The building was constructed of stout wood and large bricks equally blackened by age. We passed several closed doors to reach a stairway leading down. Soon, we were in an extensive basement with a damp floor.
“Recent flooding,” Fridu said, tapping her foot in a stray puddle. “They had to move most of the stock up in the hall.”
The basement spanned what had to be half the entire block, with recesses lost to shadows. There was still a considerable number of barrels in evidence, often gathered around support beams. Oil lamps provided sparse light to a basement smelling of damp, beer, and mold.
There were trickling noises and the constant murmuring of those in the bar overhead, like a muffled hive of giant bees. Now and then someone would stamp on the floor above, sending showers of dust billowing downward, bursting into small flares against the oil lamps. All in all, it was an excellent lair for a serial killer.
“You wait here,” Molly told me. She and Fridu turned to leave.
“What? Fuck no. Like, huge fuck no.”
“Don’t soil your diapers,” Molly said. “We’ll be back. We just need to find Gerik.”
“I’ll go with you,” I offered, barely stopping myself from reaching out to tug on Fridu’s cape or to try to hold Molly’s hand, either of which would’ve been incredibly embarrassing and likely the Hindenburg of my manhood.
“Did he just squeal?” Molly said, smirking at Fridu. “I swear he just squealed.”
“I didn’t,” I said, in as low a voice as possible.
“Just stay here,” Molly ordered as she and Fridu disappeared in the darkness. “If you get bored, maybe you could pass time by going through puberty.” The two women were only black shapes on the stairs, creaking upward. The sounds of their footsteps faded.
“I’ll just wait here in the darkness, then,” I said. The only reply was the murmur of the crowds above, the flaring lights whenever dust flittered down, and the trickling noises of unseen water.
“Good choice of venue, too,” I said. “Like, it would’ve been awful to wait outside. In the festival. With all the food. The sunlight. That sort of crap.”
The ceiling beams creaked.
“Yeah. It’s nicer down here. With all these weird sounds. And the darkness. And probably not that many monsters.”
I shuffled in the moist dirt, thinking of how crazy my life had become, and how quickly it had all happened. My sister was right. I should’ve never moved back into my old apartment.
“Think I’ll take a look at my new dagger,” I said. “Just from curiosity. Not because I’m feeling any need for a security blanket.”
I drew the dagger from its sheath. A pointed blade eight inches in length. The pommel was a balanced metal knob the size of a golf ball. The handle was of heavily burnished wood. The guard jutted out a couple of inches to either side, lending my dagger the look of a Christian cross.
I made jabbing motions, both to get the feel of the weapon and also to alert anyone or anything watching from the shadows that I was well armed. In truth, though, it felt awkward, so that anyone watching had better be easily impressed.
“Amazing!” they would hopefully think. “See how he drops the point of the dagger, so that at best he’d slap me with the flat of his blade? In fact, see how he’s just lost his grip and fully dropped the dagger in a puddle? Obviously a ruse! I will by no means attack him! I will only wait here in the shadows, motionless and silent, until this virile warrior departs the premises.”
“Warrior,” I said, jabbing again with the point of the dagger. As daggers go, it seemed finely balanced. But, as daggers go, this was the first real one I’d ever held, so what did I know?
There was a tiny splash somewhere in the darkness.
“Eh?” I said. I’d been hearing constant splashes, the sounds of droplets hitting water, but this one felt different. I listened hard, but couldn’t hear anything else beyond the endless creaking of the ceiling beams and the muffled sounds of someone in the bar above me singing a bawdy tune at the decibel level of an airplane engine.
“I’ve got a dagger,” I told the darkness. The darkness made no reply. I listened for another ten seconds, then chided myself for my paranoia. Just as I was getting back to my masterful jabbing practice, I heard the splashing noise again. This time there was an added shuffling.
“Hello?” I said. “I’m a dagger! I mean, I’ve got one!” There were more shuffling noises in response. No snickering, though, so I had that going for me.
