Outside the dungeon, one of the rats, the slightly smaller one with black fur, gestures toward the other, brown-furred one, and the two come to a stop. The first whispers something to the other, who nods in assent, and rushes back to the misty forest beyond the dry riverbed, returning quickly with another two rats, both brown, but one with a blueish sheen to its coat, holding a pickaxe made of bone and a blue eyeball, and the other significantly scrawny and twitchier, holding a blue eyeball. They have to scamper hurriedly to catch up with the black-furred rat and the two other creatures, and they catch up about halfway along the path to the cave entrance.

As they regroup, their reunion distracts from the slight collapse of something from the top of the path down onto the river bed. The group of six make their way up without incident.

"So this looks like the way in. Door, two buttons. There was a human here earlier, but it seems to have disappeared," states the thinner of the non-rat creatures.

"Are you guys humans too? Hard to tell sometimes," adds the bulkier one.

A couple of the brown rats laugh. The black-furred one is less than amused, and angrily responds.

“Humans reason queen missing!” it spits out, swinging its half-sword in the air for emphasis.

"Big oof,” replies the thinner one, “Well, if she needs medical attention when you find her, I'm a healing unit. That one over there is good for carrying things."

"Hey, don't be volunteering me for things!"

"It's being useful, or going to check out the forest for me and being completely useless on your own."

"I told you my mental concerns in confidence, how dare you use them against me."

"I'm not bound by any kind of oaths of confidentiality, what do you think I am, a doctor?"

"Well good thing you can heal, because I'm gonna make you need it!"

The slightly larger of the two throws itself at the slightly smaller one, and the rats ready their various weapons in alarm, only to be confused by the ineffectual flailing each of them directed toward the other. Putting away its wooden spear, the original brown rat moves over to examine the stone outcroppings and the door to the dungeon. Before they can actually do anything, the rock slides out of the way on its own, revealing three extremely muscular humans. The rats jump back, drawing their weapons again, and the humans stop short. Looking toward his companions, the human with the greatsword states, “Just like we practiced.”

Stepping forward into the natural light, the rats can see that he’s clothed in blue. Raising his blade high, he starts speaking.

“Cutting through the darkness with implacable will, Stabby McStabbington is a sword slicing with the power of light!”

With that, he kneels down off to the right side of the cavern entrance, greatsword held in both hands, angled further off to the right. The man with the bow steps forward in line, revealing a green cloak inadequately covering biceps pulling an arrow to full draw.

“But a sword has the limit of reach. Shooting McShootyton is the arrow, flying toward the sky!”

He kneels down next to the blue man, more to the left of the entrance, and points his weapon off into the distance. Striding forward into the space between the two, the last man reveals a shirtless chest and pink pants. Holding a warhammer above his head, forearms at perfect ninety-degree angles to the biceps, and biceps parallel to the ground, he takes up the entire empty space between the first two humans.

“None of that helps against a solid barrier. That’s where Smashy McSmashyton comes in, breaking down any obstacle in our way!”

In unison, the three humans shout “Together, ‘The Fighting McFightertons’ can overcome any challenge! Fight, fight, fight!”

The hammer-guy doesn’t stop, and just goes “Smashy, that’s right!”

Without moving from their poses, the other two glare at him for a moment, then return to their stances.

o o o o o o o o o o o o o o

Down below this tomfoolery, two bodies hit the ground. More precisely, one body hits the ground, then the other body hits that body. The larger of the two smashes the smaller one that pulled her off a cliff in the first place into the stone, flattening it significantly as it cushions her fall. Unperturbed by the presumed organ displacement, the smaller one rolls out from under the human, unsticking from the canyon rocks and pushing to a mostly upright position. Fortunately, stagnant air prevented a single gust of wind from blowing over the somewhat pancaked creature.

It bends over and tries to pull the human along with it, but is stymied by its complete lack of physical strength.

Avery lays there for a bit, contemplating the decisions that led to her coming down to this exact situation. She decides that none of it is her fault, and in fact all caused by the random creature that pulled her off a cliff. If it didn’t hurt to exist again, the wizard would have shaken off the hand trying to drag her into a shallow ditch, most likely to bury her with the minimum of effort.

After several minutes of fruitless tugging, and several attempts at flipping her over with a spear-lever, Avery gives in to the annoyance and picks herself up off the ground.

“What,” she asks flatly.

“No time to explain, we have to go!”

“Yes time to explain, because I am not moving until the explain happens.”

