What happened during this session was that Svansglidaren's burden finally decided that the mosaic with the spilled ink had to go and be exchanged which fitted Svansglidaren and the other cats purrfect since that should expose whatever was laying under the mosaic and attracting lemurs and Bastet knows what else.
Another thing moving in the correct direction was the parents of one of Tryggtass's burdens. The parents of the child in the apartment that damper and colder since it got a hole in the ceiling since a roof tile fell to the ground after a cat was exercising his schemes up there. Tryggtass and Grå had been spending a lot of time laying beside the child to warm it and keep it from getting sick because the parents didn't sleep even slightly close to their child. Svansglidaren had dreamwalked and battled an terrifying paranoia in the mother's mind of rolling over and crushing her baby. After several fights he managed to drive it out of the mother's mind and slowly she and even the father started to move closer to their child and giving her warmth through the nights in their poor insula top floor draughty apartment. The child even seemed to start to loose her coughing.
Grå has started to patrol a little more intensely and more on the top roof than before and notice unusual activity among the corvids, especially the woodpeckers who are Mars' envoys and also the cats of the Peace Temple talk about a lot of offerings at the temple of Mars. Probably war is boiling. In one way it doesn't really concern the cats as long as the humans doesn't war to the extent of destruction of civilisation and humankind but for the individual cat it might mean everything if their burden joins the war as legionnaire, auxiliary or officer. Then they would have to follow him or her on the journey and into war.
When Tryggtass climbs into the the apartment where she lives (her burden is the children of her territory, one side of an insula) the family head sits at the table and looks directly at her with a challengingly gaze. Tryggtass stops and purrs in the most innocent way she knows, just in case. Family head holds up a loaf of bread that's nibbled on at the edge and raises her eyebrows as of to say "What do _you_ have to say about _this_?" Tryggtass realises that while she's been hunting giant rats and looking out for greater dangers mice has gotten into the apartment and eaten from the bread. She sniffs out the whereabouts of the mice and there hole, kills a mouse and shows family head the hole which her husband later plugs with some brick and mortar. Everything back to normal and Tryggtass gets a piece of fish.
Just for the sake of it all three of the cats visit princeps secretary to tell about the increased offerings to Mars they have noticed.
When they return to Tryggtass' and Grå's street roof they hear some commotion going on and rush forward and jumps up to the roof to see a tired ferret over and over jumping away from a giant pale rat but never getting the distance for a counter-attack or escape. Immediately Grå and Tryggtass rush into the fight and soon the rat has more to deal with than it can handle and the ferret quickly disappears. Svansglidaren tries to follow it but loses it for some reason at the corner where it almost seems to take a shortcut through the wall. When he returns the rat is dead.
Alarmed about the consistent appearance of pale or albino giant rats that are aggressive even for rats they track the rat along the street into Svansglidaren's neighbourhoods of domuses. The rat has scurried along the walls along the street through the domus area of The Palantine, over the whole hill and down to a bath complex - an unpleasant place of much water.
They ask some nimble eastern-looking cats if they know anything about the rats and the baths but the cats doesn't really take patrolling seriously and are very snuffy in their ways and the only thing they have to say about the bath house is that it is a bath house and no cat would go their voluntarily. "Cowards" Grå mumbles and they go down to the bath house to investigate.
They find a hole in the wall where the tracks of the rat leads. After some scouting from the houses on the opposite sides of the streets and futil attempts to finds ways to climb the several floors high walls of the complex Grå decides to crawl into the hole. In there he follows an underpass that leads to a great fireplace. When he goes back and follows it in the other direction he again finds the tracks of the rat and more of them and a smaller hole where they have crawled out. Since he can't get in there he goes back out and tells the others. They decide to come back during the day to alert the humans of the problem of the rats and the possible leaking of smoke.
When they return during the day there's no smoke from the hole but still smell of rats and the humans doesn't seem to care or most probably doesn't realise what's going on under their noses. They look with resignation at the humans scurrying around. Humans that aren't exactly their burdens but still connected to them and the rat problem spreads into their region and their territories. Tryggtass then gets an idea. She backs into the hole and start to mew and act like she's got stuck. Suddenly it doesn't take long before a human notice her and helps her "to get loose" and even fetches another human hammers some brick pieces into the hole to seal it off. Satisfied but wondering if that will be enough they return to their homes.
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