"All truths are easy to understand once they are discovered; the point is to discover them."

-Galileo Galilei

****

The first thing Nero did upon entering the mine was light his pocket lantern. It was a small thing, little more than a glass box the size of a fist, with a metal clasp that allowed it to attach itself to a belt. He used it when reading during the night in the park.

It did not provide much light, but it was enough to not run into a wall. Quite frankly using it or any light source was a bad idea. He stuck out like a sore thumb in the dark of the mine, but Kaesar had little choice. He was nowhere near proficient enough with his new senses to use them in this environment. All he could get from the air was the acrid taste of coal, the pungent scent of sweat and a metallic taste that could have been anything from the tools used by the miners, to the weapons of the trainees.

Briefly, Nero wondered about what precisely this mine produced before he refocused on the task at hand. he had no desire to be killed because of inattention. Jorry was alert as well, his little head shifting this way and that as his tongue darted out, tasting the air. By all likelihood, the serpent would detect others before Nero even had the chance.

"I don't like it here." The little snake suddenly blurted.

"Whats wrong?" Asked Nero.

"Don't know," he gave what Nero guessed was the snake equivalent of a shrug. "Tastes funny. It's too dry like it hasn't rained for weeks."

"I'm not surprised, unlike natural caves that are mostly caused by erosion, this one is human-made. There probably is no water at all here."

"What's erosion?" Sometimes it was glaringly obvious how young and ignorant the small snake was. It likely had never even left the park before Nero came along.

"It's when water or wind slowly wear away at the ground."

"Oh, like when it rains, and the water makes little lines in the dirt?"

"Exactly." That was a pretty good analogy now that Nero thought about it. "Only the water flows for so long that that rock gets carved away."

"That's amazing, but this place does not taste like water. It tastes dry, like dirt and metal. There's also a lot of blood."

"There should have been a lot of fights in the mine by now, and the trainees have dragged more than a few bodies back to the entrance. I'm not surprised that you can taste blood. All I can taste is coal, that's probably the dry stuff and metal."

"Coal?"

"Think of it as a sort of rock," Nero explained to his companion as the entered deeper into the mine. That wasn't strictly true, but he had no desire to get into the complexities of geology at the moment. "The people here dig it up because it's valuable."

"So they get paid to dig this coal and then use the money for food as we do?"

"More or less."

As the two had walked, they had passed under many support beams and had noticed the occasionally broken lantern. Miners had likely hung them up at intervals, so they did not need to carry them around. If this was a coal mine, then Nero had no desire to risk an open flame of a torch in this place.

The two had come to an intersection. Looking at the ground before the splitting paths, Nero was unable to get anything from the mess of prints left behind by the other trainees. Deciding at random, he walked down the left-hand road. The tunnel was slightly sloped and curved in places, and within ten minutes Nero was no longer sure which direction he was facing.

They came to another intersection, this one having three possible choices and Nero decided to stick with the left hand once path more. If Kaesar was honest, he was impressed with the size of this mine. While the walls were uneven due to mining, they were never small enough that two people would have trouble walking side by side. The length was nothing to scoff at either, and he had been walking for a quarter of an hour and still had not come to any dead end.

"Something's coming." Jorry suddenly said, startling Nero slightly. Nero pressed himself against one of the walls and covered his small lantern with his hand to block out the light. He strained his ear and eyes but couldn't make out anything. All he could taste on the air was dry coal and metal, though he detected a slight undertone of blood that hadn't been there before.

"What do you smell?" Whispered Nero to the serpent.

"Metal and blood, there's at least three of them. One of them has a carcass from something that recently died with them. The body is a ratman." Nero relaxed slightly, the group was probably some trainees returning to the entrance with a kill.

Come to think of it, now that he paid attention he could see a bit of light around a corner further ahead. He got off the wall and uncovered his lantern as he made his way forward. He was still a bit tense for any surprises.

As he neared, he heard a thump of something heavy hitting the floor, and a voice call out in the dark "Who's there?"

"Don't worry; I'm from Ground Sheer too," Nero called back in response.

Nero finally got a good look at the group. Like Jorry had said, there was three of them, two male and one female. The woman seemed to be in the lead, and she was the only one of the three to have a light source on her. Initially, he had thought it to be like his miny lantern because it was attached to her belt, but it seemed to be a sort of stone that emitted light.

"Snake boy?" Nero had to smile wryly at the nickname but didn't bother to correct her. "You here to collect us? I thought we had another hour at least."

"Nope, the instructors want me to have a go as well. " He recognized her from the carriage; she was the one who was planning on entering the military upon graduation.

"Oh, well good luck." She said as she motioned with her head for the two men to pick up the dropped carcass. "Up ahead the mine splits again, we cleared out the middle path, but I'm not sure about the other two."

Nero pressed himself against the wall to allow them to pass with their burden.

"Thanks for the advice."

"No problem, but be careful. A few of us have died already, and you are by yourself. Don't try and fight if there is more than one of them." She yelled back as her group disappeared around the corner.

Sure enough, after a minute Nero and Jorry reached another intersection.

