Most of them are too poor to even be worth robbing and too many corpses might eventually draw attention, so for the most part we leave them alone. This one was stinking so badly though that someone had to investigate, that's how I found the armband. It was clean and unlike the rest of his outfit wasn't threadbare so I took it.." He explained.
Alexander carefully tossed aside the blanket and began to inspect the body.
A quick once over proved that the thief was probably telling the truth surprisingly enough. There was no obvious signs of wounds caused by knives, daggers, clubs, a garrote wire, or any other sort of human weapon.
There were gashes in his skin though, most likely caused by some kind of animal bite.
Alexander held out his fingers using them to measure the size of the bite, and considered their general shape.
"Whatever did this, its most prominent weapons were its incisor teeth. Judging from the fact that human skin tends not to turn purple without a very good reason, I'd also guess whatever it was, its bite must have transmitted some sort of disease or poison." Alexander reflected.
"It must have been the Roi des rats." Their unwilling companion suggested.
"The what?" Alexander shot back.
"The Roi des rats... it is the biggest, ugliest, meanest, filthiest rat in all of Nosos. People say that the other rats follow its orders and it's so vile that a single bite or scratch can spell a man's doom." He explained.
"I can understand that, but why is it called Roi des rats? I thought Balok was the official language of Nosos." Alexander pointed out.
"That... that's what it calls itself in the messages it sometimes leaves behind." The bandit muttered inching away from the corpse.
He probably would have inched his way completely out of the room if it weren't for the fact that Mirri had positioned herself about a foot or so directly behind him.
"He leaves messages?" Alexander was intrigued.
"Weird stuff, usually scrawled on the walls in filth of some sort of another. Messages about how an exterminator's work is never done and vermin need to leave his friends alone." He told Alexander.
The silver haired man pondered that for a moment, then he came to the obvious conclusion.
"Mirri we're heading back home. I'm not the best man for this job, but I know exactly who is." Alexander decided.
XXX XXX XXX
Alexander Diamondclaw sat behind a desk as his two subordinate entered into the room. James Firecat threw in a quick left handed salute, but Mirri simply entered into something that might paradoxically be called "slouching at attention" for the moment.
"One of our workers was killed last night." Alexander said as he gazed down at his desk.
In the time it had taken Mirri to locate James and return with him (Chateau Argent might not be the largest mansion in Nosos, but it was still a mansion) he'd set up a little game for himself. A fair portion of his desk was occupied by a large board which was host to a number of differently colored and in some cases differently shaped stones.
"How can we help?" James wanted to know at once.
"He was staying in the abandoned Nosos School of Human Studies, and I'm still not completely sure what killed him. Supposedly he was murdered by some local legend. It calls itself 'Roi des rats' if our 'guide' was correct." Alexander explained as he abruptly spun the board around and moved a different stone.
"King of rats?" James repeated the phrase translating it from his native Mordentish into the Balok that was favored in Nosos.
Alexander simply nodded before focusing his eyes on the board before him.
"This is an interesting little war game, much in favor among the well to do of Nosos. I want to make sure I fully understand the rules before I try to play against anyone else, let alone think about having my own set made. Do you know what its name is?" He asked, his green eye quickly flickering between the board, James, Mirri, and back to the board again.
"No." James replied bluntly.
"They call it, 'regicide' Omega. Any further questions?" Alexander answered.
"Yes, I still don't..." James began, but before he could make his confusion any more evident Mirri leaned over and whispered a few words to him.
A more complete transformation was hard to imagine without the aid of magic (or at least magical disease). One moment James was completely adrift in the conversation uncertain of what was going on. The next his entire body became like a coiled spring, or say better a taut string. Especially the taunt string of a crossbow, which heralds unpleasant tidings for the one it is aimed at.
"No further questions Alpha." James declared proudly with another salute, his expression every bit as predatory as Alexander's.
XXX XXX XXX
"I have a request." Alexander Diamondclaw announced.
A great many worried faces abruptly turned Alexander's way, as the workers who had been wearily tramping out of the mine only a few moments ago now stood ominously still.
