They want to blame the rats? Fine. Let’s give them back their slime.
The shaft felt narrower this time—or maybe that was just the adrenaline squeezing his ribs. Mortar flakes rained down his back, and the faint gurgle of the trickle mocked him from below. He ignored the burn in his muscles, pushing until his whiskers brushed the underside of the grate.
The hole he’d widened earlier looked even more ragged now, the metal edges widened by his previous passage. He wedged his head through, fur scraping harshly against cold, pitted iron. For a heartbeat he stuck again—panic flaring as he imagined the grate collapsing under his weight—but with a frantic twist he squeezed through.
He froze, ears twitching. The dim lantern light still cast long shadows across the barrels and crates. The sour alchemical air hung thick, but no new sounds from upstairs. Ves and Jerrick’s voices were distant, muffled by floorboards—probably still puffing dreamleaf or tallying their “coin.”
Good. Window open.
Jim didn’t cross open floor if he could help it. A rust-stained support post stood near the drain, half-hidden behind a stack of crates. He scrambled up the rough wood, claws biting deep, and slipped onto a ceiling beam that ran the length of the cellar like a narrow highway. From up here he could travel fast, stay out of boot range, and survey the whole room.
Down below: barrels and crates near the drain end, storage shelves along the left wall—and at the far end, raised on a shallow stone platform, the alchemists’ workbench.
All right. Hit the part of their world they actually care about.
The cellar still smelled of sharp solvent and hot metal—like a fantasy OSHA violation. From his perch the setup looked like a mad wizard’s garage sale: scattered tools, half-etched runes on parchment scraps, and in the center a polished brass-and-silver focusing frame set in a shallow stone tray. Etched runes gleamed around the rim. It screamed “expensive” and “delicate”—the kind of gear that made or broke experiments. The workbench sat far from the drain on a small platform, nothing released here would flow down to the nest.
His HUD-style vision flickered as he summoned the familiar ghost-panel:
INVENTORY SLOT [1/1]
Contents: Alchemical Sewer Slime (Unstable Hazard)
Status: Highly corrosive. Mildly magical. Smells like a failed alchemy check.
Time to cash you in.
He padded along the beam until he was directly above the platform, claws hooked into rough grain, then leaned out over the tray.
With a tiny mental nudge he triggered Quick Stash.
The extradimensional slot emptied and the stored sewer slime poured back into the world—a basin’s worth of viscous, phosphorescent gel cascading in a thick gray-green sheet over the frame. Far more volume than the slot should hold, it swelled outward in a glowing tide, defying gravity for a heartbeat before sloughing across the workbench in heavy, clinging globs.
The effect was immediate—and escalating.
Metal hissed on first contact, pitting where the gel touched brass and silver, bubbling like angry champagne. Runes began to blur and fade under the froth as the acid ate in. Bits of etched silver softened, curling away in thin, dissolving curls over the next few heartbeats; the whole frame shifted from “precise instrument” toward something ruined and abstract. The tray’s stone edges smoked faintly; the slime pooled thicker, chewing deeper into cracks, releasing a fresh, stinging wave of eye-watering fumes that made the air shimmer.
Jim flattened himself to the beam, blinking hard as his eyes watered, and backed away until the worst of the sting eased.
Below, the ooze began to thicken as it reacted—gumming into a sluggish, smoking mass that clung and piled instead of running.
He watched just long enough to be sure it was ruined.
Petty? Yes. Satisfying? Also yes.
The slot now empty, the UI flickered:
INVENTORY SLOT [0/1] – Ready
He backed along the beam, away from the rising stink over the platform, and scurried toward the storage shelves lining the wall.
Rows of clay jugs and glass bottles sat neatly labeled in a tight alchemist’s hand. He needed the most valuable thing here—something that would really sting their profits. He scanned quickly, tapping labels and bottles with whiskers or claws to trigger Appraisal pings.
Item: Clarified Essence – Batch 3
– Value: Moderate
– Threat: Low
– Magic: Faint
Not enough.
