Eagle Eyes c10s3

Hostus visits the archive near the Senate house and queues for seeking a list of certain senatrixes. It almost only, or even only slaves, there, at least this early in the morning. It makes sense, many many plebeians and nobiles are probably either queueing at their patron's house or holding their on reception for clients. The queue goes very slow and the slaves are exactly chatty with someone dressed as a plebeian. Finally he gets to ask a slave for a list of sentrixes above a certain property level and belonging to the optimates fraction. The criteria is set to single out senatrixes that could put pressure on senatrix Falernus to do thing she wouldn't do voluntarily. The slave points out that personal preferences ofcourse aren't noted in the archive. Hostus manages to convince him to use whatever he and his colleagues know about the senatrixes to compile the list. The list will at least take to late next work day to compile.

Claudius brings his tools of trade and visits the people's tribune Maemilius domus (city house) and offers his skills since it's in a few days are Ludi plebeii (The plebeian games). He also makes a point of that he offers his services in the household so that no one needs to interrupt their regular task more than necessary. The doorkeeper takes his name, looks at his diploma (citizenship plate), luckily never asks for collegia membership and tells Hostus to show up early the next morning.

In the meantime Paulla visits the senatrix Falernus' domus acting as a festoon maker and decorator offering her skills for the ludi plebeii. The doorman actually says that they are interested in festoon for the front of the house and maybe a few small potted trees for the courtyard in the back as well. They directly orders regular festoons for the house front and will tell her which trees and how many they want when she arrives early tomorrow. Paulla goes to one of the researched festoon makers and orders festoon and asks if it would be possible to get some potted trees the next day which might be possible.

Hostus takes the opportunity to asking around among the queueing slaves and parting from av few assarius (bronze coins) and finds out what the supposedly important meeting that risks to be cancelled is about. Apparently the senate are gonna decide on what to with Gaius Julius who hasn't returned  and laid down his office and imperium as he should.

Later when eating together the characters discuss whether it could be that someone wants to cancel that meeting by claiming to have seen an omen that would cancel the meeting. That would in that case probably be an populares since they would support Gaius Julius and want him to not be stripped of his office and accussed of anything. Falernus who has made the claim is an optimates which confuses them a little because that doesn't fit with the theory of someone wanting to cancel the meeting.It could on the other hand be an optimates seeing the omen but not wanting to go against their on fraction but still not wanting to disregard the gods and goddesses and therefore forces a client to make the claim instead. A third theory is that someone was at Forum and noticed the omen but for some reason can't reveal that they were at Forum and therefore forces a client to make the claim.

The next day Paulla and Hostus buys festoons and arrive with these at the Falernus household and start to decorate the house as agreed. In the meantime Claudius works the hair styles of the slaves in the Maemilius household and helos them with some minor wounds and other health issues. After a while he is fetched by Maemilius' body slave "because domina wants to see you". Surprised Hostus follows the slave and gets to meet a very absent-minded tribune that asks a few questions on Hostus and his profession, The atrium diverges quite much from the regular nobiles atrium and instead of geometric patterns or actual naturalistic motives there's cogs and architect's tools pictured on the walls and in the floor mosaic. A geek's household. There's also a certain undistorted greek touch to the paintings, mosaic: Greece is popular with upper lavel Romans but usually romanised in names, visual style and so but not in this household.

Claudius spends the whole day doing the hair, shaving and taking care of smaller health problems of servants at the Maemilius household. He uses all his social skills that has served him well before when he had his barbershop to fish for information about the household and ultimately information about what happened at Forum that morning when People's tribune Maemilius was there and a wolf crossed Forum. He soon picks up and puts together a certain discontent with the households domina (female family head and head of the household) from many of the slaves who are of Roman descent or have been in Rome so long that they are romanised. Apparently she, according to them, are very absent-minded, rather sits with copies of scrolls from Alexandria than doing proper Roman stuff and is an open graecophile in a non-romanised way. In many ways a geek or nerd personality. In time he puts the pieces together and finds out that Maemilius with servants was at Forum that morning but they didn't see the wolf and they were going to a meeting with a group of seantors and senatrixes (an inofficial meeting and therefore not in the Senate House) among which was senatrix Falernus which makes it probable that she was at Forum at the correct time.

Paulla and Hostus spends some time putting up festoons at the front of Falernus' domus. A slave appears and asks whether they can get four small potted trees as mentioned yesterday. Paulla says "probably" and mentions the highest price she has seen at the decorators' places. They return the ladder they borrowed from a neighbourhood business and fetch a good portion of the money they have to be able to buy the trees until they get paid by the Falernus household.They manage to buy four small trees in pots at a very high price since it's a spontaneous  purchase close to The plebeian games (ludi plebeii) and and borrow a cart to get them to the Falernus household. Arriving with the trees to the backyard of the domus the slave tells them that domina wants two of them inside instead. It's quite unusual but what domina says goes so they take two of them inside. The slave obviously thinks it's slightly embarrassing to point out where to put the outdoors plants inside in the atrium where guests arrive into the atrium and will have to actively avoid the branches of the small trees.

The slave tries to get domina's attention to get an acknowledgement of the placement of the trees but fails since domina seems lost in some scroll in her tablinum (office and client reception room). The slave walks over and cautiously pokes domina to get her attention and domina Falernus comes back from whatever she was reading. While  waiting for the absent-minded domina to come and acknowledge their work they realise that the atrium isn't exactly decorated in a Roman way. Instead there's openly greek non-romanised paintings on the wall and the mosaic floor pictures some sort of machine wheel. She's very distracted and doesn't fix the toga as she rises from the chair. She starts to talk about geometry and lines and tells them to move the trees and it becomes even harder to pass through the front door without getting the branches in the face or having a branch catching the toga.Before leaving they also get some food since it's midday. As they talk with some other people hired by the household also eating at the time they realise that domina often places the decorative trees so that they are in way of guests arriving to the house, along those lines she talked about. A certain discontent seems to be bubbling under the surface regarding the non-romanised decorations in the house and domina's fascination for greek stuff.

Eagle Eyes c10s2

Claudius plans to get inside the house of the people's tribune Maemilius' household by posing as barber (which he actually is but no longer acknowledged as such), maybe he can get inside the senatrix Falernus house hold that way as well.

Paulla and Hostus plans to pose as sellers and decorators of festoons to be able to spy on the house of the senatrix Falernus. They also check prices for festoons to be able to tell prices to the Falernus household responsible and to know that they have enough money to buy the festoons they need until they get paid by Falernus' household.

When Hostus and Paulla returns to home that night after making all the plans and making preparations Hostus almost trips over a large box outside their apartment. They drag it inside and opens it (some effort is needed, it's sealed to be able to be transported. Inside is what looks like a simple but genuine greek vase. After all their greek vase scams they have learned at least something about how the genuine stuff usually looks and feels. Inside the vase is also a small papyrus with a short. "The person in question is graecophile. We assume this could come in handy". The note is very anonymous and the handwriting is very much like the halfway standardised handwriting scribes use. They guess this is a gift from The Eagle and that it could come in handy in making contact with and getting into the Falernus household.

Early in the morning they leave their only togas at the laundry. Claudius also leaves his barber tools for sharpening and polishing.

Hostus and Paulla also decide to stalk Falernus and her clientele after her patron reception of clients. Hostus follows her to a finer wine tavern where she sits down with her body slave, scribe and two body guards that stand guard in a somewhat discrete and relaxed but still obvious manner. She seems to be waiting for someone. Hostus has been standing on the other side of the street for a while, pretending to wait for someone, when a servant-like man comes jogging and rushes into the tavern directly to Falenernus' table a whispers things to her and she seems very surprised. The messenger gets a message back and rushes off and Paulla who has been waiting nearby follows him. He runs to another domus city house)and is gone inside a short while and then returns to the street and jogs off to yet another domus (Ligistinius' city house and is let in after some stressed clapping on the door. The messenger returns again and runs to a third domus (Manilius' city house) and is gone for a while. Paulla waits for a while but then she starts to feel uncomfortable hanging around in the same spot all the time and give up following the messenger further and returns to the tavern where she left Hostus.

After a while a rich citizen appears and meets up with Falernus. The arriving person presents himself as equites Livius and arrives with a scribe and a probable bodyguard. Falernus immediately starts to talk to Livius intensely. Hostus can't hear much but apparently someone has done something. One of the bodyguards seems unnecessarily interested in Hostus which should pass for just a plebeian waiting for someone. This makes Hostus draw the conclusion that they are talking about something important, maybe even secret.

Paulla walks up to Hostus who meets up with Paulla and the walk out of direct sight from the tavern and Hosuts and Paulla tells each other what has happened. Neither of the names is any of the most famous families. Paulla returns to the opposite side of the street of the taverna and continues to spy on Falernus and Livius which now seem to be discussing something. A few loose phrases reach her across the street. Several of the famous senators like Gaius Julius, Pompeius, Crassus, Cicero and Cato the elder is mentioned as is legions and "only one legion" and "playing hardball".

Claudius has been exercising and warming up his barber skills. He has a few customers among the neighbours but that doesn't pay well is only very basic haircuts. Now he wants to do some more advanced haircuts to be able to get into the finer households like Falernus and Maemilius.