"First let me make this abundantly clear, when I say request, I mean request. If I can't find anyone who is willing to do it, that's fine, you don't have to worry about reprisals. Still I'd like to find someone willing to spend a night in the Nosos School for Human Studies. The hows and whys don't really matter, but I will be rewarding them with a week's wages." He explained.
The work force of Amalgamated Diamonds was remarkably unresponsive.
"A months' wages then, and don't think I'll go any higher than that, I do know how to solve problems without throwing money at them." Alexander warned them.
"Money isn't any good to a dead man, I've heard about that place, if the muggers don't get you the monsters will." One worker noted dourly.
"The local bandits have been cleared out, you can trust me on that." Alexander informed them.
There was a lot more rumbling, grumbling, and then a man stepped forward. He had black hair, blue eyes, and the tired look that accompanied anyone who'd just worked a long shift in the mines.
"You're sure it's safe then?" He asked Alexander.
"As safe as I can possibly make it, and I can make places pretty safe." Alexander promised.
"Money can be of use to a dead man, sometimes. Me and my wife already have a boy and girl and she's got another on the way. If something happens to me, I want you to look after them. Treat em posh like, better than I could ever could." He explained with a strange sort of defeated determination.
"That can be arranged." Alexander promised.
"Well arrange for us to get it down in writing before I go there." He insisted.
"No problem..." Alexander paused a moment and twisted his head to the side slightly getting a good look at the man's silver armband.
It read "Mark Shepard, Omega."
"Mark." Alexander concluded.
XXX XXX XXX
Devi took care of drawing up the necessary contract for how Alexander would be responsible for looking after Mark's family if anything happened to him while he preformed this particular task.
In return, the only additional condition that Alexander added was for the black haired man to keep his armband on the entire night.
Alexander walked Mark to the deserted school and sure enough there was a distinct lack of any obvious lawbreakers about. They parted ways and a very tired Mark Shepard settled down to try and get some sleep.
XXX XXX XXX
He got perhaps two hours at most before he was woken up.
It was a strange sound that did it, a sort of "scritch scritch" sound, as if made by an animal's claws on the ground, but one too big and yet too light on its feet at the same time.
Then came the voice.
"Qu'est-ce que nous avons ici des amis?" Someone or something growled.
Mark was fairly certain that it was a voice, a human voice, or something close to human at least.
That said, it was speaking a language that he couldn't make head or tails out of.
"Vous dites que quelqu'un a envahi votre maison?" The voice grumbled.
Then he heard a squeaking sound and a veritable torrent of "scritch scritch" noises.
"Vermine Méchant garder envahir les amis de votre maison, il est pas juste! Ne vous inquiétez pas si je sais que la façon de traiter avec eux, je vais les exterminer tous un jour!" The voice cackled, its tone growing more malevolent even if the words remained gibberish.
In the darkness Mark was just barely able to make out a pair of golden eyes as a rat scurried into the room to glare at him.
Then came the other rats.
Two rats, three rats, four rats, five rats, six rats... he lost count as the numbers swiftly spiraled upwards of a dozen. They one and all fixed him with the exact same baleful stare and Mark slowly rose to his feet, unsure what he should do.
"Ne vous inquiétez pas amis, je vais exterminer cette vermine, alors vous aurez cette maison à vous exactement comme vous l'aimez! Il est ce qu'il mérite pour envahir et salir la maison de mes amis! Il est comme tous les autres ravageurs. Je dois juste le poison de traiter avec lui!" That same haunting voice announced.
Then Mark saw him, the Roi des rats.
He was a horrific monster, he was a rat, but one bigger then most men. His front paws were misshapen and twisted to resemble human hands, and a horrific insane intelligence glistened in his blue eyes. Fur grew in awkward patches across its body, but if it was ill it moved with a terrible sureness.
The Roi des rats rose up onto its hind legs, its filth caked claws glistening in the light of the lamp that Mark had made sure to hang before he went to bed.
"Le temps de vous mourir sale vermine laid!" The Roi de rats hissed.
"Alexander Diamondclaw, what have you gotten me into...?" Mark whimpered expecting those to be the last words he ever spoke.
"Je suis la terreur qui rôde dans la nuit!" Another voice called out.
Both Mark and the Roi de rats turned to look in surprise. Mark had no idea what it was saying, and yet somehow he was fairly certain it was the same "language" as the Roi de rats used.
