The dungeons of Castle Retmor were a strange place. Dark and musty—abandoned, save for the lone man who willingly lived there.

Although, ‘lived there’ was a strong phrase. He worked in the dungeon. Neil had no evidence of Phineus’s sleeping or eating arrangements, but the presence of thick cobwebs around the entrance and exit of the office put Neil on edge.

He didn’t like Phineus. His resting expression was an arrogant sneer, that… frankly, Neil didn’t understand. The man lived in a dungeon, what did he have to be arrogant about?

“If you continue to stare at me like that, boy, I will begin to charge you for it.” He said in a harsh tone.

Neil didn’t look away. “I was joking, before, about the vampire thing.”

“Were you really?” The rake of a man sounded unimpressed. “I suppose you must find accusations of vampirism hilarious where you come from.”

“Um,” blinked Neil. “Kinda? I’ve got a couple of friends that never really leave the house, and I call them vampires all the time. Called them, all the time.”

“Truly, you are gifted with a silver tongue,” said Phineus, dryly. “Perhaps the next time you accuse someone of being a creature of darkness, you might consider first what effect your accusations might have on them.”

“Are you not a creature of darkness?” Neil said, raising his eyebrows, as he gestured to their surroundings.

The dungeon was dark, dank, and inexplicably drafty. The cloying darkness beyond the reach of Anne’s torch yawned around them, and the fire spluttered. Iron bars of the surrounding prison cells loomed at either side of the hall, and shadows crawled within.

“No,” said Phineus, lip curling. “I am merely accustomed to it.”

“I see,” Said Neil, eyes narrowing. “You merely adopted the darkness. You were not born to it… molded by it…”

“Quite.” Annunciated Phineus, harshly.

Neil sighed. Anne was the only person present who might have gotten his reference, and she was too busy white-knuckling her torch to say anything. Her eyes darted through the darkness like a prey animal, surrounded.

“How long before the others get back, do you think?”

“I suppose that would depend on whether or not they’ve been eaten alive.” Said Phineus, in a matter-of-fact voice.

Neil gritted his teeth. June, Pete, and Jackie were their best fighters, so they were sent ahead to gather the rat-catching equipment, stored in one of the empty cells. Thomas went with them, of his own volition, because no one had the heart to tell him he shouldn’t.

“They’ll be fine,” said Anne, in a soft voice. “Don’t worry about them.”

She may have been talking to herself.

Neil frowned. “They’re rats. Are they really that dangerous?”

Phineus shrugged. “Magic runs thick through these halls. The ambient energy in the air alone is enough to drive grown men to their knees. Any rat that can survive down here for a prolonged period of time will be… heartier than average, to say the least.”

Neil’s frown deepened. “I don’t feel anything.”

Dark and deep were the eyes of the caretaker. “If the ritual that brought you to this realm did not kill you, I doubt the magics here would have any effect.”

Neil pursed his lips. “Cool. One of the perks of Hero-dom, at last. I can explore basements to my heart's content, without overdosing on magic.”

He shook his head. “How come you’re fine down here, Mr. ‘Accustomed To Darkness?’”

“I would be a poor magician, if I allowed ambient arcana to affect me.” Said Phineus, looking down his nose at Neil.

“Magician?” Neil blinked. “The wizarding kind, or the sleight-of-hand kind?”

The caretaker scowled at Neil, and was otherwise silent.

Suddenly, a metallic crash sounded from the darkness, along with the muffled echo of Thomas apologizing for dropping something.

The orange glow of a torch preceded the four Heroes as they turned a corner, coming into Neil’s view.

Jackie stood in front carrying her lone torch. Peter and June flanked behind her, with Thomas placed in the dead middle. In lack of fighting ability, it seemed, they decided to use the larger man as a pack mule.

Thomas dripped with dusty metal equipment. Some pieces he wore. Others were stuffed in bags he hauled over a shoulder. More than a few bits looked like they were stuffed in his pockets, or simply draped over him, like a Christmas tree made from stuff found in a junkyard.