Hostus spends some time around Forum romanum talking to people joining spontaneous conversions and gossiping. Seems like most of the names they have encountered lately is optimates or associated to optimates. The not so rich but still well off plebeians around Forum now also put very little faith in the patricians actually following the omen of the wolf on Forum. Most seem to think that the senate will hold their meeting, omen or not. He also manage to get a name of a senatrix that has approximately the same tax level as senatrix Falernus, senatrix Ofilius. Later on the day people suddenly start to talk about one and almost only one thing; Gaius Julius hasn't laid down his imperium (permissions and right to lead armed troops and punish criminals) to return to Rome as a regular senator. Instead he has crossed Rubicon, the border for the non-armed region around Rome which has been crossed by Roman troops during earlier civil wars and when Rome has had to defend the city itself agains Hannibal or the celts.

The characters throw some thoughts around and conclude that if Falernus is lying it's a favour she would only do for someone of higher status than her because it would be very uncommon if she would be a client to someone of lower status. They think that maybe it wasn't Falernus that noticed the wolf but someone else that doesn't want to disregard the omen but for some reason doesn't want to step forward themself, e g because they don't want it to be known that they were at the forum at that time. Since they only know about female members of the senate that has been at Forum that morning they assume that such a person would be a senatrix of higher status than senatrix Falernus. They guess that the archive a the senate could give them a list of female patricians of the same or higher tax level than Falernus, at least for pay.

Eagle Eyes c10s1

When the characters show up at The Pig and orders a few mugs of wine they are soon approached by a lonely man who asks if he can join them and have a chat like last time. Since they are waiting for some sort of company they say that he of course can do that. He buys another round of wine and asks if they heard what happened the other day. Apparently a wolf crossed Forum (romanum) which is a potent omen and means that the next senate meeting has to be cancelled. All according to a senatrix named Aelia Falernus Censa. They chat a little and he leaves and in doing so he also hands them a small papyrus saying that their friends are wondering if she actually witnessed that. They realise that someone wants them to find out whether senatrix Falernus actually saw a wolf cross Forum or not but is it The Eagle? Is it some other discrete player that knows that they have dealt in information earlier but on the other hand that's on a whole other level than before. Then it has only been about minor burglaries or scam. Hostus reach over the table and lifts one of the earlier used mugs where he noticed that the man put something earlier during the conversation. It's a small piece of broken pottery with something carved into it on both sides, on one side a simplified eye and on the other side a much simplified bird of prey - most probably an eagle. That settled the last question. The Eagle has given them their first real mission: Find out whether senatrix Falernus actually saw a wolf cross Forum or not.

At Paulla's and Hostus's home they discuss how to digging in this and decide that they should start by visiting the temples situated by Forum romanum and while doing that try to find out if the pontifex (priest) or their assistants have seen anything regarding the wolf and the senatrix.

The next day, early, early, even before sunrise when the donkey and ox drivers are taking the goods into the city (which must be done before the dawn to have the streets cleared when regular citizens use them) Claudius go to Forum or rather the areas close to Forum to search for people that might have seen something. He finds a donkey driver that noticed both a people's tribune and a senatrix at Forum at about the right time.

A little later that morning Paulla dress up in her toga, buys some wine and herbs and goes to the temple of Venus and Roma pretending to be somewhat stressed this morning. She "just happens to" mentioned the event of the wolf and the senatrix as a reason to offer something this specific morning since it disrupts the meeting order of the senate. The deputy priest tries to calm her and says that these things happen and Roma has still continued to prosper. Also, he says, the senatrix and her company that was at Forum that morning didn't seem upset either. The deputy priest didn't see the wolf himself (another assistant did though) and sadly he didn't recognised the senatrix. He just assumed that it was Falernus. The deputy priest and Paulla performs the offering and Paulla leaves with some more information than before; a wolf did actually cross Forum and a senatrix was at Forum about that time with her company.

The same morning Hostus also visits Forum and the notice pillar where decrees and Today's paper is nailed. Today's paper can often contain some interesting gossip about the upper class and now and then some real information but today Hostus look for the paper that lists the latest decrees that have been made (not the whole decrees) and the next senate meeting, hearing and similar events. He then finds out that the next meeting is on the seventh day counting today as the first day. That gives them their absolute latest deadline for finding out whether Falernus saw the wolf cross Forum or not.

They work through the day with their regular slightly provocative plays and monologues while earning some tips and scouting for victims for their favourite scam, selling expensive greek vases to plebeians that either are collectors or want to come off as art connoisseurs.

Hostus stands in a corner of Forum and has monologues and stand-up comedies about the assumed wolf running across Forum but without witnesses trying to provoke someone to contradict him and in that way contribute with some usable information. Paulla stands in the audience trying to observe the other people and also if possible converse people in the audience to get more information. A toga clad woman with a scribe slave or similar suddenly accuses Hostus of dragging honourable citizens in the dirt with his jokes and accusations of people making the whole thing with the wolf up. After a short rethoric fight between her and Hostus Hostus manages to make it look like she too was an artist and gives her the money earned so far. She gets very upset, throws the money back after Hostus and turns on the spot and walks away. Both Hostus and Paulla follows her and finds her joining the last of a short client queue at a client reception at a nice domus. Paulla hangs around like she waiting for someone and manages to pass by when the slave comes out to invite the woman they followed and thereby gets her name, Lucia Maemilius.

Eagle Eyes c10s0c

After being acknowledged after their test mission the player characters have spent some time with their normal halfway criminal lifestyle. Each day one of them go to the same herbs and spices merchant at one of the fora in the city. Each day a bundle of coriander is asked for and each day a bundle of coriander is paid for but one day Claudius suddenly also get a small piece of rolled up papyrus at the same time. He leaves and teams up with his friends in crime and they check out the paper "At The Pig after workday's end". That's it, the only thing. A very concrete and simple instruction. The Pig is one of the crappier wine places not to far away from the two apartments Claudius and Hostus plus Paulla rents on the fourth floor in a five floor insula. They go about with their regular mix of low level street plays and scouting for possible scams or information to sell to other criminals (like storages that might be easy to empty of valuable items). They actually find an unguarded and unlocked smaller storage area with amphoras at street level in an insula and sell this information at one of the shady wine places they frequent irregularly to sell similar information.

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Magneter och Mirakler rules

Magneter och mirakler is a Swedish rules set and game setting. We're using the rules of Magneter och mirakler with the game setting of Eagle Eyes. Rules-wise Magneter och mirakler is quite simple and the principle is that a character have a fixed amount of aspects. We added petitio videtur, the request each Eye makes to The Eagle when he or she assign themselves for service since this is significant both in the setting and in the rules for the original Eagle Eyes (Fate accelerated). Role-playing goes on until there's a conflict of interest regarding where the story goes. When there's a conflict an aspect is used to win the conflict. The conflict could be escalated though and in that case each player or game master rolls a six sided die and add aspects if they want to have an upper hand statistically. The aspect  Game setting is used to activate aspects of other player characters or non-player characters than your own. Each aspect has a limit for how many times it could be used in a positive aspect and how many times it could be used in a negative aspect. This is the +X/-Y noted by the aspect further down. Each gaming campaign also has a few themes that can be activated by anyone along with places and items in the story. There's a little more to the rules but that's the main principle. Magneter och mirakler can be found at Kaleidoskop's web site (in Swedish); Magneter och mirakler.

Characters

Claudius Piso Caesonius

• Game setting: -5/+5
• Petitio videtur: -3/+3
• Regain membership in collegia and and get back hos luxury barber shop
• Stubborn: -2/+1
• Distorts information: -1/+2
• Steady hands: -1/+2
• Used to seeing blood: -2/+1
• Social: -1/+3
• Vain: -2/+1
• Used to upper class people: -1/+1
• Runner: -3/+1
• Barber: -1/+2

Paulla Nynnia Lamia

• Game setting: -5/+5
• Petitio videtur: -3/+3
• Cancel banishment of her grandmother from Rome, falsely accused of bad magic
• Loyalty to Caecilii: -3/+1
• Business sense: -1/+2
• Nimble-fingered: -1/+1
• Non-squeamish: -1/+2
• Deviating morale: -2/+3
• Singer's voice: -1/+2
• Well-known in her home area: -2/+1
• Organised: -1/+1
• Forefathers' attention: -1/+1

Hostus Caecilii Nasus

• Game setting: -5/+5
• Petitio videtur: -3/+3
• Regain his family's farm
• Vendetta: -2/+2
• Acting: -1/+1
• Loyalty: -2/+3
• Observant: -2/+1
• Acting under pressure: -3/-2
• Fleet-footed: -1/+1
• Dominating: -2/+1
• Hunted: -1/+2
• Nimle-fingered: -1/+1

Eagle Eyes c10s0a

Eagle Eyes is a noiresque setting in ancient Rome, in our case the last period of the Republic. Gaius Juilus is in Gaul and committing genocide to subdue the Gauls to Roman rule while conspiracies is going on in Rome and everyone is wondering what comes next. Unrest stirs among nobiles that don't like G Julius who actually have broken some rules regarding imperium to fullfil his own plans.