In a corner of the room that neither he nor the monster had previously paid any attention to there was now a great swirling cloud of mist seeping in from some unknown source.
"Je suis la barre de métal I qui garde le fromage!" The other voice intoned in an almost solemn manner.
It didn't sound human either, but it sounded at least slightly more so than the oversized rat.
"Je suis Longhair de la Dame!" The second voice shouted.
The cloud of smoke parted finally revealing who (say better what) was speaking.
It was a monster every bit as fearsome as the Roi des rats, an oversized crimson cat. It wore no clothing, save for a silver armband upon its left arm. It held out that arm in the direction of the rat monster and then there was an almost gentle sound, like the pearling of tiny exquisitely crafted bells as half a score of claws slide into sight.
Unlike those belonging to the Roi de rats they were completely clean, and if anything looked all the deadlier for the meticulous care their owner had obviously shown them.
"Non ... pas que quoi que ce soit ... mais ..."
Mark still could not understand the language, but he didn't need to. The Roi de rats communicated its on a fear an instinctual, primal level.
Scant moments ago it had been advancing confidently, now its body became hunched and compact as it sought to become as small as any of its rodent followers.
"SAVIEZ-VOUS TUER EUX?" Hissed the red cat creature as it stalked forward on only two legs a long tail swaying behind it.
"Alors ... tant de cadavres ... tant de petits cadavres! Allez-vous, je ne veux pas en parler ... Je suis en train d'être mieux, je vais essayer!" The Roi de rats whimpered.
"Je prends ça comme un 'oui' alors. Si cela est la façon dont vous 'essayer' alors le monde est mieux sans toi." The crimson cat hissed.
That was all its foe could take. The Roi de rats turned and fled.
The crimson cat gave chase.
The other smaller rats remained, but they milled about in confusion unsure of what to do. Mark began to inch away from them slowly but surely, up until one of them was abruptly crushed into a gooey mass by the paw of a tawny furred lioness.
"What?" Mathew gasped in utter and complete confusion, the beast had seemingly come into being from out of the same cloud of white mist that had so perfectly concealed the crimson cat until its arrival.
He waited for the horrific moment when the lioness would turn its attention on him, but for the moment it seemed contest to deal with the rats.
The rats began to flee from the lioness, until suddenly they stopped, seeming to be just as paralyzed by the strange sight of it as Mark was. White mist swirled and the lioness vanished.
In its place was a woman dressed in white and black, who was wearing a silver armband. Mark's eyes weren't good enough to read her name but he could recognize the silver armband for a certainty.
The woman placed her hands before her lips as if playing an invisible instrument, and began to beat out a tune on the floor as she started to sing.
"One, two, one, two, three, four! Come on all you good rats, we'll send you to rat heaven, you'll find the pearly gates in the froth and the foam!" She danced out of the room as she sung, and the rats began to follow her.
As she and the rats vanished from sight Mark Sheppard could only wonder, was he even really awake, or was this all some sort of strange dream?
XXX XXXX XXX
Henri DuCamp was trying.
He had always tried to be the best he could, the best son, the best exterminator, the best ruler.
He wasn't trying hard enough at the moment.
His ears could the sound growing closer with every passing moment pitter patter, pitter patter, soft velvet paws and hard shinning claws!
Why was Jacqueline Renier so upset with him?
He'd promised her that he'd never again take the lives of her servants ever since his great mistake! He'd lived up to that promise to the best of his abilities doing everything in his power to make life in this land pleasant for her subjects!
His best was not good enough for Jacqueline Renier though... not even close.
Pitter patter, pitter patter, pitter patter!
How could such a soft sound assault his ears so loudly?
He ran, and he ran and her ran. Malformed half hands scrabbled against the ground as his mind rushed through every possible trick and hiding place he could think of, hoping to shake his pursuer.
Pitter patter, pitter patter, pitter patter!
Not that it was doing him any good though, he could hear the sound growing louder with every passing moment. What... what did she want from him? It wasn't fair... it wasn't fair that he should have this happen to him!
Pitter patter, pitter patter, pitter patter, pitter patter...
This was wrong, this was wrong, Henri had spent how long in these various tunnels? He should know them like the back of his hand, and yet suddenly he was having trouble remembering which one lead where.
