"It's okay." Vile says to her apparent slave. "I lost, fair and square. This dog has the right to finish me off."

Any hint of blood-lust that I had felt, which wasn't all that much but, admittedly, had grown a little during the long and frustrating battle was gone by this point. I hop down from the barrel, retrieve my sword and put it back into the sheath. "I have no intention of killing you."

"Huh? Why not?" the asks the rat, tilting her head. From this close, the scent of the creature is almost overpowering, and not the least bit pleasant.

I find myself rather confused by the question. "Since when does anyone need a reason to not cause pain and suffering to others?" I ask. This does cause a bit of a problem, however. I had a quest to kill the rats, and this is, naturally, one of them. I will clearly need to disappoint somebody, but it still feels like a rather easy choice. Maybe she is just a rat, but hey, I'm just a dog! Who am I to judge? Had any of the other rats about sought mercy, I would have offered it to them as well.

Slave attacks!

Squire suffers 2 point(s) of damage!

Squire's HP is now 59!

I was ready to counter after being knocked over, but as I rise back up to my feet, it becomes clear that it wasn't a real attack. Well, it was, but not one meant to continue the battle. The fight was over. 'Slave' had simply knocked me aside in her enthusiasm to get to her 'Mistress'.

"I was so scared for you!' the cat whines between quick licks to the rough, dark fur of the rat. Considering how terrible Vile smells, I shudder to imagine the taste, but the cat certainly doesn't seem to mind.

"Hey, knock it off..." the rat chuckles, but the black cat is clearly too overjoyed to listen. "I said stop!" she shouts in a much stronger voice, at which point the significantly larger feline meekly lowers her head, steps back and sits down next to the rodent.

I'm not really sure what to say. Should I demand that they leave and never return? Maybe, but rats need to eat, too, and it still wouldn't accomplish the objectives of my quest and thus wouldn't help the human. It doesn't feel right, but I guess I'll need to leave this quest incomplete. I hope that the human will understand.

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"Hey, you, dog..." Vile calls to me as I turn to head towards the entrance. "How many more do you need?"

"Huh?" I ask.

"Rats. You're on the rat hunting quest, aren't you? How many more do you need?"

I pause, looking back over my shoulder, confused at how she would know that. "Just one." I say.

Vile nods her head and looks over to her left, where a pair of her kind gnaw at a tattered sack of grain. "Hey, you!" she calls to one of them. The rat pauses, looks left and right and then points to itself, wearing a curious expression. "Yeah, I'm talking to you! Come here!"

The rat hesitates for just a moment before scurrying towards her on all fours, hopping up onto the barrel next to her.

Vile casts Immolation!

Rat(1) suffers 65 point(s) of damage!

Rat(1) has been defeated!

"What are you doing?" I exclaim, shocked as I watch the rat shaped lump of charcoal crumble away.

"There. That's ten. Now your quest is finished. I figure that makes us even for you sparing my life. Agreed?" the magic using rat smiles.

"But... but you killed it..." I say in a soft voice. The idea that there was a debt which needed to be repaid hadn't even occurred to me. The dead rat did, indeed count on my quest log, however.

"So what? It's just a rat." Vile shrugged. "They've got a quick respawn time anyways."

I feel more than a little bit tempted to point out that she is a rat as well, but I can't imagine that being some grand revelation which would catch her off guard.

"Beating up the adventurers who show up here has been kind of fun, but I guess that it's about time for us to move on." she says. The cat enthusiastically nods, her yellow eyes looking to the scruffy rodent with nothing short of worship.

"I... see." I say. I'm not exactly sure what to say, really. On one hand, this feels like a victory all around: I didn't die, I finished my quest, and with Vile and her, um, slave gone, should the quest need to be redone in the future (there are still plenty of rats left here, after all), it should be restored to its usual low difficulty. Still, it just doesn't feel right, somehow.

You know what does feel right, though? The wonderful pet and ear scritch I get as a reward! Oh, and I guess there's also some money, experience points, a suit of armor I can't possibly wear, and the satisfaction of a job well done. Still, it's hard to not focus on the pet.

Squire has become a level 14 Paladin (rank 3)!

More numbers which are always nice to see go up, but they don't mean much to me, personally. With no more quests here to complete, I've still got a far more difficult objective ahead of me.

---

Rat2: "Rest in peace, Rat1. Maybe he wouldn't have made such a bad boyfriend after all... It's a shame that you had to die like that."

Rat1: *smoulders*

Rat2: "Oh well. Better him than me."