Rennish opened the door to the room to see if the guards were still down the hallway. Ed's distraction should be working all over the building by now and he felt more safe stepping out of cover. He had no concept of the calamity that was unfolding across much of the chapel as they snuck through.
Rats were scurrying from behind statues and shelves all through the building. The sounds of books falling to the ground could be heard around the halls and the screams of people who were being investigated by the rats.
The ratfolk came first from the basement levels. They investigated everyone, looking at them with beady eyes. Rat folk were no larger than the average 2-year-old human but stronger and the face of a rat and tail. They had hands with sharp claws and their eyes held a bead of tiny red light in the backs showing that they were magical creations, not natural.
The ratfolk ignored gold and treasure. They stole food occasionally but moved with the silent purpose of their creator's intent. They were driven to remove the guards from the building. Any human who held a sword against them would find themselves mobbed before they knew what had happened.
Ed and Rennish moved through the hall away from their escape room and towards the stairs. They both were counting on the mayhem as a way to keep the guards from noticing who they were looking at. As they stepped into the stairwell they came face to face with a guard holding a pike towards a group of three warriors, their claws were drawn and they stood looking at the guard smiling.
He looked at Ed and Rennish before trying to back up the stairs. "Good god run you, idiots! They are coming for us all!" he said waving away and shaking as he pointed his spear at the ratfolk. Unless he attacked, they were commanded to just drive him out of the building. Ed and Rennish pushed forward past him and when he lunged forward to attack to clear the way for them, they all pounced and the squelching noise of blood escaping his body the first they heard before they heard his armor hit the floor. Ed nearly vomited but pushed the thought down inside.
He was seeing firsthand the effects of his handiwork. It was brutal. Ed had always tried to fit in and sit back. Even when he was parading at Erust, he may have felt more manly and collected but this was still new to his stomach. He was not used to being the cause of so much wanton destruction.
They darted down the stairs as far as they could go. They had 10 floors down a tower and out through a series of chapels before they could get to the courtyard in the back that Ysennia waited for them in, and where the carriages were parked at.
Rats darted madly through the building. Hundreds of them scurried around and up clothes and down window drapes. The kitchen staff was trying to shoo them away with brooms, one chef was doing his best to fend them off with a cleaver and making piles of beheaded rats. He was laughing and singing the names of rat-based recipes he could make. Rat on a stick, a rat in a bun, rat fried salad. The list went on and on.
Wharf rats, sewer rats, household rats, and rats without tails all ran through the halls. The average wharf rat is just over 2 and a half units from nose to rump, not counting the tail, and whey they stood on their back legs they were nearly 3 foot tall. The hair on their tail was bristly and they smelled of the trash and rubbish they lived on.
The guards of the Inquisitor's division were slowly walking through the halls spreading poison. The word had gotten out quickly about the sudden explosion of rats and the Inquisitors had quickly acted to grab Ed before the church could decide his fate. If he 'died' in such a circumstance no one would have doubted it and it was the best chance they had to claim him for themselves.
They knew Ed had powers and such powers would serve the church well to subjugate heathens of the world. If the nonbelievers chose to fear the church that was as good as believing in their minds. They wanted obedience and could care very little about whether the public believed. There was money to be made off the peasants and they had plans for each coin.
It wasn't long after they made it upstairs that they found Ed was missing. The room was still locked and the guards were standing silently staring at a whole horde of rats and ratfolk, their fear had saved their lives as they had refused to grab a weapon. They just stood defending the door and the rats stood to keep them pinned in place. The inquisitors actually drove away from the rats with poisons and gas they kept in their pouches. It killed the guards too, but collateral damage was a term they cared nothing for.
The inquisitors darted from hallway to hallway inspecting for signs of Ed, they were always one step behind him as he made his way down the hallways. They knew he would most likely head to the entrance he came in and they wanted to catch him. They lacked magic for communication or else a trap would have been easily set at the exits.
Rats were carrying away corpses and guards and people were starting to notice that when they ran for to the exits, doors, and windows the rats would leave them alone and people were clawing to get to the nearest way outdoors. It was like watching rats jump from a sinking ship. Humans were jumping out of windows and climbing the sides of the building to get out. Only a few were dragged back in by the largest predator in the building, the were-rats. They were very nearly the size of a full-grown man and their hunger for flesh kept them eating constantly. Thankfully they only ate people who had raised a weapon. Women and children who had fled in abject fear were completely safe, the guards and men however were not.
