[IC] SOLO - Toot's Adventure

[Toot]

Toot removes a two small pieces of dried meat.  He offers one to Boo and the other he rips in half and tosses it toward the rat.  "Hello friend," Toot squeaks quietly.  "Can you help me out.  If you do, I will give you the rest of this tasty nom nom." 

[Will attempt to use Wild Empathy 7.  Hoping to get a bonus with food since rats mainly just eat and pee/crap.     But of course I rolled a 1 for a total of 8.  Thank god you can't critically fail a skill check.  If Toot can try again he will (here goes nothing...)  Yay 22!  If I had failed, Toot was going to give the Rat the finger!   ]

[DM Surranó]

The rat looked to be friendly initially so Toot's wide grin (OOC as on your avatar ) did not scare it away but definitely made it think whether this bigger rat was about to swallow it just like some kind of snack. Carefully it picked up and scurried back to the stones. From the confines it considered safe, it squeaked back "What?" while gnawing on the tasty nom nom. Reading the rat's body language Toot thinks he may need to provide the second half of the bribe before he would get back anything.
(OOC - keeping friendly attitude is DC1 so effectively Toot did not fail on that... however, with a second bribe and the roll of 22 the rat would become "helpful" even do some tasks)

[Toot]

For a split second Toot was annoyed.  More at himself than the Rat.  The Rat was just doing what Rats do.  Which was want something to eat.  Pretty smart if Toot said so himself.  So he offers the Rat the rest of the Nom Nom and squeaks, "Now do Toot favor?"  

[OoC: If yes...]

Toot squeaks, "Do you know what is making all that noise?  What do they seem to be doing?  How many of them are there? [One, few, lots?]"  If the rat hasn't explored the area, Toot squeaks, "I need you to go in room and then come back and tell me what you see; what they are doing; and how many of them there are?"  Even though the Rat had animal intelligence and would reply with its perspective, Toot was very familiar with rats (they were almost like kin) and how they 'spoke' about things.  So hopefully he would gain more information about what was going on than he would from a typical animal that he wasn't as familiar with their body language and moods.

[DM Surranó]

The rat accepts the bribe and spills.
"Several males, of different nests. They don't bother rats. There is also a dead female. Fear killed female, males killed fear. Males now look for food."
Toot deciphers the word "several" is somewhere between three and a dozen. Rats can count up to two and a dozen or more is often referred to as "nest", "family" or "pack".
The term "of different nests" probably refers to different races or at least obviously differing in this rat's perception (maybe appearance but more likely smell).
The generic body language of the rat suggests that its kind is not too much disturbed around here. What it referred to as "fear" is uncertain.
There's also a grain of salt needed to interpret "food". Rats always look for food so it's probably a trivial statement.

[DM Surranó]

As Toot inquires the rat it suddenly squeaks an "eeep!" and scurries back to safety as two men approach from the left (north). One of them, orcish by the look, addresses the other, apparently a grey dwarf, in Common:

"Have we enough iron bars yet? We need a tower shield too."

The two fail to notice the newcomers as Boo remains silent and motionless as well. They shuffle through the rubble in the room, then proceed south.
Just as their steps get a bit more distant, Boo sniffs the air and turns around, staring straight along the empty paved road. Or is it empty? There is some light, about the same strength as Boo's torch, down the road, right at the corner. The bear sniffs again, as if he caught scent in the draft coming along.

OOC - remember that upwind scent range is 60 feet. I think your speak with animals has worn off by now so the bear can't tell more.

[Toot]

[OoC: Sorry for being gone so long.  Even though I'm at work tonight, it hasn't been busy.  So I've been able to get caught up on some of my posting.  YAY! ]

Toot freezes in place and thinks, 'FACK!!  A GREY DWARF!  WHHHY MEEEEE!'  He slowly crouches down to become as small as possible and watches.  Toot hoped beyond hope the Dwarf didn't spot them and when Toot sees he's moving away, Toot begins to release a breath of relief but then nearly chokes on it when the light comes into view.  'FACK!' his mind screams!  Toot jumps at the bear's light and pulls the cloth over the tip to snuff out it's illumination.  Hiding behind Boo, he whispers, "Heel," so Boo follows close.  Then while slowly retreating away from both sets of intruders, Toot whispers, "What is dis?  Rush hour at the Waterdeep [or some other huge city] market?"   While his little heart races in terror, Toot's mind races for options.  'Run.  Wildshape.  Run.  Cry.  Run.  Summon.  RUN!!!!!!'

