Oh, and while I’m making new laws to suit my whims, no more dismembering of the hands for theft, or for any reason actually. You’re all going in the skeleton legion eventually, and I will not be forced to deal with another hand shortage.

- Dronn the Everlasting, Tyrant of Secv Serith

The southern mill was easy to find, all I needed to do was head south and find the mill that was the most south. After that, I just loudly asked the street where old lady Saphir lived, mentioned the dire rat infestation, and got pointed along with a number of pitying looks. That in and of itself was enough to get my blood heated, but it was the figure waiting at the house who lit my blood on fire.

“What in the Hells are you doing here?” I demanded, one hand on my dagger.

The dirty girl that tried to mug me not an hour ago grinned, revealing white teeth that distracted me for a split second. “Need money. Didn’t I tell you that?”

I was already frowning, but my eyebrows drew closer together nonetheless. “That’s all well and good…” I faltered when I realised that she hadn’t introduced herself, then continued anyway. “But that doesn’t explain how you’re at this house, at this time, so soon after getting kicked to the dirt and threatening to kill me.”

“You weren’t really offended.” The girl waved her hand dismissively. “If you were, you’d have reported me to the guards. Or taken me there yourself.”

I growled. “I don’t have the time to deal with you. Get out of my way.”

“You know, you’re kind of cute.” The girl told me, completely unphased by my threat. That changed when I pulled the dagger part way out of its scabbard and stepped forward threateningly. She raised her hands in surrender quite quickly. “I was thinking we could form a partnership!”

I shoved the dagger back in its sheath. “What makes you think I want that?”

“The benefits of partnership, mostly.” The girl shrugged with tense shoulders, then pointed toward the gash on her nose. “You’re like, a really good swordswoman if you can do that. Not to mention the way you took my wand from me. You hold the front line. I’ll cast the spells. We’ll adventure!”

“Or I can just do what I’m going to do.” I rebuked. “I don’t know you. I don’t want to know you. Leave me alone before I start overreacting.”

The girl sighed, but moved aside. “Can I have my wand back at least?”

I walked past. “No.”

“Please, it’s all I ran away with!”

I spun and pointed a finger in her face. “Then you should’ve thought harder before leaving! It’s not my fault you didn’t think things through! So I’m not being fair with your wand. Guess what? Nothing is fair! If things were fair, I wouldn’t be here! I’d be at home with my mom and dad in a house that wasn’t flattened by burning rocks! You’re lucky all you have to deal with is a missing wand! Now ge-”

“Who is out there?” An older voice cut into my argument. An old lady, probably called Saphir, was stepping out through the front door into the garden where the two of us were arguing.

“This is Emer and Rubes.” The other girl immediately responded, adjusting far more quickly than I could tame the fire in my blood. That the dirty girl threw an arm around my shoulders didn’t help. “We saw the posting and need the coin!”

“Exterminators, are you?” The old lady asked in a high pitched old person voice I hadn’t really encountered in Veliki. She looked in our general direction, but missed until she squinted hard and homed in on the two of us. “I don’t know if you’ll be able to handle the rats. They’re very dire. Why, it was only last week that a strapping boy in armour came through to try and get rid of them, but I haven’t heard anything from him since and the rats are still dire.”

“Whatever it is, we’ll handle it.” The girl snapped her fingers and made sparks. “We have something that boy might not have had: Magic. Rats won’t stand a chance, no matter how dire.”

I was still fuming and I didn’t want to fight in front of this woman, which was why I didn’t point out that the magic the girl just displayed was just about the simplest cantrip I’d ever seen. It had to be if she was able to cast it without an incantation or the help of a wand or reagents.

“Oh!” The old lady was lapping it up, though. “It sounds like you two will have things sorted out before I can sneeze.”

“Yes…” I said through gritted teeth, then turned a glare towards the dirty girl. “We will.”

She laughed nervously, but didn’t get away from me.