"Which one should we take?" Asked Jorry.

"Let's stick with the left for now, that way we don't get lost."

As they progressed down the tunnel, Nero noticed the walls were much rougher than before. This was a newly dug tunnel compared to the rest of the mine. Their pace slowed down considerably as the tension Nero was feeling rose.

Unfortunately or fortunately enough, that tension was useless as the two companions arrived at a dead end. There were a few discarded pickaxes an unlit lantern but no ratmen. Nero let out a sigh as his shoulders relaxed.

"Come on; we'll try the other side." He said to Jorry.

So the two returned to the intersection and entered the right-hand tunnel. This one was more regular compared to the shaft earlier, so it was probably older. The progress was still slow, though the tension was lower after the release from earlier, so it took a while before the companions encountered another intersection.

This one only had two choices and, when he looked, Nero was able to distinguish a few footprints in the dirt. The one leading to the right had a few boot prints, but it seemed like they had been covered by something being dragged over them. That was likely from somebody dragging a carcass back to the entrance. The one heading towards the left, on the other hand, had several prints that were distinctly non-human.

The choice was obvious, so Nero took the tunnel on the left, careful to make as little noise as possible now that there was a good chance of meeting an enemy. Since he had no experience with stealth, however, he still created quite a bit of sound as his footsteps dislodged pebbles.

In the silence of the mine, Nero suddenly became acutely aware of the beating of his heart, like a drum pounding in his ear. He heard his clothes rustle as he walked, his forehead started to sweat.

"Something's ahead," was the almost inaudible whisper of Jorry, almost causing Nero to jump in alarm. "Two of them at least. Ratmen."

That was bad, ratmen were already higher leveled than him, there was no way the two of them could take on two at once. While death was not permanent and the sensation was muted, Nero had no desire to experience any unnecessary pain. But there was no guarantee he would be able to find one by itself, and this could be his only chance.

"We'll take a look," he whispered, covering his lantern. "If they separate we'll take one on, otherwise we'll try the other tunnel."

Slowly, ever so slowly now that he had no light, Nero inched his way forward with his hand on the wall for guidance. Every second felt like an eternity as he kept his ears peeled for any sound. Nero's tongue darted in and out almost instinctively as he desperately tried to tell what Jorry had sensed. Eventually, Kaesar caught the taste of something besides coal and dust, a weird feeling he couldn't identify, but that felt fuzzy on his tongue.

Eventually, his ears picked up slight sounds as they echoed through the mine. They were guttural and squeaky at the same time, making for an odd combination. As he inched closer, Nero could distinguish the sounds enough to tell they were voices. He paused a moment in confusion before realizing his Beast Tongue allowed him to understand what the ratmen were saying.

"...ood here. Miss old..."

"...ace bad. Don't ... die. Kill..."

Nero still couldn't see them, which was probably for the best as they most likely had better senses than him. That wasn't even counting the whiskers.

"..ad. Mice out there hu... rable One must die!"

"Venerable mouse strong... hurts."

Nero was a bit shocked that he ratmen even knew a world like 'venerable,' but that was overshadowed by his brain making a connection of disjointed facts. The little things like the increase in rats in the city when they were more familiar outside the walls. Or why they were called 'Desperate Rats' rather than their regular names.

More obscure things made sense now too, like why the rats were so far from their natural habitat. Or why mice were riding rats like cavalry. It all fits together now.

Most likely a mouse had leveled up, possibly evolved, enough to gain intelligence. It then brought other mice under its banner and started to subjugate or exterminate the rats. They fled into the city despite the risk of people like Nero hunting them down. After that failed, a few of them made their way here where they evolved into ratmen. It was like a parody of the classic Redwall novels.

That raised the question of how powerful this 'Venerable Mouse' was if ratmen were still afraid of him. The mice who had killed Nero and Jorry were higher leveled but based on the damage they weren't over twelve at the most.

" ... at's that?" One of the mice suddenly said, reminding Nero that this wasn't the time or place to get lost in thought.

"It smells like blood. Lots of blood." Nero almost cursed aloud, the reason he hadn't been able to taste the blood like Jorry was likely because he had spent the day disassembling ratmen. He had been covered in the stuff. And the ratmen had likely smelled him.

He started retreating as fast as he dared, trying his hardest not to make any noise. Thankfully the ratmen were in no hurry as they carefully walked towards his previous location, barely visible in the darkness of the tunnel. It was a tense minute as Nero half expected them to jump at him any moment.

"Smells like blood. I hungry."

"Hungry too, but no food."

"I saw worms in back."

"Worms not good, but hungry."

Thankfully they seemed too busy contemplating their empty stomachs to pursue any further and Nero slowly walked backward away from the pair. The conversation became intelligible as he retreated, turning into distant sounds and then silence. It was another minute of retreat before Nero allowed himself a sigh of relief.

"Come on," he said to Jorry as he took the lantern from his pocket. The light was a welcome reprieve as he wiped his brow. "We'll try the other tunnel. If we can't find one by itself, we'll come back here and see if we can separate them."