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Mungo Ratswarm

One of the tragic heroes of Battal, defeater of Xoxor Xxar, his story is told in Chapter 5 of The Lost Tales of Shattered Kelembad.

His story begins with Mungo, a spice miner from the small village of Axe and Lyre in Shattered Kelembad, being framed for the vicious murder of his wife by his brother-in-law.

When the local constable comes calling on Mungo, after a line of pointed questioning, it becomes clear to him that he is going to be unable to convince anyone of his innocence. He flees.

This begins a lengthy set of misadventures for Mungo where he gets himself deeper and deeper into trouble, at the same time several strokes of bad luck make it appear that Mungo also drowned a school full of young children, burned down a monastery, and stole an infinite ruby generator. The infinite ruby generator, in all actuality, never existed.

At the same time Mungo is noticing several strange and unexplained things happening in each of the villages through which he passes. Things that on their own would mean little but put together point to something larger and sinister going on.

It is after witnessing the nightmarish burning of the nunnery and stumbling through an anonymous village in a daze haunted by the screams of the burning nuns as he helplessly beat upon the heavy locked doors, that he meets up with a young woman known as Hillarious Lucy. Not knowing who this ash streaked stranger was, and not yet having heard the rumors of the infamous Mungo Ratswarm being seen fleeing from the burning inferno of the monastery, she sees that he clearly needs cheering up. She follows him out of town harranging him with puns, riddles, and knock-knock jokes.

As they walk down the desolate paths connecting one hamlet to the next she finally is able to crack his stern demeanor and he smiles.

Mungo feels obligated to tell her who he really is, but she listens intently to his whole story. She nods, says that she believes him, and does not question it again. After another day of travelling is when Lucy reveals that she has a secret of her own. After some coaxing she drops the bomb. She reveals that her father is a high priest of The Unspeakable who has dedicated his life to summoning the evil being known as Xoxor Xxar, and his cult's rituals and ceremonies were coming to a head. She feared that the rise of Xoxor Xxar was immenent. That explained the strange occurances Mungo had noticed, and the creeping feeling of dread he had felt when he saw things happening that couldn't have been coincidence.

Lucy outlines her plan to be ready with this ancient artifact at the temple of The Unspeakable.

Eventually the name Mungo Ratswarm is known throughout Shattered Kelembad, and also the nothern regions of the Ruins of Blee. Unprecendented cooperation between the fiefdoms of these two regions leads to one of the most organized self governed cooperative efforts in this region for over a thousand years.

Avoiding the sheriffs who are pursuing Mungo, the two make their way to the temple by the night of the final ritual.

Ratswarm and Hillarious are successful in thwarting the plans (albeit semi-accidentally), but Lucy is killed by her own father, who then disappears along with his cult, as cults are wont to do, and Ratswarm is left with another murder on his hands. This is when the law finally catches up with Mungo he is standing outside of the temple, which is assumed to be his hideout, holding Lucy's still warm body. The law men rush Mungo and run him through. He dies on the spot, no one ever having known the heroic role Mungo played, nor the nature of the strange urn in Mungo's pack.

After the death of Ratswarm, the Board of Sherrifs that formed to fight the menace of this "crazed serial killer" go on to form First United Republic of Terle. For more information on the Board of Sherrifs and the way in which they gained the required political capital, see the entry for King Vulthar.