It was just past noon when the quartet of men and women descended the staircase into the dingy cellar. They were all feeling peckish, but had faith that their sugar rush would see them through the challenges ahead. This temporary energy wouldn’t be ideal for an extended conflict, the most experienced of them knew, but it ought to be enough for this.

Each step downwards caused the wood beneath to creak, a drumbeat of their procession into the inky darkness below. Echoes of chittering could be heard between the sounds, growing fewer in number yet louder the lower they went.

Yup. This place definitely had a rat problem.

“So, where did you learn magic?” asked Sae, who was mostly focused on not tripping on an errant rodent. The creaking had already alerted the rats, so Artyom figured there was no point trying to be any more stealthy.

“I’m self-taught,” he replied.

From Artyom’s experience, most dedicated magic teachers focused on either the fundamentals, or single-target attacks. Since he was first summoned, and in his current position at TOAL, Artyom was tasked with leading soldiers in large-scale combat. As such, he had to teach himself the kind of spells that suited grand warfare over smaller scale skirmishes.

“How about if I turn the question around,” said Artyom. “What about you three? Where did you all learn how to fight?”

“From some of the guards in the village I grew up in,” said Sae. “I was originally training to be one, but most of the job was just sitting around or training, all for when something might happen. It was way too boring for me, so I decided I would become an adventurer instead! I figured it would also let me help others when they needed it most.”

“You mean I decided we’d become adventurers,” said Pireni, butting in. “I was learning to be a hunter and also hated how most of the job wasn’t actually doing anything fun. Tracking a herd of animals for hours, just to shoot a few arrows, and then spend the next couple of hours lugging the bodies back into town. I’d seen adventurers before and they all sounded like they were having way more fun. So I convinced you to join me in becoming one.”

“What are you talking about?” asked Sae. “So what if you gave me the idea? I was the one who decided to take it up.”

“Which wouldn’t have happened if I never gave you the idea in the first place. You owe me half.”

“Half of what?!”

Rather than let the bickering continue, Artyom stepped in and steered the conversation back. “How about you, Skeya? Where did you learn to be a cleric, and how did you meet these two?”

“Well…” she began. “I was trained at the church in healing and casting holy spells, and one day Sae and Pireni came to us injured. I’m glad I was able to help them out.”

Her two teammates went quiet at that. The silence they’d cast laid heavily in the air and lasted until they reached the bottom of the steps, but Artyom attempted to break the fugue.

“How did that come to happen?”

“Um well…” began Pireni.

“We tried to hunt a small monster, but it didn’t go so well,” said Sae, interrupting.

Pireni nudged Sae in the arm, hard, and took over speaking. “He broke an arm when it rammed into his shield too hard.

“And she broke a few fingers when her bow string snapped,” added Sae.

“But thankfully it was slow, so we were able to get back to town without it following us.”

“And that’s where we met Skeya, at the temple.”

Artyom looked amongst the three. The two boisterous yet flustered adventurers tried to avoid eye contact with him, while Skeya only looked back at him with a soft smile and nodded.

“They weren’t the only ones I’d treated who had injuries from that monster,” said the cleric. She gathered her resolve and continued. “I thought it was really brave of them to go out of their way to try and help others, and I realized I wanted to do something like that too! I wanted to be an adventurer as well, and learn to be… brave like them.” Her sentence quieted at those last three words.

The conversation began to truly die down at that, mostly because they were now approaching the main cellar, but Artyom decided to end it on a more positive note. “I think that you’re already brave to follow these two all the way here. Keep it up!”

The others looked at him indignantly, but when they heard Skeya reply with a heartfelt “thank you,” they decided to leave it.

“So what do you three know about the rats?” asked Artyom.“How come Ruba needed to hire multiple teams to handle the job?”

“We’re pretty sure it’s because the other adventurers were too weak. This might be a quest for newbies, but it doesn’t mean it’s a quest for weaklings!” boasted Sae. “Pireni said it earlier, all of us have our levels in the double digits unlike the others who’ve taken on this quest, so we should be strong enough!”

If you come across this story on Amazon, it's taken without permission from the author. Report it.

“Yup, that definitely must be it,” thought Artyom.

The group finally entered the cellar proper, which would have been consumed by a quagmire of shadow if not for the noon day sun barely filtering through some metal grates from the top of the far, western wall. Several wooden crates were spread out across the room. While most of them were on the floor, a few hung from the ceiling by nets woven from thick, heavy-duty hempen ropes. Having to move the boxes to the floor and back up seemed like too much work, but Artyom figured that was how Ruba managed with the rat problem.

The rats who made their home here had mostly fled upon the team’s descent, save for a few prime specimens of their species present. Several very large rats wandered the room, hugging corners of the wall or boxes, sniffing out the new arrivals. They were each at most three or four feet long, and between a foot or two tall. Each looked well fed, but not obese, from what Artyom could tell.

