Chapter 81: Chapter Eighty One

As mentioned, the sooner we got down to working on the rat king  mission the better, so we headed there immediately. We took our own  skyride, which had the usual expanded space inside and was more than up  to the task. As we climbed in, I heard Martin whistle as he took in our  car. "Damn, you guys travel in style, is this the Silver Knight? This is  one of the nicer G ranked cars on the market. Not top of the line, but  the defensive enchantments are pretty top notch."

Benny,  who had been mostly responsible for picking this thing, preened in joy.  "Yeah we got it for a steal too. Negotiating the owner down was tough,  but aside from the defense this thing also has an amazing amount of  trunk space. The Silver Knight is perfect for monster hunting, and once I  read about the specs I just knew we needed to get this one." He hadn't  really gone into that much detail with us, just told us he'd checked out  the skyrides available and  picked the best one. I wasn't worried about  it though, I trusted him.

They talked about the car for  the rest of the trip over to the sewer, and once we got out Celine took  the lead to escort all of us down to the spot her contact her mentioned  to her. As we walked I decided to wait to activate Seek Hidden, but I  still wondered if I was crazy for seeing a connection to the  Heartrippers. It was easy to jump to conclusions based on my gut, but in  the end this was a long shot. I was looking at my own life and making  the fact that things had been about me out to be evidence. It was pure  confirmation bias.

But that didn't make me wrong. This  FELT like another one the Heartripper Society's moves. I just got that  feeling, and even if I hadn't been dealing with them long I felt like I  needed to trust my gut here. Besides we probably would have come anyway  for the fun. My main issue was whether to bother mentioning it to the  others, and in the end I owed them that much.. As we headed into the  tunnels I cleared my throat. "So, about this job. You said that someone  is probably feeding the rat king. I think we might have an idea who."

Celine  froze, turning to me with a suspicious expression. "I take it this  possibility just occurred to you? Because if you came here knowing we  might run into a hostile force I'd be disappointed. My people might be  in danger coming into this blind." Her voice was even, but it was also  tight, an undercurrent of anger lacing the words. She didn't like being  kept in the dark, and I couldn't blame her.

I told her the  truth, though I tried to cushion it a bit. "It was a distant  possibility at best and still is, no evidence, just a gut feeling, and  I'm telling you now. You and yours can turn around if you feel like its  too dangerous. I shared as soon as the information became pertinent.  Hell, it still might not be." My words had the intended effect, and she  seemed to calm slightly.

She looked to the others who  seemed pretty steady, and sighed. "Tell us about these potential  enemies. I can accept not wanting to spout undue speculation, but if  there's even a chance we may meet these enemies of yours I would hear of  their strengths and weaknesses, at least as you know them. I can make  my decision about moving on from there." So I told her. I used the  excuse I'd given before, about Stricture and ruining their plans, but  they deserved to know what was waiting for them if this really was the  Heartrippers.

I turned to Callie, who was the leader of  this group rather than me, and apologized. "I'm sorry Nightstrike.  You're in charge, and I should have shared my suspicions, but they  weren't based on anything. It was pure speculation and it felt stupid to  worry everyone over baseless guesses. It was only after we got here  that I realized that going in blind would be dangerous, and I told you  as soon as it occurred to me."

As expected she didn't seem  mad, but she did give me a long hard stare. "If I'm in charge of the  team I need you to share, even when you think you're being stupid. I  need to know the situation before we go into a job. I followed your lead  on this because it seemed quick and easy, but if I'd known it was  another possible fight with the Heartrippers I might not have." She  sighed. "Still, no use crying over spilled milk." She turned to Celine.  "If you want to turn back we'll leave with you. If not we move on  together. You're the client here so this is your call."

Celine  thought it over, clearly weighing the options, before looking to her  teammates. When they deferred to her she just nodded in acceptance.  "Alright. We press onward. This is a potential issue and not a likely  one, but even if it was you've clashed with these people before, I trust  you to be able to help us escape at the very least if we come across an  enemy." That was fair, and I promised to give it my all. Assuming we  didn't run into another high traffic base like that damn fighting arena I  doubted we'd meet many G rankers. This wasn't the place to find them.

With  that settled we returned to our trek, following Celine to her location  before I activated Seek Hidden on the rat king. I decided to check for  Heartrippers on the way out and let the others decided if we should  actively follow the trail. Luckily (or unluckily depending on your point  of view) the rat king was massive, so we didn't have to worry about  being able to track it with Seek Hidden.

