"I'll be back," Silas said, grinning to himself just a little as he went outside to deal with some rats.

Filling the street, clinging to nearby walls and sitting atop roofs, stared a silent sea of poodle-sized rats, most toys and miniatures, ankle and shin biters. A few approaching the standard poodle size stood out from the rest, placing his knees within range of their pointed teeth, endangering much, much worse places should they stand on their hind legs.

"So, I guess you guys noticed I wasn't in my cell today," Silas joked after he shut the door behind himself, taking in the empty streets of the trade district. Some peered out through second story windows and balcony doors, however, so he wasn't without an audience.

The rats squeaked at him angrily, one of the biggest taking a step forward while squeaking up a storm.

"Any help, Eve?"

"I got, 'Squeaky, squeaks, squeaker, squeakin.'"

"So much help. Thanks."

"Anytime. I earned a merit badge in rodent squeak back when I was a Junior Chipmunk."

He turned to the pseudodragon on his shoulder, who stared out with eager anticipation at the sea of tasty snacks. "Vox, tell them I'm sorry I wasn't there this morning. I didn't know I'd be leaving, or I'd have warned them yesterday. I can still sell them their daily cheese. Don't know where I'll be tomorrow morning, though."

Vox sent his message, including Silas in the telepathic transmission. "Apologies. Left unexpectedly. Will sell cheese. Future location, unknown.

Close enough. Silas started summoning two types of every cheese type he could manage, as he had before, the horde of rats wheeling off the cheese to locations unknown as he did so.

The biggest rat squeaked and two other large rats came out from the crowd, one with a stub of a tail and the other brown with black stripes, each dragging a sack of coins by holding the drawstring in their mouths. After the normal allotment of cheeses had been summoned, the big rat squeaked again and one of the two coin-transporting rats dragged its load to Silas.

The brown boss rat squeaked some more, alternating between Silas and the remaining pouch of coins. "A double order today?" Silas asked, and apparently the rat could understand him because its squeaking grew a bit less angry and a bit more excited. Checking his mana, he was at 11.2 out of 18 after summoning the ten batches of cheese for one mana each. "Yeah, okay. I can do that."

While summoning the second batch, the door behind him opened. Silas turned to see a wolfish guard peering out, before stepping aside for Princess Dara.

"What are you doing?" she whispered, studying the sea of rats.

"Met these guys in jail. I'm selling them cheese."

"Those are mana beasts!" she shouted.

"And?"

"Don't feed them! They're pests! Do you know what a pain it is going to be to clear out this infestation?!"

The rats she'd been ignoring squeaked in indignation.

He shrugged. "Don't see how that's my problem. They're paying customers."

Her face grew pale. "They're… You're…" She threw up her hands and groaned, slamming the door shut.

"Sorry about that," he told the big rat, who just grunted.

After he summoned the last batch of mozzarella sticks the sea of rats dispersed, aside from the boss and one smaller, pitch black rat. He would have thought it a mouse if it wasn't for the slightly thicker tail, smaller ears, and it being part of the rat horde.

The much larger rat squeaked something and nudged the black rat forward, towards Silas. It squeaked something in a much higher pitch, then darted towards Silas, making it to his foot before he could react. The thing used its razor-sharp claws to climb up his pants leg and back, pricking his skin with every step, almost making it to his shoulder before Vox hissed in warning. The little rat made a back-scratching u-turn and zipped towards his left jacket pocket. It scurried around inside for half a second before poking its head back out and chirping.

Clearly the rats didn't want to lose track of him again. He'd been given a minder. Or messenger. Or pet. Or roommate.

He'd been given a moderately intelligent rat to follow him around. As long as he didn't have to clean up after it he really didn't care.

Silas considered the little black head poking out of his pocket. "Calling you Nox might get confusing, and Umbra feels a bit pretentious. Nyx…is probably still too close to Vox. Are you a boy or girl rat? One squeak for boy, two for girl."

The big one squeaked twice. Did the little one not understand him, or was it the usual problem of parents answering questions in their perfectly capable children's stead?

"I'll call you Sable, then. Nice to have you aboard. Vox, don't eat Sable."

Sable let out a happy squeak, while Vox transmitted a combined sense of general displeasure and grudging acceptance.

As soon as he stepped back inside, Dara gave Silas a scowl. "You can't feed mana beasts."

"Why shouldn't I?" asked Silas, wanting to sidestep a discussion on what he could do versus what he should do. Maybe it was just a translation error.

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"Because they suck up all the mana!" she shouted at him, stomping her foot. "The dungeon only puts out so much. They'll get strong and our city will die out, or they'll run us out, or try to anyhow. Either way a bunch of people are going to die if someone doesn't deal with the problem now. I don't know what the Hunters' Guild is doing, but I'm going over there right this minute to have words with Master Baen. You do whatever you're going to do, but don't be surprised when a bunch of rats start dying the next time they come around to buy your cheese. And what are they even— No. I don't care."

She headed to the door. "Sorry Silas, this is more important than getting you some clothes and showing you around the city. Juicia, like I said, just send Father the bill for anything Silas wants—within reason. He needs a full wardrobe, so, whatever will make that happen." With one last scowl for Silas, she headed out, one of the two wolf guards following.

