The rat king had gnawed through his entire kingdom. Soggy's son of a sow had gorged its way to power much like the wolfbears. The hefty rat king laid back on a pile of bones that looked minuscule compared to him. His belly protruded as it breathed in and out. The smell of the lair was that of rotten eggs and burnt hair. Despite the rat's prone figure, I had to look up to meet Hefty's eyes. They were pale, beady, and empty.

"It-t-t is not-t-t nice t-t-to keep a King wait-t-ting. I am afraid you mis-sed the feast-t-t." What was the deal with awakened beasts and their distaste for waiting? First Lips. Now Heft? Did they really think they were royalty?

I didn't want to talk to Heft, and it wasn't just because of his poor hygiene. Lipper wasn't much better, and we spoke sentences together… sometimes during the same loop. Sure, Helf's scent played a large part, but I didn't like his ratty speech. Maybe that made me a bad person. I'd come to terms with it.

"What-t-t is the matter." Somehow, Heft knew his style of speech irked me, and he picked his words accordingly. "T-t-thought-t-t that it would be a nest of rats. The rat-t-ts are still here. They are t-t-talking to you, the intrud-d-der." Now, I knew for a fact that Heft was speaking with a rat stutter on purpose, which made me feel like a less lousy person. I still wanted to kill him.

The bones covering the floor rattled. Minions began forming. Heft created momentum from his belly and rolled towards me like a massive barrel. As he rolled, the bones piled onto his body, tripling his mass. My instincts were to run, but that was usually my go-to reaction.

I created an ice dome and secured it in place. As Heft collided with my dome, it shook with great energy, and a crack ran down the middle. The bones inside my shell came to life. Palers were all a bunch of cheats, and the rat king was no different. Instead of repairing my dome, I ran.

Once a coward, always a coward. That was the coward's creed, and that was how they continued to survive.

Heft pounded on my shell, and skeletons gnawed on the ice. The banging and chattering echoed loudly in the dead cavern.

Sog's pits. I couldn't lead Heft out here. The paler would go nuts in the dead playground. I ran back to the entrance, cursing the coward for his foolish flight. Sometimes, the best way to escape was to drown the opposition.

I added another layer of ice to the barricade and fixed the cracks. Then, I emptied my cores and filled the lair with water. Summoned water and mana inside my core wasn't a one-to-one ratio. Even with my tired channels, I had plenty of energy to flood the frozen lair. As the water level rose, the plight of the skeletons rose with it. To Heft's credit, he was a crafty rat who could swim with the best aquatic creatures. His back stroked in mockery of my waters.

However, his taunts turned to panic as he discovered that the water kept rising and that he could not escape.

It wasn't a pretty kill, and the rat king struggled for an uncomfortable duration. I witnessed the painful seconds as the rat's panic turned to fury and desperation. In the end, it wasn't the water that killed the king, but a bone spear pierced through his heart.

After absorbing the mana back into my core, I sat down and rested. I rubbed the tension spots around my head and let my channels simmer. It would be at least an hour before I could perform a minor summon without experiencing excruciating pain. The threat of passing out from mana exhaustion would last for another two hours.

I wasn't in a good spot, but the dungeon had been completely cleared. No… the dungeon was almost cleared. There was still the matter of the crawlers at the entrance and the dark cavern they scattered to that needed to be explored. It was the one cavern in this dungeon I had refused to investigate. Then there was the loot. I already knew Lips had nothing of interest, and the beasts offered little. The rat king, however, was a strange beast. I thought he was a summons of the tunnel, but he seemed to be an entity of his own.

The rat had one object of note. His staff. The wooden walking stick was as long as my body. It curved at the top and had a handle of woven cord a couple feet from the top. The bark had been stripped, and the exposed wood had etchings of a strange script covering it. My hand fit comfortably around the stick and it had an unexpected weight. It was loaded with mana. I stared at it for several minutes, not making sense of what it was capable of or how to use it other than as a support. There was a good chance I also had the wrong mana for it.

Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

Heavy casting classes like wizards, sorcerers, and clerics often used staff or wands to enhance their casting capabilities. The wands added force and range to their spells. I didn't get the impression that this staff was used for launching spells. I had felt those types of weapons before, and the rat's staff felt completely different.

Once I felt recovered, I grabbed the staff and left the lair. I collected the gem from Roots, the tunnel boss, before returning to the wolfbear's cavern. Over a thousand cores needed to be collected. As I observed the riches, a panic rose in my mind. I spent a couple hours collecting the bodies into one pile and cutting out the first hundred cores. After a break for food, my channels and will felt fresh enough that I could start training again.

Ice razors formed at my side. I directed the blades to cut, starting a new round of butchery. When cores were exposed enough, I pulled them from the dead beasts and added them to my growing pile.

"Kip, you need to stop ignoring me."

Funny Tents would say that. The parasite had ignored me for years now. I winced, trying to ignore the ache growing in my head. I found no relief and had to push through to collect my cores. My pile was an island in a pool of blood. I was up to eight razor blades and extracted a dozen cores every ten seconds. Though the process was more wearing than physical labor, I was much quicker.

"What do you mean to ignore?" Squids asked, his voice laced with concern. "I was trying to recover. You nearly destroyed this loop and damned us."

As a mountain of cores grew from an island, the tension in my head became unbearable. I needed to rest but had no place to sit. I took a break from extracting cores and massaged my temples. It didn't help. The pain had spread.

"Stop messin' with my mind," I said through gritted teeth. Luckily, I didn't feel the gross liquids as I took a knee and endured the assault. This wasn't mana exhaustion.

"I will not let you do this," Cal said.

"Think a headache will stop me?" I laughed. "You've any idea what I endured on that stake?" I rested a moment longer, regained my fortitude, and pushed past the pain. An ice cauldron full of water appeared in front of me. As the water boiled, I added cores. My technique got a bit sloppy between the breaks and yelling in pain. Betty would've had a riot.

"You do not want to do this." Calypso's voice sounded sullen and sincere. "I know your thoughts."

"Get out."

"I cannot. I have my own promise, just as you have yours. We are not enemies."

"Then I will swallow every elixir and burn you out."

"You would not risk it." My mind flared in pain.

"Didn't stop me before."

"You were ignorant."

"So you thought." Act foolish enough, and everyone sees a fool. I raised the cup of refined elixir to my mouth. My head nearly burst in pain as the shimmering liquid touched my lips.

"Please stop."

I spat out the bitter brew and wiped the grit off my teeth. I kept my cup in hand, though, as there was still plenty of drink left.

"You need to understand one thing, Cal, you are in my head. I'm in control." I took a deep swig of squid poison to enforce the point. Calypso and I shouted. "Now get out."

I summoned an orb of water and shaped it into a small bird of prey. My fine control over water brought my thoughts into reality. It took extra focus, but runes covered the water falcon after a few minutes of diligent effort. Only one piece was missing.

"You are linked to me, right? As long as that link remains, this loop remains. That doesn't mean you have to stay in my head."

"Kip—"

I tipped the mug to my mouth and swallowed. Everywhere felt like fire. I was so hot, moldy, and covered in sweat, dirt, and blood. Some of the blood might even be my own.

"Put the rancid fluid down. Give me a minute, and I will leave."

"I'm gonna sip and sit." I summoned a chair. "The longer you take, the more miserable this will be." I took another sip. This one, much smaller.

My mind popped after my fifth sip. A wave of nausea washed over me, and my head flashed with a bright light. When my eyes recovered and I could make sense of my situation, I saw my bird drowning in blood. I scooped up Calypso and washed the muck from his form. To my surprise, my craftsmanship was incredible. Perhaps it was a strong tie to water or the relentless training I endured. Somehow, I created a realistic-looking bird.