A’Ferun stared at the fallen form of Rupear Big Nose for several drawn out heart beats before he shook his head. He looked to the ratling. “His survival is a threat, and not just to the slaves on this ship. He has ties to the Pimarant clan, and they wouldn’t think twice to strike at the Idahl by seizing the Light of Volmar to control your dungeon.”
The ratling cocked its head. Its ears twitched a few times, and it gave off an aura of confusion. Hesitating as if not sure of what it was saying, the ratling spoke. “He an-ger-ee maanz. You zay no, he push yez. He come back.” It held the control rod up and looked at it curiously. “Too-moor-oh, zea-el no wuk. Thiz break.” As if regaining certainty, the ratling said, “Maker zay an-ger-ee maanz bad. Ah-fair-oun good. Maker truz.”
“Does your maker still mean for this man to live?” A’Ferun asked, unsure what the ratling was trying to convey.
The ratling listened again, needing a shorter time. “Maker muz make when maanz die. Maanz die iz much-much-much! Maanz traan iz good no-much. Maker no gife wurdz when Maker muz make. Zlafe go zay-cond floor, then zafe for Maker muz make. Rat-ty and znek and no-big rat-ty muz make Maker zafe. Maker know Ah-fair-oun good. Znek no-know.” It paused, confused again, and sang, “♪ No-know? Know? No? No-nuh-no nuh-no nuh-no! No-no! ♪” Then it gave a squeaking giggle. “Wurdz!” It shook its head.
A’Ferun thought he understood something of what the ratling was saying. “Do you mean that N’Kieran might lose control of the dungeon’s monsters when a human dies? Because the death overwhelms her? And the monsters may be dangerous to us and the slaves she is freeing?”
The ratling’s ears twitched. “Rat-ty and znek zee zea-el. No fight. Ah-fair-oun no zea-el. Znek and no-big rat-ty may-be fight. Zay-cond floor, no znek, no no-big rat-ty. Zafe. Furz floor no-zafe.”
“Then may we escort these slaves to the second floor?” he asked.
The ratling listened again and then nodded. “Break zea-el furz. Help moof.”
A’Ferun and Kinser helped move the disabled slaves, following the ratlings directions. It led them first to the weakest traps on the way to the core room, and then moved the slaves’ hands to make them trigger the traps. The ratling’s fur stood on end, and it shivered after each such act, but checked the slaves with a weird competence afterward, feeling for their pulses and examining their eyes. After each trap was triggered, the seal on the slave affected immediately lost its magic, and dire rats allowed A’Ferun, Kinser, and the little ratling to load the trap-stunned beast kin onto their backs.
The ratling solved all the puzzles on the way to the core room until the last, hidden door. There it warned, “You make trap no wuk, you no hurt. Trap wuk, you hurt.”
Kinser stepped up to disable the trap while A’Ferun and the ratling, with the dire rats and their passengers, ensured they were out of the trap’s blast range.
A’Ferun asked, “How do you get the slaves through without triggering that trap?”
The ratling shrugged. “Dun-jawn mah-gick. Bad hoo-maanz ah-lif. No bad maanz, no trap hurt.”
“Oh.” A’Ferun considered this. “Is it the slave seal that N’kieran is using to distinguish bad and, ah, not-bad people?”
The ratling nodded. “Now, yez. Thiz trap zea-el break iz good. Zea-el no-break iz bad. Maker no want hurt.”
Kinser triggered and then disarmed the trap while A’Ferun parsed that. As they waited, the ratling’s ears twitched and twitched. It led the way forward, ears still flicking like a horse trying to dislodge a fly headed down its ear canal.
“Something the matter?” A’Ferun asked.
“Maker zay be-fore iz hoo-maanz. Name is hoo-maanz. Maker iz now dun-jawn. Maker zay maybe no-name? Name iz wurd?” The ratling appeared to address the last question to A’Ferun. Before A’Ferun could sort through all that, the ratling’s ears flicked again and it sagged down onto all fours. “Maker zay Rat-ty zay bad. Iz big think. Rat-ty bad think.”
