I scream, as the fireball arcs through the air! The rats scatter, instinctively shrinking from the sudden rush of orange and red light in the otherwise dark landfill… all except one.
I don’t feel sorry for the furry monster, but I don’t envy him taking a proper death spell to the face! My mind's eye is already half day dreaming the sight of charred rodent, grease fur burning as the oiliness of his skin boils. Yes, we can kill one but what about the one hundred others?
Or that’s what I would think if I didn’t see the blast of sparky boom slam and then wash over the giant rat that stood its ground.
“Ah, oh.” I gulp, Dagger straightens up staring slack jawed, and Spoon…
“Spoon!” I grab her hand, which only breaks her trance a little, as she looks at me with a queer look on her face-
“That normally works.”
Somehow those words scare me more than every giant rat in this landfill. Because I grab both my friends and run. Hard. No, I hall ass! Grease black and brown bodies flank us and I don’t care, I scream at the top of my lungs as one-foot skips over the other while my friends get unceremoniously dragged behind me.
“FUUUUCCCCCCCCCK!”
I lose my footing, my run turns into a downward sliding skidding fall with sharp ivory gnashing teeth and screeching all around us, mixing in with Spoons and Daggers screams of protest and fear as we go sliding down the trash mountain! We hit every giant rat and old cardboard boxes and discard furniture in existence! Crashing, bumping, more crashing, bumping, and “AWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW” the way down, and while fur and whip-like tails come at us in a blur.
“OOOOOF” I hit the ground first, but then Spoon and Dagger shortly followed. The system doesn’t chime, reminding me that our level 1 selves would have died halfway down from the cuts and bruises. But the relief becomes panic and we scramble to our feet, trying our best to detangle ourselves as fear motivated us.
“Not to rats Yeezsus!” I prayed but I know Yeezsus sense of humor and he is no doubt laughing at his children. I picked a direction, which was all the same the in dark, and we started running, but the scrambling darkness had other ideas! Everywhere they came, big furry bodies, way bigger than any at Mt. Gaboo we screamed as they came at us,
“Spark-” Spoon began, no tried; a furry body as big as she was tackled her! Dagger roared a war cry that sounded like a startled chicken as another rat sent him crashing into the ground. I tried to stop, seeing the wall of fur ahead and not wanting to leave my friends! I grabbed a rock as I skidded to a halt and was prepared to throw it with the strength of a Level 4 goblin, for how little that seems to be worth, until suddenly a voice boomed from a trash mound further ahead-
“ENOUGH!”
Suddenly the night alive with wiggling bodies and screeching vocals went still as something jumped from the direction of the furthest trash heap. Something large. And I nearly pissed myself when I saw what landed.
It was a 5-foot rat. Bigger than even these human-fed giant rats by two whole inches, bigger than any giant rodent out to be. Standing on two legs, and towering over me! His body an imposing yet hunched shadow, a menacing outline highlighted in darkness of late evening where only the stars shine clear. When he got closer I realized to my horror that he was clothed, a civilized monster of ragged but somehow put together regal-ness. A Rat King!? I fell to my knees even before he spoke, which he did in raspy but clear cadence-
“A goblin!? Hrrr, Hrrr, I thought you furwits caught another human child!”
He drew closer to me, bending down to look at me, sniff me, as the other giant rats stood in silent vigil. This guy is definitely a king! Even now, with a closer look, his tattered clothes look more like fine silks and unnamed furs draped casually around his shoulders and waist, covering his body save for his arms; which were long and seemed strong.
“A goblin? Hrr, what is your kind doing so far from your little mountain?”
Is this Rat King asking me a question? Me? I gulp, and stammer, at an official loss for words.
“Can’t speak? Well, the boys haven’t had goblin before, ea-”
“NO SIR! NO EAT!” I scream getting up quickly to look at the King in his eyes. His big yet narrow eyes.
The monster laughs, “No eat he says!”
His laugh, throaty and jovial, is joined by similar voices, moving closer with two legs in the darkness. The other giant rats move out of their way, much to my horror as I realize that the Rat King wasn’t the king for being the only tall two-legged rat.
Spoon and Dagger are dumped next to me, scratched but not actually hurt. Like me they are silent spectators to this world of giant rats and even bigger Rat King(s)?
“No eat please?” I look to Dagger who nods, “If we have offended you I-WE humbling apologize.”
I make to bow, though I don’t think that’s helping.
The King chuckles, just softly enough that its almost like he’s chuckling to himself instead, which… may be a good thing? He takes his time looking at all three of us before he continues-
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“Hrrr, you have not offended me, poor goblin. Hrr, but as a member of the goblin race you should know the rules between us “monsters”.”
The King smiles, it's not a comforting or reassuring thing to see something with a snout show a solid row of big gleaming white teeth, but I try to not let fear take my me-
But Dagger beats me to speaking, “We don’t know any monster rules Ratman!”
The Rat King smile turns into a scowl and I look to Dagger with pleading “shut the fuck up” eyes, but he doesn’t stop.
“We only rob humanz and point ears who come too close to our mountain, but we leave everyone else alone!”
Spoon nods as he joins in, “We let trolls pass through all the time!”
I nod in agreement, not remembering having to bother anything not harassing us or didn’t have something valuable. But Mt. Gaboo hasn’t had visitors in years according to Elder Bones, but the stories used to tell of the Lizardmen buying passage across our mountain in the distant past-
Wait buy passage!
“Hrr, you're in my town little goblins,” The King Rat begins, standing to his full height to tower over us even more, “Not you’re little mountain, hrr, hrr! And we are not ratman! We are Ratkin! Hrr, and if you want to see your mountain again you most pay-”
“For passage?”
