Quanil was a sponge of information, and Jigano nodded at their questions. ”I don’t know where they’d go,” he admitted. ”They might be able to survive in the Woodlands, using leaves and bark instead of pages and books, but that’s just a guess. We haven’t seen them infect a Sentient Book before, but given that the books can move and potentially crush or draw the wasps into their stories they’re far from helpless against them. And if a Sentient Book is damaged or destroyed, anyone inside it is returned unharmed to wherever the book is,” he tried to soothe Quanil’s and Libbs’s concerns with the assurance he had read in Safrin’s book on Hollowed Grounds Flora and Fauna.
Libbs’s other question earned a rueful chuckle and a slight shrug. ”That’s the key, though, and one of the reasons for this class. If you get sucked into a Sentient Book and you don’t know what one is or what’s happened to you, you don’t know what the safeguards are. Yes, if you know what’s happened and are certain it’s a Sentient Book that’s at fault, you should be able to kill yourself in the book and it will spit you back out. Once they’ve ‘eaten’ a reader they seem to have a recovery time afterwards that varies from book to book, during which they don’t try to capture anyone else. We’ve bound the few we’ve found so far closed so that they don’t grab people at random, but we can still ‘read’ them in more controlled conditions.”
A glance around showed no other hands going up, so he pulled up one of the papers to set on the easel. A large blind rat was depicted on it, with sharp teeth and a long, whiskered nose. ”Next we’ll cover one of the Underground’s dangers, should you ever find yourself beneath the Ruins. ROUSes are bigger than your usual rat, up to the size of a large raccoon at times. They’re blind, but make up for it with particularly sensitive noses. Those long teeth,” he pointed to the picture, ”are particularly dangerous, and if you get a scratch from one you should see the Medical College immediately because the chance is high that it will fester. They usually survive off garbage, but they’re pack-hunting predators and will chase down and eat whatever meat wanders down into those tunnels – pets, companions, and people. They’re not picky.” His expression was grim as he looked around, nodding to Sam. ”A hunting expedition to clear out a particularly large and vicious pack last year ended with Emmett Palmer’s death when part of a tunnel collapsed on him during a fight with them. A reminder that the rats are dangerous enough, but the tunnels can be just as deadly. A single rat is simple enough to dispatch, but keep in mind that there’s never just one ROUS down there in the dark.” A grim enough topic, and he wasn’t done yet.
”Above ground, in the ruins and domiciles, you should watch out for Stone Golems hiding in basements or buildings that provide shelter from the sun. They’re large and made entirely of rock, no soft tissue in them. This makes them very hard to hurt and kill, and they’re very aggressive. If you should accidentally disturb one, retreat is a good option. They’re strong and durable, but also clumsy and rather slow, so they’re easy to outrun. If you need the building, though, the easiest way to deal with them is to trick them into a sunlit area. Sunlight seems to destroy whatever magic holds them together, and they’ll fall to dust if exposed to it.” He held up a hand to silence the first question he could already hear forming, giving a rueful smile. ”And no, I don’t know how long an exposure is required, but from how the references are written, it doesn’t seem to be long.” Again he paused to see if there would be questions before they moved on.
Libbs’s other question earned a rueful chuckle and a slight shrug. ”That’s the key, though, and one of the reasons for this class. If you get sucked into a Sentient Book and you don’t know what one is or what’s happened to you, you don’t know what the safeguards are. Yes, if you know what’s happened and are certain it’s a Sentient Book that’s at fault, you should be able to kill yourself in the book and it will spit you back out. Once they’ve ‘eaten’ a reader they seem to have a recovery time afterwards that varies from book to book, during which they don’t try to capture anyone else. We’ve bound the few we’ve found so far closed so that they don’t grab people at random, but we can still ‘read’ them in more controlled conditions.”
A glance around showed no other hands going up, so he pulled up one of the papers to set on the easel. A large blind rat was depicted on it, with sharp teeth and a long, whiskered nose. ”Next we’ll cover one of the Underground’s dangers, should you ever find yourself beneath the Ruins. ROUSes are bigger than your usual rat, up to the size of a large raccoon at times. They’re blind, but make up for it with particularly sensitive noses. Those long teeth,” he pointed to the picture, ”are particularly dangerous, and if you get a scratch from one you should see the Medical College immediately because the chance is high that it will fester. They usually survive off garbage, but they’re pack-hunting predators and will chase down and eat whatever meat wanders down into those tunnels – pets, companions, and people. They’re not picky.” His expression was grim as he looked around, nodding to Sam. ”A hunting expedition to clear out a particularly large and vicious pack last year ended with Emmett Palmer’s death when part of a tunnel collapsed on him during a fight with them. A reminder that the rats are dangerous enough, but the tunnels can be just as deadly. A single rat is simple enough to dispatch, but keep in mind that there’s never just one ROUS down there in the dark.” A grim enough topic, and he wasn’t done yet.
”Above ground, in the ruins and domiciles, you should watch out for Stone Golems hiding in basements or buildings that provide shelter from the sun. They’re large and made entirely of rock, no soft tissue in them. This makes them very hard to hurt and kill, and they’re very aggressive. If you should accidentally disturb one, retreat is a good option. They’re strong and durable, but also clumsy and rather slow, so they’re easy to outrun. If you need the building, though, the easiest way to deal with them is to trick them into a sunlit area. Sunlight seems to destroy whatever magic holds them together, and they’ll fall to dust if exposed to it.” He held up a hand to silence the first question he could already hear forming, giving a rueful smile. ”And no, I don’t know how long an exposure is required, but from how the references are written, it doesn’t seem to be long.” Again he paused to see if there would be questions before they moved on.