“Alright,” said Artyom in a low whisper as to not spook the enemy. “So what’s the pla-”

Immediately as Sae caught sight of the rats, he screamed a battlecry and charged at the nearest rodent. It squeaked in surprise and before it could do anything, Sae had already cleared the distance and slashed at it. The rat tried to dodge but failed, and received a short gash across its midsection. It refused to go down, however, and in response emitted an even higher-pitched shriek, calling all of the other rats to its aid.

“Uh oh, I think I made it mad. A little help, guys?” asked Sae.

“On it!” shouted Pireni. She pulled out her bow from her back and an arrow from her quiver, and took aim at the forming mob of rodents. She waited until she could pick a single target from the flowing wave of fur and tails, and let loose. Her arrow flew across the room and collided with a smaller rat on the far right of the group, passing right through its midsection and sending it flying to the back wall, where it collapsed without so much as a chitter.

“Dang it, I missed!” whined Pireni. “I was aiming for the one in the center.”

“Better you missed right instead of left!” said Sae in reply, realizing how he was equidistant from Pireni’s intended target compared to where she had actually hit.

As Sae’s head was turned towards his teammate, one of the rats bit him in the leg, its teeth puncturing his leather pants and thankfully failing to pierce his skin, but eliciting a yowl of pain from the swordsman nonetheless.

“Aah! It bit me! That hurt!”

“Oh! I’m on it!” replied Skeya, clasping her hands together in prayer as she began chanting in a whisper. A silvery glow filled with gray motes surrounded Sae before being absorbed into his body, making him visibly calm as the spell took effect.

“That’s better, now let’s finish this!” shouted Sae. “Pireni, let’s go all out! And please don’t hit me! [Sharpened Edge]!”

“Right! [Piercing Shot]!” replied Pireni, as she nocked another arrow.

Sae began slashing wildly, his sword cleaving through the wave of rats, taking out one at a time. Each slash cut deeper than the last, and every consecutive hit led to an even faster one after that. Soon enough, he was a whirling dervish, tearing through rats like a farmer scything wheat.

That wasn’t to say Pireni was slacking. She fired off arrows at an impressive rate, hitting rats left and right. The swarm of rodents began to fall apart, soon turning into a trickle at the onslaught, and finally being reduced to nothing. By the time the battle had died down, all of the rats who opposed the brave adventurers were dead, either by sword or arrow.

“We did it!” shouted Sae! “I knew we could!”

“Of course. We all knew we could!” replied Pireni.

“Yeah!” Even Skeya let out a quiet shout in excitement.

Once their cheering had died down, they turned towards Artyom.

“Well, I guess we didn’t really learn all that much about you,” said Sae. “You didn’t even have a chance to cast a single spell with how good we were! Maybe you’ll have better luck on our next mission?”

“What do you mean?” asked Artyom. “I casted plenty of spells.”

The party members looked at him in confusion.

“Was there another army of rats we didn’t see?” asked Pireni. “You even throw a single fireball!”

“Probably because that’s not the kind of magic I specialize in.”

The others looked even more confused.

“So what did you cast? I didn’t see a thing,” said Sae.

“Did you see any blood come out of the rat bite on your leg? It ripped right through your armor, but your skin is unscathed. And you Pireni, didn’t you notice how your shots got way more accurate during your second volley of arrows?”

The two adventurers looked at each other, and then at the newcomer.

“That’s my style of spells; making people stronger and the enemy weaker.”

“Now that you mention it, yeah. That bite hurt, but it only felt like getting hit, not stabbed,” said Sae with furrowed brows.

“Same here, that has to be a new record for me in terms of accuracy,” replied Pireni. “I’ve heard of Skills that make allies stronger, but not spells. I bet your Skills are all about making it easier for you to use magic.”

“That’s right,” said Artyom. “I just cast Ironskin and Focused Mind on the two of you.”

“What about Skeya?” asked Pireni. “She normally hesitates when someone gets hurt, but she casted a heal immediately!”

Skeya looked down in sadness, probably in realization that she hadn’t actually been brave on her first combat mission.

“No, actually. I just cast it on you two.”

Skeya looked up at Artyom in surprise, and a wide smile began to grow on her face.

Of course, Artyom didn’t mention how his “Focused Mind” spell had two targets. He wanted to help this group get better, and the most obvious way to start was by improving Skeya’s self esteem by letting her feel satisfaction in what she believed to be her own achievements. And now that she had a taste for it, she should now be able to do the same without his help.

“Way to go Skeya!” shouted the other party members in congratulations.

“Yeah! It looks like we’ve wrapped this up. Let’s go tell Ruba that we’ve solved her rat problem!”

“What are you talking about?” asked Artyom, interrupting the impromptu celebration. “These were just the guards. There are still plenty of them inside the walls.”

The others turned around and looked at him in horror.