Silas glanced at the remaining wolfman. "You're staying?"

The man just nodded.

Silas waited. When no further information was forthcoming, he asked, "Why?"

"Told to stay with you until relieved, sir. So, I'll stay with you until I'm relieved. Got a rune to press if there's Trouble. …More dire Trouble. Princess said she'd handle reporting this one."

Silas sighed. He patted Vox on the head one last time, then dismissed him to summon Taylor, bringing the number of his current entourage to four, between Eve, Taylor, Sable, and the guard.

Taylor took in the room's changes, as did Silas.

"What happened to, uh, that guy?" he asked Juicia.

"Bodwine," supplied Eve.

"Bodwine," he repeated.

The spider-eyed tailor frowned. "Bodwine needed a lie down, so I led him to a pallet in the basement. Once the baby is done with his nap I'll see about changing his diaper and getting him home to Mommy."

Silas decided he didn't really care where Bodwine was and wouldn't pursue the matter further.

"Right. Well. My goal today was to buy some clothes. Something I could wear out of the store, if at all possible. And maybe order some more, since as the princess said, I am in need of a full wardrobe, and apparently the king—I'm assuming her father is the king, she's never actually called him that."

"Her father's king, aye," chuckled Juicia.

"Right. Well. He wants to buy me clothes. I'm Silas, by the way. I guess she told you about me?"

"We got us our own hero," she shook her head. "Been here a day and there's already Trouble afoot."

"Been here six, thank you."

She just laughed. "Took just over a week, then."

"In my defense the other hero has been here two weeks. …Wait, what? Oh. Right. Timekeeping. How many days in…everything, if you don't mind me asking? It hasn't come up yet."

She shrugged. "Five days a week. Five weeks a quarter. Four quarters a season. Four seasons a year."

He did the math. Four hundred days in a year. A nice, round number, suspicious as a smoking nun, but he'd worry about all that later.

"Right. Exactly one of those lines up with my known normal." He sighed. "Anyhow. Clothes. A whole wardrobe. Of mostly comfortable stuff. I don't really care what other people think, so much, though I'll take some nice stuff too since I'm not paying. Is that something you can make happen? Or is your schedule too full at the moment?"

She smirked. "What? Bodwine? He'll have his clothes in time. They're ready and boxed up. He's just an anchor so I wanted to make him sweat."

"Ah."

"His wife is a sweetie though. One of the royal cousins, if you didn't catch that."

Silas just nodded as if he knew or cared about royal cousins. "Right." He waited.

"Well come on back, stand over here and strip down to your underthings so I can get my measurements. …Do you have underthings? I can get you something first if needed." She moved to a room in the back, pointing to a raised platform surrounded by mirrors for him to stand on, much like any tailor back home might.

"I do, but they're, uh, conjured. It's nice because I don't have to wash my clothes, but I'd like to have some clothes to wash, if that makes sense." He stood on the platform and made his outer sweats disappear, leaving him in a white undershirt, boxers, and athletic socks.

She smirked at him. "Perfectly normal, dear." She glanced over to Taylor. "And how about you? Dara said you're a tailor? Here to steal my secrets, are ye?"

Taylor shrugged. "Master Silas hoped for a second professional's opinion."

"I'm not the most fashionable," he confessed. "And that was when I had some grasp on what normal people might wear. I'm a bit out of my depth here.

"Right." She pulled out some measuring tape. "Then let's get to it."

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Lorence watched Princess Dara storm into the Hunters' Guild demanding to speak with Guild Master Baen.

She got her meeting.

He sipped his mead and went back to studying his hand. Queens of Storms and Knives, fives of Shields and Knives, and a seven of Towers. He slid the seven of Towers to the discard pile.

"One," he declared, sliding forward his payment for the card, five silver. It was an absurd amount of money for a card game, and normally he wouldn't have even considered joining such a game, but his luck had blown in. Even if he lost this hand, today would be another good day for Lorence Ratcatcher, as everyone called him.

His wasn't a glorious job, but someone had to do it. That's what everyone told him to his face, at least. But what had catching rats ever gotten him, aside from the butt end of more than a few jokes? Yeah, his Bond wasn't good for much more than attracting rats. Tiny just had to call for help and the dumb rats would run to their own deaths, into whatever trap he had set.

Back when he lived in the gutters, being able to call rats for dinner made him quite the popular guy around the fire. His crew ate well, and they worked hard enough to all get out of the gutter. And his crew, well, they went on to do bigger and better things, signing on with some ship captain who had no need for a 'rat boy,' not when his ship had proper vermin warding.

He always went down to the gutter in the evenings still, to call the rats for the kids to eat. Or, he used to. The kids loved him for it. And now, well, now they loved 'Uncle Lorence' even more, for the sack of meat pies and sausages he brought their way every night.

Dye slid the top card off the deck, close enough for Lorence to pull it to the edge of the table and get it into his hand without any looky-loos or spotters glancing over his shoulder. He took a calm glance at the card. Queen of Shields.

Yes indeed, things were finally going Lorence Ratcatcher's way for once.

Less than five minutes later the princess hurried out of the Hunters' Guild as fast as she'd entered.

"Wonder what that was about," Dye asked the table.

Lorence just shrugged, counting his winnings.