I made some slashing motions with my dagger, feeling it was time to open up my repertoire. With both slashing and jabbing, I’d obviously be unstoppable.
There were snuffling noises from the darkness. The splash of something moving through a puddle. Then there was a particularly raucous stomping from above, with the resulting cascade of dust causing another flare of the oil lamps, and in the momentary brightness I could see a hunched shape moving against one of the far walls.
“Molly?” I said. My voice broke. Five letters to her name, but I squealed at least three of them.
“Did you sneak back down?” I asked. “Are you trying to scare me? It’s not working. But I have a dagger so you shouldn’t come any closer. I could hurt you.”
Was it really Molly out there? Or Fridu? I wasn’t sure. At least not until I saw two glowing eyes, red and beady, staring at me from where I’d seen the moving shape. And then it moved carefully forward, with whiskers twitching and a nose sniffling at the air.
It was a giant rat.
“Oh fuck no,” I said. The rat was the size of a small pony, with matted, dirty hair, cracked yellow teeth, and horrible red eyes locked onto mine.
“Dagger dagger dagger!” I warned the giant rat, backing up. It made a rumbling sort of squeak and sloshed forward through the puddles.
“Stay away or I’ll stab you,” I declared, waving my dagger. Apparently, the rodent wasn’t overly concerned, because it came leaping forward with front teeth nearly the size of my dagger and wielded in much more competent fashion.
I tried to stab the rodent as it came at me, but missed entirely. I stabbed a barrel instead, with my dagger sliding a good two inches into the wood to become stuck.
The rat was halfway through a leap, so I released my dagger and tried to catch the rodent, which was absolutely the dumbest thing I could’ve done. Even my idiotic attempt went awry as I slipped in the muddy dirt and toppled backward.
The leaping rat passed overhead like a low flying plane and rammed his beady face into a support beam with enough force to knock loose an oil lamp, which landed just above his eyes and caused his furry face to burst into flames.
The rat let out a chilling shriek of pain and writhed on the floor. Its teeth snapped rapidly, as if the rodent was trying to bite at the fire around its eyes. Finally, the monster rolled across the wet floor, using the puddles to put out the flames. It smelled like a wet disease.
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I began futilely trying to wrench my dagger free from where I’d stabbed it into the barrel, but I’d driven it too deep. The rat was recovering. I had seconds to act. In my panic, I realized I wasn’t going to be able to free my dagger in time, so I picked up the entire barrel and smashed it on the rat’s head.
Impact was even more impressive than I’d hoped. I not only brained the rat, but knocked my dagger free. It bounced twice on the floor before I scooped it up and faced the rat.
“Stay back!” I warned the dead rodent. It stayed back, being dead. I stared at it for several seconds, then cautiously made my way forward until I was able to poke at the rat with my dagger. It didn’t react because it was still dead. I’d broken the rat’s head open. Its brains were merrily merging with a puddle.
“Did you just kill a giant rat?” I heard. I barely stifled a yelp, turning quickly to the stairs, where Molly was standing. She moved down a couple more steps, staring at me.
“Josh?” she said. “The giant rat? Did you kill it?”
I didn’t know how to answer. Had I killed it? Maybe? I guess? And then a “+22 Experience Points” popped into being above the rat’s corpse, glowing blue, floating closer and closer until it sank into my chest.
“You did!” Molly said. “You killed a giant rat! You son of a bitch! I leave you alone for a couple minutes, and you do something awesome! Nice work!”
“I killed it,” I said, trying out the words, seeing how they felt.
“Let’s see your stats!” Molly blurted, hurrying down the stairs and giving the dead rat a kick in its ass and me a pat on my shoulder before using that marble of hers to once more bring up my floating status report.
Josh Hester
Class: Open Level: 0 Health points: 4
Race: Human Alignment: Neutral Good
Strength: 10 Intelligence: 11 Dexterity: 10
Charisma: 10 Constitution: 11
Languages: English Special Abilities: None
Magic Items: None
“Your class is… open?” Molly frowned. “That can’t be right.”
