There was a general struggle against the Ratkin from the people, but such a struggle wasn’t unique to humanity. What was were our weapons of mass destruction: our hydrogen bombs, nukes, anthrax, tanks, and missiles. By the time they managed to destroy and disable our weapons, we had already done irreparable damage to their faction and, by doing so, levelled the playing field.
Wilfrid Pember – Historian – The Start of the Apocalypse
____
Scraping off the patch of moss, Silas uncovered the dark bloodstain below. Iris had led them to this fight scene, and it was worrying to see the ratkin had covered up the battle marks and recovered the bodies. It made him think of them as intelligent and careful, terrible attributes to have in an enemy.
“What should we do?” Josh asked, having lost his usual merriment – few people could stay cheery in the face of violence, and Silas was glad Josh wasn’t one of them.
Frowning, Silas considered their possible courses of action. He no longer felt entirely comfortable forging onward as there was a chance the ratkin had set up a trap for them. On the other hand, perhaps he was overthinking it, and there was nothing to worry about. Besides, they hadn’t even discovered anything about the ratkin base, so leaving now meant returning in failure. He sighed, “We go on.”
Sabine grinned for a brief moment – she had been clenching and unclenching her fists for the last few minutes, restless for action. Having learnt from the alabaster mink battle, Silas wanted to take things slow and approach with a plan, but he worried she would rush in at first chance as she appeared captive to her bloodlust. Still, to her respect, she had listened to his orders so far so maybe not.
Josh grimaced lightly before nodding, while Iris simply stared at Silas as she had throughout the journey with her dark, curious eyes. She raised her notepad. Which way?
Crouching, he sniffed at the ground, earning himself mystified looks from the entire group. He tried to ignore them as he utilised his overwhelming perception, searching for the right scent. It wasn’t too long before he caught onto the musky stench of ammonia, and once he did it was easy to follow as it seemed the rats never washed themselves. He only grew more confident they were going the right way as he made out thin and long footprints on the trail.
Every so often, he would stop to scan their surroundings, taking full advantage of the wide spaces between the trees to ensure there weren’t any enemies creeping up on them. Although he knew he was testing his group’s patience with how cautious he was acting, it soon paid off as he spotted a party of ratmen patrolling through the forest.
Because of his advance notice, the whole team was able to hide away before the ratkin spotted them. They kept still and quiet, even Sabine, and the monsters marched past them. It was only as the ratmen got to the limits of his vision that Silas waved his team forward to follow on.
At one point, they almost lost their targets after being forced to hide from another patrol, but they managed to catch up in time to watch the monsters enter a gaping cavity in a hillside. Spying from his perch on a towering tree, Silas spotted three different groups of ratkin entering or leaving the cavity over the course of an hour, leading him to believe it was either an entrance to their base or a tunnel to somewhere important. Explaining this to his team, he asked for their opinions on what to do next.
“We need to check it out – we’ve come all this way after all,” Sabine said, baring her teeth as she spoke.
“Absolutely not, man. Remember what Lazzaro said,” Josh countered. “We’re just here to scout, not fight. We can come back later with more people, you know, and clear them out then.”
Sabine grunted at his reply with a roll of her eyes.
Iris ignored their conversation and instead gave Silas a more pointed look than usual. It appeared she had worked it out.
In truth, he had already come to a decision and had simply asked to get a better feel for his new teammates. If he had been with Aengus and Mia, he would have had no issues going in guns blazing, but it wasn’t the same with these three. Along with that, the chance it was all a trap meant it was stupid at best to charge into the hillside cavity. “I guess you’re right, Josh. We’ve got what we came for, so let’s—”
Cutting himself off, his heart dropped as he made out another group of five ratmen nearby. The monsters were coming down the path they had used, eyes stuck to the ground. Silas realised they hadn’t made an effort of hiding their tracks… S***. If they ran now, the ratkin would undoubtedly spot them and give chase! In fact, it made more sense to ambush them here and use the advantage of surprise than to throw it aside and turn tail. It seemed Sabine would get her fun after all. “Change of plan, guys. We fight.”
They were in their positions less than a minute later, waiting for the monsters to enter sprinting range. The ratmen were roughly a head shorter than Silas and covered with fuzzy, brown hair. Similar to the thunderfoot boars, they had large, beady eyes. Armed with swords and axes, the ratmen walked upright wearing flexible leather armour, and he was relieved to see that none of them held shields.
Knowing they would spot him with a few more steps, Silas burst out with mana covering his eyes, activating Weakness Vision, and found himself shocked by the number of vulnerabilities that flashed over them. Quick to react, they immediately made towards him, weapons raised and whiskers quivering, splitting up as they saw Sabine, Josh, and Iris emerge as well.
Regardless, Silas was one step ahead, and he swiftly stabbed a ratman through its ribs, pulling out his spear with haste and puncturing another in a fluid motion. The third ratkin bound for him seemed to reconsider its destination then as it turned to run away, allowing him an easy sweep across its back.
He was finished with the three monsters some moments later, at which time he looked around to see how the others were doing. Sabine was pummelling a rat’s head in with a sneer on her face, blood splattering down her armour.