It slunk over to the archway and, once everyone was in the core room, solved the picture puzzle in the base with quick, sure movement. A portal similar to the one that led into the dungeon, but dark, sprang into being within the archway. However, the ratling turned back to the entrance to the core room. “Come,” it beckoned, leading the procession of encumbered dire rats through the doorway they had just entered from.
Except it didn’t return them to the boss room. Between one stride and the next, the room they faced became a 2.5 meter square with a door on the wall to their left.
The room looked to be made of worked stone with elemental light stones set in recessed sconces illuminating what little there was to see. The ratling quickly had the door open, showing a similarly lit passageway beyond that led to either side of the door. The dire rats moved through, turning to the left. A’Ferun followed them, with Kinser right behind him, and then the ratling stayed back only long enough to tug the door closed before it scampered to led the way again. It did not speak and gave every sign of being dejected for several minutes worth of walking.
A’Ferun hadn’t slept well from the moment the Idahl had listened through the Bellorian delegation’s proposal for a marriage of state to affirm the treaties between the two nations. The wrongness of everything had been an itch searing his heart, and then finding out about their scheming! The burn in his heart had turned to fear in his gut at that point, and it only grew every day he had spent chasing her ship. The explosion that made the ocean roil for kilometers in every direction had been like divine fertilizer for that fear, and even after finding that at least some part of his light had survived, the fear that it wasn’t really his N’kieran wouldn’t die off.
Stolen novel; please report.
After the ratling’s bumbled speech, the fear swelled up with each step where he had only his thoughts to listen to, growing until he couldn’t hold it in anymore. His voice surprised him by not shaking when he asked, “Is your maker my N’kieran?”
The ratling stopped and sat up. Its ears twitched, and a fine tremor took over its body, but something that felt like N’kieran’s calm assurance stared up at him from its gaze and it spoke with the tones of her measured thoughts. “Iz? Hard zay. Waz hoo-maanz. Name iz hoo-maanz. Now iz dun-jawn. Dun-jawn no iz hoo-maanz. Godz make new life. New life iz may-be new name? Maker no-know. Hard zay.”
The ratling yawned cutely and scrubbed its face after speaking, then shivered to settle its fur.
The fear eased back enough for A’Ferun to assess things. He thought he understood, but he had to be sure. “Your maker, when she was human, was my N’kieran. But then she got caught up in gods’ magic and became a dungeon? And now doesn’t know if she should claim a new name, because being a dungeon is not the same as being a human?”
The ratling listed to the side as it listened before saying, “Yez. Maker no-want iz hoo-maanz. Maker iz dun-jawn. Maker zee world. Maker traan. Maker no make maanz die. Maker traan. Traan maanz. Traan rat-ty. Traan Maker. No zea-el. Zee world.”
The fear let go. His light banished it, even hindered as she was by having to speak through a low sapient ratling. His light had always seemed to him to be like a caged hawk, yearning for the sky while forced by the jesses of family expectations and the weight of her obligations to remain hobbled in the courtyard. Could he blame her for seeing a chance to soar in the loss of her human body?
And how could he deny her that?
The ratling waited until he nodded to it and then continued leading them down corridors. Not many more, but A’Ferun had been wrapped up enough in his thoughts and fears and now the bittersweet recognition of the happiness his light was grasping for to pay attention to the turns they had made. He would need to rely on Kinser or their ratling guide to quickly get them back to the portal out.
Two more ratlings came out of rooms and were followed by the four slaves “lost” on the prior day’s delve.
They froze, fear widening their eyes. Before anyone could do anything foolish, the ratling spokesman cried, “Peaz! Good maanz! You zafe!”
The unsealed slaves bowed to A’Ferun while shooting his guide nervous looks.
A’Ferun assured them, “As the little one says, peace. I’m here to verify your safety, nothing more.”
The selkie eyed the slaves being carried by the dire rats. “And them?”
