I didn’t exit the chamber.

It was far better to make the brutes come to me. Drawing on my psi, I sent probing tendrils of energy into the pairs’ minds and overcame their defenses with laughable ease.

You have charmed 2 of 2 targets for 10 seconds.

With a grim smile for what I knew needed to happen next, I ordered the guards into the room. Obediently, brute one opened the door and stepped inside; brute two followed, shutting the door behind him. Neither spied me hidden in the shadows.

“Sit,” I commanded the first guard. He sat, back to me, leaving the second guard where he was.

Moving swiftly—my charm spell would lapse soon—I stuck both my blades into brute two.

You have killed a ratman with a fatal blow.

He died instantly, his corpse hitting the ground with a resounding thud.

Ignoring the body on the floor, I sheathed my bloodied blades. As I’d anticipated, they faded from sight, hidden by the illusion of a robed savant woven about me. There was nothing left to do now but wait. Folding my arms across my chest, I glared at the back of brute one’s head.

It did not take long.

You have lost control over a ratman brute.

The moment brute one slipped my mental leash, he swiveled around in his chair. Spying his dead companion on the ground and me standing over the body, his eyes grew wide as saucers.

“Face forward!” I snapped. The words came out harsh and guttural, nothing like my own voice.

Brute one whipped back around, hiding his face but not the tremble in his limbs. The ratman was scared. Excellent, I thought, letting him stew in his fear a while longer.

In my interactions with the two bodyguards—brief though they’d been—brute one had seemed the more voluble of the two, which was why it was him I’d chosen to interrogate. If I wasn’t going to waste hours searching every tunnel in the sector for the boss and exit portal, I was going to have to locate them by other means.

Let’s hope this works.

Pacing around the table in slow, ominous steps, I came to a halt directly opposite the quivering bodyguard. “Boss control me?” he asked, pointing a stumpy digit at his temple. “In here?”

I said nothing.

Brute one licked his lips, then with more courage than I’d suspected he had, he burst out, “Boss kill Ngor?”

That had to have been brute two.

I let my gaze drift meaningfully to the slowly growing puddle from beneath the bed. “And Wick too,” I growled.

Following my gaze, the bodyguard bit off a yelp. “But why, boss?” he asked, voice reedy with fear. “Wick harmless! He no—”

“Wick was not Wick,” I drawled. “Wick was an assassin.” I paused. “And you two let him in.”

Panic flitted across the ratman’s face. He’d recognized the threat. “No! We-we didn’t. I didn’t!”

I resumed pacing, cutting another circuit around the table. “I don’t believe you,” I said from behind the brute. “You, too, must be an assassin.”

The bodyguard’s head whipped back and forth, trying to keep me in his line of sight. “I’m not. Promise. I no assassin.”

“Prove it,” I snapped.

Confusion and hope warred on the ratman’s face. “How, boss?”

“Tell me things no imposter would know.”

The brute frowned, trying to work out what I meant. Before he could, I barked out, “Where are the other bosses now?”

The ratman’s face fell, and his lip began to tremble. I held back a sigh. Clearly, this was a question the brute didn’t know the answer to. Before he could respond, I held up a hand, stopping him. “Wait. Tell me the location of their rooms.”

At this, the brute’s eyes lit up, and he began to babble out a response.

I cut through his chatter. “Stop. Start again, and this time leave nothing out. I want to know exactly how you would get there. Every turn and tunnel. Understood?”

The bodyguard nodded vigorously and started again.

A faint smile on my lips, I closed my eyes and listened intently.

~~~

Ten minutes later, brute one was done.

I’d made him go over the details multiple times until I was sure I had it all memorized. When he was done, I had what I needed: the location of the other savant’s rooms and that of the nether portal.

I was halfway to escaping the sector already.

“Boss… can I ask something?” brute one asked cautiously when after a drawn-out moment, I said nothing.

I nodded absently, still pondering on how best to use what I’d learned.

“You speak our language?”

I shook off my musings and threw the ratman a sharp look. “Why do you ask?”

I wasn’t really speaking the ratmen’s language, of course. I suspected the only reason I could understand the ratmen—and them me—was because of my beast tongue trait.

“No reason,” brute one blurted, sensing my displeasure. “It’s just…” he scratched his nose. “Boss never speak before.”

I stared at the bodyguard expressionlessly. The ratman was certainly no Klaxis. The goblin shaman from the wolves’ valley had been quick enough to uncover my deception. But even now, despite my behavior being uncharacteristic of a savant, brute one didn’t seem to suspect anything amiss.

And I can’t keep calling him that. Yet, it wasn’t like I could’ve asked him his name earlier, was it? I could now, though.

“What is your name, brute one?” I asked, pacing around the table again.

That ratman looked at me strangely. “What?”

“Your name?” I asked softly from behind him.

“Rugar,” he said. “But why—”

“Thank you, Rugar,” I said gravely. “You’ve done me a great service.”

The ratmen puffed up proudly.

My blades flashed.

You have killed a ratman with a fatal blow.

