Ruth bolted upright! His eyes were only in the process of opening as he made a fist and swung hard. The inertia from the swing twisted his body clear around when the punch failed to make contact with anything solid.

That was how Ruth woke up face down on the floor with his butt in the air. He slumped a little and turned his head so he could look over his shoulder with one eye. Sassy tail was moving back and forth in a slow and insulting matter.

“Tsk.” Ruth made the noise with his mouth that he believed went along with the sassy tail movements. He sat up slowly and rubbed his eyes. He felt grimy and worn thin. A quick inspection of his body revealed he was absolutely filthy, but only in some places. The arm that the clothes refused to sleeve was still absolutely disgusting. A dry film of blood and dirt and who knows what else. All of that was of course caked under his fingernails. His neck, chin, head, and hair also felt grimy.

The rest of him? Ruth stared down at his chest and gently probed with a thought. The clothing obediently parted and showed him his skin. Clean and perfectly healthy-looking flesh. Every part of him the clothing touched seemed to be clean and orderly.

Ruth narrowed his eyes for a moment, his thoughts turning darker as he realized he still hadn’t had to go to the bath--

HEY. Maybe he could use this to his advantage.

Ruth coaxed the clothing to cover his neck and start covering his face and head like he had when he was resisting Sikes and his poison teaching. The clothing immediately swept up greedily like it had just been waiting for his permission. Seconds later Ruth stood in his room with his arms crossed. The bare arm the only part of his flesh that was still showing. His head and horns completely covered making him look like a mannequin that some crazy knitting grandma got ahold of after a rather successful supply run buying all the half-off lizard scales she could carry.

A minute passed and then a hole appeared around the mouth area. Lips appeared and then opened as Ruth gasped for air. Maybe he should have thought about leaving an opening. Next time. Several more minutes passed before the clothing reluctantly receded back down to his collarbone and left everything above bare.

Ruth raised his hand and felt with his fingertips. Yes! The clothing ate dirt and… everything else! Best not to question it.

Ruth looked down at his stomach and pinched some of the fabric. It feebly and half-heartedly tugged at his fingers like a pet that didn’t enjoy the attention of its owner. He narrowed his eyes and considered. Maybe… maybe he could… do something with this? Train it?

Ruth looked at the bed as he released the fabric. He sighed, the excitement of finding out that his clothing offered a sort of half-assed grooming service slowly receded.

“I could just crawl back into this warm little bed and pull up the blankets…” Ruth frowned. Where were the blankets? Or the sheets for that matter. The rolled up blanket that he had been using for a pillow was still there but slightly rumpled.

Ruth narrowed his eyes. It was almost like someone had tried to take the rolled blanket he was using for a pillow but had given up halfway through…

???

Who the hell would be stealing blankets?

Ruth must have just not had any blankets. Tamara must have deposited him… deposited him…

Ah yes, Tamara.

Ruth’s face was getting a workout this morning. It kept going from blank, to astonished, to angry in rapidfire changes. Ruth crossed his arms again and stared down at the mostly naked mattress, wondering what he should do. Tamara would inevitably torture him again in the evening. He wasn’t really sure why she had gone completely ballistic the night before. One thing was certain, he wasn’t her match. Not now, not yet, at any rate.

Ruth’s stomach made a noise causing him to look down in surprise. Sassy tail whipped around his body and pointed at his stomach almost as if it were also taking a look at the place the weird noise originated.

******

Ruth walked up cautiously to the table. Food was set on trays, sitting enticingly in the middle of the table. Warm steam was rising off something that was shaped like small rocks. The small rocks were not rocks, but were nonetheless piled high as though they had been stacked like them. They were giving off some sort of plant and meat scent that smelled like heaven. He focused and found the word. Bread.

The problem of course, was that Sikes was eating one of the bread rocks and was sitting at the table -- with his gloves on. Gloves meant that the poison game might already be starting.

“Did you poison these?” Ruth watched Sikes carefully. The Durvgar didn’t even look up. He was studying some book that was spread out in front of him on the table, nibbling the bread rock. He grunted in reply, making Ruth wonder if that was a ‘yes’ or a ‘no’ grunt.

“Have a seat…” Sikes gestured toward a chair that was slightly pulled out at the other end of the short table.

Ruth narrowed his eyes and looked down, mentally cursing the clothing. The clothing itself originated, of course, from the ring accessory he had acquired from the Mongeese on his ring finger. From his finger up to his arm and then across the rest of his body it spread naturally, hanging comfortably without him having to exert his will. That still left his fingertips exposed on that hand. He could cover them, naturally, but he still hadn’t figured out how to convince the clothing to go all the way to his other arm and cover it. The best he could do was to convince it to go down to his elbow on the opposite side. Even that took conscious effort. The moment he stopped thinking about it the clothing retreated to his shoulder.

Life would be so much simpler if this clothing just covered all of me. Or became sharp or hard. Turned into armor or a weapon…

His thoughts began to turn toward the clothing again.

“You know, most people would just be pleased to have that sort of magical clothing…” Sikes was staring at Ruth pointedly. He looked the Tiefling up and down and then started sipping his tea.