In contrast, Josh and Iris struggled with the remaining ratman as the blond man attacked predictably and the Arabian girl focused solely on defence. The ratman furiously battered against her shield and dodged Josh’s strike with a sidestep, tripping him over as he passed. It didn’t notice Silas coming from behind until it was impaled on his spear, dropping its head in shock to see the spearhead sliding out of its gut.
Silas swung his spear, flicking the gore off its tip, and reached out to Josh. “You okay?”
Josh looked lost for a second, gazing around with widened eyes.“Oh my god, man. How did you… Four of them. What?!”
Silas shrugged, unsure how to respond. For him, the ratmen were unexpectedly easy kills as they were effectively slower versions of the minks. In fact, given how weak they were, he didn’t see an issue in ambushing a few more patrols. “You’re not injured, are you?”
Shaking his head, Josh took the hand up and brushed the dirt off his face. “No, I’m fine, man. I just,” He sighed deeply. “That thing was toying with me.”
“Your blows are too wide,” Silas replied, channelling his inner Aengus. “You need to tighten them, even if it means less power. Anyway, it’s fine – you’ll get the hang of it after some practice.”
****
The world took on a golden-purple shine as they returned to Riverside, the foremost suns passing dawn while the straggling purple one remained high in the sky. They had decimated two more ratkin patrols on the way, and although they went as easily as before, they made Silas worry more than not.
The ratkin, or more specifically the Ratkin Conglomerate, had been the very ones to buy Earth and two other planets and casually fuse them together – to even have a say against this faction, humanity needed a person stronger than level 100! So, why was it the ratmen he had encountered were so weak? They hardly seemed competent enough to save themselves from the world, let alone prevent others from ascending or whatever the System had said.
Could it be the ratkin outpost near them was smaller than he had imagined? But even if that was the case and they were understaffed, it didn’t mean the ratmen themselves had to be so unskilled. It made no sense to him, and this in turn set a stormy cloud of trepidation over him. Something was wrong here, and the only way he could think of resolving his worries was by charging down the hillside cavity and tearing out an answer from the source.
Although this appeared to be a foolish idea on the surface, Silas thought it was rather sensible some layers down. It would only be a matter of time before the ratkin noticed the missing patrols. He assumed they would either call for reinforcements or flee then, making everything more difficult, so surely it made sense to attack them before then.
He thought on the matter over and over but came to the same questions and conclusions. Taking a deep breath, he slowly breathed it out and along with it some of the tension knotting his muscles. He resolved to convince Lazzaro to send a large fighting force there as soon as possible.
****
Watching the gaping cavity in the hillside, Silas twined his hands and untwined them for the hundredth time – they hadn’t spotted a single ratman entering or leaving the hole for as long as they had been here. Besides that, the patrols they had killed yesterday had been left to rot instead of being collected up, so he was certain now his idea had been right: the ratkin had panicked and fled on first notice.
Turning to face the large group waiting for his go, he nodded and led them forward. After filling Lazzaro in on the situation, the aged mage had joined their expedition while also giving Silas command of most of Riverside’s fighters, leaving only the minimum number required to protect the village in case of a surprise attack.
The twenty-odd strong group passed through the cavernous mouth and plunged themselves into the suffocating darkness. Some of them turned on their flashlights, lighting the way forward. The ratkin stench threatened to overwhelm Silas as they treaded deeper into the cave but he held on. Even as other people whispered in relief at the lack of ratkin, he felt a building dread and not just from the ambience.
Every sign pointed towards the ratkin fleeing, but now he once again considered the opposite: what if they hadn’t and he was leading his group into an ambush? Fortunately, his worries were lifted as the light flashed over large metal cages in the distance. Assuming Lazzaro’s theory that the ratkin were enslaving humans was correct, they would have only left behind their prized goods like this if they had fled in a hurry.
Soon after, Josh also spotted the cages. “Guys, look over there, in the cages!” His voice lifted the party’s spirit as they looked over and saw the imprisoned men and women.
Moving closer, the first sign to Silas that something was wrong was when he saw an imprisoned man pointing his bony hand to a hidden corner of the cavern, mouthing something with fear lining his face. Silas gripped his spear and was about to call out to his group to raise their guard, when the second sign came suddenly in the form of a glint of a blade swerving towards his neck.
____
Rahman Zillur, the Warlord, was originally a local gangster from Bangladesh. Coming out of the hard tutorial, he showed his talent in violence early on by triumphing over a dominant Ratkin force. The news of his victory spread and many flocked to his village as a result, only to realise that while the rumours of his powers were true, it was equally true that he was a lecherous tyrant. The Ratkin struggled against him, and the ordinary man and woman struggled under him.
Approximately a month after the Apocalypse, another prominent figure, Zia Kaleda, challenged him on the Crow’s Foot. Although he came out victorious, the Ratkin razed his village in the meantime and left him destitute. Following this, he went on the run, eventually turning up in Vipin Maharaj’s town, Jhargram. He failed in his attempt to take over the settlement and was publicly hung two days later.
Stefan Sommer – the Chronicler – Heroes and Villains of the First Age
