The Price of a Rat

The silence in the Gilded Gryphon was a heavy blanket, muffling what was normally a riot of sound—dice rolling on tabletops, drunken boasts, the clatter of tankards. Now only the hiss of the hearth and the groan of the old timber beams filled the void. The tavern’s usual pulse of life had been smothered by a single moment.

Brolin’s retreat had left a trail of humiliation in its wake, and the whispers that followed were like snakes rustling in dry leaves. Eyes shifted, furtive and glittering, sizing Kael up in this new light. He was no longer fresh meat; he had become an anomaly, a disquieting variable in their violent, predictable world.

Kael forced himself upright, a white-hot agony still radiating from his gut where the gauntlet had connected. He clenched a hand against his ribs until his fingers trembled. The strange, exhilarating hum of the power he had just used was fading, leaving behind a cold, familiar dread and a splitting headache that pulsed like a drumbeat behind his eyes. He had won the confrontation, yes—but victory didn’t change his ledger. He was still a man with no money, no allies, and now a very large enemy. Survival demanded the next step, not celebration.

He straightened his shoulders. Ignore the eyes. One foot, then the other. Each step toward the quest board was a deliberate effort, his boots dragging slightly on the warped planks of the tavern floor. He wasn’t here for glory. His ambition had been ground to dust long before he’d arrived in this world. He needed something controlled, predictable—a simple problem to solve. A chance to test this bizarre new ability and its painful cost without risking immediate death.

The board was plastered with parchment:

Wyvern Sighting? Suicide.
Escort a caravan? Too many variables.
Goblin den? Too many goblins.

His gaze drifted downward, to the bottom corner, where the dust settled thicker.

Rat Extermination in Duskvale’s Cellar. Reward: 2 silver cirens.

One location. One enemy type. No real prestige. It was the least glamorous, lowest-paying job on the board. It was perfect.

He peeled the notice from the wood, the parchment crackling faintly. Turning back toward the bar, he ignored the rising tide of whispers and returned to Greta. The tavern matron’s elbows rested on the counter as she watched him with a new, calculating intensity.

“You okay, boy?” she grunted, her voice lower than before. “You just made an enemy of Brolin’s crew. They’re dumb savages, but they’re still a Silver-rank party. Picking your first job in the same tavern they drink in is either brave or monumentally stupid.”

Kael pushed the parchment toward her, his expression unreadable. Pride was a luxury he couldn’t afford.

Greta’s sigh was long and heavy. She slammed an ink-soaked seal onto the notice, the stamp sinking into the parchment with a dull thump. “Fine. Your funeral. Duskvale’s cellar is on the east side of the market square. And don’t get cocky just because you know some weird trick. The rats down there aren’t little squeakers. Rumor is they’re the size of house cats and twice as mean.” She shoved the stamped notice back toward him. “Try not to die in the cellar,” she added dryly. “The paperwork is a nightmare.”

Kael almost smiled. “I’ll do my best to keep your accounting simple,” he retorted.

Before he could even formulate his next move, a heavy wooden tankard slammed down on the table opposite him, splashing foam across the stained wood. A mountain of a man dropped onto the bench with a loud creak, a booming, unapologetic grin splitting his beard. His tangled mane of fiery red hair and the massive round shield of scarred iron slung across his back marked him as a barbarian—or something close enough.

“Not planning on going alone, are you, Tricksy?” the man rumbled, his voice like stones grinding together. “Name’s Ronan. I saw what you did to Brolin. Clever trick. But clever doesn’t kill a nest of Dire-Rats when you’re built like a wet noodle and carrying nothing but harsh words.”

Kael’s eyes narrowed. “What do you want?”

Ronan leaned in, smelling faintly of sweat and pine sap. “I’ll be your shield, your muscle. That’s a two-person job, at least. You look like you need me. So, you split the pay with me, sixty-forty.”

Kael’s cynical mind immediately did the math.

The man sees a drowning victim and offers to sell him a rock to stand on.

But Ronan wasn’t wrong. Kael was weak, unarmed, and still bleeding under his shirt. He’d be foolish to go alone. Pragmatism won.

“Fine,” Kael said through gritted teeth. “Sixty-forty.”

Ronan’s grin widened. “Pleasure doing business with you!” He leaned back, gaze sweeping over Kael’s thin frame. “Alright, deal’s a deal. But what am I working with? You got any armor? A weapon? What are you good at, besides making big guys slip on their asses?”

Kael’s mind flashed with images of his old life. Spreadsheets. Passive-aggressive emails. A quiet, crushing despair. A humorless, ironic smirk touched his lips. “I’m good at not living peacefully.”

A huge, booming laugh erupted from Ronan’s chest. “Ha! I like your style, kid! Honest, at least.” He unbuckled a plain but functional shortsword from his hip and slid it across the table. “Here. It’s my spare. Better than nothing.”

Kael took it. The unexpected weight of the steel felt alien and clumsy in his hand, a cold promise of the violence to come. The hilt was wrapped in sweat-darkened leather, the blade scratched and serviceable. He wondered how many things it had cut.

As he was examining the blade, a sharp, feminine voice cut through the tavern’s din like a shard of ice.

“If you lay one more of your filthy, sausage-like fingers on my quiver, I will personally pin that hand to the table.”

Kael looked up. Near the bar, Brolin’s two cronies had cornered a woman. She was tall and impossibly slender, her hair the color of spun silver under the lantern light, her ears tapering to elegant points. She moved with a fluid grace that made the thugs look like sacks of meat. Her sharp, cool green eyes blazed with unconcealed disdain—an ethereal beauty.

Kael stared, his mind screeching to a halt again.

An elf.

Dragons in the sky, magic in the air, and now elves in the bars. A creature of myth standing ten feet away, threatening to maim a couple of drunk thugs. Her bow—carved from pale wood and etched with curling runes—hung across her back like a sleeping serpent.

“Best not to get involved with that one,” Ronan grumbled, following his gaze. “Pointy-ears are notoriously prickly. Besides, we’ve got rats to kill.” He drained his tankard in one long pull and stood. “Let’s go earn our coin.”

Kael rose, his aching body protesting. His hand brushed the sword at his hip, reassurance and burden at once. He took one last look at the elf, who was now calmly turning her back on the sputtering cronies as if they were insects not worth swatting. She drew her quiver close, murmured something under her breath, and the two men froze where they stood, shivering.

Kael followed Ronan toward the doors, his mind reeling.

He had a contract. He had a partner. He had a borrowed sword. And he had just learned that in this world, the monsters weren’t just in the cellars. Sometimes they sat at the bar, arguing over drinks—or stood by the quest board, smiling with too many teeth.

As the tavern door swung shut behind him, the night air rushed in cold and sharp. Lanterns flickered in the damp streets outside, throwing crooked light on stone slick with recent rain. Somewhere beyond the market square waited a cellar crawling with oversized rats—and, perhaps, the first test of whether Kael was going to survive this world or leave as another corpse behind.