The Rat King dives directly for me, pressing his snout into my face! Our eyes meet, scared goblin to terrifying ratkin, while his hand is presses into my chest giving it a hard slightly crushing squeeze. I wheeze as he growls into my face-
“Tribute! Hrr. For your lives! Hrrr.”
Spoon and Dagger both try to help me and are promptly pinned to the ground by large shadows. Only me and the Rat King now and his barely kept fury and power makes me shudder. If this was a human I’d wet myself but this furry man monster wants to bargain. Which is a laugh because we have nothing worth giving unless he wants our namesakes?
Dagger would rather die. And Spoon would try to blow up half this trash heap. If this ratkin was a goblin he would… wait what do we do exactly?
What would Chief do?
“Stab him in the nuts!”
Ok not that… my mind already drifting to the image of hundreds of big oversized sets of front teeth tearing me apart…What would Edler Bones do?
“Remind him of Goblin Supremacy!”
Not sure that would be his advice…
Wait.
Waaait!
“Tribute!”
“Yes!”
I gulp, and try to shift my body so his weight isn’t entirely on my chest and continue, “I can offer you many tributes!”
He nods, “Hrr, go on!”
“I am a thief and so are my friends!” Don’t think, just talk! “And we come to human city to rob, to steal, to spread monster supremacy!”
“Monster Supremacy?”
“Yes! Monster Supremacy! The fight against the overpowered humans! The dominance of monster kind! For the rule of goblin and ratkins!”
The King Rat leans in a little closer so his lips are up against my ear, “Hrr! How does that pay tribute!”
I suppress my instinctual urge to shudder, putting my faith and courage in these next few words, “But King we have tribute, look inside the butta churn!”
He lets go of me abruptly, leaving me pressed into the dirt and stalks toward Spoon. The shadows parts to make way, and Spoon stares straight at me, not the giant rat king in front of her as panic builds, but I smile and nod. But her panic doesn’t let up, so I keep nodding, keep smiling, I shout “It’s ok” as the furry beast looms over her prone form.
“Please don’t panic.” I pray and Yeezsus answers, as Rat King reaches down and grabs Spoon, she goes limp even as he lifts her and peels the straps holding the butta churn to her back. After a minute he has the butta churn in one hand and drops Spoon with the other. He stalks away from the gathered giant rats and ratkin and in a few painful moments the night is once again still.
I mouth a thank you to Spoon who nods, too terrified to be her usual loud and defiant self. I look for Dagger who is on his stomach with a ratkin sitting on his back. The ratkin isn’t as well dressed as the Rat King but he is wearing clothes, albeit more simple human hand-me-downs of a tatter shirt and shorts. I give Dagger a worried look because he doesn’t look uncomfortable, but he gives me a goofy grin in return. If Dagger is being brave so can I.
So I turn back to the shadow that is the Rat King. The top of the butta churn lays on the ground as a scraping sound starts to replace the silence. Was he eating all the butter? It was like that, for a long time, just a scraping sound in between the darkness and nervous looks me, Dagger and Spoon shared with each other before the shadow of the King moved.
Slowly he approached the center of us and tossed the butter churn down. His eyes burn with something weirdly fierce.
“DELICIOUS!” he roared. And giant rats screeched excitement and the night was alive, and hills of trash vibrated!
“Sooo goood, hrr. So good. You stole this little goblin?”
Cautiously I stand up. Then I motion for Spoon and Dagger to stand up to. Spoon does so slowly, looking at each giant rat she could see and the large gangly shadows of the ratkin hanging back as she got up. Dagger on the other hand wiggled underneath the ratkin sitting on him until he was free. The ratkin made a move to stop Dagger but the Rat King held up a hand to stop him.
Once we were all standing, tall (well short compared to the ratkin) and proud, I spoke up, as my friend's squad leader, “Yes!”
“And can you get more?”
“Yes!”
The Rat King lumbered toward me, as if wanting to remind me of how tall and strong he is, “Hrr?”
“We snuck into the city and stole the butta! We can do it again!”
“And this will be your tribute?”
I stood firmer, “For today.”
He raised an eyebrow.
“We steal many many things from the humans. Fresh things, tasty things, things that weren’t thrown into the garage first!”
The Royal ratkin narrowed his eyes, almost in offense, but then something else seemed to cross his mind as he rubbed the long hairs on his chin. For a moment I can almost see him thinking, wheels turning, contemplating, and no psychic damage for thinking too hard!
But then he abruptly exited his trance and smiled. Big, toothy, and definitely creepy.
“Hrr, hrr, the butter you offered tasted funny, hrr like a little dumpster-y, but it was still butter! And we never had butter before! Not so much all at once, always a sliver here or on the edge of some moldy bread there.”
He takes a minute to think of his next words before coming to a smiling decision, “And that was definitely tastier than eating you would have been! So. As a thank you a new experience, I give you…” he stars to count on his fingers, “One moon worth of free travels through my domain. You’ll find that most generous, hrr.”
The Rat King laughs, as we all gasp for air, not knowing we were holding our breaths.
We’re safe.
We’re going to live!
“But!” The Royal Rakin declares, “I expect to see you here… to pay for your month of free travel!”
Spoon looks at me confused and begins to speak up, “But that doesn’t mak-”
“Yes, yes it does! And thank you!” I interrupt. “O’ gracious King I’m glad you accept our tribute!”
I bow and Dagger tries to bow and nearly falls on his face while Spoon does a short bend of her knees.
“So good!” The Rat King says with a big smile, “If you do not come back, Mt. Gabo will not be hard to find.”
I pretend not to hear that threat as another thought came to mind, a memory of the human using the butta churn, “King of Ratkin, can we have the barrel once you scooped the butta out of it?”