Ed had noticed the men in black robes chasing them two hallways ago. One of the side effects of this spell was that he was connected to each rat. They were passing him notes so as more and more entered the building he was getting more and more of a map in his mind. Rats had excellent tracking skills and highly specialized noses and ears for hunting in dark places. He was experiencing these for the first hand and the inquisitors held a smell like copper and poison all over them that was hard to shake.
Ed tried sending rats to block them but his contract with the lute had not included that kind of stipulation. The best he could do was use their eyes and ears to help guide him out.
Rennish would check around a corner and peak for dangers and then wave Ed forward. Ed was getting tired of it and was walking from room to room and hallway to hallway without checking them. He was the rat lord right now and he knew of the immense power of a herd of this size. This many rats could decimate every living breathing thing if he had commanded it. In a way, he was drunk with power. Ed was unpopular and unlucky. The feeling he had now belonged to people who had the power to determine the fate of nations and the lives of common everyday people.
They made their way through the last corridor to the first chapel you entered when you came up the walkway. They had come a back way and they entered the chapel from one of the priest's entrances behind a tapestry. A rat was hanging from the tapestry and making a noise like water dripping.
Ed shoved past him. He wanted to walk triumphantly out of the chapel… He was the rat king, destroyer of souls, and the king of this spell. It was going to his head. He was absorbing the power of the spell and it was making him drunk, so drunk he missed the two robed figures at the door that led them to freedom and the Goddess' protection.
"I see you made it this far. And you brought a friend." Said the head inquisitor. He was a round paunchy man who smiled with crooked teeth and smelled of agony and the anguish of others. He enjoyed the dirty work of the church because if he was a free man he would have been jailed for his proclivities. Here in the church though they were awarded time and time again. The more a person spilled everything they knew about a subject and then their guts he was given praise. He was a dirty little secret.
"You have something I want, and you can't leave with it." He said walking forward confidently.
Ed grasped the flute in his hands. He wished he had put in a clause to control the rats better. In this instance, though the flute protected its master. Ed was not able to control the rats, but the flute made the judgment call to defend its owner. Magical items often held a bit of personality from the creator of that specific item.
Rats came flooding the building. They crawled through windows and drains. They crawled across the ground and fell from the roof onto people as the flute in Ed's pocket demanded to be safe.
The rats tore at the clothes of the inquisitors and they started to panic. Ed mustered all the strength he could buff himself with and willed himself to be charismatic and powerful.
"You held the wrong person here. You have my relic and have dared to try and kill me?" Ed yelled in the best Erust voice he could muster. Ed was by nature quiet and demure but when he was Erust he could be that cool guy in the stories who everyone fawned over.
The rats sprang forth and two were rats came out from behind the door that Ed had emerged from and stood between him and the black robes. They walked forward crouched down ready to tear them apart. Ed walked forward, Rennish stood behind him grinning, if he was going to be murdered by the Lady Ysennia at least he got to see this before he died. Ed was acting cool. Maybe he was exploring the extent of his power. Maybe he was drunk on it. Rennish had no clue but he wasn't going to waste the opportunity to save his own skin. He was still corporeal now and he could be harmed. He was out to save his own skin now and get Ed away.
The rats pushed Infront of Ed creating a sort of spearhead to shove the two away. As Ed got closer the two men were covered in more and more rats. The poison and gas were unable to break free as the rats would come in and breathe up the gas before their master could even smell it.
Ed pushed past, the one who had spoken to him reached out and tried to grab his sleeve. "We will find you again you know!" he croaked as he was being crushed by rats. They were clawing and shoving their way into his clothes, the small ones were trying to claw up his clothes and down his throat.
Ed shoved him away. "I am protected by the gods; misfortune fell on you for threatening me!" and rats covered him completely. The writhing mass of rodents carried him away in pieces. Ed walked past the grisly site and stepped outside. As soon as he was escaped the boundary of the magic was triggered and the rats started to retreat. Rennish felt the magic lessening. He shoved him forward. The magic had fortified Ed making him more aggressive to save his own skin but also wore him out. Rennish scooped him up in his arms and ran for the cobblestone walkway out front. Away from the church, he had the goddess' protection, and she stood with Golliad waiting on them both to emerge.