“In that case, I should get to doing my errands.” The old lady declared, picking up a basket from just inside the door before walking past us. “I dread the sounds of fighting. Listening to people scream isn’t good for the soul. I’d much rather have a conversation with the baker’s son. Good luck!”

“Thanks! But we won’t need it!” The girl called after the old lady. “We’ll be here for the reward when you get back-!”

I shoved her away from me and did my best to not stab her. “The coin is mine.” I snarled.

The girl nodded. “Just so long as we split it justly, that’s fair.”

I snarled. “Did you hear me just then? Nothing is fair. All the coin is going to me.” I ignored how she pouted and stormed inside. Inside proved to be more cramped than my old house was, but there was clearly a trapdoor leading down in one corner of the room. I also couldn't see anything of value, likely why the old lady trusted us in her home.

The girl poked her head in after me. “You should probably just walk around. The house is built on a hill, you know. There’s access from below.”

I turned to face her, then lunged close and put the point of my dagger to her throat. “You’re awfully persistent.”

“You have something I- I want.” She smiled awkwardly, her eyes darting between my face and the dagger. “Hey, that’s actually a really cool dagger-”

I pushed the tip closer to her neck, but didn’t cut just yet. That shut her up.

“What is the best spell you can cast?” I demanded.

“Uh, it’s- it’s magic missile.” She stammered, then closed her eyes and incanted, as if to prove that she could cast it. She opened her eyes again. “See?”

“I don’t know spells.” I told her. Half lying because I did know spells, just not much of anything below the fifth tier. Magic missile was one such spell that hadn’t been covered by whichever sage was supposed to cover the topic, or had covered it before Avien insisted I study with him.

She frowned. “Damn.”

“What tier was that?” I followed up, pushing the dagger closer still.

“First!” She exclaimed. “But you know tiers, so you know anyone able to cast more than a cantrip is pretty impressive!”

I sighed and lowered the dagger, causing the girl to sigh even more deeply. “Here is the deal. You don’t get any coin for this job, but if you behave I’ll let you keep your wand at the end of it.”

The girl brightened immediately. “Deal!”

“If you so much as breathe a spell in my direction, I’m going to gut you.” I told her as I pulled the wand out from where I’d tucked it away, then offered it back.

“Yes!” She reached forward eagerly.

I pulled the wand back before she could take it. “Even a breath, and I’ll make sure you regret it.”

“I got it, I got it.” The girl insisted, and I let her take the wand back. She held it before herself in both hands and spun to complete the reunion. Of course, she immediately hit the doorframe since that’s where she was standing, but didn’t let that interrupt the moment beyond a gasp of pain.

I crossed my arms and waited for her to finish. The girl spun for another ten seconds, kissed the wand, told it how much she missed it, then used it to cast a spell on herself that caused all the dirt on her to slide off. She was more pretty than I’d first thought, but cleaning up from that much dirt could do that to a person.

Now that there wasn’t dirt caked into her hair and making her skin darker than it actually was, her age was readily apparent. She was either sixteen or seventeen, and was at least a year older than me with the height to match. Though I wouldn’t have guessed her age from the way she was acting. There were colours around her eyes and lips that the spell did nothing to correct, however, making it seem as if she was crying ink and drooling blood.

Her celebration concluded, she looked to me with a bright smile marred by the disaster on her face. “What’s got you so down? This is a partnership, a cause for celebration!”

“Perhaps.” I admitted, my flat tone contrasting her jovial one. “Or we could actually do the job we just hired ourselves for.”

The girl seemed to just realise that she was in the way, and hopped to the side. She bowed dramatically. “Then let us be underway, mistress. Oh! Introductions! Who are you?”

I rolled my eyes as I walked past. Etiquette was to introduce yourself first, if I wasn’t misremembering. Nevertheless, I said my name. “Amber.”

“Amber who?” She pressed as she fell in step.

“You first.”

