Chapter 49: Ch. 48 – Cheese Politic

At the promise of talking business, the room quieted. Servants of the Big Rat had taken away the crumbs of cheddar and gouda, cleared the table, and scurried away to their designated corners.

“As you all know, Rats are the only people in this city which lack representation in the government,” Fromage began. “We are shunned to the sewers, forced to live like our ancestral brethren.”

“Aren’t rats distinctly not people?” Momo whispered to Radu. He had become her walking encyclopedia of Alois halfling politics, much to his chagrin.

The Big Rat’s ears twitched, flicking towards her.

“Rats have notoriously good hearing,” Fromage said, narrowing his eyes. “And we are people, although some ratlings find their human genetics disagreeable.”

He grimaced.

“You all do have terrible table manners, and funny looking snouts,” Fromage added. “So I understand their grievances.”

“I apologize,” Momo said, for the hundredth time since entering the city, “I hadn’t met any halflings before coming to Nam’Dal. Also you look… remarkably ratly. Except for your height and general giant-ness.”

This seemed to rub his ego the right way, and he raised his snout proudly.

“Amongst our people, I am one of the biggest. It is how I received my name.”

“Your name… you mean Big Rat?”

“Yes, precisely. An honored title,” he stated, playing with his bowtie. He motioned to the small rat boy seemingly stapled to his side. “My son, Rudolph, takes after his mother. What he lacks in size, he makes up for in speed and wit.”

“Is that so?” Momo said, politely intrigued. She tried not to laugh at the increasingly amusing names.

“Yes. Rudolph always comes in a strong second place in the Rat Race,” Fromage said with a proud grin, looking backwards at his son. His son seeped farther back into the darkness, his furry cheeks burning.

“What’s the Rat Race?” Momo asked, unable to help herself. She felt like she had stepped into one of the TV shows she watched as a kid. She had always cried at the animals having to work human jobs – like Billy the Goat-Architect. It just seemed unjust. Why should a Goat be an architect? Or a rat, a politician?

Animals were meant to laze around, be fed, and receive tummy rubs. Not perform labor.

Alois would have been her childhood nightmare.

“Have our time-honored traditions really lost so much respect?” Fromage shook his head. “The Rat Race is the most distinguished ratling event in all of Alois. Ratlings from all over the continent come to watch and compete.”

“And you host it?”

“Some years,” he nodded, and his top hat slid over his snout. He adjusted it, re-clipping it to his head with a small hair clip. “Different Rat Lords from different cities take on the honor every year. I hosted it in Nam’Dal many years ago, before the Dark Calamity made the King into a speciesist tyrant.”

So the word was speciesist. Momo felt vindicated.

“Who does the King like, exactly?” Momo murmured.

“Himself,” Nia piped up, pointing one of her many daggers towards them for emphasis. Fromage didn’t seem fazed by it. “His Circle of the Sun. Kryos. That’s about it. Everyone else is either a pawn, or something to be disposed of.”

“Seems like a pretty unlikeable guy,” Momo said, crossing her arms. “How has he not gotten overthrown earlier?”

“How does any tyrant stay in power?” Nia responded. “Fear and poverty. Make the necromancers the boogeyman, oppress those likely to sympathize with them, and then promise a future of prosperity for everyone who agrees with him.”

Momo hummed. “You’re right, that is a pretty good sales pitch.”

“Necros are one thing, but us rats have done nothing at all to deserve our reputation,” Fromage interrupted. “Raise our relatives from the dead? No! We just eat our cheese politely, bake fantastic bread, and keep the sewer system running. What do you think the King would do without a working toilet?”

He rose from the table, looming over everyone. He stared at Nia.

“Enough blabber-mouthing. Nia, it seems you have finally assembled your team of criminals,” he boomed, observing them one by one. He gave Momo a particularly suspicious glare, and mouthed cracker thief.

“They aren’t much, but I think they’ll get the job done,” she shrugged. The Con Artists slumped in their seats slightly.

“If you’re sure about that, then I have a proposal,” he stated, straightening his suit. “Should you succeed, I insist that you must reinstate Ratling representation in government. The Chamber of Cheese will once again open its doors, and my son, Rudolph, will head the department.”

