Petey and Milo sat in the cave next to Smiley, eating jellybeans. Milo needed the healing candies because he was nearly dead. Petey just liked the taste. They had checked on Smiley, took his pulse, turned him a bit, and managed to get him to swallow a couple of jelly beans and some water. "We need to get him to the Old Healer. Whatever he's suffering from looks the same as what happened to Bleusnout."

He sat down next to Milo and poured out a bag of jellybeans. Milo detected a slight magical glow to them "One of the bushes my clan has is old. Old enough that it might be older than the clan. Like older than cheese kind of old. No one remembers how we got it. Three others are only a couple of decades old and were brought to us by my great-uncle. Good job on finding him, by the way. Knowing how he died got rid of some old grudges and relieved some tension in the older folks."

"Anyway, the beans off the old one gain some nice effects if they ripen long enough." He made a small pile of six red beans, one blue bean, and three yellow beans. He swept the rest back into his bag. "The reds will help you to heal. The blue prevents infection and bleeding, and the yellows are for poison. Frankly, you should be worse off. Char's weapons were probably poisoned. She was fighting to win permanently."

Milo took the rest of the candy but handed the yellow ones back. "She did. I'm more resistant to poisons than she thought. It was her claws that tore me up. I underestimated her. And I didn't take into account the cheese. I had no idea that cheese could give that much boost, and she had a large supply of it. And when she turned into a fiend? Even sparring with Larry didn't prepare me for that."

Petey smiled at him. "Yeah, but Larry is a sweetheart down deep. He was always a good kid. Charlotte? Sort of the opposite. Spoiled and entitled. She wasn't always that way; we had some good times together. For a few years, it was me, her, and the twins always getting into trouble together. Then our training started, and the competition to get a Master Ring changed all of us. Char started only caring about Char. She wanted that ring badly. Everyone had to be very careful around her. Sparring could turn into a real fight, instantly. And don't get me started on how bad she got if you scored on her playing Surprise. She was so mad at you!"

"That's the big difference between fighting Larry and fighting Char. When you spar, Larry isn't trying to kill you. Keep that in mind the next time you get into a fight. If the other guy is trying to kill you, all the rules get thrown away, except trying to survive."

Milo thought about that and agreed with Petey. Sometimes it wasn't a game. He had fought tooth and claw against Salasha, and he needed to remember that more fights would be like that. "So, what does the Hollow's new Deathmaster think is going on?"

Petey suddenly had a very neutral and stupid look on his face. "Gosh, I don't know. What does the Scout Master think?"

Milo needed to practice that face, and Petey did it very well. "I think you spent years making people underestimate you." They both chuckled. Milo looked over at Smiley. "Rifkin is lying about things. His story just doesn’t line up. And if he's lying about some things, he's probably lying about a lot of things. I ask myself why someone would want to hurt Master Bleusnout, and the obvious answer is the person who benefitted the most."

Petey nodded. "Charchar was talking a lot of bullshit, trying to confuse you, but some of what she said sounded true. How 'Rif' wants to change things in the Hollow. I bet that's the argument he used to convince her. I also wonder about that cheese she was eating. Pretty advanced stuff. None of the battle cheese Bleusnout makes could make someone go fiend so quickly."

Petey looked over at Smiley. "Another thing to consider is that Smiley was a better Chef's assistant than Rifkin. He did the job, was patient, and had that goofy grin that put people at ease. And he was good with the cheese. I think Rifkin was worried that he'd be assistant chef forever and Smiley would be the next Master."

Milo looked over at where the pit was. "I feel bad."

Petey shook his head. "Don't. Or feel bad later. She made some bad choices and followed it up with bad cheese. And don't forget, I helped dump her down that hole. Not much choice, as she'd have killed both of us, then she would have killed Smiley, followed by a cheese-fueled rampage into the Hollow when she realized what she had become. Maybe Gilad and Larry could have stopped her, maybe not. But for all her faults, that was my cousin I just killed. I'll mourn her later."

