Pugmire: Rotten Rats

Yesterday we did some doggie. No, wait. Here's last time.

The characters arrive in Waterdog Port and bid farewell to the riverboat dog that brought them. They need to find a way to make some money to buy passage to Port Matthew, but mostly they're interested in seeing a new town, so they split up a bit. 

Petunia Pibble finds herself amazed by the birds - there just aren't any in Pugmire, but here there are many, mingling with the dogs and cats and rats and mice and lizards and so on. Falling back on her old Pibble charm, she walks right up to one and introduces herself. Fortunately she is very charming, and the parrot - one Timias of the Three Sunsets - is happy to chat with her.

He tells her a little about the town, some of which she'd already heard from Crabber Hound - Bernese Marina is expensive, Old Barrio is dangerous. She's also fascinated by the wood and metal devices he wears on a strap on his chest. He explains how these "pistols" work, and Petunia asks if there's any use for them outside of killing. "Making a loud noise," he says, "but otherwise not really. Things are dangerous out at sea."

He also tells her that, since she's looking for some plastic, there's an opportunity afoot, one that he would pursue himself but that his ship, the Night Star is leaving today. One of the Luminaries (governors) of Waterdog, one Erwin Sharpei, is offering a truly obscene amount of plastic for a object called the Flask of Bobby Golden. Trouble is, no one knows where it is. Petunia thanks him, and wanders off into the city to try and find affordable lodging.

Peppa Papillon heads into the North Barrio to the Temple of Man. She meets a tall dog with a long snoot named Brother Aigor Afghan (the dog, not the snoot), who welcomes her talks with her about the Church in Waterdog Port. "It's a town full of pirates," he says, "so what it means to be a Good Dog can be a little...fuzzy." Peppa does some work at their kitchen for the rest of the day, happy to be serving.

Gelert Sausagedog heads to the Sunset Barrio to try and do some busking and drum up some money. He asks around a bit about whether there's a system for finding a corner, and is directed to the Grape Theater to talk to one Barnabas Amber, a rat who, though not "in charge" as such, knows the lay of the land. Barnabas recommends a corner a few blocks over; not busy now, but around sunset gets very trafficked and there's enough space to do the acrobatics that Sausagedog has in mind. 

Dire Newfoundland, once their feline charges have someplace to chill out, heads into the North Barrio, the crime-ridden "bad" section of town. Boomer Pitbull follows, figuring that no one should got into this place alone. Dire is looking for someone, someone that he thinks might well have already risen through the criminal ranks, but won't tell Boomer who she is. They don't have any luck finding this person, mostly because the rats and mice they find (that seems to be who lives in the Haze) don't stop to talk. They do note that the acidic fog degrades everything and makes the air taste funny, though - this is rough place to live.

They find a market street and talk to an old, blind mouse selling powders and spices and so on. Boomer asks if she has anything to enhance his rage, and she mixes him a potion - drink it off, she says, and it'll put some real power behind his anger. Dire asks for more deadly ingredients, but she replies "such mortal drugs I have, but Waterdog's law is death to any mouse that utters them." (And Cael got the reference, I was so proud. Fun fact: I played the Apothecary in the worst production of Romeo & Juliet when I was in college.) Dire buys a couple of drugs that will have a catnip effect on dogs and birds, and they take their leave of the drug-mouse. They also notice, as they're leaving the Haze, that rats and mice don't seem to be mixing, and indeed seem to be deliberately avoiding one another.

Everyone meets up at the temple and talks a little about their day. They've been there a little while when a bird arrives and asks for "Petunia." When Petunia identifies herself, he presents her (with a flourish) with a letter from "Zanna of the Four Audacities." She reads it and finds that Zanna, another of the city's Luminaries, has invited them to dine at her home in the Sunset Barrio.

They follow the bird across town and to Zanna's house. The dogs were perhaps expecting opulence, but it's actually very simple - she doesn't have enough seating for all of them, for which she apologizes. She gives them food and drink and explains what she needs. 

They may have heard, of course, that Erwin Sharpei is offering a lot of money for the Flask of Bobby Golden. He's let that much be known, with the result that there are bands of pirates blundering around looking for it, but no one really has a lead. Zanna does have a lead, and she wants to act as the group's patron (they're Pioneers, and Zanna, as a former adventurer, trusts them more than other pirates). She wants to use the money to build up the Haze and improve things generally into Waterdog. She doesn't have a lot of plastic to throw around, but her name means something and she's happy to extend her line of credit and reputation to the characters while they're here, letting them get food, lodging, and equipment without paying for it. Indeed, she can even arrange for passage to Port Matthew for them. Finally, she'll arrange for Pickles von Shadow to be incarcerated while they're here, so that Amaranth von Rex, Pickles' captor, can have a bit of a rest.