It was getting hard to remember, it was getting hard to think! All he could be sure of was that his pursuer was right behind him.
Pitter patter, pitter patter, pitter patter, pitter patter, pitter patter!
Tunnels once familiar to him had been rendered terra incognito by sheer terror. Before he knew it Henri DuCamp took a wrong turn, and found himself in a cul-de-sac.
With a soft deadly "pitter patter" the bloody daemon came upon him as Henri pressed his back against the wall as firmly as it would go.
"Tell Lady Jacqueline I'm sorry..." Henri sobbed tear streaming from his eyes.
"You should be sorry. How many Richemuloise did you kill before you came here? You haven't learned anything though, not yet. La Grande Dame, told me it is my purpose in life to deal with those like you, and I won't disappoint her." The daemon vowed.
Still with tears in his eyes, Henri charged toward the beast rather than wait and let death come to him.
He moved fast, but the bloody daemon was faster, there was a stabbing pain in his side, and then it felt like his blood itself was on fire!
XXX XXX XXX
"La Grande Dame, told me it is my purpose in life to deal with those like you, and I won't disappoint her." James Firecat vowed, his mind momentarily flickering back to the oath he had sworn to Jacqueline Renier.
He was thus somewhat distracted when the Roi des rats charged at him.
Unfortunately for the rodent ruler in question, all that meant was James Firecat reacted purely on instinct, and his instinct had no pity for vermin, keekees or otherwise.
The Roi de rats fell to the ground, ten bright red marks crisscrossing its belly where James's claws had slashed its stomach.
He planted a foot on the monster's back pinning him in place.
"Your charmed life is over, your majesty!" James promised the wererat, determined to see the lycanthrope hung, or however it was they executed criminals in Nosos.
He ended up being more right than he expected though, before his very eyes its skin turn purple, fur began to fall out in clumps, ugly welts grew into being and the wererat began to convulse wildly, before his body went terribly still.
Then it began to change shape, one final time.
Eventually the only thing that shared the room with James Firecat was a filth encrusted fowl smelling human corpse, seemingly struck down more by some strange poison than any physical harm.
James paused for a moment and examined his claws in confusion.
"Have you guys always been able to do that?" He couldn't help but ask, though unsurprisingly the digits in question refrained from answering.
Either way, it was clear enough that the people of Nosos would now have one fewer thing to worry about.
XXX XXX XXX
A great many of Mark's fellow workers were surprised enough to see him alive the next day that they openly congratulated him on the fact. He worked through his shift in a half daze, as if he couldn't quite believe that he was still alive either.
By the time his hours were up however he'd come to a conclusion, and luckily enough the man he wanted to speak to was waiting around outside the mine.
"Seeing how I've already put my head on the chopping block for you once Mr. Diamondclaw, I figure I might as well do it again. If you still need someone to run your union... I'll be your man." Promised Mark Shepard.
Alexander embraced him in an almost bone crushing hug, before reaching down to remove his employee's silver armband.
"I'll have Devi get you a new one of these... one that says 'Mark Shepard: Beta." He promised.
End Chapter.
AN: You get what you pay for. If I had time to properly think all these things over/edit them, put a few down on paper before I had to post them/show them to you folks, I probably would have started James doing the Darkwing Duck thing back in the first book. As it stands, I've thought of it, I like it, it will show up from time to time, try and enjoy it. Same goes to how in the first book I mentioned that James' claws couldn't retract in hybrid form, whereas they clearly are in this one, though I'm chalking that up to a side effect of James having such great control of his morphology he can take a hybrid form with set claws or retractable ones.
Next up, "Regicide" is what they call Chess in Warhammer 40K and it probably goes by that name in a few other settings (including my version of Nosos) because it's a reasonable enough name for the game. If you don't know what the word means (much like James) then here's your vocabulary word for the day, "regicide"=the killing of a king.
The song that Mirri sings is a few lines from "Good Rats" by Dropkick Murphy. It's a song about a bunch of rats gathering together to drown themselves. You get no points for guessing what she's going to be doing with those rats now that she's used her control of animal powers over them.
