I was dreaming again, this time I was back in one of those perfect cities that seemed to be devoid of anything unclean. At least, that’s what I’d thought was the case, but now I could see that wasn’t quite the case. Some parts of it looked uncared for, with decrepit buildings, people living on the streets, and rats.
Rats? Why was that so familiar?
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I woke up, though not quite where I expected to. I was laying on a small cot in a dungeon, surrounded by dark bricks and darker metal bars. Why was I here? Could The Rat King have been an officially recognised ruler? If so, I feel like they were holding themselves with none of the grace and poise that I’d been told to expect from them. It was almost an embarrassment.
As I looked around in confusion, I heard someone moving around and turned to see a man in pristine travelling clothes. They looked to be dyed different shades of grey and black for some reason, which allowed them to almost blend in with the walls behind them.
My first thought was that they were one of the guards, or perhaps someone here to visit one of the prisoners, but a second glance revealed that they were also locked in a cell, cheerfully whistling a tune whilst scratching meaningless marks in the brick with a rusty nail. For some reason I didn’t feel like they belonged here.
They turned around almost as soon as I noticed them, and their smile grew to almost be wide enough to split their face.
“Ah, the prisoner finally awakes! I noticed that they put you in the finest cell here, which was quite the disappointment when I came in. I’ve already made good progress on my Tally over there, you know?” I glanced at the wall to my left and saw that, yes, they had scored dozens of lines across the whole thing. The purpose of it eluded me, but the man seemed to be rather proud of it regardless, “Oh well, sometimes it’s better to start fresh than continue working on the same old thing. It provides a different perspective after-all.”
With that he continued to slowly chip away at the wall and I was left somewhat confused at the whole situation, “If you don’t mind me asking, who are you and where exactly am I?”
“Oh, of course, how rude of me. You were in a right state when they dragged you in. This is the low security section of the Ironhold Dungeon, and I, “ as he says this he points to himself exaggeratedly, ”am the Wonderful Prisoner! I’ve been touring Dillak’s prisons for quite some time now, but something just keeps bringing me back to this one. I can’t seem to stay away!”
So he’s some kind of national criminal? How does he keep getting out then? “Could it possibly be the Guards?”
He looked confused at my question, looking at me like I’m the odd one, and says “Hm? No, that couldn’t be it. They don’t know I’m here until I’m ready to leave usually, so I get almost no hospitality. Though the Guard Captain is nicer than most. I don’t think I’ve ever seen him take a bribe, and that’s quite unusual for a Guard Captain so that really stood out to me,” I open my mouth to speak but the Wonderful Prisoner held up his finger to tell me to stop, “Speak of the Devil and he shall appear, the man himself comes now!”
A moment later I could hear the sound of heavy metal boots on stone, and then a mountain of a man in shining plate walked into the dungeon. He looked at me for a moment before scanning the rest of the dungeon and sighing once he finds the Wonderful Prisoner.
“Do you have nothing productive to do with your time, Prisoner?” The person that I can only assume to be the Guard Captain speaks with a certain level of intimidation and authority that I’d never experienced before. It didn’t quite leave me quaking in my boots, but I felt the need to stand as straight as I could. I almost ignored the feeling, but decided that it couldn’t hurt to put my best foot forward in this situation.
“But this is productive, Mister Guard Captain. My skills are levelling every moment I’m in here.”
“And what do you intend to do with those skills?”
Wonderful Prisoner grinned in a way that made me think this conversation had played out dozens of times before and said, “Oh, I don’t know. Maybe I’ll check out the Golden Keep. I hear they have nice beds.”
After this short exchange the Captain took to ignoring the Prisoner, and instead turned to me, “My name is Sylas Ironheart, I’m the Guard Captain of Ironhold. There’s no need to introduce yourself, I already know your name. I apologise for the unexpected imprisonment, but I’m afraid that I can’t let you go without Lord Ironhold’s permission. Tell me, were you the one to kill the Rat King?” Is that what this is about? Don’t tell me I was right, that would be ridiculous.
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“Um, well, technically I did. But I didn’t have much of a choice. I’m not sure how long I was down there, but it was a while, and the tunnels behind me were all collapsed so I had no way to run away. Did I do something wrong?” The Captain sighed for the second time at this, I got the feeling that he did that a lot for some reason.
“You did something wrong by going down there in the first place, but defending yourself isn’t against the law. I’m just struggling to understand how you even ended up in the sewers of all places. Did something drag you in?”
“I was hired to take care of a rat problem, and I noticed that they were coming out of a hole in the wall so I went through it to find the nest.” Before Ironheart could say anything more, I heard another set of footsteps getting closer, these ones sounded much softer, and less metallic too.
The Captain stood up straight and saluted as a man wearing practical purple finery, at least as practical as finery could get and a flowing cape that reached down to his knees walked in. I looked at the Prisoner to see his reaction but he was already gone, though to where I couldn’t say.
“Lord Ironhold, sir! This is the one who killed the Rat King. What would you have us do with him?”
