Slowly, as the door mechanism activated, the large metal tumbler turned, and Luke could hear a large metal bolt being drawn back. Then there was silence, but for the dropping of water in the surrounding chamber. He waited a few moments with his hammer ready in case something nasty jumped out from behind the door, but nothing happened.

When he cautiously pulled the door open Luke was ready for almost anything, but an elevator from the London Underground hadn’t exactly made his top ten. He even recognized some of the graffiti.

For a few seconds, Luke just stood there. The elevator wasn’t the first incongruous structure spliced into the city he had seen, but it was jarring nonetheless. It reminded Luke that the city he saw was an artificial construction, and that Earth was just its latest stop.

Poor Rurik, Luke thought as he looked down at his armour.

The runes told the story of a city that only the forgemaster remembered, as the last of the Eldrinsvär.

No monsters hid in the elevator, so Luke stopped stalling and stepped inside. It felt smaller than he remembered from his daily commutes, but it was him that had changed. Luke took the chance to examine himself in the cracked mirror on the wall.

Between his explosive muscle growth and the armour he wore, he cut an impressive figure. Luke had even grown a few inches, putting him just north of six-feet tall. It put him an inch or two taller than his younger brother, who had overtaken Luke in height around his twelfth birthday. Who’s the dwarf now, Nate?

The elevator’s control panel had buttons for two floors. Currently, the elevator display said that it was on level ‘B’, and there were only two buttons on the control panel. Feeling the suspense build, Luke shook his head at the surreal nature of the whole situation and pressed the button down to level A.

Luke’s stomach dropped as the elevator began its descent at an alarming speed. Grasping onto the handrail he braced himself for a bumpy landing, but there was no need. After a couple of minutes, the elevator drew to a slow stop with a ding, and the doors opened.

What waited for Luke on the other side was a rocky outcropping. When he took a few tentative steps forwards he heard a muted din from below. At the edge of the outcropping, he saw a large settlement sprawling a couple of hundred feet below.

It was clearly distinct from the dwarven city above, being smaller, and more primitive in appearance. There were five giant metal spires covered in rows of spikes, but most of the dwellings took the form of large tents made of a mismatch of leather.

Unlike the mostly deserted city above, the settlement below was a hive of activity. Small humanoid figures rushed about all over, in a chaotic sprawl. The whole place was lit by hundreds of open fires, contrasting again with the glow rocks used by the dwarves. Smoke filled the air, but thanks to his [Wisdom], Luke’s vision was sharper than ever before.

Eagle eyes looking down, Luke slowly picked out details from the crowds. His impression of the settlement was one of a military outpost. There was a crude barricade encircling it, and most of the inhabitants were dressed for war, with shiny weapons galore.

Luke would have guessed that the soldiers below were about the same height as the dwarves, but because they walked around hunched over it was hard to tell. Sometimes they walked on two legs, but often they loped through the streets on four limbs instead. The motion reminded him of a lion, but the long thin tail that trailed behind it definitely belonged to a rat.

Despite his past experiences, Luke took a risk and reached out with his aura sense. His ability to sense auras had improved after picking up the concept of [Fire], with the point in [Empathy] it gave. Luke wanted to glean a little more information about the rat-like people below. The elevator was right behind him, so he could flee easily.

[Level 10 Viran.]

The system wanted him to kill the Three-Headed-Rat. Luke had assumed he would fight some form or variation of plague rat, but that was clearly not the case. Dealing with an entire army was going to take a little more planning. Not his strong suit. Luke also had to consider if he was even willing to attack and kill clearly sentient creatures.

From some of his more depressing conversations with Rurik, Luke knew that as long as the dungeon had aether its denizens would respawn. He wasn’t sure if that made killing them any better. With each death their soul and sense of self would erode.

The ratling didn’t react to Luke’s probing in any visible way, and after a few moments he relaxed. The system notification hadn’t given him much, only a name and a level. He wondered if that was because it was so far away. From his elevated platform he could only get a feel for the density of the creature’s aura, but not a taste for its individual domains.

With his original ‘plan’ of walking right in and killing the boss untenable, Luke made himself comfortable while he observed the army below. His initial impression wasn’t very positive. The camp had very little sense of order, and fights were commonplace. Every few minutes a brawl broke out, and the fights were brutal.

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Luke’s opinion of the viran took a nose-dive when he picked out several prisoners shoved into little cages dangling from a large statue. The captives didn’t have room to stand, and had been left exposed to the elements. Even straining his enhanced vision, Luke wasn’t sure if the figures were alive or not.

Maybe a point in [Wisdom] wouldn’t be a bad idea, he thought. Even if mental attributes didn’t directly feed into his fighting style, information was power.

Over time Luke got a feel for the madness below. For example, what he had taken as drunken brawls seemed to function as displays of dominance. After each fight was over, the defeated warrior knelt and gave something to the victor.

