Mibbet carefully started to load Trundles with the supplies they would need, usually that would be somebodies job, but at the moment Mibbet really needed to think. Soon they would be on the road again, heading to Howla ’tmuhn a Garuw mining city via the most terrifying place known to frogkind, the vast warren city of Rattropolis.

Normally to a frog rats were scary, but 6 foot thaumatologically mutated rats? That was an entirely different, and far more terrifying creature. Something like that was capable of chewing through stone, and ate frogs for breakfast. Yet here was poor little Mibbet enlarged to more tasty proportions. Made a politically ripe target, and about to walk in there under their own power. Now there was a scary thought. Though Mibbet couldn’t help but be curious at the same time, this journey had really changed her.

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Rattropolis had not always been such a grand place, once over it had been a wizards tower. But as expected of bloody wizards they had gotten bored and decided to try a few experiments. They had started using the rats as a disposal system for failed experiments. Failed magical creature? You have rats don’t you? Mana scroll you need to get rid of in a hurry? Rats, need a subject for tests? Find some poor rat they’ll do the job. Problem is when you only have a hammer every problem looks like a nail, and the rats were plentiful.

Eventually though the scale of problem changed, and they still hadn’t come up with a suitable solution. So it became business rival? Rats, massive chimera you need to dispose of? Rats, wizard who crossed you? Rats, and for a while it worked. But for two minor details that quickly became less minor. The first problem is when you go in for the all mana diet the result tends to be weight gain, and height gain, and potential venom gain. The second is rats are very intelligent creatures, and they breed fast. Then you have to factor in a third and fourth issue. Which is when you have a family of a few thousand the vendettas one can hold take on an entirely new scale, and considering how many wizards had been dumped down the chutes over the years they now knew wizards weren’t actually all that tough. Especially not if you get them alone.

Now the wizards were unaware they were sitting over the top of the mother of all sentient ROUS. Who had a grudge (for bloody good reason) access to the tower (some genius somewhere down the line had started using them as assassins, and the thing about assassins is you traditionally arm them. Then don’t tell others who are equally dense on the foresight front what you did Meaning you don’t know every other dipstick had done roughly the same thing. Resulting in what can best be described as Mctavishes paradox. (If Mctavish is deceased, and his brother is unaware of it, and the brother is deceased and Mctavish is unaware of it then even if both of the deceased share the same environment they will never become aware of their siblings departure. Barring of course the interference of necromancy, but since Necromancy was not around at that time it did not factor into the equation.)

You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.

This of course lead to some rather unique situations in which both sides were assassinated by the other side simultaneously (had they survived boy would their faces have been red.... with something other than blood I mean.) The best bit being the assassins had access to the ultimate evidence disposal method too. (hey one hundred thousand is a lot of mouths to feed, and rats don’t really do small families, which is why you never go to a rat family reunion, way too many embarrassing uncles with far too many gross political opinions. Though since their politics usually clash quite badly there are normally a quite lot less of them hanging about by the end of the reunion, to everybodies relief, and it saves on the food too. Talk about a bonus.)

The wizards of course were suddenly all up in a tizzy about other wizards vanishing, but since they would never admit to their schemes their solution may be considered slightly unwise. Their bright idea (if compared to a coal seam at midnight without a lamp) was to beef up their security with more assassins, each of whom was of course armed. Who usually had more than one contract on the go which did not result in a conflict of interest. (Magic scrolls that bind an individual to service are a lovely theory if not handed to a species who figuratively and literally cut their teeth destroying and nullifying the effects of magic scrolls, and worked very badly once they had been devoured by a rat.)

Of course this led to a situation where the wizards who were largely useless in a fight were living on top of a thriving city of trained, and armed sentient creatures who 1. didn’t appreciate being experimented on thank you very much. 2. Had at least two weapons per individual. 3. Were getting rather sick of living on a wizards castoffs and leftovers while the wizards above feasted on whatever the hell they pleased. 4. Were trained to kill wizards. 5. Were very good at not getting caught killing wizards. 6. Knew the wizards would never confess to their existence, because that would mean admitting to their own culpability and collaboration. 7. Knew every single secret, tunnel, passage, hiding place, and scheme in the entire tower. 8. Had eaten enough magic crap over the years to understand magic on a level that would make the wizards blush. 9. Were pretty much immune to every type of stray spell you could imagine by now and a fair few you really really really REALLY would not wish to imagine ever. And finally 10 Outnumbered them by literally thousands, and were bigger than them.

With those circumstances peace reigned, for about 2 weeks, after which the wizards ceased to be a complication, and the glorious utopia of Rattropolis was born.