An hour after the crack of dawn, the Ratter was knocking on the door of the Ringing Bell tavern. She was fully kitted out in her leather armor, with her new shortsword belted at her waist and her knapsack on her back. Unlike the last two days, today was the day she'd be going down into the cellar proper to collect the giant rats that had died and kill any that were still clinging to life. Additionally, there was the possibility that a few might have avoided eating the ratkillers she'd baited, so she may end up having to deal with two or three giant rats the old fashioned way. Then, she'd need to find wherever the rats had found their way in, and block it. Still, whatever she might encounter, she was confident that she could deal with anything that she might find inside the cellar.

The tavernkeeper opened the door promptly and greeted her with a smile and a nod. As had become something of a custom, he poured her a mug of Iron Isles cider for the two of them. As she began drinking it, she noted a new addition to the cellar door: A pair of brackets on either side of the opening, and a decently thick wooden plank. Noting her gaze, the tavernkeeper nodded and said, "After sharing my story with the tapster's guild, a few of my friends told me a couple of horror stories about giant rat infestations turning out to include dire rats. The cellardoor has a nice, sturdy lock to it, but extra reinforcement isn't a bad idea, just in case this ever happens again."

The Ratter nodded in appreciation, admitting, "Sound idea. You never know what may end up finding its way into your cellar." Thankfully, with current events being what they were, the giant rats in the sewer were hiding, rather than scouting for new places to feed. That meant that the number of giant rats in the cellar was unlikely to change, at least until the kerfluffle in the sewers came to an end. Rats, even giant ones, could be highly territorial, so the ones in the cellar would keep any new or unfamiliar rats from sneaking in.

Once she was older and more experienced, the Ratter would be able to use more immediate and direct means for dealing with giant rats, but until she'd hit her full growth, she'd need to play things cautiously.

Finishing her cider, she said, "Good. I'm going to head down. Bar the door behind me. Once I'm done, I'll knock three times, then twice, so you'll know it is me and not anything else." There were still other creatures in the sewers that made even dire rats look like puppies in comparison. Thankfully, they were rare and unlikely to stumble into a tavern's cellar, but current events were likely to cause all manner of problems. That was why she was fully kitted out, even though she was largely expected to be dealing with dead and dying rats. "If I haven't returned within an hour," she added, "I'll likely be dead, so don't come after me. Contact the guild. They'll know what to do."

The tavernkeeper nodded in understanding.

Now that she was down in the cellar, she had a proper idea of just how big it was. She'd known that the Ringing Bell was among the largest and most popular taverns in the city, but she'd not fully understood what that had meant. The cellar was a solid fifty foot by fifty foot square, with long rows of casks lining the walls, as well as three rows dividing the room into aisles stretching the length of the room. The food itself was kept at the end opposite the stairway, to ensure it was kept cool. And after making it halfway down the central aisle of the tavern, with her excellent night vision which she'd honed through five years of training in dark caves with her teacher, she saw something eating the food that definitely shouldn't be here.

It was far larger than a giant rat, but unlike a dire rat, it stood on two legs, and had arms, ending with hands whose fingers ended in clawed tips. Its fur was sparse, not thick like a real rat would be, and the skin underneath was still visible. It was six feet tall, at least, with a tail nearly that length. The beast's back was turned to her, greedily gobbling down the food in front of it, and on that back, she could just barely make out a tattoo of seven intertwined serpents in the darkness. Three things immediately came to her mind as she crouched and evaluated the situation.

Firstly, this was clearly a feral wererat. Second, it wasn't just a wererat, since a beast with that size and musculature could only be an alpha wererat. Third, this wererat had been a member of the assassin's guild.

As she went into a crouch, deeply thankful that she hadn't lit a lamp and given herself away, she mentally reviewed what her teacher had taught her about "were" creatures. The proper term, he'd explained, was not lycanthropy, but a "thropic curse", since "were" actually meant wolf, meaning that the term werewolf basically translated to "wolf wolf". These days, people just assumed that the "were" meant that your "were" a person, but you're now something else. Each version of the thropic curse had a proper name to it, although the exact term for a wererat in the scholar's tongue escaped her right now.

Further, each person suffering from a thropic curse could experience it differently, depending upon whether they accepted it or resisted it. A person who accepted the curse fully could have full control of when and where they changed. When they did, they maintained their mind, memories, and awareness in their new form. People who fully accepted the curse could live a long, healthy life without anyone being the wiser. However, those who resisted the curse would change uncontrollably under the right trigger. For werewolves, it was the cycles of the moon. For werebears, it was anger. For weretigers and many other felines, it was bloodlust, although, for werelions, it was courage and valor. For wererats, however, it was fear and desperation. When changed, the werebeast would lose themselves, instead being controlled by the mind of a beast. As many werebeast hunters learned to their peril, it was dangerous to assume that a werebeast was stupid. A werebeast wasn't a mindless, feral beast, it was a feral beast with the intelligence, reasoning abilities, and memories of a sapient creature, filtered through a mind with the instincts and enhanced senses of a wild animal. While a werebeast who was once a peasant farmer was merely dangerous, a werebeast who was once a soldier, an adventurer, or a werebeast hunter could be nigh-on unstoppable.