Most of it, Neil didn’t even recognize, but he saw more than one net. Rusty old things that looked like they were made of braided wire. It had large, diamond-shaped gaps, though, more than big enough for a regular-sized rat to slip through.

“Have you been good little boys and girls?” Called June, smiling as she approached. “Mommy brought prezzies if you haaave!”

“I get that we shouldn’t ever throw away good loot,” grunted Thomas, straining under the weight of his haul. “But did I have to carry everything?”

He dropped his sack of tools with a resounding *crash* of metal on metal.

“Yup,” said June. “You’re the pack rat, get it?”

Her smile only grew wider when no one laughed.

“We’re very happy you’re alright.” Said Anne, lowering her torch.

They had a rule, as a group, to not have more torches lit than absolutely necessary, to preserve light.

“Um,” She looked unsure, for a moment, holding out the burning stick as far from her body as she could. “How do I put this thing out?”

“Allow me.” Said Phineus, in a nasal voice.

He lazily raised a hand, palm facing out, towards the torch. The cool dungeon air seemed to stir, as Phineus’s shadow defied the light of the torch, crawling across the floor, up Anne’s body, and towards the light’s heart.

Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

The flame whipped and hissed in protest, like a wounded snake.

Neil watched in fascination as the gaunt man made a fist, and his shadowy hand smothered the light from the torch, leaving it lifeless and smoking.

“That’s the coolest thing I’ve ever seen in my entire life.” Said Thomas, staring wide-eyed at Phineus.

Shark-like were the caretaker’s eyes, as he turned them upon Neil. “A parlor trick. Any two-bit ‘wizard’ could do the same.”

Neil gave the man a thin smile, before turning to the pile of old equipment.

“So, what are we working with, here?”

“Iron nets,” answered June, rummaging. “Spears. Some rope, and… ooh, a bear trap!”

She hauled the trap from the bottom of the pile with a horrible screeching sound of metal on metal, presenting it to the group like a trophy fish. It was black, rough, and caked in grime. The teeth made it look like a giant set of demonic jaws.

Anne looked faint. “Do you think we’ll… need the bear trap?”

“No,” Phineus sniffed. “Neither will you need the nets, I imagine.”

Neil let his shoulders sag. “Because the rats will slip right through them, or…”

“They will be large, first and foremost. If you should encounter one capable of being held by such a thing, it will either be very young or—more likely—possess mutations of the mind and soul, rather than the body.”

“Super-intelligent rats.” Thomas nodded, impressed.

Phineus scowled. “I would be more wary of one with a mutation of the soul. They may possess a rudimentary form of innate spellcraft. Beast magic, as it is known.”

“Beast magic,” Neil echoed, frowning. “We talking lasers shooting from their eyes, fire breath, or what?”

“You’ll find out shortly, won’t you?” Smirked Phineus.

Neil’s nose scrunched up, and he stooped down toward the pile of gear. “Is this a hot poker?” Neil asked, pulling a metal rod free.

The caretaker regarded Neil with a shark-like stare. “Does it feel hot?”

“Phineus,” Neil carefully regarded the man in turn. “You don’t… torture people down here, do you?”

The caretaker’s tone was formal. “Not since Callow took the mantle of steward, has the dungeon been used in its capacity to house prisoners or criminals.”

Neil blinked at the man.

“That wasn’t a no,” He turned to the others. “You guys heard that, right? I asked him a yes or no question about torture, and he didn’t say no?”

“Neil,” said Pete, sounding exasperated. “No one’s been down here in at least a decade. Everything’s fine.”

“I wouldn’t say that’s entirely true, little Hero.” Phineus smirked at the young man.

“See?” Neil scowled.

“Neil.” Jackie said, giving him A Look.

Neil shut up.

“Everyone pick up something sharp,” she ordered. “We’re going deeper in.”