~~~

Resting Rugar’s head gently on the table, I searched the room and the three corpses strewn about it.

There were some odd-looking artifacts in the room, including the strange rock the savant scholar had been studying, but they were all bulky and not worth the effort of lugging around. Even the food was… unappealing. A single bite was enough to convince me to leave the rest untouched.

In the end, I decided to take nothing. I was managing well enough in just my newbie clothes and two swords, and I decided to continue as I was.

Returning to the center of the room, I turned my focus inwards to the waiting Game messages; I’d not checked my skill gains since the previous sector.

You have reached level 111!

Your sneaking has increased to level 81. Your thieving has increased to level 56. Your telepathy has increased to level 62. Your insight has increased to level 91. Your deception has increased to level 88.

Much better, I thought, smiling in quiet satisfaction. So far, I’d gained two levels from my kills in the sector, and without needing to ponder the matter, I invested the new attribute points I’d earned.

Your Mind has increased to rank 60.

There was just one more thing I needed to do before leaving. Concentrating, I wrapped myself in a new illusion.

You have cast lesser imitate, assuming the visage of the ratman brute, Rugar. Duration: 1 hour.

Ready to face the sector again, I slipped out the door. The tunnel was just as empty as before. Marching up it, I headed back to the main cavern with the miners. It was the central hub of the ratmen’s nest, and to get to any of my target destinations, I would have to navigate through it again.

According to Rugar, there were three more savants on the level, the sector boss and his two lieutenants. I decided to forgo slaying the lieutenants—I’d left a trail of bodies in my wake, and I wouldn’t go undiscovered much longer—but I had to kill the sector boss. His amulet was required to unlock the final chamber on the last level.

The sector boss was likely in one of two locations: his rooms or at the nether portal. Given how well my encounter with the savant scholar had gone, I decided to head to the boss’ chambers first. If I could catch him unawares there, killing him would be a trivial matter—hopefully.

~~~

The moment I stepped into the main cavern, the gazes of the nearby miners flickered my way before returning to their labors.

Multiple hostile entities have failed to pierce your disguise.

I frowned. Perhaps choosing Rugar’s form to imitate hadn’t been the wisest choice. I certainly stood out more amongst the sea of smaller ratmen in the cavern, but it was too late to change my mind now.

Ignoring the sidelong looks I was attracting, I searched for the exit I needed. According to the instructions I memorized, it was the third tunnel over. Spotting it, I stomped towards it.

Halfway there, I paused.

There was a commotion on the opposite side of the cavern. A large group of ratmen—a mix of warriors and brutes—were shoving their way through the miners. In their midst was a savant. Not wanting to attract attention, I resumed walking, but out of the corner of my eye, I continued to observe the creature.

Physically, the savants were indistinguishable from one another, so there was a chance the creature I was looking at was the sector boss. But I doubted it. Still, I reached out with my will and analyzed him.

The target is a level 138 savant sorcerer.

One of the lieutenants, then.

After a moment, I realized the savant and his escort were heading for the nest’s main entrance—the same tunnel where I’d slain the six guards.

Well, that blows it, I thought. They know they have an intruder on the loose now. Time to hurry this up.

Increasing my pace, I ducked into the tunnel mouth leading to the sector boss’ chamber. Unlike the other passageway I’d just traversed, this one had no rooms or branches along its length, and I encountered no one despite the stir of activity in the rest of the nest.

This tunnel leads to one place only: the sector boss’s chambers.

The passageway was long, too, seeming to go on forever before terminating in a large cul-de-sac. The room in question was situated at the far end, and as its closed doors came into sight, I drew up short.

Six brutes were standing guard outside the chamber.

I felt a rush of excitement. Did that brutes’ presence mean the sector boss was inside? Spotting me, one of the guards called out. “What you want?”

Despite the brute’s belligerent tone, there was no undertone of suspicion in his voice, and I responded in kind. “I look for boss. He inside?”

The ratman shook his head. “He at portal readying troops.”

“Bosses found dead guards,” one of his companions added. “They think players around.”

Another hefted his weapon. “You be careful.”

Nodding wordlessly, I turned about and left. Well, this certainly complicates things.