Gameplay 1b - Rats in the Woodwork

Gerald slashes at the rats, not his favorite animals he grimaces in disgust.

The rats swarm over you, myriad teeth and claws tearing at your clothes, your skin.

But they do not stop to engage with you, but are steaming past, lashing out at you in fear and aggression, as they flee something from the tunnel they came from.

"Well alright fleeing rats... who wants to check out what spooked that many rats?" Ataan states dusting himself off.

Cecily leans against the wall, watching the rats with both bemusement and curiosity. "Preferably someone who can deal with whatever is capable of scaring a whole swarm."

From the top left you entered, across the top of the map, then down to the first intersection. The rats can from the bottom up to and over you, then continued on back the way you came. You are fairly certain they came from around the corner.

You follow that trail, going down then turning left (I.e., toward the round room in the map). Another intersection, but pretend you can't see that the tunnel left leads to the round room (your lantern doesn't illuminate that far). Did you want to look into that small square room just below or move into the darkness to the left side of the map.

The small alcove: Dozens of cat and dog corpses lie strewn about, and there are several human skeletons here as well. If you want to get up close and examine the corpses or search through them, you'll need to make Guts checks.

At this point Gerald's queasiness has subsided and he is almost immune to new atrocities and hideous smells. Curious, he stoops and lowers his gaze, reaching out his hands, looking for clues.

Gerald indeed feels hardened against these atrocities. While you don't see anything of note among the discarded bones, you might be able to tell something from the bones themselves. With a successful Healing roll, that is.

Cecily decides not to follow Gerald into the literal corpse room, impressed by his steel will and (apparently) lack of a working nose. "Do be careful in there."

Ataan finds a quiet spot to fetch, bringing up whatever he ate and drank that morning. This leaves him defenseless for a short while (critical failure), and when he recovers, he is at -1 to all tests (failure).

An examination of the skeletons coupled with a successful Healing roll reveals the bones have been gnawed upon. There are incisor marks like those of a rat, only much, much bigger.

There is nothing else of interest here.

You continue down the remaining corridor, and arrive at the large circular room. There you find an enormous rat, The size of a small horse! On sensing the human invaders, it rushes to attack, its enormous incisors chomping at the thought of devouring their flesh. Behind it, you see the still form of a young girl. She doesn't look harmed, and may still be alive.

Everyone is up before the rat. (So rolling for Danger Sense is unnecessary in this instance).

"Let her go beast!!!!" Ataan roars wilding attacking the rat with his weapons.

Ataan is somewhat off kilter from the retching (-1 to actions) so fails to penetrate the rats defenses (Parry 6).