“Ah, right. It’s a two way thing.” She hummed. “My name is Jeevi.”

“Jeevi who?” I retorted as I reached the door to the basement. It was unlocked, so I opened it as Jeevi winced.

“You heard me wrong, it’s actually Jevi. Just Jevi. How about you?”

“Just Amber.” I rolled my eyes as we entered the basement and had a look around.

There weren’t any rats as far as I could see. There were barrels against the walls, along with some crates. There wasn’t much space, but rats never needed much of that, so it made sense. What didn’t make sense was the lack of rats.

“Isn’t there supposed to be a rat infestation?” Jevi asked as she went over to a barrel and checked on the side closer to the wall. If she found anything, she didn’t bring it up.

I pulled my dagger out for self reassurance and checked the other side. “Over here.” I called out when I found two stacks of barrels side by side. They stood out because all the other barrels in the room stood by themselves. Peering around them revealed a hole in the wall.

Jevi was at my side in an instant, pulling on my arm to bring herself closer. “I seee! The rats are clearly coming from behind the barrels, and dug a tunnel for easy access. We should move the barrels, and kill them at their nest! Look, you can see where their little claws scratched the floor.”

“Hmm.” I hummed noncommittally. Something seemed off about this.

“What’s bothering your noggin?” Jevi asked brightly.

“Nothing I can put my finger on.” I said, “Does any of your magic help us move the barrels?”

Jevi blinked, then glanced at the barrels. “I mean, unless you want to set them on fire…”

I gave her a lidded look. “Let’s not burn the house down.”

“Let’s not.” Jevi agreed. “But I might be able to do something about the tunnel. You can hop over barrels, right?”

I frowned at her. “What are you doing?”

“Just a cantrip.” She assured me, then uttered a brief incantation while pointing her wand at the wall next to the tunnel. A pulse of magic darted through the air and hit the dirt that made up the wall, then spread from the barrel to the ceiling. A moment passed where Jevi concentrated, then the earth in the wall crumbled down and floated over the barrels before unceremoniously falling to the ground, revealing the passage behind the stacks.

“I present,” Jevi prepared to bow. “The crawlspace.” She bowed.

I grunted and vaulted onto the barrels, then into the passage. The passage turned quickly, and there was no light after that point. Which was a problem I turned to Jevi for. “Can you cast any light?”

Jevi stood proudly with her hands on her hips. “I can not!”

A hand went to my face unbidden, and I let out a tense breath. “So all we’ve done so far is find a tunnel and collapse a wall.”

“That’s right!”

“Never should’ve agreed to this.” I muttered and vaulted back out. “I’d be blind in there, we need something to light the way, or we’ll never hit the rats we’re trying to kill.”

“Well…” Jevi said, and I prepared myself for the craziness that was going to come out of her mouth next. “I could consistently cast a fire cantrip ahead of us. That wouldn’t solve the light problem entirely, but we’d be able to see in flashes.” She made a wand movement that caused aimless fire to trail from the tip of the wand. “See?”

“Barely.” I deadpanned. “I’m worried about a number of things right now. One of them is why neither the old lady or the poster of the job mentioned there were people that tried to do this before us and failed. Then there’s the tunnel, and…” I trailed off. “Something’s off.”

Jevi stood closer with her hands behind her back. It was easy to tell that she was trying to act cute. “Are those the only things that are worrying you?”

“No, you’re one too. Then there’s-” I stopped there. This wasn’t the time to complain about my past. “We need a torch or something.”

“I do know another spell that I could cast.” Jevi said slowly. “But then I won’t be able to cast any zingers, as my teacher used to put it.”

I crossed my arms, making sure that my dagger didn’t break skin when I realised too late that it was still in my hand. Sudden crisis averted, I paid my full attention to Jevi.

“Ah, screw it. It’d be faster than getting torches that we’d need to buy.” She pointed her wand at herself, then let out a short incantation. I picked out that the spell would last a long while from the magical jargon, but that was it. When Jevi was done, magic pulsed from her wand to her eyes, and left her eyes with a glow that was quite evident in the low light of the basement.

