21( Rats

  Scout Two sniffed at the deep slots cut into the tunnel wall below and into the shaft that led up into a dimly lit chamber high above.

  The wan light was continuous rather than flickering like a flame, and it had a feel of warmth to it that meant the room above was somehow at least partially open to the sky, despite still being several stories below ground.

  Setting his bony hands to the ground to sniff at the blood stains and scattered charred bits of flesh scattered below the shaft, Scout Two decided it was time to report in. Picking up a slightly burned tooth and bringing it up to hold before his furry muzzle, the Ratling closed his eyes and pressed his thoughts up against the constant feeling of being watched at the back of his head.

  After a moment, he felt the pressure of an unseen hand wrapping around his throat.

  {Report Scout Two}

  Swallowing past the tightness in his throat, Scout Two muttered quietly so that his voice didn’t carry.

  His master could hear his thoughts at any time, but the Ratling had never quite figured out how to put his thoughts into words without moving his mouth.

  “I have found signs of someone who was burnt and fell down a shaft. Then they got up and walked away.”

  After a moment, the pressure on his neck moved to Scout Two’s eyes, as if his master, Wernip, was pressing on them from the inside. {I can see it. Go up the shaft.}

  Scout Two nearly backed away from the ladder that was cut into the wall, but his Master was watching, and even from miles away, where the Goblin Tamer sat drinking tea in an abandoned sub cellar he was camped out in, Wernip could still reach out to hurt him.

  Or worse, he could hurt Scout Two’s family with a command to one of his other Tamed Ratlings.

  Setting his foot into the lowest slot and then reaching up for the next, Scout Two started his climb.

  None of the Elder Beings had picked Ratling as their chosen Race. Which meant that in the wild, the people of his race would slowly accumulate Chaos. Without a God to grant them a class, that Chaos would become a Core, and make those Ratling Beasts.

  The enemies of all the Chosen races. Either as predators to them or considering that they were only two feet tall on average, then prey for anyone looking for a Core to consume or Merit points for slaying a Beast.

  Scout Two’s clan had instead served Wernip’s family for generations. Each of them getting to live long enough to see their own children get born, and sometimes they even got to live long enough to die of old age.

  Sometimes.

  The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.

  Other times they were renamed from Servant Four to Scout Two after the last Scout Two died, and they were sent off to wander around the deep underground of the Old Quarter of Tessero trying to find any signs of a renegade Arcanist who had borrowed a small fortune from the Articulate Man to buy Cores and then vanished.

  Halfway up the shaft, Scout Two shuttered. The last Scout Two had found something other than the Arcanist. Something that made Wernip cross out an entire section of his growing map as ‘Too dangerous’ for anyone to hide out in.

  And now Scout Two was right on the edge of that area.

  Reaching the top of the shaft, Scout Two twisted around as he stretched his neck up to peer into the chamber above it, his whiskers dancing as he sniffed at the air. His master took note. {What do you smell?}

  His sense of smell was the one thing Wernip never felt the need to tap into. “Dampness, Devour All slugs… and… Wine?”

  It was faint, but there. It was like someone had spilled a glass full and it was still drying.

  Wine meant people. That had to be enough, right? Enough for the Master to send in a strike team instead of having a lone Scout push his luck and end up getting spotted. Right?

  {Find the source of the smell. Don’t let yourself be seen.}

  Scout Two clenched his eyes shut so his master wouldn’t see him roll his eyes. Then he pulled his way up into the corridor. With a tiny knife in hand, he began to slowly make his way down the hallway, well clear of the shallow channel running from another shaft in the far ceiling, this one without a ladder. Wan sunlight shined down the shaft from above, and just beyond it was an aged short door set high up on the wall of the dead end corridor.

  Halfway there, almost against his will, his head turned to the side to stare at a blank rectangle of the tunnel’s wall. A curiously cleaner looking area, from which the smell of wine wafted out.

  {What? What are you staring at?}

  “The wall Master. It’s not right, and it stinks of wine.” What did he have to tell him that, the bastard was going to…

  {Go touch it.}

  Scout Two sighed. Then crossed the hallway and reached out to set his hand on the wall, only to pull it back with a shrill scream as the tips of four bony fingers began to reach through the wall as they tried to close in around his wrist.

  Dancing backwards, Scout Two looked up in terror at the walking skeleton nearly three times as large as himself that stepped through the wall. Its bones more or less floating around in the air to keep them all aligned in the shape of a real body.

  And it was still reaching for him.

  Scout Two screamed and began running for the shaft leading back down to the tunnels, but as he leaped across the open top of the shaft for the ladder, there was the sound of a screaming hawk from behind him, and something hit him in the back, hard, as it struck him to the ground.

  Miles away, Wernip Tord jerked fully upright in his old torn up chair as he felt one of his Tamed Ratling die. After blinking a few times, he looked around the dusty old storage cellar until he spotted the youngest, and least skilled of the servants he had brought with him. “You. You are now Scout Two.”

  The young Ratling cringed and began to shake. Around the newly named Scout, Two other Ratlings gave the half grown child looks of sympathy or carefully glanced away from their Master to hide the hatred in their eyes.

  The Tamer laughed to himself. Let them hate, as long as they obeyed.

  “We are no longer looking for Nictob. Not directly. Instead, we will be approaching a Necromancer, a Witch, or something of that ilk.”

  First to apologize for intruding on their lair, then to get some information. Both on the whereabouts of Nictob, as well as information about the whoever which had decided to animate a corpse.

  Refilling his cup from his old scorched copper kettle before returning it to the Arcane brazier, then filling in far too many sugar cubes as well as enough cream to turn his tea nearly white, the Tamer finally lifted his cup in a salute to the as yet unmet and unseen animator.

  After all, people who played with dead things often had rewards offered for their heads.

  “Here's to new opportunities.”

  {Prepare a strike team.}