You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.

Milo looked at Petey for a moment. "Deathmaster."

Petey smiled. "Damn right."

"I have the twins following Rifkin tonight."

Petey gave him a thumbs up. "I saw that. Nice skulking; you taught them to shut up and stay silent. They have a lot of talent; they just need to take things seriously for a change. When the older people in the clan started pushing us to compete, we all reacted in different ways. Char became the frontrunner, and we let her. Just easier. The twins started acting stupid and ducked responsibility. I got fat from eating jellybeans. All of us have to grow up a little now."

The two of them tucked Smiley in and tied him down tight, then lifted the cot he was on and took him back to the cellar. Petey listened at the door, and they moved past the secret door. It was dark and silent in the Hollow. Milo opened and relocked the far door after they were past it, and they exited the mess hall. Staying to the shadows, it was only a few minutes until they had Smiley resting next to Bleusnout, and the Old Healer was tending to both of them. Then he turned and looked at Petey and Milo.

"Tell me what you have learned." He sat and listened to what they had to tell him, going very quiet when he learned of Charlotte's fate. He stood and patted them on their shoulders. "Good boys. You did what you had to do." From a drawer, he took a heavy black ring with a silver skull and tossed it to Petey, who put it on and nodded.

"I gave Gendifur the ring of the Master Healer this morning. Things are happening, and it would be too easy to cripple the Hollow by killing one old rat who held on to power too long. Our Cheese master and his best assistant suffer from strange cheese and black mold poisoning. Spiders have been seen close to the Hollow. And now we have a Caravan show up. Rifkin told me that Bleusnout invited them to come, but the chef never mentioned that information to the Conclave. Brownfur and Clawhammer are too insulated by their day-to-day jobs. Arlothe is obsessed with his magic. I've been trying to hold three clans together. I think someone noticed that weakness and is taking advantage of it. Find Rifkin and bring him here. He's in the middle of all of this, and I have some pointed questions to ask our assistant Cheese Master."

After they left, the old ratkin sat and thought of happier times, playing with his first granddaughter.

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The attack on the caravan came in the early hours of the morning. The mostly human raid was well-rested and healed up. Six thieves and assassins using stealth and Shadow Walker potions worked their way silently to the start of the ratkin dungeon. Using sign language, they discussed the next move.

"It looks like a circus in there! Pretty festive. And see that herd of draft animals? Those are to pull the wagons."

"Not many guards, but they have decent armor and weapons. Do you think we can thin them down easily?"

"How about we backstab some of the ratkin feeding the animals, then take their clothing? With disguise and the darkness, I bet

we can surprise some guards. Make sure to tuck a piece of rope in the back of your belt for a tail."

"We need a druid down here. Which one can actually move silently?"

"That's Duskarrow. He's working on a combo of archery and druid for the toxins. Sort of a ranged assassin. Why?"

"The Panic Animal spell. If we upset those beasts, the guards will focus on them, not us."

Nods all around set the plan in motion. One person went back looking for the Druid, and four others started moving up behind the ratkin who was feeding the lizards and oiling their skins. The last thief told Brannigan the plans, and the raid leader moved the raid up as far as he could, close to the entrance to the outer cave.

The players left nothing to chance. Four of them attacked at once against a lone ratkin, then moved to the next. One by one, they killed the lizard herders and took their clothing. They moved through the animal herd until they were close to the guards. Duskarrow snuck up to the herd. Lizards were different from cows and horses, but still, this should work fine. The spell went into the animals’ minds and made them think that a predator was attacking. They'd all run from the imaginary beast, causing havoc in the little circus while the rest of the raid moved into the cavern and set up for a charge. As more ratkin came out of the village, they'd hit them with superior firepower and whittle them down.

When the spell was cast, the animals looked up in panic and began to move. Brannigan signaled the raid to begin.