Originally Eagle Eyes was written for Fate Accelerated but we're trying out Magneter och mirakler a Swedish rules system originally for another game setting. THe rules are based around the principle of keeping role-playing until there's a conflict in where the story should go, then the rules are used to solve that conflict. The rules aren't traditionally skill based but rather on aspect of the characters. One or more aspects could be close to skill sets, e g a profession, if that's important for what the player want the story to be about.

The characters are of plebeian descent although once successful such. Claudius Piso was a barber in the uptown quarters, Hostus Caecilii was next in line to inherit a medium family farm and Paulla Nynnia was the overseer at the farm. Then bad luck struck them down.

A little more than ten years ago Caecilii's farm was struck by bandits and everyone there was killed and the farm was burned to the ground. Everyone was declared dead and the land as free land (not aeger publicus though) and a nearby latifundia owner took over the land. Luckily for  Paulla and Hostus they were on errands in Rome when it happened. Paulla hadn't fully taken over all the task as an overseer but were doing all physically demanding tasks since her mother were becoming old. Hostus was nearly 20 so he was preparing to become young adult and thereby starting to help his father to run the farm for real. Therefore he and Paulla was in Rome to conduct some business when the bandits attacked the farm.

Paulla and Hostus didn't have much money since they only had what coin they had brought to Rome and also need to stay hidden to avoid the risk of getting killed to tie up loose ends. They kept a living as street corner actors and comedians with some swindling if needed.

Approximately five years ago Claudius was thrown out of the collegium and stripped of his place as a barber so that some relative of the master of the collegium could have his place. Claudius money ran out and fueled by lust of revenge he managed a living as swindler, e g selling stolen goods or fake greek artwork.

Close to three years ago the three of them met in the streets of Rome and teamed up to cover for each other down periods and help each other out and in some time even stabilise their common living standard.

Newly another recruit in The Eagles approached them and gave them an offering. Working for The Eagles would make the Sinistram (The Left Hand, the three senators running The Eagle) fullfil whatever wish they had. They enlisted with wishes (petitio videtur, unseen request) of their own and just four days ago managed to complete a test mission and was accepted.

The Secrets of Cats tARE c6s12

The cats keep their eyes open to hear if anything's going on regarding the eventual war that could be sailing up but so far they don't hear anything directly affecting their burdens. Tyggtass is focusing her reconnaissance activity to close to their street roof where there's been a lot of over-grown pale aggressive rats lately.

Grå takes a short tour to the bath house to check that the hole where one of the big rats came out is still plugged. It is but the uppish cats that live nearby taunt this time as well, emphasises his heritage as a plebeian cat and so forth. He jumps up on the wall of their burden's garden. They get very annoyed by this kind-of-trespassing and tells him to go away. Grå ruffles up hos fur and looks threateningly at them. They're too snotty to be afraid for him although his like 25% more cat than them and that's 25% more muscles than them so he simply quickly pushes them off the wall into the garden and goes on with his business. They hiss and shout after him as he tells them that they're quite bad at defending their territory. He tells them that if they taunt him again he will tear their fur so much they will be ashamed of showing themselves outdoors until it's replaced.

Grå scouts the outdoors area of the bath house when it opens and eavesdrops ont he humans gathering in the park areas to talk and relax. He hears some talk about some constellation of humans that has done some unintelligible human offence and now the discussion goes back and forth regarding whether the Romans should start a war with or if the other people maybe already have done that or if they should let it be. They also talks about whether it's good or bad that so many humans arrive from far ends of the empire and gather up in Rome. Some complain that they can neither read or speak latin but some say that they're hardworking and do a lot of the soldier work in the army and so on.

Later during the day Grå manage to sneak into the bath house entrance when it opens in the afternoon. It's scarily damp and suggests that there's large volumes of water nearby. A lot of the humans goes to a library next to the entrance. Several of the discussions is about the same constellation of humans Grå heard about earlier that has done something that the Roman humans maybe can't just let be. He also hear some slave owner talk about their slaves and Nincilimus. They say that the worship of Nincilimus dampens the discontent among the slaves so it's a good thing to introduce to the slaves.

Tryggtass spends the day sunbathing.

Svansglidaren spends much time at his burden's home to try catch as any rumours as possible about what's going on with the humans. It means that he has to spend times around the slaves though and he doesn't have that fine relationship with one of the three house slaves. The household has one more intellectual slave and one more worker slave plus one door guard slave. The door guard, without realising it himself as the ignorant human he is, is trespassing into Svansglidaren's territory as the guardian of the house. Hence the somewhat estranged relation between him and Svansglidaren.

The two regular household slaves have lately shown a much more positive attitude without any real reason. None in the family has given them any gifts or something lately. Svansglidaren have noticed that they have started to do some sort of shared ritual quite similar to the ritual where the household honours the forefathers. It's almost like they have started a small secret family of their own. When he starts to spy on them he finds out that they have a statuette that he hasn't seen before, here or anywhere else. As he spies further on the slaves he finds out that it's actually more like when humans worship at the temples rather than when they honour the forefathers at the family altar. The statuette is like a very thin man. He doesn't look like any of the regular gods though. He could maybe be Mercurius but he has no greek hat, not staff with wings and snakes and no winged sandals so probably not. It's not Pluto either, no attributes associating to him. It must be some smaller local spirit or being of some kind. They sacrifice some of their bread and even some of their wine which is a very scarce resource for the slaves.

One day the two slaves suddenly start to argue with each other, not a small argument either. Svansglidaren sneaks over to their bedroom where they're shouting to each other about whicever of something is the correct one, which one is the proper one, the authentic one. They seem to be arguing over which spirit being is the correct one. One is the slender man Svansglidaren has seen before and the other seem to be a very round kind of fat man. They both call their respective statuette Nincilimus and after a while the drops their representations of Nincilimus and start to wrestle in the small room until they get a little tired. They stop without really hurting each other, pant and go back to work but the shared ritual is over and the atmosphere is tense for the rest of the day.

In the evening Grå tries to track down the ferret they saved earlier when they killed the big albino rat. Tryggtass continue to "scout" the street roof and Svansglidaren spies on the guests that visit his burden's house. The guests and Svansglidaren's burden discuss the far away constellations of humans that has done something and how to convince more people that this is it. Now it has to be dealt with. It seems like the offerings to Mars is preparations for a war with those far away humans. They also disregards that Nincilimus the slaves worship.

Grå follows the track of the ferret to another insula more to the centre of their region until it suddenly stops dead as if it had taken one giant leap up to the stars. Confused Grå asks some other cats if they've seen a ferret. They don't really know it but they have seen a ferret now and then lately so they assume that a ferret has moved into the area. As Grå continues to sniff around he finds out that the scent track goes all the way very close to the wall as if it would have flown up to the roof whic would make some sort of sense if it could do some strong magic. After all they did meet it on a roof last time. Grå climbs around trying to get up on the top roof but fail and he doesn't find any new trails of the ferret. Grå tries to get some help from two cats he meet e g if there's any way up onto the roof but they obviously are the jokers and clowns of the area and Grå slowly but steadily builds up frustration as he tries to get something that's not a joke from them. Finally after a lot of jokes and misadventures one of them shows the way up to the roof.

Grå walks to the edge of the roof where he would expect a flying magic ferret to arrive if he would have flown up to the roof from where the tracks on the ground stopped. As he walks around he finds the scent of a ferret. He turns to the two cat jokers and asks what that scent is. "Weasel?" one of them says. Grå sighs and annoyed tells them that there lives a ferret in their house and they don't know about it. They don't seem to take that too seriously though. It is strange though because it's on the fourth floor and it's a closed apartment door without any hatch in it. Grå leaves and decides to come back tomorrow and talk to the ferret then, hopefully without the cat jokers.

The two household slaves in Svansglidaren's household is still not too friendly to each other and manage to sleep surprisingly far away from each other in the very small room where they sleep and live when they don't work.

During the night the three cats; Svansglidaren, Tryggtass and Grå shares information with each other and discuss what has happened lately. They speculate that the ferret and the rats are in direct feud with each other and that the weird big rats is after the ferret and that's why they come directly here every time. Also they assume that the ferret knows magic since that would explain why it can disappear and reappear. Maybe the magi ferret has driven the rats from it's own area and now has followed them here to their street roof.

The next day they all go to the insula where Grå followed the ferret. They meet one of the clown cats which Grå presents for the his friends in the most satirical way. The other cat can't be seen until they notis that the parapet on the fourth level has a pair of cat ears almost as if a cat was hiding very badly behind it. Grå presents them as "Clown 1" and "Clown 2". Outside a door they recognise the smell of the ferret. There is a glitch under the door that might be wide enough for a ferret. Tryggtass sniffs at the glitch and don't find much ferret smell at the floor but the door in itself also smells somewhat of ferret at it's lowest part although there's no hatch in the door.

A ferret jumps out through the door and stops dead staring at the three cats outside the door. Grå tries to wrestle the surprised ferret to the ground to stop him from running away. Something weird happens. Grå catches the ferret but still doesn't. It's if they were in the same place at the same time bt without relating to each other and the ferret disappears through the solid door leaving the three surprised cats outside.