Item: Distillation of Radiant Shielding
– Value: High
– Threat: Moderate (unstable if mishandled)
– Magic: Active
Closer.
He kept going, darting along the shelves—then spotted it: a reinforced glass jug, triple-waxed stopper, brass tag wired around the neck:
BATCH 7 – DOCK WARD DISTILLATIONS – HANDLE WITH CARE.
The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.
Item: Experimental Batch 7 (Unstable Solvent)
– Value: High
– Threat: High (volatile if mishandled)
– Magic: Mildly Magical, Alchemical
There you are.
No way a tiny rat was dragging that jug anywhere by muscle. But he didn’t need to. He scrambled down the shelf, braced himself, and laid one forepaw on the cool glass.
Reality hiccupped.
The jug vanished into his slot—no sound, no weight, just a soft pop in his HUD.
Jim flexed his claws, suddenly feeling richer—and a bit like a tiny WMD mule.
He scurried back along the beam toward the drain end, staying high and fast while the stink from the platform grew worse behind him. Near the grate he paused, whiskers tasting the air, ears straining.
Upstairs, someone coughed.
“What was that?” Jerrick’s voice called.
A beat.
“Did you hear—” Ves started, then cut off. A sharp, unmistakable pause as the fumes seeped through the floorboards.
“Oh shit.”
Bootsteps. Fast.
Move.
Jim dropped from the beam onto the crates near the grate—one hop, then another—hit the stone floor, and sprinted for the crack before lantern light could find him.
The cellar door flew open above. Light speared down the stairs.
“What happened to the tray—why is it glowing—where is Batch Seven?!” Ves’s voice cracked with rising panic.
“I don’t know! Get the sand! Don’t touch it, have you lost your mind—” Jerrick’s words dissolved into coughs.
Jim hit the cracked grate, wedged his skull into the gap he’d widened earlier, and forced himself through headfirst. Stone scraped fur, ribs compressed, lungs complained.
Boots pounded on the stairs above. Someone fumbled with a lantern, then a cloth over their face.
He yanked himself down with all the rat-strength his tiny body had.
Above, the cellar filled with overlapping noise:
“What did you do?” Jerrick’s voice, raw with horror.
“I—I don’t—” a choking sound, then, “Don’t breathe deep—cover your mouth—gods, my focusing frame—”
Their panic echoed down the stone throat as Jim scrabbled his way back to the level where sewer stink overwhelmed alchemical fumes. Down here it was just him, old water, and the familiar chorus of distant drips.
Jim dropped back into the rat chamber, panting hard, tiny chest heaving. The nest smelled him before they saw him: surface dust, sharp alchemy, a hot-metal tang of something changed riding his fur.
The boss rat emerged from the mound, scarred ears flicking questions. Body language direct: What? How? Safe?
Jim’s posture was exhausted and a little smug—tail relaxed, ears forward, triumph twitching in the set of his whiskers.
Source room found. Bad water came from above. I bit it.
Close enough.
That wasn’t strictly accurate, but “I weaponized extradimensional storage to conduct targeted economic sabotage” was a bit much for squeaks and posture.
The boss studied him, then sniffed deeper. A faint new note filtered down through the stones: cooked chemicals, smoke, the ghost of human panic.
Whatever Jim had done, the humans above were going to be busy for a while—and not pouring anything fresh into the sewer.
Inside his mind the inventory square sat heavy and ominous:
Experimental Batch 7 (Unstable Solvent)
– Portable, contained, and entirely your problem now.
For now, he curled his tail around his paws and let the adrenaline tremors buzz out of his muscles.
Tiny rat, big grudge, one hell of a calling card left in an alchemist’s cellar.
By the time his heartbeat settled, the nest had shifted around him.
Wordless, instinctive traffic: burned rats herded into the warmer center, pups resettled after the commotion, adults returning to watch, groom, gnaw, worry.