The characters agree - this is very much their kind of job anyway, working to improve things for the downtrodden. Zanna tells them what she knows. The Flask was on Bobby Golden's ship when it sunk, and was supposedly salvaged by a team of rats. The last she knew, the Flask was the in Haze, and Brutus, the de facto leader of the rats, is probably the one to ask about it. But there has been a lot of violence in the Haze of late, and the rumor is that the rats are getting aggressive, beating up or just making disappear people who go to do business with them. 

That's not a great lead, but it's more than anyone else has! The characters head to an inn that Zanna recommends, check into rooms, and head into the Haze. They discover that the Haze is difficult to navigate. Signs aren't legible, streets and piers dead-end into the swamp, and piles of debris are everywhere. They also notice that new construction piles on old, as buildings degrade very quickly in all this. They make their way into Cypressroot, the neighborhood at the heart of the Haze, and find the most impressive building - a veritable stronghold, maintained constantly against the Haze. That must be Brutus' home.

There are heavily armed rats guarding it, however. They talk to the guards and Sausagedog asks for audience, implying that they have information that might be interesting. The guards allow that if they know who's spreading these nasty rumors about rats beating people up randomly, that might be something Brutus wants to talk about, but "if you say you've got information and then you don't, that works out bad for you and me, you see?" Sausagedog confers with his friends, and they decide they'd better have a good reason to press the issue before they press the issue.

They continue looking around the Haze and find a store called Gek's Garments, run by a lizard named Gek. He's fitting a couple of mice for waistcoats, and explains that if the get holes, bring them back, he'll fix them! The characters browse a little ("I don't have anything that will fit you," he says, staring at Dire), but when they ask about rat/mouse tensions Gek makes an excuse and heads for the back of the store. They ask his mouse customers, and hearing that if you want to do business with rats, you go to Swampwalk - but beware, they've been really violent lately. 

The characters decide to get a good night's sleep rather than wandering into "Swampwalk" during the night - sounds dangerous. They head back to the inn and comb the acid out of their fur, and in the morning, they head back into the Haze and promptly get lost. 

Well, not lost, they just don't know where they are. Sausagedog hears people-noises and they follow that, and arrive at an inn called Harv's Hideaway. As they approach, they see five rats kicking a single mouse. Sausagedog bonks one on the head with his staff and the rats turn around ready for violence, but then see Dire drawing a greatsword and decide this isn't a fight they want. They scatter into the Haze and Peppa helps the little mouse up. She introduces herself as Claire, and offers to buy them a drink.

She explains that the rats, for some reason, thought she knew something about this whole "rats are being violent" rumor and decided to beat it out of her. (The dogs acknowledge the irony here.) Claire isn't sure where the rumors started; this incident aside she doesn't think it's as bad as people are saying. But she does confirm that Swampwalk - specifically the Murky Alley - is where you need to go to do business with rats. The dogs ask what she does, and she dodges the question a little; she's a messenger, a go-between. That might be why the rats thought she'd know something? It might, she says.

The dogs head out into the Haze, into Swampwalk, across the bridges and ropes that lead into the Middle Marsh. They quickly find themselves isolated from any other people - no one comes here unless they have a specific reason. Petunia spots odd footprints, something with five toes that moves like a frog but has weird feet. She follows the prints to the edge of the dock, and then something reaches up and grabs her head!

The creature is a frog the size of a person, but covered in hair and with a simian face. It tries to yank Petunia into the bog, but she stands her ground, and then a horde of the hideous things crawls up at the characters! They get in some nasty bites, mostly to Peppa, but all of the dogs are able to fight them off - Dire cleaves one in twain with his greatsword, Dire fells a couple with his ax, Petunia zaps the one holding her right back into the swamp with a Magic Missile, Peppa conjures a magic staff to bonk one, and Sausagedog, while not having enough room to engage in his usual swashbuckling, still manages to kill one or two with his new hand ax. Dire throws one of their heads into the swamp in triumph, and watches as the multitude of the frog-monkeys still in the murk swarm it and eat it. "Well, that's nightmarish." 

The dogs move on into Murky Alley - indeed, it's labeled with the only readable sign they've seen. There are a few crates labeled with the crest of Brutus (they recognize it from his stronghold), but then Boomer gets closer and realizes that these symbols were crudely painted, not stenciled. He jiggles one of the crates and finds that it's empty, just weighted down with some rocks. This is a setup.

Sausagedog notices the footprints this time, but these aren't frog-monkey prints. They're huge, four-toed, reptilian prints, something quadrupedal that comes up out of the swamp. "I've read about these," he says. "Allo-dile? Crocogator? They have big chompy-chompy mouths and they make a noise like...

...that."

The characters steel themselves.