"Someone keeps looking through my window, two copper reward," Kenji skipped past that one.

"Rats are infesting my storeroom again, five coppers upon eradication and another give when successfully sealed off from where they are getting in," Since Kenji didn't specialise in pest control, he guessed that was worth a skip too.

"My baby doesn't like being alone, nanny wanted. Once copper reward a day."

Kenji sighed, not much helped by Tenko off sniffing someone and Violet snootily refusing to leave their booth/bed. She hadn't been much up to much about anything, even though she had transformed a large portion of their space into a crystal chamber and had left Kenji and Tenko so close together he had used her tail as a pillow.

"Cheer up lad, we all have to start somewhere," A rough voiced dwarf announced, slapping Kenji painfully hard on the back. Kenji forced a smile and looked longingly at the two silver dungeon exploration contract that dwarf had peeled off the wall.

"Problem is, my party needs money to repair and buy equipment. But we don't have the means to earn that money without doing these little things, that might only barely earn us the chance to be accepted by the guild. It's just....like a 'loading bar that gets stuck near the end for an hour' kind of feeling."

The Dwarf gave Kenji a puzzled look and nodded slowly.

"You have to start small kid. We all saw how brave you were when the Headless Hunter Guild came, but bravery does not make long-living adventurers. Competency does, and no one will trust you with anything important until you prove you're at least competent when it comes to the most minor tasks. There's not a lot of trust from the town's peoples as there is, even less pay now that the King's troops clear out the worst monsters near town. We need to look good then, only by being dependable can we rise."

With that, the dwarf sauntered off in his clean clothes, trimmed brown beard and full belly.

Kenji meanwhile felt as hungry and squalid as he looked. Even worse, Tenko was giving him a piercing gaze from across the guildhall, pupils turned to dots and mouth drooling as if Kenji might be some kind of walking ham.

Kenji needed money, and he needed it fast before his pillow tried to eat him.

If only he could take on one of the larger quests, like those above stairs where all the elite adventurers gathered. Down here amongst the rabble, the best that could be done was 'Pyromancer investigation' that was about some arsonists up north in the mountains. Reward one gold, and sounding easy enough Kenji had tried to accept it at the counter.

Only to be told he wasn't yet provided with an adventurer license, and had to work up a silver coin for each member of his party he wanted qualified to undertake anything better than the most basic of quests. Yet seeing Tenko imagining him sizzling over a low flame like a roasting pig, Kenji snatched off the rat extermination quest, let the slime woman at the counter know, then pulled his undependable would-be-heroes along for the ride.

He could at least use their strength in all this.

Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

And that's how Kenji found himself before the largest man he had ever seen in his entire life.

"Rats are down there," boomed the man who was surely part ogre, as he towered over Kenji and his party as if they were children and gestured at the heavy basement door on the ground. Barred, locked and reinforced from this side, it made Kenji feel as if whatever was down there was more dangerous than he had expected. "Hey, are you guys going to be ok? Usually, the adventurers that take care of this are a little more...prepared."

Kenji hefted his sword still fused with stone, and nodded.

"Don't worry, we have this."

"Well...if you say so. Go on then, I need 'em cleared out today- oh, and don't follow where they are coming from, just block it up. Going down there is a higher ranking quest in itself."

Sucking in a quick breath, Kenji turned to his team.

"Violet, make some spears and-"

"If I make you your spears, I'll be staying up here. Understood?" Violet crossed her arms, Kenji stared at her.

"Tenko thinks that's dumb," Tenko added.

"Thank you Tenko. So, Mrs Purple-"

"-what happened to Violet?" Mrs Purple hissed.

"That was a nickname given to a team player, not someone paid to cast some pre-fight spells. If you want to have my respect, you have to earn it. Thinking only of yourself will not help you in the long run."

"I am above physical labour," Mrs Purple said as she raised her nose, and stared into Kenji with those lovely lilac eyes.

"Your not above anything, now please hurry up I'm starving."

"Tenko hungry!" Tenko whined, salivating even more extensively than before. Perhaps worried Kenji wouldn't be the only one Tenko turned on, Violet nodded sullenly.

Crystal spears in hand, they descended.

"I'll open this back up when the afternoon rush dies down, can't have rats getting into the kitchen again!" The tavern ogre said, slamming the door shut behind them followed quickly by the sounds of locks and the slide of wood.

"Don't destroy anything, no point if we cause more damages than we earn. So no transforming, no mass crystal summoning," Kenji cautioned, lighting his sword in one hand with [blessing - fire] to provide some small light. With all the old crates, barrels and exposed wooden beams his stress levels shot through the roof. More than once webs caught alight, and Kenji had to wack his spear at the flames to stop it spreading to everything else.

Eventually, having journeyed deeply into the expansive network of storerooms, they heard the chattering of teeth and the hissing of rats. A rather loud hissing actually, Kenji turning the corner and hearing them in the shadows right ahead.

Out of the dark scowled three giant rats the size of small dogs, and a fourth behind covered in festering flesh and horrid boils. Kenji could tell that while the normal giant rats probably had filthy mouths, the one behind probably had something closer to a plague in its mouth.

From behind them skittered something even larger, a rat on two feet, a wicked shard of iron in one hand and a barrel lid turned into a shield the other. Rats too poured from the flooring, and at that, the entire party fled madly.

Retreating up the stairs they found the hatch still firmly closed. They banged their fists, but no one answered.

Turning around, Kenji was the first to descend.

"Its them or us, this is our last stand. Like 300."

"300? This isn't a time for jokes, let me summon my knight and-"

"-you'll bring the whole building down on us if you summon that thing!" Kenji said sternly, putting a hand on Tenko to calm her down as she seemed ready to shift at any moment. "That goes for you too. Fighting in your true form will bury us in rubble, then have us branded criminals for life. We won't be able to help your pack then."

A little disappointed, Tenko still looked at the huge rats hissing as they approached, and growled. With fanged teeth she smiled, "I was getting hungry," she said as she stood on the front line.

From the back row, Violet produced walls of purple spikes at their flanks, bristling with needle-thin fishhooks, and thus forcing the rats to attack head-on. And Kenji? Well, he provided the second line of defence to stop Tenko becoming overun - oh, and the light.

You know, that little detail that made the only difference between fighting monsters they could see; and monsters that melded with the pitch-black darkness of the basement.