Nia laughed. “I intend to topple the regime, not run the new one. I can’t promise something like that.”

“But I can,” Teddy said, barreling out of his chair. He had insisted on coming with them through the sewer entrance, and Momo supposed this might be why: an opportunity to play Cheese Politic. “With Vivienne gone, Nam’Dal will run just like the good old days. It will be a new renaissance – the rats and the birds will run this city, and the criminals will have their backs.”

“Birds…” Fromage frowned. “I actually don’t mind the squawkers staying in their corner of the city.”

You are reading story Momo The Ripper (A Shy Necromancer LitRPG) at novel35.com

“Focus on the bigger evil, Fromage,” Nia said, narrowing her eyes.

The rat sighed, flopping back into his chair.

“Fine,” he reached out a huge paw towards Teddy. “If you really mean all that, then I’ll escort you to the Hall entrance myself. If you don’t, then you’ll be hearing from me personally.”

A malignant, red glint flashed in Fromage’s eye. Momo wondered if the Big Rat himself had a class. Was he as powerful as he looked, or did he claw his way to the top of Rat Society some other way? Her head was swimming with all these new cultural norms.

She was still desperate to know how one could win the Rat Race. Was it like the Hunger Games, but with mice? Or more of a cheese-crafting competition? The range of possibilities lit her brain afire.

“It’s a deal,” Teddy said, firmly shaking the rat’s hand. With Teddy’s small stature, the exchange looked like a transaction between a gnome and a giant.

“Wonderful. Just wonderful,” Fromage said gleefully, shaking Teddy’s hand so hard the shapeshifter lost his footing. “Rudolph, we’re celebrating. Bring out the cheese-wine!”

—

“Don’t you think it’s a bad idea to topple a government while drunk?”

Momo’s complaints fell on deaf ears, the ring of clashing glasses overpowering her.

“To Nam’Dal!”

“To the future of Ratdom!”

“To seeing Vivienne locked in a pretty little cage!”

The crowd hurrahed, and downed their drinks in one swig. The rats had brought out two bottles: a typical red wine, and then a tall, nearly two-feet tall bottle of yellow liquid. On Fromage’s instruction, they had started with the red.

“Now, for the second course,” he grinned. “Raton, prepare the gouda!”

A rat with a chef’s hat and a whiskered mustache emerged from the shadows, carrying a cheese grater and a block of cheese. He hurriedly set a platter on the table, and then raised the block of cheese upwards, as if part of a ritualistic dance.

Rudolph appeared by his side, uncorking the yellow bottle. He began to circle the table, pouring a sizable dollop in each person’s glass, while Raton began to grate the cheese.

“This is… cheese wine?” Momo wondered aloud.

“A ratling speciality,” Fromage explained. “Saved only for the most important of occasions.”

“Right,” she said, adding yet another fact to the pool of wild information that was becoming a tsunami in her head. “Is it alcoholic?”

“Alcoholic? But of course. Any good cheese is.”

Momo blinked, processing what he was suggesting. Any good cheese? That explained the pounding in her head, the growing dizziness she had felt all evening. She turned to Radu, but he didn’t seem to share her confusion.

“All cheese contains alcohol,” he said, like duh. “Everyone knows that.”

“And we’re about to try and kidnap Vivienne…” Momo paused, feeling her stomach turn wildly, “drunk?”

“That’s the only way to do a proper revolution, lass!” Teddy cheered, holding up his glass while Rudolph poured. “Make sure to lick up every single drop, there’s nothing quite like a drink from Big Rat’s cellar.”

Momo attempted to refuse, but Raton was already over her, pouring freshly grated gouda into her drink. She watched as the cheese particles plummeted into the glass; her blurry eyes tracked the gouda as it bobbed up and down on the liquid surface like small, yellow boats floating in the open sea.

It was completely enrapturing.

Either that, or she was three vodka-infused cheese wheels into a very bad hangover.

“Come on,” Radu encouraged, tapping the side of her glass to pull her attention. “Don’t be rude.”

“God help me,” Momo murmured, and threw the glass back.

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