I raised an eyebrow as I waited for an explanation.

“Darkvision!” She declared with a flourish of the wand. “It lets you see in the dark!” She started tilting the wand towards me.

I sighed. “Do it.”

Jevi recited the incantation with some reluctance, but the magic flew to my eyes as it had her’s and nestled there, quickly taking effect. Parts of the basement we were in faded into colour as the shadow receded, though the parts that I normally couldn’t perceive were in shades of orange. It helped me discern which parts of the room were still in darkness, but it was discorienting at first.

A glance at the tunnel told me I could see in it almost as clear as day. A strangely orange day. “That’ll do. Let’s go.”

Jevi practically buzzed in place as she waited for me to take the lead. Once we were both in the tunnel and making our way through, she refused to give me any space. The whole time we were walking her head was practically resting on my shoulder, though we weren’t walking for long. The tunnel looped back on itself once and went down, and that was it.

“Found ‘em.” Jevi whispered as we looked into the small dug out cavern. The tunnel ended with a line of something I couldn’t identify on the floor, and beyond that line was a writhing mass of floor. “That’s a lot of rats.”

“I think I get why people keep calling them dire.” I commented more loudly. “Those things are huge.”

The rats must have each come up to my knee. I didn’t know how large rats were supposed to be, there hadn’t ever been such an infestation in Veliki. Those were always pixies or faerie dragons, and occasionally quicklings, but I’d never heard of rats larger than a fist.

“Do you think they’re bloodthirsty?” Jevi asked.

“I think they are.” I said grimly, having spied a reflective surface in the midst of the rats. It was difficult to make out since rats were walking all over it, but I caught another glimpse of it soon enough, and that told me enough to connect the rest of the dots. I pointed it out. “Remember the guy in armour the lady was talking about?”

Jevi’s hand clamped onto my shoulder. “They’re going to attack us aren’t they?”

I frowned and shoved her hand off, then crouched down to inspect the line in the passage. There was an odour there that I could barely make out. “Someone’s clearly involved, and I think it might be the old lady.” One of the rats heard me, and started sniffing its way towards me, but reached the line and turned away. It quickly got lost in the mess of other rats.

“What are you talking about? She left.”

“Someone put this line of… stuff here.” I stood up, very much unhappy with this development. Sure, if we took all the pelts from these rats we’d make a lot of gold off of it by trading them in, but there was more going on here. That Jevi was smoothly staying close to me and forcing banter made my mood much worse, but I put that out of my mind.

“It’s rat repellent or something.” I said. “The rats won’t cross it.”

“Oh. Well that’s simple then.” Jevi tried and succeeded at pushing me aside and stayed her hand on my upper arm. “We just won’t cross it.” One incantation and several precise wand movements later, a burst of fire erupted from her wand and hit a rat on the far side of the cavern.

I shrugged Jevi’s hand off my arm and retreated behind so she’d have a better shot, and to take me out of the line of fire as she repeated the process. Each rat she hit squealed in pain, but not every one of them died. This was going to take a while.

With every cantrip the rats became more agitated. Where before the ground seemed to just be constantly shifting at a glance, now it was absolutely writhing. Ridges of rats formed and moved across the room, squeaking all the while.

Eventually one of the far walls of the small cavern shifted, and a booming voice came through.

“WHO DARES HURTING MY PRETTY PETS?”

Jevi tried to share a look with me, but I ignored her. Instead I drew my scimitar and handed it to her without really looking.

“Just in case.” I told her as I pulled my dagger from its scabbard.

“NO! MELLINORA, WHAT HAPPENED TO YOU? WHO DID THIS TO YOU!?”

My mouth pulled into a thin line as I prepared for whatever was about to come through that wall. It reminded me of something I’d rather not think about. It reminded me of Bubbles.

\V/