[DM Surranó]

Toot does not really have safe bets where to run. He's at the east end of a sixty-foot underground road with some light source at the far end and a gate on this end. Beyond the gate there's North (left) where the orc and dwarf came from and South (right) where they left.
The only obvious way away from both sets of "intruders" is North (i.e. where they came from). Will he instruct Boo to press his shoulders through the opening, get into the building, and go that way?

[Toot]

Toot was very concerned that he couldn't see what was using the light.  Either there's another creature, like the will o' wisp he had never seen but his master warned him about or something using magic to conceal themselves.  He supposed he could summon a mist to conceal his retreat or maybe a sleet storm to freeze the ground so whatever it is couldn't catch up as he fled but if it was flying like a wisp the ice  wouldn't help.  But running all the way back isn't going to help because these big'uns would still be here, blocking his way. 

Taking a deep breath, Toot decides to fall back on his old saying, 'Better the unknown than something that's known to be scary.'  Toot takes on his trusty Gnome disguise but instead of a child he takes the form of a wide-eyed Gnome teenager filled with wanderlust.  Or at least he hoped.  He wasn't fond of Gnomes so he just imagined a stupid looking, smiling, big-nosed, turd! 

There were actually many ancient Legends that said Jermlaine were once Gnomes.  Or Garl Glittergold played a nasty trick upon their god that killed him.  This had the effect of turning his worshippers into Jermlaine. Or they were created by Gnomish slaves who escaped their masters.  Some became priests and began worshipping the god of their captors.  Using the appearance of their patron god as a model, they used captured humans (including some of their former masters) and their own flesh to create a minute race of spies and guards. The gnomes were destroyed by spell casters of the Imperium, but their servant race survived and flourished.  Whatever the truth, Jermlaines seem to owe it to Gnomes for their wretched state.

Shaking the negative thoughts out of his mind, Toot makes sure he looks sufficiently Gnomish enough. 'Yup, I look like an idiot,' he thinks to himself.  Then he pulls out his shield and crossbow and squeaks in common, "Who goes there?  If you come any closer you'll get a crossbow bolt up yer arse!"  Then while waiting for a response, Toot moves into Boo's square.  If anything came too close he knew Boo would smell it first and he'd shoot it as soon as Boo took a swing for it!

[DM Surranó]

Just as Toot shrieks towards the enlightened opponents he can hear elevated conversation from behind.

"Murkatos, Maul, get us some strips of cloth from the lady's room so we can tie these bars down will ya!" one of the men calls out.
"Aye," comes a distant response.

In their shouting to each other they probably couldn't hear the shrieking gnomish youngling. At least that's what Toot prays for right now...

[Toot]

Just as Toot shrieks towards the enlightened opponents he can hear elevated conversation from behind.

 
[OoC: Actually I said Toot SQUEAKED not shrieked.  There's a subtle but potentially life saving difference.    ]

Hearing the other men returning, Toot quietly curses, "Mother Heifer!  Why Toot have no luck? Why Boo, Why?"  Then Toot gets an idea.  The young Gnome moves away from the opening so that group can't see him and will have a harder time hearing him.  Then he says, "Whatever you are, show yourself.  Don't force me to call my friends to come kick your ass.  If you listen you can hear them coming already!  One of them is a mean old Grey Dwarf too!  I'm sure you've heard all the bad stuff they like doing to their enemies!"  Toot didn't really know much of anything about Grey Dwarves except their surly reputation.  He hoped that reputation was enough to make this weird light think twice about moving closer.