"Hey" Tryggtass shouts "we just want to talk to you", "We want to talk about the rats". The ferret is understandably suspicious of them. It takes a lot of diplomacy to get it to crawl out from under the door. It sits warily outside the door, ready to jump away. They explain about the rats and how weirdly big they are and that they break through Svansglidaren's wards. Svansglidaren asks the ferret why a rat would run all over the Capitoline hill to attack him. After some confusion the ferret says that they're probably thinking of his daughter. After some discussion back and forth the ferret agrees that it was he who was there the first time and was sarcastic about the cats not being able to keep the rats at bay. They discuss the rats somewhat and hope that it's just a minor amount of rats that has grown and learnt how to break through wards. The ferret is very reluctant to let them talk to his daughter though. It promises to talk to his daughter though. They prepare to wait in the meanwhile when it says "See you in a while" and are almost gone when they manage to stop it and decide to meet just before the evening and the ferret promises to talk to his daughter until then.

 As they leave Svansglidaren feels someone gnawing at his ward at the hole down to the sewers under Grå's insula. He focuses on the ward to stop whatever it is. He stops it, probably a rat, from breaking through. They return home to patrol their burdens homes. The two slaves in Svansglidaren's house has started to break up the mosaic int he hall. They work in the two ends of the hall though and sometimes just happen to spurt a piece of plaster at each other.

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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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As they arrive to the domus Svansglidaren's mentor is even more tired than Svansglidaren himself who isn't exactly an physically fit cat. To the surprise of Svansglidaren and the others his burden and his family isn't at home. Frustrated Svansglidaren mumbles "How am I gonna protect when you run around in the night without me knowing where you are?!?" The two slaves and he door guard are home. Svansglidaren's mentor suggests that they are at the same misunderstood honour-the-gods-ritual as his burdens. Anyway, for the moment he's satisfied with the situation since advanced magic sensing requires him being quite absent. He asks them to keep away from the hall but guard and tell him if someone comes. Svansglidaren patrols uneasily and over and over asks the other if something has happened. Svansglidaren's mentor walks around in the hall and then lies down almost in the middle of the hall and fades out. It looks like he's talking to the pattern and then falls asleep.

Time passes.

The mentor wakes up and rises slightly unstable in a drowsy manner. Svansglidaren recognises how it is to return to the body after having slightly left it when dreamwalking. Grå leaves to catch a mouse. Eagerly led by Svansglidaren they walk out to the hortus (garden) to be able to talk undisturbed.

The mentor is gliding from different aspects of magic and humans and they're not fully following his reasoning but as he seems to become more present his reasoning become easier to follow. He says that there's something under the mosaic. They conclude that it must have been put there when the mosaic was put there and that's months ago. Why hasn't the magic triggerd? How could a fresh sacrifice be maintained under the mosaic for month? They reason back and forth. Maybe someone put a sacrifice there first when the sacrifice was put there and then the magic was initiated later. That still doesn't explain how the sacrifice could be maintained in a useful state for so long. It would require a very large sacrifice and very hard to slip in there while the mosaic was being laid there. A possible solution might be that someone got hold of something with a connection to someone in the household. That would be a way to make magic affect the household or someone in it. When Svansglidaren think back he remmebers that there were great frustration in the household because the mosaic layer blocked of the whole hall while he was working because he was an artist and needed space and peace while the household mostly saw him like any worker they contracted for other building actions. That could have opened up for putting something under the mosaic. They still don't know what the magic does though and maybe it's not possible to find except maybe by waiting and see if something happens that could be connected to it. That doesn't feel like a way they want to go.

Instead they start to think about how they could get the mosaic getting picked up and the thing under it discovered and removed. Suddenly they are distracted for awhile by Grå returning not only with a mouse for Svansglidaren's mentor but for them each. The eat a little and enjoy the fresh meat before continuing the discussion.

They discuss how to for example discolour the mosaic so that they would have to replace it and in that process find the thing under it. Blood is suggested but is not a favourable option. Maybe ink could be a better option. There is ink in the tablinum (office/study room). If they were to spill ink there now it would start to dry and stick before anyone discovers it. The mentor shows where the thing is and Grå and Tryggtass fetches ink. Svansglidaren keeps away so that he don't get ink on himself so that he should not get the blame. The other aren't here so much that the risk of getting the blame is quite small.

Grå topples the ink-bottle in the hall and pushed the bottle around a little so that the ink spreads around. Grå put back the cork and they carry back the ink-bottle to the desk. The humans will notice that the ink is gone and that there's ink in the hall. It will look like someone was carrying the ink-bottle and accidentally or willingly spilled the ink and the put back the bottle and left to not be caught. Any human knows that that could be the household cat. Perfect coverup.

Since most of the night is left they decide to use it for something and walks of to Skarpöra's territory. When they arrive they notice a lighter mood among cats in the area. They search for Skarpöra and after a while find her in an apartment. They can't get inside though so they decide to climp up to the window alcove since the shutters are slightly open to let in some air. To not crowd her and threaten her so much only Tryggtass climbs up. Svansglidaren stays on the ground and Grå climbs up in another window to peek into the apartment.

Tryggtass silently calls for Skarpöra to not waken the humans she can feel the scent of. "Can I enter?" she asks. She doesn't get any answer but Skarpöra comes over to window to talk to her. Tyrggtass express her curiosity over what the meaning with the street hogging was but doesn't get any real answers out of Skarpöra. Not even when she brings up the topic of Skarpöra's former companions but no longer her friends. Not even questioning the perceived loyalty to cats no longer loyal to Skarpöra gets her anywhere. While waiting Svansglidaren vaguely sense a rat at the border of his sewer ward. A little like a regular stupid rat walked into the ward and confused turned around. Another rat tries and gets a firm "No!" from Svansglidaren and turns around. The ward is working but it is worrying that so many rats are at least slightly magical capable (otherwise they wouldn't be able to challenge the ward in any way). Rats are usually not even sentient. Maybe that's something to mention to the senate or at least princeps. They decide to do that and walks over to that area of the region. They meet the secretary cat and asks if she has heard anything about magic rats. "No, not since my grandma told me about magic scary rats to keep me an obedient little kitty." she says with a smile. They tell her about the ward and the repeated tries to get through it. It could of course be a stupid magic rat but it could also be several of them. They also tell her about the many albino rats that have appeared around Grå's and Tryggtass' territories. Princeps secretary cat is slightly skeptical but dutifully listens to them and promises to tell princeps herself. They thank her and leave.

They all think that they've done enough for a productive night and goes home to sleep and rest. Before going to sleep Svansglidaren climbs up to his favourite sacrificial space and sacrifices to his forefathers. When he leaves he thinks of his burden's family who sometimes when they see him sit there jokes that it's almost like if the cat were sitting guard and protecting them. Then they laugh and say "but it's only a cat". As he stops at the humans' forefather alter, in this case of a family moving here a common denominator of getting in contact with forefathers, he thinks of how the humans also joke when he sacrifices in front of the alter. "It's almost like he's trying to sacrifice to the forefathers'' they say and for once don't get annoyed by him leaving sacrificial mice in the domus "but it's only a cat" they then say and smile.

Shortly after that he hear his burden shouting at the slaves and slapping them asking who spilled the ink and shouting to them that they should not lie to him. The door guard has had to lower his status and scrub the hall mosaic. His burden seems to in a way believe the slaves after slapping them somewhat and instead starts to shout obvious instructions to the slaves like "In this household we don't move around master's things and most of all we don't go about and drop them". The he storms into the tablinum and when seeing the Svansglidaren shouts "And that goes for you too!". The cat didn't carry around any of master's stuff and did especially not drop any of his stuff.

When the master comes out again and finds all the salves and the guard scrubbing the mosaic he shouts at them that it's of course no idea, that they obviously will have to replace the mosaic. "But you told us to..." one of them tries. "But I was upset, stupid" master answers him and storms back into the tablinum muttering something about "slaves of today". The slaves and the guard looks confused at each other and silently takes the stuff back to the kitchen. The master's wife seems to be standing and calculating the cost of removing the mosaic and putting a new one there.

In the morning when they're more balanced the family decide to exchange the mosaic and are doing calculations of the cost and thinking about whether they could use their own slaves to remove the mosaic since that's destroyed anyway. During the day the cats spend some time checking where sewers ends in the river Tiber and if it's possible to track the sewer with the rat hole but since they don't know if it's going straight or not and don't know which manholes or doors that goes to that specific sewer they can't really follow it.

At a nightfall there's another attempt to break through the ward and Svansglidaren had to actually make an effort. Maybe all the earlier successful blockings has made him sloppy or have they fetched The Great Warlock Rat? Suddenly there's another attempt and the rat breaks through and they all run there to stop it. Svansglidaren is a little scared both because he's not really a fighter and because some weird magic rat has broken through one of his wards. The surround the opening and close in on it. A rat big as a minor cat sits outside the hole. They attack the rat before they start to hesitate and also are motivated by the situation of strong magic rats trying to do something whatever it is. A fight breaks out and the rat fights back instead of fleeing and since it's so big they actually have to be somewhat careful when fighting it. The fight goes better for the cats though and the rat tries to flee into the hole again. Not with three hero-like cats against it and it turns again to fight and hurt them as much as possible before dying and it dies quite quick for the paws of Grå and Tryggtass.