The new arrival, who was apparently Lord Ironhold himself, looked at me and for a moment I felt as though my entire being was being scrutinised. I shivered and some kind of presence receded from the man’s eyes, leaving me feeling like a weight had been lifted from my shoulders.
I don’t know what he saw, but he nodded in satisfaction and his entire demeanour shifted, almost as if he’d dropped the act he’d been keeping up until now, or maybe he was picking up a new one.
“He’s harmless, if we don’t let this information leak I don’t see any problems with letting the boy roam free,” The Lord waved his hand dismissively before turning around walking back out of the room, leaving a strange and out of place unease lingering in my gut.
Relief washed across Ironheart’s face for a moment before he schooled his expression and turned to me.
“Looks like you were lucky, under normal circumstances someone with the King Slayer Feat would be either forced to sign a Contract or treated as a traitor. For now, it’s important that I impress upon you how much you need to keep this information to yourself. We can’t have too many people running around with a Feat that makes them the perfect weapon against the Queen, and if people knew getting it was as easy as slaying a Rat King we could have a crisis on our hands,” I nodded and he smiled softly for a moment before he continued to speak, “Since you can’t possibly claim any kind of bounty, despite how you have potentially saved lives today, you will be allowed to keep the Rat King’s Crown that you recovered off of its corpse. Additionally, you will be given 30 silver for your work. It may seem like a low amount for the work you put in, but I can’t risk drawing attention to the situation by giving away too much money.
A low amount? That’s enough money for, I took a few seconds to do the maths in my head, like 4 years at the Haggard Hoarbear!
Whilst I was reeling from the amount of money I’d just been given, the Captain had unlocked the cell and was holding a sack out for me to take. I did so and looked inside, seeing the promised Silver as well as the white rock that The Rat King used to absorb my attacks.
Oh, so it’s not a real crown then. That’s disappointing.
“Your old clothes were irrecoverable so they’ve been disposed of, so you can keep what you have on now,” Looking down I realised that someone must have changed my clothes whilst I slept, because I was now wearing a set of much finer clothes. I had a tunic that was a suspiciously similar cyan to my Lightning, and a pair of dark brown pants. They didn’t give me a replacement for my poor travelling cloak, but a new one was suddenly well within my budget.
“Oh, that’s fine. I didn’t even realise I was wearing something different,” For some reason I felt like I should’ve been insulted by the look he gave me once I said that.
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After being escorted out of the building, I returned to the Job Hall to see if I could still get the reward for the job I did. Hey, no reason to let free money just sit there, am I right?
I got inside to see that the building was much the same as when I was last here just a day ago, although it was much later in the day so there were far fewer people than before. The same receptionist was there, so I went up to ask about the job.
“Hey, do you know how I could get the reward for the job I took yesterday? The one to deal with a rat infestation?”
They smiled in a way that seemed distinctly fake to me and said, “Rewards are generally given by the person who requested the job, we only handle particularly large sums of money. If they refused to pay you we recommend taking it up with the guard.”
“Oh no, that’s okay. I just didn’t get a chance to talk to them after I completed the job is all,” I turned to leave before realising one other thing that I should ask about, “By the way, would I need to update you if my level increased?”
“It’s up to each person’s discretion, but we do appreciate it if people update us every now and again. But I’m surprised you managed to get a level on such a simple job. You must have been pretty close already, huh?” I guess I was pretty close, wasn’t I?
“Yeah, I guess that’s true. I managed to get to,” I glanced at my Status quickly to double check, since I was basically unconscious the last time I levelled, “Level 13”
“Alright, I’ll just- what? That can’t be right?” Did I make a mistake? This is the right building isn’t it? They regathered their posture and continued speaking, “Sorry about that. Could you just confirm that your name is Robert Zeneki? Usually our detectors work quite well but something may have gone wrong.
“Ah, gotcha. Yeah, that’s my name,” For some reason, this made them look even more confused.
“I see… Would you mind telling me how you gained 9 levels in one day? This isn’t anything official, just to sate my curiosity,” Why did they look so nervous? Did I say something weird?
“Well, I was supposed to deal with a few rats in a basement, but I found out that they were actually coming out of a hole in the wall so I crawled through it to find the nest. I ended up killing like 3 small hordes and a-” I managed to catch myself before spilling the secret that could probably get me killed on the first day, “a-another … horde?” At the end what was supposed to be a statement became more of a question, but the receptionist just gave me a puzzled look and ignored it.
“Wow, a small horde is between 5 and 15 rats, right? You must have fought dozens of them, that does not sound like fun. But at least you seem to have made it out okay, so it must not have been too bad.”
“Oh, I think someone actually healed me after I got out. I think I nearly died in there,” After I spoke I realised that it was probably getting late and I really wanted to get back to my room in the Haggard Hoarbear so that I could properly rest, “Well, I’ve got to go, but it was nice chatting. Bye!”
I turned and left the Job Hall, only realising after I’d left that it was probably rude to just leave in the middle of a conversation like that, before shrugging and deciding to just go back to the inn. Nothing to do about it now, really.