Mall Weasels are creatures that can be found in several continents, including Thistleland, The Southern Continent, The Changed Lands, and at one point The Dark Continent, though the latter population is presumably extinct now.
Mall Weasels are an extremely complicated creature, classified by the Mages as a magic-based creature, and considered by all people who encounter them as an extremely high danger to life.
Mall Weasels will typically prefer to take over settlements, especially buildings that have large, interconnected spaces within. This is especially true of shopping malls, which provide the single most ideal environment for a Mall Weasel nest.
Mall Weasels are typically fifteen to twenty feet tall, and extremely fast. They are highly agile and quite voracious in keeping with a high metabolism. They are also known to have excellent hearing and superb eyesight.
A Mall Weasel clearing a Shopping Mall of food to claim it as a new nest
Mallweasels will consume more or less any meat-based creature they can encounter, and typically have two main ways to feed, hunting and an Ermission.
Typically Mall Weasels will use the lure of their Shopping Mall or other building to attract Adventurers, scavengers and other looters, as such places are often full of high value items. As a Mall Weasel will easily fit through a shops double doors, there is almost nowhere safe in the main concourse of a shopping mall, and it is unlikely that any victim would reach the back room of a shop or some other small location that a Mall Weasel cannot reach into before being caught by their rapid dashing. What's worse is that Mall Weasels are known to be extremely quiet in their movements while stalking, sometimes watching prey for the perfect moment to strike.
Mall Weasels take great delight in eating people, and will go into a food frenzy if there are groups of people, preferring to swallow them alive one after another. Occasionally a Mall Weasel will carry away a victim for it's larder, a shop of building chosen for this role. Such people are then trapped in this location, unable to escape without the Mall Weasel immediately catching them again. Such people are treated with care and often tended to with paws, sniffs licks and concerned nuzzles to ensure they are kept in good condition, and then promptly eaten when the Mall Weasel becomes hungry again.
Occasionally people are used as gifts between Mall Weasels, and sometimes such people can live for quite a time as a favoured plaything by the Mall Weasel that accepts the gift, being licked, sniffed, nibbled, carried in paws/jaws and otherwise treated somewhere between a plushie and a lollipop. Mall Weasels appear to prefer more helpless, delicate people as gifts. Some believe this is due to some appreciation of beauty or delicate objects, others say the Mall Weasels just appreciate prey that are especially soft and delicious. Rarely, but sometimes, a person can escape the Mall Weasel in these situations, and rarer yet the Mall Weasel lets them go...
A Mall Weasel stalking Adventurers in it's nest
Currently The Adventure Guild advice members to actively avoid settlements and shopping malls that have fallen to Mall Weasels. While a Mall Weasel can indeed be killed by enough firepower (difficult in it's own right), a Mall Weasel will perform something known as an Ermission upon it's death. Mall Weasels that are hungry will also perform Ermissions to satisfy their hunger.
In larger settlements, a Mall weasel may take over a Shopping mall but may also take control of a city block, as has happened occasionally in Guildtown and other large cities. In such times local authorities try to cordon off the city block the Mall Weasel has claimed until such time that a way to remove the Mall Weasel safely can be arranged. Often such things can take weeks, months or years depending on the situation, leading to No-Go areas in the city. Some Cities, in time, have even been known to fall entirely to Mall Weasels over time, it's residents hiding in their homes before attempting the dangerous option of fleeing the city before the Mall Weasels claim everyone inside as food.
The first chain of shopping malls across Thistlelands towns and small cities, a project started by the Mages in the attempt to uplift local populations, boost the economy and raise standards of living, soon fell victim to Mall Weasel infestations. Such places still contain rare and valuable items, enchanted objects, spells and technology. Many go to attempt to claim these items, but most are themselves claimed by the Mallweasels that live there.
Ermission[]
One of the most dangerous aspects of a Mall Weasel is it's ability to perform an Ermission. An Ermission is an ermine Emission.
The Mall Weasel will instantly transform itself into a great many small ermine, the with the total mass of the Mall Weasel becoming a small sea of Mustelidae. These normal-sized weasels will flow outwards in all directions as a great wave, flooding over any meat-based creature as they skitter outwards, rapidly reducing victims to little more then bones, equipment and shredded clothing.
Once this tide of slink has spread far enough to become dispersed, the entire spread out hoard of weasels will skitter after places to hide. Once hidden from eyesight, they will vanish as if they cease to be. Once this flood of fluff has vanished, the Mall Weasel will appear again, well fed. The range of such Ermissions will easily cover the Mall Weasels nest, sometimes further.
If the Mall Weasel if killed, the same deadly Ermission will occur, however the Mall Weasel will not reappear. Instead, each small weasel that skittered forth will become, in time, a Mall Weasel in it's own right, effectively spreading the Mall Weasel species far and wide with every death. This is one of the main reasons The Adventure Guild advise people to not engage battle with Mall Weasels and instead flee.