The warden is broken since the rat shoved out the sacrificial rat from the hole to get out. On the inside of the hole they see eyes faintly reflecting light and hear rats hiss towards them. The cats starts to shove the newly killed rat into the hole as a new sacrifice to create a new ward agains rats. Luckily they've managed to do this without any human noticing them and getting suspicious. They're spooked by the abundance of large albino rats and on top of that large albino rats with magical abilities. They discuss whether they should try to bring up this on an actual senate meeting and maybe ask if any other cats maybe have more knowledge about the sewers.

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As Svansglidaren left through the window alcove he felt that a rat tried to push through his ward at the passage where the rats had broke through from the sewers earlier. He also felt that a lemures tried to get through the ward at his burden's domus. He made a push-back against both and then ran to the domus. He wards off the lemures but feel how the rat gnaws at the protection frenetically. He focuses on the other ward and push back the rat for now. Svansglidaren feels the anger from the lemures as it realise that it can't get through and leaves. Since the mother of the sick baby now has crept up to her baby and keeps it warm both Grå and Tryggtass follows Svansglidaren home to the domus just in case they can be of any help.

Svansglidaren who has some ability to feel the supernatural beyond the shiver along the spine or mysterious wind many cats and humans can feel notice that the lemures still hangs around not too far away. There's also something weird magical something inside the domus. It's not a being but a something. Grå and Tryggtass follows his inside to be able to tell the rest of cats in case it should be something dangerous or if something would happen to Svansglidaren. As they jump into the hortus (small garden) on the back side Svansglidaren is quite sure it's free from weird magical stuff and they proceed into the building. It's stronger inside the house but not in the back end and not in the atrium either. In the small hall at the entrance the feeling is strong. It's like a small lightning would have struck Svansglidaren and his hairs rises totally upright and he looks like he've seen one of the humans giant murder dogs they keep as guard dogs. It's somewhere in the middle of the hall. They search for a sacrifice that could sustain a spell. They don't find any and there's not many place if any where it's possible to hide something bigger than very small dust bunnies or some dirt from humans' sandals. They can't feel any smell of blood either. Grå even runs out into the garden and jumps up onto the roof and seeks for a sacrifice anywhere but can't find anything. As they run around and stands up against walls and such Svansglidaren realises that the weird feeling dwindles somewhat when he stands up against a wall and so guesses that the focus of the magic is in the middle of the hall and in or under the floor, a quite new patterned mosaic. As he lies down in the middle and expose his abdomen to the floor he feels the power strongly and jumps up, almost afraid that something were about to come up through the mosaic and eat it's way into his body.

They try to find out if there's any way in under the floor but can't find any. Theoretically the waste hole in the toilet where also kitchen waste is poured could lead into a pipe that goes under the hall but it's not tempting to try that theory. Since they don't find a sacrifice and no way to whatever it is that creates the magic they feel a little off and don't really know what to do. Svansglidaren decides to try to meet up with he newly emerged mentor that learned him about dreamwalking. They hurry there when Svansglidaren suddenly stops and focus somewhere in the distance and then looks satisfied. "A rat tried to get through the ward" again he explains "It didn't get far". They arrive to the area where Svansglidaren's mentor lives, an area with a lot of intellectuals, scribes and such. Probably no accident he chose a burden in this area since he's fascinated by the humans, their culture and their writings. They hang around a while with a few other cats while waiting for the cat. After a while he appears and invites them into the apartment. The whole family is away on some of the humans misunderstood rituals to honour the gods and goddesses. The apartment is filled with papyrus and big palm leaves used to bring home fast food. There's not a piece of raw product but a few leftover pieces of pierogi or pies.

Svansglidaren explains the matters at hand with some information added by Grå and Tryggtass. They discuss what it could be and find that it's not cat magic, more probably human magic. Part of the problem is how someone has found a focus for the magic and got it placed in the hall. One of the things with the human magic is that it needs connections and if the connection is the mosaic the magic would target the one putting the stones in the hall or the artisan creating the stones and the pattern so that doesn't seem plausible. Svansglidaren's leaves half-done suggestions hanging in the air and after a while Svansglidaren asks if he would be interested in coming to the domus and investigate the magic if he would get a fresh mouse every evening for the coming week. The four of them returns quickly to the domus (to the joy of the mentor's neighbours who aren't used to seeing him moving quickly).

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As afternoon passes into evening Svansglidaren hangs around the apartment with the sick child Tryggtass tires to warm with the purpose to try to catch the full name of the mother. If he manages that he would have much greater power over her dreams. He also convinces Tryggtass who can read to sneak into the apartment and try to find the name on any of those important papers that humans keep around. Sadly she doesn't manage to find any paper lying around. As the night falls Tryggtass again sneaks up to the baby and crawls up to it and warms it. She has also noticed that they hasn't thrown away the baking towel they covered the child with earlier. Whomever of the two parents who find it first in the morning seems to assume the other put it on their child and folds it and puts it among other cloths and every night Tryggtass covers the baby again.

Later at night Svansglidaren appears to try another dream walking and to dampen the mother's fear of crushing her child so that she would lie close to her child to warm it instead of separated from the child. This time Svansglidaren tries to from the beginning take control over the dream environment and shape it before introducing the mother and the child close together. As he tunes to her and enters her dream world he gives her the feeling of being a spirit version of herself (the humans believe that the spirit partly releases itself from the body during sleep, the cats know that that's the case) looking down on herself and her child sleeping in the apartment. In this version the child wakes up apparently not feeling well and crawls over to the mother and although it can not talk yet it in the dream tells the mother that it's not feeling well and needs warmth. The baby then lays down close to her and hopefully that won't trigger her panic as furiously and it will then be more manageable. Svansglidaren tries to build up as much positive feelings as he can with the image of the child voluntarily coming close to her. Svansglidaren fights with her feelings and nightmare of crushing her child. It's an even fight but suddenly she calms down and realise that if she only is a little careful she can sleep close to her child and the fear of crushing it is gone.

There's no guarantee that she will lie close and hold her child each and every night but now her fear is gone so at least she would do it when needed. Tryggtass and Svansglidaren watches as the mother hold her child and slightly enthusiastically talk about how Svansglidaren managed this time and almost wake the parents so they calm down. Svansglidaren is still quite upset after the fight with the nightmare so he leaves to go home to his burden and sleep and rest. As he jumps up in the window he suddenly feels how a rat tries to pass his warden in the hole down to the sewer. As he stops and thinks of what to do a lemures attacks the warden of his burden's domus. Conflicted which to tend to first he hesitates in the window alcove.

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As they return and jump up to the roof to have a necessary nap in the sun they spot a new very large white rat sitting in the shade peering at them while chewing something. As soon as they move towards it it looks up and stares at them. They rush towards it to kill the rat. They have the upper hand in that they probably can cut it off from it's expected escape route (the hole they discovered earlier).  Grå jumps up to a window alcove to be able to jump the rat when it tries to escape while the others rush directly at the rat to drive it towards Grå's ambush. The rat runs but doesn't get to Grå's ambush before Tryggtass and Svansglidaren catch and kill it.

The very curious Tryggtass can stop herself from trying to get through the small hole where the rat escaped earlier and the extremely agile Grå managed to get through when they examined the escape route the other day. With some effort she squeezes herself through the hole. It's almost at a point where Svansglidaren decides to push her from behind but he never has to, with little margin. She looks around in the apartment and discovers a woman who looks surprised at the cat that almost materialised in her apartment. "Meow" says Tryggtass and looks hungry. The woman keeps on looking surprised and then squats and pats Tryggtass on the head in that manner the humans have with their children and adds a "Oooh, little kitty". Tryggtass fawns a little to uphold the charade and suddenly she gets a fish, a quite fresh fish even. She eats it while peering around in the apartment. She also feels the scent of rat towards the door out of the apartment. The rats seem to have crawled under the door and then run towards the hole in the exterior wall. There's also some rat scent under the raised ember. Tryggtass jumps up to the window and out to the other two.

They leave the street roof and runs into the inner court to the hole where the rats come from. It's a very small hole but that doesn't stop a curious cat Tryggtass. There's a great stench and they can hear running water somewhere inside downwards. She squeezes through and Grå follows her. The balance on a very narrow space with room for about seven paws. There's a very steep wall down to running water. It's probably possible to run down to the water somewhat controlled but most probably no possibility to stop halfway. They don't see so much, it's dark even for cats and return out to tell Svansglidaren. It seems like the hole went into the sewers where the rats usually lives. They discuss how they could stop the rats. If they could convince Svansglidaren's burden to renovate the building. He has been convinced such things before. They are interrupted by a furious hissing from the hole. They jump around and turn towards it ready to kill. Something big is in the hole. They growl back. Svansglidaren moves to the side to move out of sight. Tryggtass tries to lure it out when it suddenly attacks her. Tryggtass backs off fending herself while the other two jumps the rat. A fight erupts where the rat bites after Tryggtass paw and Svansglidaren smashes it. The fight continues furiously but is short. Even if it's a big wild rat they are three cats and the fight ends with two of them catching it and killing it. Some humans cheers at them for killing the rat and come down to them with a bowl of garum, totally okey fish sauce (although Svansglidaren is used to better). They try to alert the humans to the hole and the rat but they seem to think a cat is stuck there and when they don't see a cat there they return to their business. Grå and Tryggtass knuffar in the killed rat into the hole. Svansglidaren then casts a Ward against rats over the hole with the rat as sacrifice to Pluto for power.