“The dungeon’s traps break the slave seals. There’s always some kind of feedback from that, no matter who does it,” A’Ferun said, assuming the selkie was nervous about the condition of this day’s unsealed slaves.
“Help moof!” the new ratlings asked, and between those emancipated yesterday, A’Ferun, Kinser, and the three present ratlings, the newly emancipated were brought into more 2.5 meter square rooms and placed into hammocks. The lupikin took over directing the new ratlings in triaging the newly emancipated and beginning to give them basic aid.
A’Ferun waited until the immediate care was seen to, then asked, “What do you need?” His gaze was mostly on the unsealed lupikin, but he did include with a glance the other freed slaves and the ratlings.
“Healing potions and numbing salves, or the ingredients to make some,” the lupikin quickly answered. “These dead seals are a short walk to the hangman’s noose otherwise. After that, just letting us off as freeman is the most I would dare ask.”
The ratling spokesman said, “Plantz. Dun-jawn … eat. Haz chanz traan make. Fiz.”
“Fizz? Like bubbles?” Kinser asked.
“No! Fiz!” It scampered off and returned with small, dead, finger length fish. “Fiz!” it shared.
“Fish,” Kinser corrected.
A’Ferun, looking thoughtful, first flicked a glance toward the emancipated former slaves, and changed his words. He asked, “Does the dungeon have a chance to learn how to make anything brought onto the floors, or just plants and creatures?”
“Furz,” the ratling spokesman confirmed. Then its ears flickered and twitched. “Bad hoo-maanz moof. You take? Make mu-tin-ee? Take all zlafe?”
A’Ferun paused. That—. He should have thought of that! “Yes, I’ll take him. I did, after all, tell him to turn back, but he pressed on, causing the death of two freeman passengers of the Light of Volmar.”
The ratling’s nose wrinkled and it washed its ears while moving its mouth a few times. Then it said, “Hip Zhot. Zhip waz Hip Zhot.”
Most of the humans and the awake beast kin stilled. The selkie asked, “Vinard the Ruthless’s ship?”
“Yez. Bad Fin-ar die. Big boom! Maker zmart. Maker be-come Hip Zhot. Godz gife maker new life. Maker gife we new life. Maker break zea-el. Now iz Rat-ty iz big good. Zea-el hoo-maan life waz bad. Rat-ty no-big re-mem-berz.”
----------------------------------------
«AIDE!» Prime roared down their link.
«What?»
«This!» she dragged their attention to the ratling who had been doing most of her talking so far.
«Oh,» Aide said. «I wonder who they were before. It’s just some —»
«Aide!» Prime snarled, cutting them off. «Memories are more than just “personality bits”. They are dangerous! How many of the pirates are now ratlings? Are they going to try to seize control of core again? This is a major problem!»
Coolly, Aide said, «No, it isn’t. All of our constructs have fail safes built into their mana bodies and every sigil that forms their flesh. They’re prevented from going against the core’s orders or seeking to harm the core.»
Prime didn’t see the need to argue whether the problem was a problem. It needed to be fixed, regardless of Aide’s blasé attitude. «How do we scrub the memories?»
«It’s not necessary,» they said.
Prime stated, «As the social expert, I’m saying it is. Mechanistically, you may be right.» She conceded that to shut up any further protests down that line of arguments. «Socially, this could turn us into Major Villains.»
Aide took a moment to weigh that, then let their exasperation fill the bond. «Fine. You’re going to have to dream through all the memory fragments that the personality bits around the core have clung to, though. I’m just the meta-mana guy.»
Ignoring the passive-aggressive snark, Prime asked, «When? I haven’t slept yet, so when am I supposed to do this dreaming?»
Aide blithely stated, «The core goes into torpor when it bottoms out on mana. I’ll just queue up the dreams.»
«Then start with the memories of our current defenders,» Prime directed.
She waited until A’Ferun and Kinser had retrieved Rupear Big Nose and hauled him out. Then she pushed out all of the mana she could from their core into expanding the third floor. She had to steel her will to push on when she reached the core’s soft bottom, but she managed it and soon fell into the oblivion of sleep.