Downtown Druid

Jacopo refused to listen to Dantes. He lunged at the nearest of the disobedient rats and tore into him with tooth and claw. The others attempted to tear him off of him, but Jacopo didn’t relent until he swallowed his victim’s throat along with a draught of blood. He then kicked off of that one and leapt onto the second, turning himself into a man as he did so, the weight of him causing that rat’s spine to snap as he grew in size. He grabbed at the last two, killing one of them by slamming it onto the ground by the tail, and biting the head off of the last one, crunching into its skull as its paws scratched at his chin.

It was a bit odd, watching what happened through Jacopo’s eyes as he shifted and killed them so brutally, but Dantes had no criticisms. He certainly couldn’t deny Jacapo’s efficiency. Dantes focused on the rats through Jacopo, looking at them down to the unseeable level. He could see some sicknesses in them, but nothing he wasn't used to seeing among rats when he looked at them that closely. They were just rats. Rats that didn’t listen to him in spite of his mark being full.

“We need to figure out what just happened,” sent Dantes.

“I will search,” responded Jacopo, shifting back into is usual form, blood dripping from the fur on his chin as he started to search the nearby area, communing with other rats nearby and testing to make sure that they would obey him through Dantes's mark.

Dantes frowned as he finished his meal. He pushed his plate to the side, and stood up. He went to his audience chamber and sat on his living throne. He closed his eyes and sunk himself into the pool of interconnected life that he’d been cultivating. From the pool, he followed all of the rivers that flowed into it and out of it. Most flowed clear, but at the very edges of it, where his perception was at its weakest, he could feel something. It was like seeing a speck of dust in the air, or smelling the taint of something rotten streets away. He tried to pull his full focus on it, but either slipped away, or it wasn’t great enough for him to detect. Was it the sickness that was spreading? Or something else? Was that the source of the rats' disobedience? He hadn't sensed anything like that taint in them. Still the coincidence of it couldn’t be ignored.

He stood from his chair, pulling himself mentally from that pool of life and back into the more tangible world he preferred to live in. He slipped into his series of apartments and checked briefly on Felix and Wane. They were still unconscious, but they looked much better. Their wounds were clean and dressed, and their breathing was getting stronger by the day. He left them and went down to the club. Normally, he’d make some rounds, but he could sense that his gardens were all in good shape and his various operations were running smoothly, largely because of the work he and Jayk had done to insulate them from any damage caused by the sealing of the Academy.

He stood in the small balcony of his exclusive seat at the club and considered taking some of his restlessness and putting it toward a healthy bit of morning whoring, but before he could act on that thought one of his bouncers approached him, a young quarter orc who seemed to have some trouble with eye contact.

“Boss, there’s a kobold here. Says he wants to talk to you.”

“What’s his name?”