“Can we at least get away from the dungeon that’s about to have a swarm of monsters attack it first?”

“And that’s all the explain I needed, thank you.”

The two of them run off into the misty woods that definitely weren’t there before...

********

Breaking from their group huddle, the brown rat with the spear steps forward warily toward the posing humans.

"Are sure you adventurers?"

"Of course we are," replies the one with the greatsword, "registered and everything."

"Despite what the name would have you think, we're not related," adds the one with the bow.

Shoving the brown rat out of the way, the black furred rat snarls, "If you adventurers, then you evil."

Following their apparent leader’s example, the two brown rats assume combat poses, spear and pickaxe ready to strike. Numerically, the rats exceed the humans in population, and equal them in number of weapons. Granted, they are outclassed in height and muscle mass, but certainly had the spirit.

Smashy responds, "I can understand your perspective regarding adventurers, but you lack context. Adventuring companies work based on contracts typically, or via an open bounty system. Rather than a whole class of society driven by need to wipe out the so-called monstrous races, it's closer to a profit-motivated system wherein those with weaponry work as hired muscle for whichever governmental official has taken issue with the economic effect of an indigenous populace. That's not to say that there aren't adventurers that enjoy the subjugation of anyone different from themselves, but generally it's the higher-ups ordering the extermination that should be taken issue with, rather than the low-level peon doing the work."

None of the humans move from their readied positions, muscles bulging from exertion as they hold their weapons completely still. Any of their forearms would be the match for the largest rat’s thigh. The rats look at him dumbfounded, before the brown rat with the spear steps forward, clearing his throat to speak.

"No adventurer work this way. They seek strength. They grow by killing. Dungeons are homes. You invade, see? You invade this one now. Invaders and killers."

Stabby responds this time, "Actually in this case we're following a murderer. He stole the river, cut up some people and stuffed them in a box, and hid in the dungeon. We split up inside to try and flush him out, but he blinded me and doubled back."

Again the black-furred rat responds, this time with "Humans all murderers!"

Shooty, increasingly annoyed by every step and word since he walked into the dungeon, snaps at them, "All right, everyone's a murderer. So let's both pass each other by and continue with what we're doing. You can kill whatever human's made this terrible dungeon, and we get to never come back."

Waving his broken steel sword in the air, the rat declares, "Human kill Queen. We kill human."

"Shooty, what does the scouter say about their social structure?" Stabby shoots toward the member of the party with the mostly functional magical artifact under his hood.

"All it's telling me is that there's something called a rat king that's formed when a bunch of them have their tails grow together and form a single creature with the combined intelligence of all the individuals. "

"Try jiggling it."

"I'm still posing, my hands are occupied!"

Thoroughly confused by the buffoonery in front of them, the brown rats slowly lower their weapons.

"We didn't kill your queen," states Stabby, "and we don't even have information on what your queen is, based on your expressions. I'd rather not have to fight you without getting paid. Tell you what, after this I can escort you to the castle and... Where the hell did the castle go?"

All of the rats just stand there as the idiots talk about their castle.

"Did you see anyone run this way? There was a dead body here too. So he stole the river, the body, and now the entire city. When does it end?" declares Stabby, not making any emphatic gestures to go with the overly dramatic words.

"We just got here. Because dungeon has queen body," says the brown-furred rat with the spear slowly, so that the obviously mentally deficient humans could understand it.

"If that's the case, maybe he doubled back again. The central chamber was unguarded for a minute while we regrouped..." muses Stabby.

"Don't say we're going back in there," complains Shooty.

"Whatever we're doing, please decide quickly. My arms are getting tired," adds Smashy.

Stepping up to the leading rat, the spear-wielding rat confers with its comrade in a chittering language the humans couldn’t understand. They chitter at each-other argumentatively for a few moments, and the black-furred rat gestures all the creatures behind it to gather to one side of the pathway.

Taking the cue for what it was, the fighters stand up out of their poses and take the outside lane next to edge down away from the dungeon. As they pass each other, the blue-tinted brown-furred rat steps as though to push Shooty off the edge, before the scrawny unarmed rat pulls them back to the wall.

Safely past the collection of weaponry, Smashy directs an inquiry toward his companions.

“Did those two fighting off to the side look familiar to you at all?”

Stabby answers, “Look, they all have tails and fur. They all look the same to me. Shooty, how about you?”

“I lack the words to emphasize how little I care about any of this.”