Ruth paused for a moment as he considered this information. Was Sikes reading his mind? No. Sikes had just guessed. Sikes was not smart enough to have a mind reading ability, let alone the know how to use it. Ruth immediately disregarded Sikes as he went back to thinking about his clothing.

Perhaps… claws?

Ruth flexed his hand and the ring obediently started to spread itself to cover his fingertips, forming a sort of wide gauntlet. A moment later, with a visible hesitation, the scales started to form into talons at the edges of his fingertips. Ruth used his free hand to press on the talons. He sighed to himself as he once again encountered the problem with this idea. The ‘talons’ so to speak had the hardness of soft leather scales. They weren’t strong enough to pierce anything.

They did look impressive, he admitted, but that was it.

“Did you poison the food?” Ruth got back to the important business after his stomach growled again.

“What if I did?” Sikes was looking a bit amused. He reached out and took another bread rock from the tray and popped it into his mouth, chewing slowly with undisguised relish.

“The chair?” Ruth looked down at the chair.

“Maybe?” Sikes opened his eyes wide in mock surprise. “There’s no slipping anything past you!”

Ruth sat down, careful to cover the hand he could with his clothing. He did his best not to touch any part of his exposed arm to the chair. Then he smiled viciously at Sikes. “Does this mean you failed to poison me now?”

“The morning isn’t over,” Sikes sipped his tea and rolled his eyes at Ruth. “...and how would you know whether or not I poisoned the chair?”

Ruth blinked. That was a good question. He stared down at the armrests of the chair he was sitting in, not seeing anything different about them. A quick smell didn’t reveal anything either, which didn’t mean much since the poison that Sikes was using didn’t have a smell.

Sikes rolled his eyes again and took another bite of the delicious smelling bread rocks.

Ruth was about to start asking more questions when he noticed movement out of the corner of his eye. Silently, he and Sikes both watched as Rush walked from one of the back rooms. A large red hand made out of mana was held above his body and seemed to be carrying a number of pots and pans as he trundled out confidently into the kitchen area. Golden pupils considered both Sikes and Ruth for a moment. A small hand broke itself off from the larger hand and moved to the center of the table, snagging two of the bread rocks. The small hand flew back to the larger hand, depositing the bread rocks on top of the kitchen pots and pans which were precariously balanced but somehow stable.

Rush walked waddled around the table without another word and exited toward the hallway that would take him out of the Archives.

Sikes and Ruth both watched him go with varying reactions. Sikes seemed to be somewhat disgruntled by the fact that Rush was making off with things from the kitchen. Ruth was a little bit irritated that Rush had come and taken some of the bread rocks! Did he know which were poisoned? Why didn’t he tell Ruth?

Ruth grabbed one of the bread rocks boldly and put it into his mouth, chewing rapidly and swallowing. He froze for a moment and waited for the pain. When it didn’t come he finished the bread rock and then moved boldly onto a second one. Then a third.

Ruth leaned back contentedly in the chair and sighed. Sikes was watching him with a sort of queer smile starting to curl his lips.

“Why are you…” Ruth began to pale. “Oh… oh fuck…”

Just because he couldn’t tell whether or not the chair was poisoned didn’t mean it wasn’t.

Sikes just chuckled as Ruth jumped up and then immediately fell to the ground. He tried to crawl away from the chair. He was on the floor clutching his arm. It would be a long five minutes before the pain went away.

**********

Merriweather frowned as Ibram started to jog away. The dark-skinned demi-human had been quietly reporting a number of strange occurrences. It wasn’t at the level where she had to take action with the castle guard or with the talented rankers that were under her command, but it was, frankly, fucking weird.

Blankets were disappearing all around Under Arch. While theft wasn’t uncommon, this went beyond the norm. Blankets were disappearing from places that they shouldn’t be disappearing from. Within mansions, warehouses, places of business, homes, and there was even a report that some of the guest wings of the Arachne castle had been pillaged.

Probably because it was a hot topic, other people began chiming in and reporting weird thefts. Pots and pans and basic fire starting kits. Bolts of cloth, fishing nets, popular heroic fiction books, and, if one old woman was to believed, her pet Marmeloon.

Merriweather didn’t know what to make of the weird reports. They had just started to be reported today right? This morning?

“Ibram!” Merriweather called out to the scout, who half-turned as he continued jogging. “What kind of pet is Marmeloon? I’ll keep an eye out!”

“She’s some kind of huge snapping turtle!” Ibram grinned and held his arms open wide in tall-tale fashion.

That left Merriweather blinking even more.

Someone was kidnapping snapping turtles?

Merriweather pressed her lips together even as her eyes began to narrow. After a moment she shook her head. Though it would be super convenient, even Merriweather knew it was a little much to blame all of this strangeness on Under Arch’s new headache, Tamara.

Besides, Merriweather scoffed, why would Tamara want a snapping turtle shell?

****

“Why does he want a snapping turtle?” Tamara had uttered near-identical words hours before as she watched with growing confusion as Rush slipped into a house on the lower side of Under Arch and proceeded to aura handle a poor giant snapping turtle out the window in the dead of night. The pathetic thing was still asleep and unaware of its plight as it floated gently toward a dark alley out of sight of the residential street…

*****************

Time began to slowly pass onward as everyone grew more accustomed to their new routines...