A dog appears on the court. They recognise it but dogs are moody so you never really know where you have them. It's not one of the more sapient dogs and it tries to out it's nose into the hole with the rat. Tryggtass tries to convince it to not put it's nose there and after a while it understands and tries to use it's paw instead. Tryggtass sighs deeply and tries to convince it to stop, to go away. After a battle of wits against stubbornness it walks of. A few children looks at them and giggles at the dog. Suddenly Svansglidaren feels how someone tries to get through the ward from the inside. A mental fight starts and suddenly Svansglidaren jumps startled as he's overcome and a furious white rat storms out of the hole. They jump that rat as well it's soon captured and killed. It's strange that so many albino rats have appeared within such a short time span. They drag the rat out of the court and manage to budge it up to the street roof and push it into the hole into the apartment as a sacrifice for a ward over the street roof agains Skarpöra.

They discuss if it's possible to get to the rats in any reasonable way but every way they can think of involves more or less water and they decide to not do anything particular right now. It is worrying with these large ferocious rats though. They could harm or even kill a human baby.

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The three cats spend parts of the first part of the day (after a morning nap) talking about Ärrnos, Skarpöra and Tofsöra and what they were or are after. What's the point with the strange dominance game they've been playing and what was the point with Skarpöra's manoeuvres that seemed to stretch out out of the area made up out of the the cats' territories and the area in between? They decide to go on a scouting tour following an imaginary line from Skarpöra's territory to their territories and onwards.

They follow that line until the border of their region which is to the corner of and including Ara Pacis - The altar of Augustan peace, a strange monument over one of the humans' leaders, not a god or godess as one would expect. Speaking out half loud and frustrated Svansglidaren wonders why the humans all the time have to clean away his sacrifices when they so obviously understands this with sacrifices and the importance of places for sacrifices. "Well" a cat says "they even clean away in the temples." One of the temple cats have appeared and answers Svansglidaren's unintended question. The cat goes on and tells them about how humans don't really know so much about sacrifices anyway. For one thing they brun their sacrifices because they don't think the gods and goddesses can utilise the sacrifice otherwise, unless the sacrifice raises up to the skies where they're supposed to live. Svansglidaren withdraw his statement about humans understanding, it just looked like that. Svansglidaren steers the discussion to Skarpöra and whether she were hanging around there or tried to sway cats around here. The temple cat says that he did recognise Skarpöra when she appeared in court so probably she has been around here but both she and the other two cats are, according to the temple cat, cats you don't really notice or care about so he doesn't really remember. Another temple cat, out of three, also appears and joins the company. In the end it seems like they just did it to be cool and because they could do it and to be cool.

Suddenly the temple cats look at each other and explains that the humans are about to sacrifice, they smile and they say that they need to watch the humans so that they don't burn themselves on the fire. Svansglidaren asks if they could join them and watch the humans. The temple cats are happy for the attention and even invites them upp on the upper roof where the view is good both over the sacrificing humans and the park that's included in the temple area. The humans are always sacrificing outdoors since they believe that the sacrifice has to raise up through the air up to the gods and goddess. They all gather up on the roof and look at the humans below.

As they watch they realise that they donät recognise the god the humans are dedicating the sacrifice to although cats have a good knowledge about the gods. On the other hand; since the humans have misunderstood so many other things, like how to sacrifice, why shouldn't they misunderstand the looks of the gods and goddesses? One of the temple cats notice their surprise and says that it is a little funny, it's not one of the gods or goddesses they're sacrifising to. "Ah, it's their forefathers?" Svansglidaren says and thinks he has gotten why they didn't recognise the god from the statue. The temple cat looks at him and smiles "Nope...". "Ooookey, then who is it?" Svansglidaren asks perplexed. "It's their Great Leader." the temple cat says, still smiling. Svansglidaren, Tryggtass and Grå looks down at the humans baffled. Apparently they have just one "consul" who makes all the calls all the time, weird. Then the temple cat tells them that he doesn't even come here and eat the grilled sacrifise to get it's power or something. Other people come there and eat the meat from the sacrifices. Apparently the gods and goddesses get the less tasty parts of the sacrifice. "If they get any power from that at all it must be a pity thing from the gods and goddesses" Tryggtass concludes. "They look down at them and goes 'Aw, cute humans, here, have some prosperity." According to the temple cats they have repeatedly tried to sense magic at these sacrifices and never managed so they have concluded that the sacrifises doesnät work. At other temples where the humans actually sacrifce to gods and goddess it seems to work although very inefficient when taking the size of the sacrifices into account.

As the humans go about with their rituals they discuss what's beyond The Peace Altar and the border of the region. According to the temple cats it's the humans central square (named after the humans living here in the city, The Roman Square) and the main temple area beyond there.

Svansglidaren, Tryggtass and Grå thanks the temple cats and walks away to the main square which is quite small for being a main square. There's no commerce going on but it's still packed with people, lot of people ooooh:ing and aaaah:ing when they men at a large podium states things. It seems slightly wild and disorganised evenf or cat standards though. They sneak around the crowd (which feels slightly uncomfortable and untrustworthy for the cats) and take a look at the temples beyond. Among one they find Merkurius' temple, a little like if the humans had misinterpreted a ferret god maybe - a trickster and thief and lover of shiny objects. They don't understand what Skarpöra was after and give up on trying to understand, maybe they did it just because they could. They do notice that there are a lot of corveids in the area though which seems reasonable if there's actually some sort of communication going on between the humans and the gods and goddesses. There is a rumour that there's actually an Egyptian temple in Rome but it's not Bastet - Sekhmet as one could have expected but some other Egyptian gods or goddesses. humans, you never understand them. The humans are getting more and more agitated over at the square and are sounding more and more like dogs gathering in flocks and barking at something and running after something wildly barking. It makes the cats uneasy and they decide to walk around the area and return home. As Tryggtass concludes; she will soon be very busy taking a nap in the sun so she doesn't really have time to watch dog-like humans. They return to the street roof.

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Tryggtass tends to her forefathers and sacrifices to them, Svansglidaren gets a mouse for some magic and Grå steals a small baking towel that Tryggtass brings to the child to warm it during the night. Svansglidaren lays down and tunes himself to the mother and once more enters her dreams. This time he tries to weave a dream where she rolls next to the child but only close to the child. He there tries to inject a feeling of closeness and warmth rather than panic for crushing her baby. The first attempt is only half a success and Svansglidaren is almost shoved out of tune when she moves rapidly and jostles him. Apparently she has a great fear of crushing her baby if sleeping to close.

He starts to build a new dream environment where she stretches out and and hugs her child instead of crushing. As she turns around in the dream the panic storms froward again and suddenly the panic hits Svansglidaren and instead of him controlling the dream he suddenly finds himself being rolled over by the mother and getting crushed himself. He throws himself out of the dream with fur standing right out all over his body and his heart pounding. Svansglidaren leaves and his fear after a while turns into frustration and his tail flaps back and forth and cats passing by gets angry glares just for being there.

As the frustration dwindles Svansglidaren seeks out his new Seeker friend again to discuss the weird humans. They discuss the matter and during the discussion Svansglidaren realises that he must build and try to control the dream environment more. They also talk about magic in general like that there's a connection between the breath and the soul. Svansglidaren's new friend also seems honestly interested in how everything goes for Svansglidaren as he tries to cure the mother of her fear of lying next to her child. He also invites Svansglidaren to come back some time so they can discuss whether a cat's magic i located in the tail or not. Svansglidaren leaves with new ideas how to handle the mother's fear.

Grå scouts around and ask cats about Klunsan (Clumsy, Skarpöra's human name) and her territory to find out if she's lost her territory (which would be something of a atrocity but you never know with cats like those). Everything seems sort of OK though but Skarpöra has become a much more withdrawn cat now. He also talks to some cats about Skarpöra's two friends and find out that they're not form this part of the region. The rest of the night he walks around and sniffs for those two and also talks to a cat or two about them and finds out where one of them, Ärrnos (Scarnose), has his territory - a big three-sides-of-an-insula-territory. He also get the tip that Ärrnos isn't to fond of foreigners.