Jim’s stomach picked that moment to remind him he hadn’t eaten since before the slime and the sabotage.
Right. New life, same biology.
The limping rat—the one who first greeted him at the slime basin—padded over, favoring his bad leg. Up close Jim could see the edge of the burn, fur clumped around it, skin shiny and tender.
The limper carried something in his mouth.
He dropped it in front of Jim with a soft tup on the stone.
It wasn’t terrible.
A broken chunk of hard bread, soaked in something once—ale maybe—but now mostly just stale and tough. It smelled of yeast, grain, and faint cellar dust.
He nosed it. Under the dust and old ale, it still smelled like bread. Stale enough to use as a weapon. Somewhere in memory: toast, butter, a cheap diner.
His rat teeth itched pleasantly at the thought of chewing.
He dragged the bread chunk closer, placed his paws on either side, and started gnawing.
The first bite was weird: texture all wrong, mouth too full of teeth, jaw angle different. But once he committed, it became strangely satisfying. His teeth sank in with surprising strength; crumbs flaked away; dry, bland carbs hit his tiny stomach like a warm rock.
The limping rat watched, whiskers quivering in what Jim was starting to recognize as pleased approval.
Accepted, their body said. Part of the nest.
Jim nodded without meaning to, crumbs dusting his whiskers.
Thanks, he squeaked back—just a simple sound, but pack-language carried tone. The little cluster of nearby rats relaxed a notch. A couple of juveniles, emboldened, inched up to nibble at stray crumbs he dislodged.
He let them. It felt… okay, actually, about sharing.
Meal handled, his brain finally allowed itself to wind down.
The nest was a low, constant murmur: pups squeaking, claws scratching, the occasional hiss of dominance settled with a nip and retreat. The air was warmer here than in the open tunnel, softened by fur and body heat.
Jim nosed his way to a slightly raised patch: a drier mound of shredded cloth and paper where the nest’s older adults curled up. One of them—a grizzled rat with both ears nicked—gave him a long stare, then shifted a few inches, making space.
Invitation accepted.
He circled once—just like every dog and cat he’d ever owned in his past life—then did the rat version: quick spiral, check for drafts, tuck tail. His body sank into the tangle of chewed fabric, warmth soaking up through his belly.
It hit him suddenly, how D&D this all was, in the worst and best ways.
Here he was:
-
Tiny party
-
Recently cleared “room”
-
Nearby encounter zone
-
No doors he could lock.
…and he was about to long rest in the dungeon.
His human brain supplied the inevitable quip:
We did not set a watch. We did not check for wandering monsters. We did not secure the perimeter. This is how you get TPK’d by an otyugh at level 2.
He glanced toward the tunnel. The boss rat had stationed two adults: one perched near the entrance, one halfway up the wall, both alert, sniffing.
Okay. So they did set a watch. Rat style.
That reassured him more than it probably should.
The HUD in his mind was a dim afterimage now, numbers and labels fading as fatigue rolled in. He could open his sheet, stare at Scrap Savant 1, obsess over his single ridiculous inventory slot and the jug of nightmare solvent sitting inside it.
Instead he just thought:
Tomorrow.
Tomorrow he could worry about whether he’d just kicked off a very small war between the sewers and the city.
Tonight he was a warm-furred body in a pile of other warm-furred bodies, belly full enough, fur still buzzing from adrenaline but finally allowed to relax.
He tucked his nose under his forepaw, feeling the gentle press of another rat’s side against his back, the weight of a pup somewhere near his tail. The nest breathed around him, a slow tide.
For the first time since waking up in a body that wasn’t his, he let himself drift without planning the next three moves.
The last coherent thought that floated up before sleep took him was dry and a little amused:
Day one in Faer?n. Didn’t die. Helped a nest. Committed workplace sabotage. Ate stale bread. Could be worse.
Then the dark was just dark, and the sounds of the sewer faded into dream-noise as Rat #1 slept in the heart of the undercity.