…

…

Neil decided to keep the iron poker, after all. Only so many people could carry spears in a darkened hallway before things started to get a little too pointy.

Plus…

“I’ve been waiting for someone to give me a decent set-up for a—‘poker? I hardly know her,’—joke for like— an hour, now,” he whispered to June, holding the poker up.

“We’ve only been down here for ten minutes,” June whispered back, instead of laughing. “Were you a lonely middle child, growing up? Because this is some real ‘my-parents-didn’t-give-me-enough-attention-as-a-kid,’ kind of behavior.”

“That kinda hurts,” a small grin played across Neil’s lips. “But no, I’m the lonely older child that my parents messed up before they had my brother.”

“Guys, time and place!” Whispered Pete, frowning back at the pair. “We talked about this, didn’t we?”

“Please don’t stop,” said Anne in a high and mousy voice, louder than their whispers. “They’re making me feel a lot better about being here, actually.”

The poor woman clung to the living torch in her hands with a white-knuckled grip. She didn’t have—or want—a weapon, and so stayed in the middle of the pack to serve as their source of light.

“Shush, all of you,” whispered Jackie, the vanguard. “I hear something.”

Movement ceased, as the group of six strained their collective ears.

Something rustled in the dark.

The sound of paws pattering against cobbled stone, and a muted hissing sound, like something being dragged across the floor.

“Nasty,” June muttered, holding her dagger ready.

A moment later, Neil saw it.

In Neil’s experience with both horror movies and video games, giant rats were a relatively mundane stripe of enemy. Some examples were grosser than others, of course, with some being so extreme that they resembled crawling tumors of bone and puss, rather than a fairly common pest.

Gross wouldn’t be the word Neil would use to describe the rat. Its fur was a charcoal shade of black, with flecks of gray like ash. Its tail stretched long behind it, past the light of Anne’s torch.

It was not gross, however, it did come up just a hair below Neil’s knee.

Unblinking, milky-white eyes came into view, dull and—Neil guessed—blind.

Anne’s shoulders pulled forward, tensing as the creature sat back on its hindquarters and sniffed the air.

Wordless, Jackie took a half-step forward, readied her spear, and lunged.

The dog-sized rat didn’t see it coming, though Neil thought it might have heard it. It tilted its head to the side, as though curious, before the tip of June’s spear plunged through its neck.

The creature fell thrashing against the floor—squealing like a pig for two terrible seconds—quickly tiring, then twitching, then nothing. A pool of blood—drained of all color—slowly grew beneath it, black in the shadows and torchlight.

“Right,” said Jackie in a normal-speaking voice, rolling her head around her shoulders. “Easy enough.”

“Metal,” said June, grimacing at the sight of the dead rat.

“Good,” forced Anne, as she stared unblinking at the creature, all the color drained from her face. “We’re done here then?”

Hope and despair mingled as one in the blonde woman’s voice.

Jackie planted her spear in the ground, giving Anne a thin smile. “Nope.”

Anne deflated.

“There can’t be a lot, though, right?” Neil frowned, still ready with his iron poker. “There’s no food down here, and they’re huge, they’d starve themselves out if there were too many.”

He did not say this with confidence—hence the poker.

He didn’t know which disturbed him more: the rat itself, or Jackie’s brutally efficient method of dispatching it. The body was no longer twitching, and its pooling blood ran thick away from them. The dungeon hall was at an incline, it seemed, descending ever deeper.

“Maybe,” Jackie nodded at him. “Too bad our resident giant-mutated-rat expert decided to stay behind. My gut tells me there can’t be more than two dozen, but… these are magic rats. Who knows, really?”

“Two dozen?” Anne echoed, in a mild yet high-pitched voice. “Is there any chance your gut’s overestimating?”

Humorless was the smile the giantess gave the blonde. “We should keep moving.”

On they trudged, stepping mindfully over the monstrous rodent and its dark blood.