Much of the following day's is spent by resting, sleeping and some thinking about new information and knowledge. When evening appears they go scouting from Skarpöra's territory to Ärrnos' territory to see if they can find the territory of the third cat in the triumvirate and also get a grip on if they've been doing this capture-the-streets-thing all over the region. Just as they're about to jump from the street roof down to the street they notice a ferret on the street roof. He peers at them in a ferrety shrewd playful way at them, in that particular you-never-know-where-you-have-them-ferret-way. "That albino rat that lurks around here? Isn't it a typical cat job to keep those at bay, eh?" he says, waves his tail in a teasing way and runs off. "Does it give you trouble?" Tryggtass shouts after it. It stops shortly and calls "It's big, fat, in the way of everyone and sinister as a lemures" and runs along again. "We could bring it down for you" Svansglidaren calls "What's in it for us?". "How about your pride as hunters?" the ferret answers. "You're slinky and annoying" Grå mutters. "Or can't you handle it?" the ferret says and runs away. "It should die" Grå states. There's no sport in getting you" Svansglidaren calls to it. "Come on and try it" the ferret answers and runs off at surprising speed and almost seems to neglect the corner of the insula as it takes a jump down to the street around the corner and disappears.

With Grå still muttering over the ferret they walk off on their scouting tour. After a good part of the night they find the third cat's territory. He's named Tofsöra (Crested ear) and it doesn't seem like they have been taking over the streets like Skarpöra did. Their names are very well-known along the routes between the three territories though. Both of them have territories taking up three sides of an insula.

Tryggtass uses the rest of the night to warm the child and also trying to familiarise the father with the thought of lying beside someone small by pushing the child's doll close to him.

During the day's naps and slumbers they wonder what they were and are up to.Skarpöra didn't seem to act like the others and why did she go out on a conquer-street-territory-mission in a line that doesn't connect to the other territories? Were the other two supposed to do that while she was doing what she was up to or did she want to have their street territory specifically? If she was going in a specific direction, what's in that direction except Forum romanum - the humans main centre of their main city? Were she or they after nice spots in the sun with many options of grades of shade? In that case, how were they going to patrol them and when were they thinking of having time to use them themselves? The street roofs are not many compared to streets without roofs and they are good resting spots but they're not that good?!? Why are they doing this? Do they know something that other cat's don't know? Are they just bullies and want street cred?

Towards the evening they again notice the albino rat. It definitely seems to be looking at Tryggtass. "What do you want?" Grå says pointlessly since rats aren't sentient. "Come and play." Svansglidaren says trying to look harmless. It climbs up to the window where it disappeared last time and then turns around and look at them again. "Let's hunt" Svansglidaren calls and sets off after the rat who tries to run away from the cat. Grå and Tryggtass quickly follows.

Grå runs after it and hunts it through the apartment, under the door and down the stairs where the other two are waiting and jumps it. It's massive and it takes three paws and two cats to from two directions to  hold it down. As expected it doesn't answer any questions but try to bite them so they kill it. Svansglidaren use the rat as a sacrifice to crate a ward against lemures for Grå's territory. When he returns home he hunts down a mouse and does the same for his burden's domus.

The Secrets of Cats tARE c6s8b

While they walk home they discuss what the cat triumvirate were up to. It's confusing. They seemed to be after getting control of the streets. It makes some sense since it's probably easier to snatch the uttermost part of a territory, the street or sidewalk than to snatch a part of an insula or a domus. On the other hand it doesn't make sense because the streets are free to walk upon and it's considered free to walk into the inner courtyard of an insula (but not into apartments or domuses). On the third hand, it's considered free out of tradition so it could be possible for at cat to start to say otherwise about a street part of their territory. It would be weird and they would be frowned upon but maybe it wouldn't be definitely wrong. At least not until there's a verdict regarding it. Maybe someone thought that no one would go to court over it and no one has yet either. The Tryggtass court case was about her streetpart of her territory and foul play during duel and not regarding what privileges comes with a territory and different parts of it. Hopefully cats have been inspired by the Tryggtass case to stand up for their rights and go to court if needed.

They discuss the matter back and forth but they can't really find anything especially interesting in their part of the region either, nothing that differs from other parts of the region. It's made up of a lot of insulas with well off craftsmen and their families and upwards in the insulas poorer and poorer people working for the craftsmen or at the dock, warehouses and similar (the higher up the harder to get the, no water, mor work to transport water, waste and food and so on). In these insula areas there's a big mix of different businesses; bakers, baths, taverns, fast food and so on. At one border of the region there are a bunch of small domuses (e g Svansglidaren's burden's domus). They decide to spend the rest of the day as cats do; sun bathing, resting in the shade, sleeping, sunbathing, sleeping, resting in the shade...

Suddenly a scent catches their attention. A rat. An albino rat sits close to the wall of Grå's insula's wall peering at them. They assess the target. It's a rat, an unusual big rat, and so a prey that could be slightly troublesome. They would catch it but someone could actually be hurt. Tryggtass looks at the rat who could be dumb as a stone or slightly sentient and says "It's lucky for you that it's nice weather and that I have a good spot here. I don't fancy quick movements and hunting right now.". "What do you want?" Grå asks it. "Be eaten" Tryggtass answers for it "but we don't provide that service at the moment". "True, true" Grå says. "Come back tomorrow" Tryggtass calls to it. If it understands them or not is unclear but suddenly it climbs up the timeworn wall beneath the windows and sneaks into a window. Usually the the shutters are slightly open to block out as much sun as possible but still let in some air, very convenient for cats - and rats. "Hmmmm, rat for dinner tomorrow" says Tryggtass lazily. Svansglidaren contemplate if he should hunt an albino rat as sacrifice for his warden of his burden's domus. Such an unusual sacrifice should gain some extra attention from Pluto and thereby more power for Svansglidaren's magics. "In that case you should have been gone doing that a while ago" Tryggtass says. "Yes, I know" he answers "but it's so hot and the spot is so nice. Maybe it comes back" "I told it to come back tomorrow" Tryggtass says.

Grå jumps up to the window and peeks into the apartment. As expected it's a well off family's apartment on top of their business located on the street level. It has some furniture and an actual bench for the embers where the food is cooked and water. The door to the apartment is closed although it should be possible even for a big rat to slip under the door. Grå jumps into the apartment to find out where the rat went. The apartment is empty of both humans and rats but there's a distinct rat scent trail between the window and the door. It's not the first time a rat passed by here. Grå wants to follow it but fret at the need to run the whole way down on the outside, around the corner, into the yard and up the stairs to get to the other side of the closed door. At the view of all that trouble he decides to jump into the apartment and try to slip under the door instead. He is after all known for being able to slip through the smallest holes (stunt). On the other hand, should someone arrive home to the apartment he would be caught snooping around in the apartment or sneaking under the door. Humans tend to act weird on foreign animals in their homes since they don't understand what's going on around them. He sighs and goes the long way around it all.

On the outside of the door he starts to sniff where the rat went. He follows it down the stairs, along the wall under and behind some waste on the inner yard and to a hole in the wall that seems to have slowly appeared as the plaster has crumbled somewhat and then been widened by the rats and maybe mice as well. It would be possible for him to get into the hole but it's very, very dark in there, even a cat wouldn't see much in there. More important though; he can hear water running down there. He returns to his spot and realise he has to move a little to get the same amount of sun and shade. They rest until the evening comes. During the time Grå tells them about the hole. Svansglidaren has decided to go for another try on dream walking and convince the mother of the half sick baby at the top floor in Tryggtass's insula to sleep close to her baby. They're still confused over the humans weird behaviour of not sleeping close to their offspring. Grå decides to get a worn baking towel from his burden's bakery that Tryggtass could use as a blanket for the child until Svansglidaren manages to convince the mother to take real care of her offspring.

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Some of the day passes in the most catlike sunbathing way on the street roof.

Closer to midday they go to meet Stortass. After asking around for him they find him in the same, strangely empty, apartment as last time talking to another cat they don't recognise. Stortass and Grå talks a little about the trial, Skarpöra, territories and what the trial might mean for Skarpöra and cats interacting with her. Grå who is a experienced fighter volunteers to be Stortass second anytime if the duel is with Skarpöra regarding 

They then cross the street to the domus where Trubbklo's burden live. Tryggtass calls for her and opposite what happened last time she appears and doesn't play busy. They talk a little about Skarpöra and the trial. Trubbklo admits that she's not used to all the territory fighting the cats do here in Rome as opposed to in Alexandrias where she comes from and therefore has really gotten the same amount of training which is part of her problem with Skarpöra.

As they walk home and pass the supermarket house they hear a wild cat fight from somewhere inside it. They run into it searching for the cats. They don't find anyone though but hear aggressive cats again. They run out again and run along the supermarket house and realise that the sound came from some sort of small entrance into a cellar or something. They run over there and see the back part of a cat blocking the opening. As they come closer it turns around quickly with claws out and growling at them as if they were about to fight for real. They stop suddenly and back off a few steps. The cat growls at them again. They recognises one of the two cats that has earlier accompanied Skarpöra to the senate and that the corvids told Svansglidaren about.

They hear a whimper from inside what seems to some sort of maintenance opening for humans. Tryggtass asks what they are doing and are told to not bother "...since that would be best for all involved". Grå almost explodes and can't decide whether he should ask if that was a threat or if he should ask if the cat are so stupidly stupid that he just threatened them. The other of Skarpöra's two former companions walks out of the tunnel. His shag is still standing somewhat, like he moments ago was threatening someone or trying to look as dangerous as possible when facing a threat. They all guess it's the first alternative. He also somewhat dirty.