More dangerously, a werebeast who broke mentally and turned feral would completely lose themselves to the curse, becoming larger, more powerful, and more monstrous, at the cost of never being able to become their previous selves again. An alpha werebeast that went feral was especially dangerous since its already impressive size and strength would be enhanced even further.

Odds were, this wererat had been a high ranking member of the assassin's guild who'd bee caught up in the fighting between the Dark Guilds and the Crows. Outnumbered and outmatched, fear and desperation drove him to the breaking point, causing him to become this creature. He might have survived whatever assault or ambush had triggered the change, but the hunger caused by having to regenerate from such severe wounds had forced upon him a desperate need to feed. He was seemingly blind to everything going on around him, intent on gorging himself until his stomach burst.

On the one hand, this was extremely dangerous prey, and the wisest move would be to immediately retreat, report this to the guild, and let a professional handle this job. On the other hand, this was also an incredible opportunity for the Ratter. A feral wererat always had a bounty, and a feral alpha's bounty was even higher. Plus, given her low rank, killing one would quickly increase her standing within the guild. She could go from rock bottom to the upper mid-ranks if she brought in this beast's head.

While she lacked a silver weapon, she did have an enchanted sword and dagger, and even a werebeast can't come back easily from getting an enchanted knife lodged into its brain, and even a normal sword can kill a werebeast if it severs the beast's head. In a head-to-head fight, she had no chance of taking down this beast. However, a surprise attack renders all the advantages such a beast has as moot, and the wererat's guard was completely down...

...and a rat does not drop their guard, she remembered, feeling a twinge of soreness from when her teacher had struck her back a few short days ago. A wererat has all of the abilities, memories, and instincts of the person it once was, plus the instincts of a rat. Being an assassin of the Dark Guilds and a wererat on top of that, this beast should be almost cripplingly paranoid. It dropping its guard and keeping its back to the cellar's only entrance other than the hole it had come in from was less likely than the Ratter's parents coming back from the dead. So why was it just standing there, eating?

The wererat should have heard the cellardoor open and close with its enhanced hearing, even if it hadn't heard her descend the stairs. Even over the smell of food, it should have been able to make out her scent. It should have heard or smelled her presence well before now and either hidden so it could spring an ambush, or immediately turned to fight her head-on. It had not done either. Why?

The answer, she realized, was simple: There were other wererats down here in the cellar with it. The alpha was the bait for a trap. One she'd blindly walked into.

Her eyes quickly scanned the cellar, and she saw nothing. That was not reassuring in the slightest, since that meant that any and all other wererats in the cellar were behind her.

Desperately grateful for her trauma having given her the gods' own poker face and the perfect deadpan voice, she whispered, "Oh shit, that's a wererat," pretending as if only now she could see the beast clearly. If she'd had normal night vision, she'd have certainly had trouble making it out in the dark. To further sell the act, she brought her hand down to her dagger in faux-reflex, feigning fear that only training and discipline kept her from truly feeling. If she'd simply just crouched where she was any longer, the wererats might have wondered why she wasn't doing anything. Acting as if she was only now realizing she was in a dangerous situation had bought her maybe a minute or two to think.

Any other wererats in the room were likely assassins guild members themselves. That explained why she couldn't detect any sign of their presence: Their experienced-trained ability to hide undetected and unmoving, especially in the dark, was far better than her ability to detect potential threats. Worse, that meant that any and all other wererats in the cellar had the habits, intelligence, and patience of assassins and likely were used to working together in groups for coordinated attacks. That was why they hadn't immediately sprung when she entered. She was an unknown, and adventurers tended to have a few tricks up their sleeves even as rookies, so they would wait until she'd committed to an action, then strike when her guard was fully down. If she tried to approach the alpha to attack him, she'd be immediately flanked and struck from behind by its underlings. If she tried to turn and run, the alpha could simply turn around and strike her from behind while his compatriots blocked her only path to the exit. If she waited for too long, they'd either realize that their ambush was foiled or lose their patience and then they'd just rush her in a pincer attack. Three against one, especially when the three were feral wererats and the one was her, would not end well. The Ratter fought down a wave of fear and desperation as she realized just how fucked her situation truly was.

She'd walked unknowingly right into a trap. Worse, she'd walked far enough in that there was no move she could make that wouldn't trigger it...