Once  again we ran into the big problem with tracking in sewers. The damn  walls. We managed to do the same as last time and just use Seek Hidden  as a guide though, and we had the advantage with a direction to head in  when the others didn't even have that. Combined with Celine's starting  point we made decent time, though as we walked we started to notice  something a bit unpleasant.

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Not  only were there no monsters on the way, there was no LIFE. No bugs, no  rats, nothing. A place this dirty should be crawling with tiny  disturbing creatures, but they were gone. Which meant either the rat  king was scary enough to drive away even stupid bugs, or the thing had  some way of scouring the whole sewer for anything it could find even in  its huge combined form. The fact that it had bothered doing so if the  latter was the case was unsettling, because it meant the bastard was  hungry, and I personally didn't relish the thought of running into a  starving giant rat abomination.

Despite  the lack of movement though we took our time in the tunnels. Moving  slow and keeping an eye out. Apparently everyone had taken my warning to  heart because they were absolutely not messing around. We all had our  Perception pushed to the limit, wanting to make sure we didn't get  jumped from behind by the Heartrippers or any other shadowy group of bad  guys who might be down here.

Hell,  even another team looking for the rat king could dispose of us down  here without being noticed. Kill us off and toss us in the water or even  feed us directly to the rat king. I was sure being busy eating our  corpses would be a good distraction. Still, despite all that I found  myself excited as we kept going. The thrill of discovery, of the  unknown, was intoxicating. I was spoiling for a fight, to see something  amazing or do something crazy.

I  had to wonder how much of this was recursion and how much was just me  wanting a more exciting future? Was any of this from my legend? I hadn't  heard anything specific about being a thrill seeker, but I could see  that being one of those unspoken Ascendant things. Still, I didn't think  so. I was pretty sure this was just me. I loved the excitement, loved  the power. In a way that was worse though. Recursion was something alien  to you that you could just ignore or fight against. Harder to avoid  your own instincts.

I  had my friends to keep me out of trouble though, or to be there with me  when I got us into it. I wonder when I had started loving this so much.  I'd always had fun, but the more of this world I saw the more amazing I  found it. For now though I needed to focus. I trained my eyes ahead,  checking again on the rat king, and whispered back to the others. "I'm  pretty sure we're close to it. Stick together and move slow. Don't make  too much noise, we don't know how good it's senses are."

We  all crowded in as I led us forward, carefully modulating our footfalls  and breathing. Once again i found myself thanking the revenant for my  mask. The thing was a lifesaver down here. The smell must be unbearable  for the others but I barely noticed it. The filtration ability was  absolutely amazing. Probably an enchantment of some kind along with who  knew how many others. I needed to find out if there was an appraisal  skill or something and if anyone here had it. I really should know what  this damn thing could do if I was going to keep wearing it into combat.

As  we got closer to the room where the rat king was I started hearing  sounds. On the way down it had just been our breathing, the occasional  gag or cough, the sound of running water and feet on stone. Now though I  could hear a deep rumbling growl. I'd expected a rat king to sound high  pitched and chittery. Squeaks like a bunch of rats, that kind of thing.  But this sounded...big. Deep and brutal. I wasn't sure what a rat king  exactly looked like it varied story to story, but I was guessing this  wasn't the "large ball of rats with tied up tails" version.

Sure  enough once we made it to the room and looked in we saw...a Rat.  Capital R. The kind of Rat that made other rats seem like they must be  something else, because when compared to this it was obvious what a real  Rat should be. For one it wasn't quadrapedal. This Rat stood on two  legs, or rather, crouched, because at it's full height the thing  obviously would have brushed the ceiling of even this massive cavern.  Easily about twenty feet tall. I turned to the others after we got a  look, ducking back into the tunnel to whisper.

We  retreated up the stone shaft a bit, and I turned to Callie. "Alright  boss, you're the one calling the shots here? What's the plan? It's just  you and me because that thing is definitely G rank." I'd been stepping  on toes a bit with accepting this job and I hadn't even noticed, but it  was something I was trying to keep in mind now that I had. Callie had  more experience dealing with...well everything, it was why we'd picked  her to be in charge.

She  smiled happily at me when I proved I was willing to do the smart thing  and listen to someone who had done this before. "Of course. I have a few  things in mind. First off, we need to use that combo we found in G  district, that thing has pretty sharp senses and it's night vision is  WAY better than ours. We need to level the playing field." And with that  thought, we began to plan our first real G ranked monster raid.

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