Grå aggressively asks if they will find a lonesome cat that they have beaten up if the walk into the hole. One of the two fighter cats answers that he won't be passing them right now anyway and say that he has no idea what might be found in there. Tryggtass calls into the hole but doesn't get any answer. She asks if they have killed the poor cat and they get very offended that they in any way suggest something like that. They are well aware about the legal foundations for the senate and all cat senates - to never kill or maim a member of the cat senate unless it's self defence. As the two cats pass by Svansglidaren feels even more sure that it's the two former companions to Skarpöra since their smell match what the corvids described.

Grå and Tryggtass runs into the space under the supermarket house and calls again for the cat they can hear inside while Svansglidaren keeps an eye on the two disappearing cats. The cat inside doesn't answer and doesn't leave the deepest darkest most foul-smelling corner. Still the smell is very familiar and it's definitely a cat they have met several times. Even if it is Skarpöra Tryggtass feels that it's not OK to overpower a cat like that and beat it up. They try to convince the cat to come out and call her by her name. They get more and more sure that it's Skarpöra. They even offer to help her clean her wounds.Tryggtass tries to convince Skarpöra that she holds no grudge with her, Skarpöra, as a person. Tryggtass just loathe Skarpöra's behaviour when she tried to grab a piece of her territory. They give up and leave Skarpöra and walk home. Svansglidaren isn't as prone to forgiving Skarpöra though.

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The four cats walk to the senate meeting (Kattmyntetunga is a little jumpy and speedy). When they arrive to the insula where the meeting's gonna be held cats have already gathered. As they mingle Kattmyntetunga speeds up even a little more. They pay respect to the cats they know, acknowledge relationships and salute some important cats that recognises them. The princeps and the consuls arrive and everybody lowers their voices and start the informal negotiation over where they should sit according to territory, age and fame. Tryggtass notice Skarpöra and a suspicious foreign cat that they guess will speak for Skarpöra.

Princeps call for attention and opens the meeting. She points out the jury and the consul in charge and thereby judge for the trial and then asks the jury to step forward and take their places at the front. When asked by the judge Kattmyntetunga steps forward and eagerly states the accusation against Skarpöra. The judge then asks for a statement regarding this from Skarpöra's representative, a foreign cat called Eggtunga (Sharp Tongue). Luckily for Skarpöra she thought of getting her representative acknowledged before the trial when choosing a cat from another region. Eggtunga looks very nonchalant and strools up to the speaking area, strikes a pose and says that the accusation is incorrect.

As the accusing party Kattmyntetunga and Tryggtass gets the opening expression. Kattmyntetunga starts by reminding the jury and the senate how these simple things as duels have been possible to handle in a juste way based on firmly laid out tradition. Never before has this have ot come to a court case. Cats nod in agreement and readies themselves for some prime entertainment.

As first witness Kattmyntetunga calls Tryggtass who shortly and without frills describes how it happened this thing that Skarpöra calls a duel and how another cat, Högertass, was involved and how a third cat probably readied himself to join in. A murmur travels through the cats at this flagrant crime against traditions. Eggtunga steps up and says that it's with sorrow he has to go to court to counter such a foul distortion of the truth. He calls Skarpöra as witness and Skarpöra ruffle up her, stretches herself and confidently walks up to the speaking area. She tells about the fight without any direct lying and without mentioning any of the two other cats on her side.

The jury is hard to read but seems to lean towards Tryggtass telling the truth.

Kattmyntetunga then calls Grå to testify regarding how the fight happened and was carried out. He tells about Skarpöra's airy attitude and that there never was any formal challenge, that Skarpöra just behaved like it was her area and backed that up with threats of violence and with right paw that later engaged himself in the fight together with Skarpöra. Kattmyntetunga asks if Grå knows who this cat is. When Högertass is pointed out his facial expression goes from interesting-happenings-this to -eh-hey-don't-look-at-me-I-was-almost-not-there. Eggtunga has nothing to add and has no questions for Grey (to everybody's surprise).

Kattmyntetunga follows up by calling Högertass to testify about the fight and the more experienced cats in the senate raise their expectance for entertainment even more and whisper about that clever new rethor (speaker) Kattmyntetunga. Högertass looks perplexed and asks "Who?!? Me?!?" "You!" answer the judge. Kattmyntetunga asks Högertass if he was present when the fight occurred. He starts by trying to equivocate "I was at the same street roof, that's correct", trying to not say that he was in the fight or even really near it. Kattmyntetunga pushes him a little by asking if he participated in the fight or if he means that Grå is lying. Högertass says that he of course isnät trying to accuse grå of lying and then has to acknowledge that he was participating in the fight or "the challenge" as Högertass calls it. He's very nervous and Kattmyntetunga is clearly having the upper paw in the situation. He states it as if it could be another fight than the one Kattmyntetunga has been talking about but when Kattmyntetunga asks if there was more than one fight that day he falls spinning into the trap and answers that there was only one. So apparently he was participating in the fight and that fight also obviously wasn't going by tradition. Eggtunga tries to save the situation by asking Högertass if it is correct that he was there to act as Skarpöra's second in case that would be needed. To this Högertass of course answers yes and thereby implies that maybe the first tradition breaker wasn't Skarpöra but rather Tryggtass.

The fumbling testimony from Högertass is giving advantage to Kattmyntetunga and Tryggtass though and Tryggtass can feel the presence of her forefathers, guiding her and distracting the opponents forefathers when they try to help. The representative for the jury asks for a short break to discuss the matter at hand and the judge decides for a nap long break. Tryggtass, Grå and Svansglidaren slightly worries that the jury won't be fully neutral since they have recognised several cats in the jury that participated in the hunt for their catnip last night. Since they didn't get anything and Kattmyntetunga et al got a lot they might hold a grudge.

Kattmyntetunga continues after the break with a rethorical question wether this event is only about breaking the traditions regarding challenges and calls Svansglidaren to testify. Kattmyntetunga asks if it's true that Skarpöra repeatedly provoked Tryggtass to get her to start an unjust fight or maybe scared give up the area anyway. Grå answers with a simple "Yes". Following that kattmyntetunga asks in what form the provocations were "...surely no cat would mark territory inside another cat's territory without a proper challenge?" Grå's simple answer to this is that at least one cat would do that, Skarpöra, and she did that several times. He states where and how Skarpöra consciously marked Tryggtass' favourite spot as hers. Kattmyntetunga calls Tryggtass and Grå and asks them one by one if Svansglidaren's statement is correct. Eggtunga seems totally off and has nothing to add and totally fail to grab any opportunity to cross-examine the witnesses.

Eggtunga calls Skarpöra to testify and asks if she thought that everything was already done and finished and that she had won the challange. Skarpöra answers "yes" and then angrily goes of the rails and questions why they are here at all over this trifle. It should be obvious that she won the fight and that it's her area now. Eggtunga interrupts her, thanks her and sends her down from the witness area.

Kattmyntetunga calls Skarpöra to testify and asks her to describe how a correct and juste durel should be carried out. Skarpöra is very flippant basically says that two cats fight and the last cat standing gets the territory. Kattmyntetunga then calls Tryggtass and asks the same thing. Tryggtass gives a, if not fully correct so much more traditional, view on duels and also states that it by no means has to be about the whole territory. It's rather most common that it's about a small part of the territory depending on the terrain. In Tryggtass's case, a quarter of an insula as territory, it's obvious that it's divided in many parts. Eggtunga still isn't back on track and has no further questions. Everyone is surprised when Kattmynetunga calls princeps, oldest cat, most revered cat in the region, leader of the senate to testify. Kattmyntetunga asks princeps to explain how a challenge should be carried out to be correct and just, how seconds should behave, how parts of territories are decided and many other things. It's obvious that both Skarpöra and Tryggtass have made mistakes but also embarrassingly obvious that Skarpöra did the biggest ones and probably just didn't give a shit about the rules.

Kattmyntetunga declares that she's done and won't call any more witnesses unless any further testimonies calls for that. Eggtunga doesn't manage to come up with anything further so the jury leave to counsel and decide upon who's guilty. In the meantime the area explodes in talk and betting and some cats seem worried that humans will wake up and interfere in the procedures (Kattmyntetunga is nervously walking in circles) but everything is kept silent enough and the jury returns.

The judge ask the jury if they are finished and since they are finished he asks for their decision and wether they have reached that conclusion with a qualified majority. So they have and they have found that the accusation stands and is correct. The judge then decides the outcome. Skarpöra has no right to any part of Tryggtass territory and no privileges besides regular traditional rights to pass through territories and similar. He also states that if Skarpöra wants to challenge Tryggtass in the future over any part of Tryggtass's territory a neutral third party from the senate has to oversee the duel. The same goes for Tryggtass. Skarpöra and Eggtunga snort and leave. Tryggtass, Svansglidaren and Grå notice that the other two cats that earlier seemed to have a lot of dealings with Skarpöra doesn't follow them.

After some courtesy mingle they return home.