“What? Why?”
“Well, you can’t just stay open. You’re either a fighter or a sorcerer or a thief or whatever the fuck. But . . . open? That doesn’t make any sense. We should talk to Fridu, see what she says. She’s just upstairs with—”
“Ding!” I heard. A musical chime.
“Ooo!” Molly exclaimed. “The rat had treasure!”
“What?”
“Damn. Don’t you know anything? When you defeat monsters, sometimes they drop loot. Let’s see what you got.” She kneeled next to the dead rat, picking something up.
“Check it out!” she said. “You got three silver pieces and a bottle of wine!”
“The rat had a bottle of wine? Where the hell was it carrying a bottle of wine?”
“You’re thinking too much. Let’s celebrate!” She popped the cork, took a massive drink, and then sat on the dead rat, instantly vaulting it to the pinnacle of the “Worst Chair Ever” awards.
“Yours!” she said, handing me the silver coins. “The spoils of your virgin victory!” The coins were hand-stamped, like ancient coins I’ve seen in museums. They each had a lion’s head on the front, with palm fronds on the back.
“Wait a second,” Molly said. “This is your first victory, right? Are you . . . did you ever kill any other monsters?”
She was trying to get more comfortable on the dead rat, which included her partially reclining like one of those seductively sprawled models in the old French paintings, except instead of a plush velvet couch she was perched on a monstrous dead rat with its brains spilling out.
“I barely killed this thing,” I said, gesturing to the rat. “Never anything else.”
“I witnessed a fine cherry-popping, then,” Molly said. “Here’s to further battles fought!”
She handed me the bottle and I took a long drink, very aware that I was trying to emulate the way she’d swallowed about a third of the bottle’s contents in one go. To be honest, the adrenalin of the battle was starting to kick in, and I was beginning to mentally revise the way it had all played out. In my new version I’d been in command of the battle from the start, and never once squealed.
The wine tasted of tannin and leather, with hints of fruit. It was quite good. I thought of handing the bottle back to Molly, but decided that as a Warrior Born I deserved another go. I tipped the bottle back again. The cool heat charged down my throat and lit a fire in my stomach. If this was the sort of treasure rats left behind, I planned on becoming the bane of the rodent kingdom.
“What was that thing with experience points?” I asked Molly. “After the rat died? The beetles in my room did it, too.”
“Experience points are how you make progress. Like, if you kill something, or sometimes if you do something impressive—something that speaks to the skills you’re trying to develop—then you get experience points. Gain enough points and you raise a level in ability. Like, remember how I’m an eighth level barbarian? That gives bonuses to my health points, meaning how much damage I can take. And I get all sorts of other bonuses, like I can hit things easier, or harder, or do more attacks per round, learn new abilities, and other things. When I turned fifth level, for instance, I gained my total resistance to any debilitating drunkenness. I can drink this whole bottle,” she held it up, met my eyes, and took another deep swig, “without ever really getting drunk. Well, I mean I only get the fun parts of being drunk.”
“That’s fucking cool,” I told her. I was, myself, well into the fun parts of being drunk. The basement no longer seemed frightening. Now it felt atmospheric, like when you’re enjoying a horror movie and admiring the set design.
“Where’s Fridu?” I asked.
“Meeting with Gerik. We’ll go up in a while. She’s telling him all about you. Although, this new thing with you having an ‘open’ class? It’s bizarre.”
She passed me the bottle and brushed hair behind her ear. Dust filtered down from above at just the proper moment, flaring the oil lamps, brightening Molly’s face and the strands of her hair, with myriad reflections flickering from the puddles on the floor all around us.
I found myself sitting down on the giant rat next to her. She moved over to make room. The rat was full of muscle and bone, like a lumpy beanbag chair.