A lot of the conversation between James and the Roi des rats takes place in their shared native language of Low Mordentish (French) google translate will be your friend to get at least a rough understanding of what is going on.
Henri DuCamp/The Roi des rats is a fannon character who I did not create, however once I read his backstory/information I instantly knew that he'd fit perfectly into this story.
He was born in Richemulot to a family with a long history of being "exterminators" which in Richemulot actually means you work with the rats/wererats to make it look like a bunch of rats got poisoned/killed, followed by the rats temporarily cutting down on whatever they were doing, so that they can then come back in full force once the heat has died down. Thus, it looks like someone is doing something about the ever present rat problem, even if nothing is actually being accomplished.
Alas, his father never really got around to telling him that part of the process before he (Henri's father) died. Henri meanwhile spent a fair amount of time studying abroad in Borca, mastering the art of how to exterminate vermin with various poisons. He was quite successful, up until he got hired by a wealthy merchant from Richemulot to do a job that actually took place inside his home domain.
He succeeded at the job, but if you kill off rats wholesale in Richemulot, Jacqueline Renier is A: going to notice, and B: not be amused.
Before long Henri was captured by wererats and brought to Jacqueline who was of course determined to make him pay for "murdering" so many of "her subjects" as you might expect.
In this case, it involved having Henri's body infected with wererat blood, and then a few choice poisons of her own (Jacqueline has always had at least a passing interest in poisons/diseases, since she dreams of one day creating a disease which will cause the bites of otherwise ordinary rats to make their victims into infected wererats) for good measure.
This was not a pleasant experience for Henri to say the least.
He survived and even escaped, but it drove him crazy, since while in hybrid form he is much smarter than a infected wererat should be (int 2, pure animal instinct basically, maybe he's taken enough levels in Moonchild to keep his human mind when he transforms, it is just that his "human mind" thinks he's a rat) he now sees life entirely from a rat's point of view. Thus, he believes that it is humans who are the vermin infesting the rats' homes and need to be exterminated. If that wasn't bad enough, his body happens to now spontaneously generates various poisons to help him.
Alas, as I've mentioned before, context matters, context really matters in the conversation between James and Henri. If Henri had been more sane, he might have been able to properly articulate some pretty important information about how Jacqueline Renier.
As it stands, Henri is remorseful about the rats that he poisoned back in Richemulot, but in the context James frames their conversation, James only sees this as Henri being insincerely sorry for the humans he killed, because he's still killing humans ever chance he gets.
Also, if you found it strange that their confrontation dissolved into a slasher movie rather than actual fight, I will explain.
Henri has a horrible phobia of cats, to the point that as written he's not even supposed to get a will save to avoid running away from them.
It is the meta-narrative curse of every Ravenloft villain to have an interesting and compelling backstory that the PCs will completely ignore in favor or killing them as soon as they can do so without risking a Dark Power Check. By toning his fear down slightly, Henri can at least articulate enough of his backstory that James thought he knew what was going on.
Also as written Henri has an extremely adverse reaction to cat's blood, if he's struck by a weapon that harms him (IE beats his lycanthropic DR) and has been coated with cat's blood, he has to make a fortitude save to avoid falling ill with a fever so bad he'll be confined to bed-rest for a while.
It does not directly say what happens if he's actually harmed by a cat though.
I decided for the ease of moving the story along (we'll explore the "justice" system of Nosos soon enough) that damage from a cat/werecat makes him forced to preform a fortitude save, or have the various poisons bouncing around his body go out of control and kill him.
So yeah this was never going to be much of a fight.
Much like why I will never write a story based around "The Created" because Florence with her ability to transform into a plant that is immune to paralysis effects and then spontaneously cast the warp wood spell over and over, and over again which is pretty much the silver bullet of choice against an army animated toys who as you might guess, are made entirely out of wood.
So instead, I told very little of this from James' perspective and instead pointed out the fact that yeah our "heroes" can be just as horrifying as some of the villains' they face.
James doesn't need to have the spirit of some sort of demi-god, or who knows what, bouncing around inside his head for him to strike fear into his foes, and he will fight wererats with a deadly seriousness. After all, like he said, Jacqueline Renier told him his destiny was to kill wererats for her, and James is nothing if not loyal to La Grande Dame.