Luke dashed inside, and the scream was followed by a crashing noise. As he ran past Rurik, the dwarf stood aside, his arms crossed and his face impassive. The albino ratling had rolled off the table and was now waving his axe around like a lunatic, his eyes wild and his movements erratic.

Not wanting to hurt the ratling, Luke pulled up short, his hammer held at the ready but not raised to strike. He cast a questioning eyebrow at the forgemaster, who seemed unconcerned by the commotion.

"Your guest, your problem, son," Rurik said, his voice gruff but not unkind.

Luke frowned. “That’s a little callous,” he said.

Rurik shrugged, the flames of his beard casting dancing shadows on the walls. “He’s not a real person; he’s an echo of a person long gone.”

Real or not, the ratling had no problems hearing. He snarled at Rurik, who just shrugged again.

“Burn in hell, dwarf. I am real,” the ratling said, as it scrambled to its feet, still holding the axe.

“Oh really?” Rurik said as fire in the forge furnace flared in warning. “What’s your name?”

The ratling faltered, his grip on the axe loosening for a moment. "A pox on you!" he hissed, but there was a flicker of uncertainty in his eyes.

“See Luke, he doesn’t know, because he doesn’t have a soul,” Rurik said, before turning to address the ratling directly. “I have no quarrel with you. It isn’t your fault that you are just a shallow imitation, but that is what you are,” Rurik said, pulling no punches.

The ratling's face twisted with rage, and for a moment Luke thought he might actually attack. "I'll kill you, and your family," he spat at Rurik, but he made no move to follow through on his threat. Despite his anger, there was a hollowness to his words, a lack of conviction that gave Luke pause.

The ratling's behaviour, while aggressive and hostile, was simplistic, almost scripted. Like a poorly written character. Luke could certainly see what Rurik meant about him being a bit one-note, lacking depth and complexity. It made Luke think back to Gaia's use of the term 'NPC'.

It struck him as a bit hypocritical.

From Luke’s perspective, Rurik wasn’t technically ‘real’ either, having been formed by the collective will of generations of craftsmen. He was a spirit, a dungeon boss, a concept given sentience, but did that make him any less of a person?

That was before one considered the uncomfortable fact that Rurik's own identity was eroding over time, with each death and iteration of the dungeon. Luke had seen the cracks in the dwarf's psyche; at what point would Rurik become an ‘NPC’?

What was the requirement for personhood? Luke didn’t know, not did he care much about quibbling over such things.

Luke breathed in, and out. “Let’s take a step back, no-one’s going to kill anyone.”

He hoped. It was unusual for him to be the level-headed one.

The ratling wasn’t much of a threat, but Luke was fairly sure that Rurik wouldn’t hold back if things escalated.

To Luke's relief, his words seemed to have the desired effect. Rurik raised his hands in a placating gesture, the heat of the forge subsiding to its usual temperature. The ratling, while still clearly agitated, relaxed his grip on the axe, his posture shifting from openly aggressive to merely wary.

Turning to face the ratling fully, Luke tried to keep his tone neutral, his expression open and non-threatening. "Do you really not have a name?" he asked, trying to keep his tone neutral.

The ratling's eyes darted between Luke and Rurik, as if trying to decide who was the bigger threat. After a moment, it shook its head. "I don’t remember."

“You never had one,” Rurik said, and Luke shot the dwarf an exasperated glare.

“What did the other viran call you?” Luke said.

The viran bristled at the mention of other ratlings, its fur puffing out even further. “Runt. Tailless. Slave”

Luke felt a pang of sympathy. He hadn’t had a rosy childhood, but it was easy to forget how much worse it could have been. "Well, maybe you should come up with something, just for the sake of convenience," he suggested.

The ratling looked at him, confusion evident on its face. "Come up with… a name?"

Luke nodded. "Yeah, why not? It doesn't have to be anything fancy, just something we can call you."

Behind his back Luke could practically feel Rurik rolling his eyes, but resisted the urge to turn around. The ratling seemed to consider this for a moment, its grip on the axe loosening slightly. "I... I don't know how," it admitted.

Luke shrugged. "Just pick a word or a sound that you like, and go with that."

The ratling's brow furrowed in concentration. “Axe!”

Luke blinked, taken aback by the certainty in the declaration. "Okay," he said slowly, trying to hide his amusement. "How about Axel, then? It's more of a proper name."

Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

The ratling frowned, looking down at the weapon in his hands. "Why not Axe?" he asked, a hint of petulance creeping into his tone.

"Frankly, it's a terrible name," Luke said, shaking his head. "It would be like me going around calling myself Mr Hammer. Not exactly subtle, is it?"

To his surprise, the ratling's face split into a wide grin. "Frankly, I like that," he said, repeating and enunciating the word several times.

Luke couldn't help but laugh. "How about Frank, then.”

The ratling quirked his head to the side for a moment, considering, before nodding decisively. Frank it was.

With formalities out of the way, Luke turned his attention to more practical concerns. He probed Frank for information about the viran forces, hoping to glean any useful information from the ratling.

The results were mixed, to say the least. The more they talked, the more Luke realised that Rurik had been right about the ratling's limitations.

Not that Luke would ever admit it.