“You’re a pretty level barbarian?” I asked, a complete abomination of what I’d meant to say. I found myself blushing, and thanking the surrounding darkness for hiding it.
“Oh shit,” Molly laughed. “You’re already drunk!”
“I guess I am,” I admitted, leaning back with the swaggering air of confidence that only a drunk can attain, especially if he’s fresh from triumph in battle.
Unfortunately, my drunken mind had forgotten that, while giant rats do make surprisingly comfortable chairs, they don’t have built-in backrests. I was forced to scramble to avoid toppling over backward. Molly helped by reaching out to grab my arm. Her fingers were warm and strong.
“You good?” she asked once I was balanced again. Her hand was still on my arm.
“I’m a warrior,” I said, despite being vanquished by the way her hand was still on my arm.
“Let’s not get too far ahead of ourselves,” she cautioned. “It’s incredibly rare for a non-player character to defeat a monster of any type, and even more rare for an NPC to change their class, but . . . that was still only one giant rat. Me and Fridu will take you monster hunting. Then we’ll see what you can really do. Oh, and if Gerik asks you to go with him on any of his own monster hunts, totally refuse, okay? Promise me you’ll refuse.”
She looked deep into my eyes, and I had wine frolicking in my stomach, and her hand was still on my arm. I would’ve promised her anything.
“I promise you, Molly Fenriskicker.”
“Well, that was rather formal, but thanks. Gerik is too intense. Too . . . oh he’s like a goth drama queen or something. He’d get you killed. I don’t want you killed until we figure out the mysteries.”
“I’d rather not be killed at that point, either.”
“Fair enough,” she agreed, with a smile full of different mysteries. I tapped my foot in a puddle and wondered who this “Gerik” guy was, and what he meant to Molly. And I wondered if I was going to be able to make it back to my apartment, and how Molly could possibly look so beautiful. I also wondered about her mother, Salena, and of how she’d apparently been murdered, and I wondered what would’ve happened if I’d ever opened that door in my bedroom years ago, when I was child, and walked through it all alone.
But all of these questions were bullshit, or at least felt like it right then, because I was still riding high on the adrenalin of not only surviving my fight with the giant rat, but winning. I was riding even higher on the little hints of admiration I’d seen in Molly’s incredibly green eyes, and the touch of her fingers on my arm.
The damp rank of the surrounding basement floated away, replaced by the flowery caramel of the wine, and with Molly’s not unpleasant scent of sweat, and of something like a rich dark coffee. Her leg was nearly against mine. Our shoulders were all but touching. She turned to me and saw me looking at her, and gave a querulous smile, a raised eyebrow.
“What the devil are you thinking?” she said, amused by me, not taunting for once. I thought of a thousand things to say in the following instant, and dismissed them all as equally insipid. This wasn’t a time for words. This was a time of wine and action. This was a time for a kiss.
I leaned closer and Molly didn’t retreat. I leaned even closer, so that our shoulders were touching. Our eyes were meeting each other’s. I could already feel her breath, and I knew that her lips would taste like a deeper, better wine.
It was at that point, just before our lips made contact, that the giant rat emptied its bowels. Perhaps it was because I’d shifted my weight atop the rodent’s corpse, or maybe it was just time. Regardless, a stream of molten shit spewed out of the rat’s ass in a nightmarish version of Old Faithful.
“Oh crap!” Molly gasped, leaping up and away from the sudden expulsion. She used her grip on my arm to haul me along with her, so that I stumbled to my feet. There was a brief moment of nothing, and then she was laughing.
“Literally crap!” she laughed. “Crap! That’s crap! Damn, that stinks! What the hell was that rat eating?”
“I don’t even want to guess.”
“Let’s get out of here,” Molly said, taking her hand off my arm and heading up the stairs. I watched her go, and then hurried after, shaking my head.
“I can’t believe I’m actually sad to leave this basement,” I said, taking care to speak beneath my breath, because Molly would’ve had too many questions if she’d heard.
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