One fight occurred at the edge of the camp, practically beneath him, so he could observe more closely. After a brutal exchange the bigger fighter tore a chunk of the loser’s ear right off, to the cheers of the onlookers.

While still bleeding, the loser removed a ring from its finger and placed it on the winner’s tail. Its tail glimmered with a metallic sheen from dozens of similar trophies.

Without using his aura sense Luke couldn’t be sure, but watching the fight had strangely resonated with his own [Murderhobo] domain. He sighed. Curiosity killed the rat. Does knowing what I’m about to do is reckless make me more or less of an idiot? He pondered.

[Level 8 Viran - An aetherling that serves as a skirmisher in battle. Core Domains: Marauder and Axe.]

Luke held his breath. He waited for the smaller viran to react, to sound the alarm, to look up. It didn’t. It was preoccupied prostrating itself before the larger warrior. Luke wasn’t sure if his touch had been gentle enough, or the viran was too distracted, but he hadn’t been detected.

Marauder? I suppose I can see the conceptual overlap, Luke mused. Now that he had a taste for the aura, he could sense it more easily lurking in many of the warriors below. He felt a real possibility that if he wanted to, he could gradually nudge his [Murderhobo] domain in that direction.

Emboldened by the lack of reaction, Luke reached out once again with his senses. He focused on the defeated skirmisher and studied its aura a little more closely. By comparing and contrasting, Luke could get a better feel for his own domain. The biggest difference was that instead of having loot lust, it was just bloodthirsty. He could see how the concept coloured the behaviour of the warriors below.

Their society practically revelled in violence, which made sense if violence was central to the path they walked, and the concepts they cultivated. viran of high status were bigger, adorned themselves with shiny metals, and the scars from countless fights. There were exceptions though.

Every now and again Luke glimpsed figures in simple red robes. Despite often being some of the smallest viran, no-one else dared to disturb them. Luke was tempted to try probing one of them, but his instincts warned him to be cautious. A bunch of brutes might not notice a few casual probes with his soul sense, but would that be true of less martially inclined ratlings?

Besides the warriors and the robed rats, there was a class of tailless viran used as workers. On the far side of the cavern there was a shallow mine, and a large number of the tailless worked over there. The prisoners hanging in cages were all tailless.

The afternoon had been productive, but Luke wasn’t much closer to a plan of how he was going to deal with the ‘Three–Headed-Rat’ from his quest. It had occurred to him that if the viran valued strength above all else, it might be possible to just walk in there and beat up the biggest, ugliest rat down there.

From what he had seen, the ratlings had a code of honour of sorts, but Luke couldn’t just assume that they would extend that code to him. If they were this brutal to one another, he didn’t want to find out what they did to outsiders. They could just swarm him.

A stealthy approach might allow him to locate and quietly dispatch the boss he needed to kill, without facing an entire army. As far as he could tell, the viran didn’t station guards around their camp. If Luke was better suited to sneaking about it might have been his best option, but he wasn’t.

Even with a few points in [Agility], he knew he wasn’t a ninja, and this wasn’t a video game where hiding in a bush would make him invisible.

Luke was about to return to the forge, to ask Rurik for his opinion on matters when he noticed that the rats below had started to gather in the centre of the war camp, by the giant statue of a man. Curiously the statue looked more like a humanoid angel than a ratling. The figure had four arms and six wings splayed out behind him.

As the crowd gathered Luke noticed that the tailless viran had piled up a bunch of white rocks around the feet of the statue. As he watched he saw several red-robed rats emerge from the cloud, holding large sceptres. He had a bad feeling about what was about to happen.

After a few moments the red-robed rats got into position, forming a circle around the statue, the prisoners, and the pile of rocks. Luke couldn’t look away. Still holding his breath, Luke saw the robed figures tap the floor with their sceptres, and they lit on fire like giant torches.

What was going to happen next was as obvious as it was inevitable. If Luke was a noble hero, or a video game protagonist then he would have leapt into action.

He didn’t move.

Even if Luke was willing to throw his life away, he could never reach the prisoners in time. As expected, the white rocks were highly flammable, and in no time at all the statue had been transformed into a giant flaming effigy, alongside the cages hanging from its arms.

It was horrific, and though Luke was too far away to smell the burning flesh he still wrinkled his nose in distaste. Luke didn’t need to draw upon his [Murderhobo] domain to set aside his earlier reservations. He was fresh out of sympathy for anyone who could burn another person alive.

Luke was looking down, letting his nascent [Fire] domain amplify his rage, when he finally saw his quest objective. It was hard to miss the giant ratling who came to stand at the front of the crowd.

The warrior was easily the largest viran in the entire encampment and stood almost twice as tall as the next one. Luke could almost feel his quest point him towards the figure.

Target acquired.