THUMP! went the huge hammer, SPROING went the mechanism, SQUISH went the rat… and the quest counter failed to tick up, sitting stubbornly at 87/N unique methods of rat murder.

“Oh, bah! I s’pose squishing rats with a huge hammer on a spring-loaded arm is the same as using the hammer myself. Never mind, I’ll just have to try something else...” Claire rooted around in the cellar depths for a while, shoving crates, barrels, and some crates full of barrels out of the way, until she triumphantly withdrew a stuffed pangolin.

“Ha, I knew I’d seen this somewhere!” She carefully attached it by the snout to her lovingly crafted Mystery Murder Machine, wound it up, and waited for one of the dozens of large rats wandering aimlessly across the floor of the tavern cellar to amble underneath it.

THUMP! SPROING! SQUISH! 88/N… “Bored now. Back later.”

“So there, are you after having got your ten rat tails for me now, lassie?” asked the bartender, in the same incredibly grating Irish-American voice as he had the last nine times, with the exact same intonation.

“Now and why wouldn’t I be after having your Scratcher-blessed rat tailses for you on this fine afternoon so it is and so it is, laddie? It’s not like you have any more of an algorithmical usefulness than quests and beer, is it?” Claire dropped a sad little pile on the polished bar, where they vanished into somewhere she devoutly hoped wasn’t the kitchen. Still plenty for the Scratcher, even after paying the toll for going down into the cellar.

“Bless you, lassie, and here’s yer silver so it is. And here’s a pint on the house!” The bartender set ten silver coins neatly in a little puddle of beer on the bar (the same stack, the same puddle…) and drew Claire a tankard of dark beer, with a foaming white head magically topped off in one pull.

Claire shoved it down the bar to the Village Drunk snoozing blearily in the corner, having learned from bitter experience (“ha ha...”) that it was a bland and cardboardy Murphy’s knockoff. The pub, and the whole village around it, had clearly been designed by a team who were sullenly resentful that they’d been assigned to dwarves instead of hobbits, and by Peter Jackson’s beard they were going to make the most hobbity Dwarf village they could. Helgrim Farhammer had warned her that the Longharrow folk were Mighty Odd, and you couldn’t get a decent pint or a decent pair of boots for love nor money, but she had not been prepared for the village buskers and their constant tinkly fiddle music.

“Aha, she emerges! Bearing a bounty of rodent remains, I trust?”

“Hey, Dafydd! You bet! Eighty-eight rat tails for the glory of the Scratcher. Did you manage to get that spell working?”

“Yes! Check this out,” the wizard beamed. He tipped back his traditional pointy hat – you know, the kind that makes the wearer resemble an animated blue mushroom with glittering moons and stars on, just in case any passing mundanes fail to be suitably impressed by the majesty and awe of wizardry, especially when manifested in the form of a three-foot gnome with a ginger goatee – and gestured grandly with his gnarled oak staff as a tracery of blue fire burned the shape of an archway into the air before him… approximately six inches in height.

“Behold!” Dafydd grasped the tiny doorknob and somehow opened the air, revealing a tiny cupboard. He reached into it, and pulled out… a tiny stone.

“Ooh, that’s a good rock. Is it magic?”

“What? - oh, the rock. No, you can have it if you like. I put that in there earlier to test it out. I know it’s not very big, but it’s the first spell in a series that ends with the Best Spell Ever.”

“...how does a cupboard cantrip get you to Fireball?”

“...what? You heathen! Firstly, the Best Spell Ever is Mordenkainen’s Magnificent Mansion, and secondly, Fireball is overrated especially when you’re adventuring in the middle of a bloody forest.”

“...okay, I can see that. But on the other hand, setting lots of people on fire at once is awesome.”

“DPS is your job, I’m a support and utility class! Look, let’s go farm some skrikks, I can show you the other spell I got.”

The dwarf ranger and the gnome wizard set forth into the forest, following the faint traces of skrikk hair (easily distinguishable from giant rat hair by the simple fact that giant rats don’t grow that large, and woolly giant rats don’t come this far south) and the significantly less faint odour of skrikk fewmets.

Claire felt a prickling in her forearms, and faded into stealth to scout ahead. Sadly, Dafydd had anticipated her slipping behind him before reappearing, and completely failed to jump in surprise.

“Right, there’s a group of five, shall we give it a go? All fighter-types as far as I can tell, so they’ll probably just scream and leap.”

“Let’s! Pull when you’re ready, and I’ll get the new spell going.”

Claire stepped out into the path, already charging her longshot, and loosed an arrow to take one of the rat-men-things square in the chest. It flew backwards with a comedic squawk, red light spreading from the point of impact to cover most of its body, and the other four turned to run towards her, emitting a high-pitched rattling screaming hiss. She pulled another arrow from her quiver and loosed – pinning shot! - and a second skrikk faceplanted inelegantly with an arrow through his left rear paw, but that left three bounding towards them, tails lashing and long yellowed teeth looking really quite ridiculously large and sharp.

Beside her, Dafydd’s chanting rose to a sharp phrase in Gnomish, and he switched to Common, bringing his staff down horizontally in both hands to bar the path. “...and bring forth the marvellous barricade!”

With a sound like cloth tearing, the air above the path ripped horizontally, and dozens of household objects fell out, pots and pans and kitchen chairs and an old battered dressing-table complete with two mirror panels out of three. Two of the skrikk were slow enough to slam nose-first into the assortment of furniture, but the third was faster, and a pot fell on his head with a loud and resonant clang… just as an arrow spiked into his chest and a bolt of swirling blue-and-gold light followed it. Red light consumed his body and died away.

Ratcatcher, Ratcatcher: Find as many different ways of killing rats as you can (89), and sacrifice the tails to your Lord and God (0/89).

“...huh. Guess these are rat enough to matter, and death by magic, arrows, and magic kitchen implements is a new one...”

The last two skrikk fell to more arrows, more mage-bolts from Dafydd’s staff, and to a nasty-looking knife from Claire’s boot hilt-deep in one eye.

You have reached Level 5!

New skill gained: Dual Wield (passive, all): You can now use a melee weapon in each hand.

New skill gained: Vicious Slash (active, combat): Make an extra-damaging slashing attack with a knife or a sword. This has a chance to reduce an opponent’s attack ability.

New skill gained: Brutal Chop (active, combat): Make an extra-damaging melee attack with an axe. This has a chance to reduce an opponent’s mobility.

New skill gained: Bone Breaker (active, combat): Make an extra-damaging melee attack with a hammer, mace, or club. This has a chance to deprive the opponent of the use of an arm or leg.

“Aw, yiss! Level 5 and more spells! ...maybe less random ones this time. Last time I used the barricade spell it summoned a fence of thorns. I need to go see Marimmar back in Longharrow for those. Did you get anything nice?”

“I can dual wield now! Do you know where I can get me a pair of sweet scimitars?”