Any time he tried to dig deeper than the surface level, to ask about specifics or delve into the ratling's past, Frank would get a glazed look in his eyes, as if his mind was suddenly elsewhere. He would stutter and stall, his words trailing off into silence, before abruptly changing the subject.

What was readily apparent was that Frank’s defining trait was a burning desire for revenge and there were three names he remembered all too well: Maruk, Sanara, and Nemangor. When he found out that Sanara was dead by Luke’s hand he was ecstatic, and started treating Luke like some kind of messiah.

Luke felt a bit at a loss for what to do with Frank. The ratling wanted to go back down to the viran camp to kill the warlord, and the master right that moment, but Luke wasn’t ready for that yet.

Even if the other two heads of the Three-headed-rat were on a similar level to Sanara, facing both at the same time and all the viran elites was suicide. He only barely won against one boss and the dregs of the army. Even with his [Apex] title, the boost to [Will] from spending an attribute point, and the [Ring of Corruption], he had struggled.

Explaining this to Frank didn’t go as planned.

“Defiler! Herald of [Corruption]! I’ll kill you!” Frank shouted, with his grip tightening on his axe as if he was about to attack.

Luke felt a surge of frustration and anger at the ratling's words. They were back to square one. He opened his mouth to shout back at the ungrateful ratling, but Rurik spoke first.

“Seriously, son? I know you’re new to the Veil, but was the name not a big enough clue?” Rurik said, looking at Luke with a disappointed face that made him feel like a child.

It took a few minutes to calm down Frank, but they managed to do so without violence. Though he was more open minded than the viran warriors, he shared their beliefs on the first emperor, and heretical cultivation. [Corruption] was as heretical as they came.

“Luke, you should get rid of that ring. [Corruption] is a meta-concept that twists and degrades other concepts; usually for the worse. It’s how [Undeath] came about in the first place, and it turns aetherlings like our new friend into demons. Outbreaks of [Corruption] can turn entire regions of the veil into chaotic wastelands.” Rurik said.

Luke hesitated. The ring had given him a significant power boost when he needed it, and if he wanted to escape the dungeon in time to save Nate he needed all the power he could get.

Though he had only worn it once, Luke felt a connection to the ring. He didn’t want to give it up.

It was precious.

The ring belonged to him.

On the other hand, it was obviously evil, so when Rurik asked for it again, Luke gave it to him and the dwarf melted it down in his furnace.

It hurt his inner [Murderhobo] to get rid of such shiny loot, but it was for the best.

As if in response to his thoughts, Luke felt a pulse of [Murderhobo]-aspected aether from his hip, where his hammer hung in its loop. He frowned, surprised by the sensation. It wasn't the first time he had felt Fenn express its domain, but this was more deliberate, more insistent.

Why don’t we go kill something? Would that make you happy? Luke thought, and to his surprise Fenn pulsed its aura again in response to his unspoken thought. For his part, Luke wanted to see if he could pick off some ghoul patrols.

With the impressive attribute growth from his class, a few levels would see his power start to accelerate sharply. He also wanted to try out his new abilities on live targets; breaking cobblestones wasn’t nearly as satisfying as smashing skulls.

Of course, when Luke announced he was going out to kill things, the angry little ratling that was Frank insisted on coming along too. Luke didn’t think it was a great idea; Frank was an unimpressive warrior, and Luke didn’t want to babysit him. The system agreed with his assessment.

[Level 5 Viran - An aetherling who serves as a worker. Core Domains: Thrall.]

Still, if Frank was going to insist, Luke wasn’t going to stop him. At the end of the day, Frank was a free viran now, as much as someone with a literal concept of servitude bound into their soul could be. Luke wouldn’t treat him like a child.

“Fine, you can come. Let me just put my armour back on,” Luke said. As he looked at the red and black piece of art, Luke had a thought. He turned to Rurik. “Do you have anything that would fit Frank?” he asked.

For a moment, Rurik looked like he would say no, before rolling his eyes and nodding. He took Luke upstairs, to a part of the forge Luke hadn’t been allowed in before, a locked shrine to the works of previous master smiths that had trained under the forgemaster.

Look at all this loot, Luke thought.

Even if the items were only pale imitations of the originals created by the dungeon, it was a trove of quality gear.

[Magma Blade - Initiate (Uncommon) - Sword with Lava domain.]

[Stalactite Spear - Initiate (Uncommon) - Spear with Earth domain.]

[Tempest Fan - Initiate (Rare) - Bladed fan with Storm domain]

Luke only identified a few of the items before Rurik walked to a display case containing a suit of armour. Unlike the black armour Luke wore, this piece was red, gold and white in colour, and was only uncommon, to Luke’s epic, but it shared a similar name.

[Eldrinsvär Plate - Uncommon, Plate armour imbued with Fire, and other enhancements.]

A few minutes later, Frank had squeezed himself into the armour. It wasn’t a perfect fit, despite the reshaping runes that gave it a degree of flexibility. Despite being roughly the same height as a dwarf, Frank’s hunched back made it difficult.

It was better than rags.

Armed with a bloodthirsty hammer, and with a trigger-happy NPC at his side, Luke went off to hunt some undead.

This is bound to go well.