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.

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.