The hulking rats charged, Tenko kicking one aside and chomped her jaws down on another. The third dodged Kenji's flaming sword, then jumped to bite at him. Screaming he fell over, the huge thing weighing a ton as it scratched at his armour and it's putrid mouth screeched in his face.
"Blessing of [sight]!" Kenji said, the burning eye flaring in his forehead and scaring the giant rat off him. In return, Kenji became accurately aware of the diseases riddling the thing, and the fleas that jettisoned of the creatures matted fur like a sinking ship.
Eyes drifting back, Kenji saw the plague infested rat head on- and vomited. His mind spun, the grotesque nature of the creature too much for him.
"Kenji! Get a hold of yourself!" Violet yelled, thrusting crystal spikes from the ground, one after another. The time between them forming and thrusting up proved too slow, the rats only being pushed back, not skewered.
Tenko meanwhile fought like a champion, crushing rats in her hands, ripping the ears off the big ones and roaring monstrously whenever they attempted to surround her. Her bravery inspired Kenji to form his own courage. Finding his feet Kenji ripped off the rats swarming him and picked his burning blade back up.
Tenko screamed, causing Kenji's heart to pound with righteous anger, and more than a little of Arthur's heroism fluttered through the back of his mind. The youth had always wanted to save a princess, to be the shining knight that rescued a damsel in distress atop a white horse.
Well, Kenji had no white horse, the princess was a monster, and his armour was the opposite of shining. But for that boy, Kenji charged into the swarm of knashing teeth and rat tails.
Swinging with precision, Kenji left a swathe of burning dead, Violet sending crystals erupting around the exposed wood to limit the chance of a fire. Swatting away the rats, Tenko was let loose by the swarm, covered in bites, blood dribbling from a dozen wounds.
Howling, Kenji leapt forward and sliced through several rats in a wide arc, before he was met with the plague rat. Eyes locked, they surveyed one another. Kenji the boy knight, and Sir Plague rat who writhed and screeched while it rubbed it's rotting flesh agaisnt a wooden post.
Perhaps this entire place burning to the ground wasn't so bad an idea after all.
Kenji leapt, the plague rat screeched. Burning blade plunging into too-soft flesh as easy as butter, the whole thing erupting out it's back, plagued organs spilling across the pantry. The rats fled at once, the humanoid in the backline leaping away with them down the cellar. Back there it threw back a few wooden boards and ushered its swarm down a cavern.
"Violet, with me!" Kenji charged the enemy escape route and stuck his flaming sword to find a network of caves beyond. This entire town was probably built atop it, the places the rats could hide so expansive only a complete expedition would have a hope of tracking them down.
"Close it up, we're leaving," Kenji stood back as Violet created a crystal wall over the hole, Kenji then sliding the wooden planks back into place. It wouldn't hold indefinitely but was certainly good enough for that bastard of a tavern keeper.
Wiping the diseased gunk off his muddy armour, Kenji realised it might be best to throw the whole thing away. But the armour had at least protected him from dozens of bites and scratches, the putrid metal all that had stopped him looking as badly wounded as Tenko.
"Violet. You go up there and scream for that man to open the door... because if he doesn't I am going to break it down."
Kenji moved to use his blessing of [Healing] but realised that was unlikely to clean out Tenko's diseased wounds. He needed hot water, cloth, strong alcohol and maybe even some fire to burn the disease-free before he healed the wounds themselves closed.
Kenji picked up Tenko and carried her away.
Something in Arthur's mind felt at peace to be carrying a rescued girl in the princess carry style, and if that really was a piece of Arthur left behind, then Kenji was glad for him.
Because he had to get this girl washed, healed and fed, a long way to go before Kenji could even think of such luxury like sleep, properly blasting the tavern owner for tricking them - or heaven forbid - actually collecting the reward for this stinking quest.
Kenji had raised all hell in the tavern with the ogre - for about ten seconds. After that, the ogre capitulated wholly to Kenji's demands.
It turns out having a plague rat in your cellar would have been been the talk of the town - and so Kenji traded keeping quite for free meals and free baths. For all of them. For a month.
Yet what worried him was how casually the tavern owner accepted this backlash, paying them double almost as if he expected it. The news of the humanoid rat had similarly seemed suspicious to Kenji and yet unsurprising to the ogre, merely shrugging, and returning to serving his stew. If Kenji had any choice, he'd have eaten literally anywhere else.
Luckily he was at least poison immune, although now that he thought about it, kenji wasn't sure of mimics could get sick or not.
In the bathhouse Kenji scrubbed Tenko down with the roughest sponges he could find, intent on getting every fleck of corruption form her pale skin. Tenko meanwhile blew bubbles in the water, sinking pleasantly, drenched tail swishing slowly below the water and tickling Kenji's stomach.
"What about me Kenji?" Violet huffed, luxuriating at the spa's edge with arms to either side, "If you're going to be the bath boy, then it makes sense that your most useful team member gets to be scrubbed too."
Kenji's eyes twitched, turning to find Violet sinking beneath the soapy water, just a hint of her curvaceous body beneath. A tad hot and bothered, Kenji focused doubly hard on saving Tenko from the plague, and quickly used up all three of his blessings of [Healing] for the day.
"Cheers to our first accomplished quest!" Kenji said, toasting his cup of heavily watered down mead, at the table they would sleep under tonight.
"Cheers to being clean!" Violet added, having used her share immediately to buy some stiffer drink that smelt of Vanilla and Cinnamon. Kenji had wanted a fancy drink too but felt settled with his discoveries of the wonders of her alien anatomy. Pleasing similar to a human girl for one, if a tad on the curvy side.
Yet with the 1 silver requirement to take the Guild entry-level test, buying some a drink for himself was put to bed. Sighing, Kenji gulped down the mead that tasted like nasty water, and rested his head on the table.
Although Kenji had at least gained one additional reward from all this, other than the pay, the bath, the in-bath entertainment and the food. For within his internal storage was a rat. Of the normal size to be sure.
But the perfect size for scouting, and so small it took up almost no room in there at all.
As he sat there speaking with Tenko, smooth and supple again after her healing bath treatment- violet interrupted.
"Here, take it," she mumbled, handing Kenji a few coppers. He had to pry them free from her hands, but afterwards took a bite, cast blessing of [sight] and still found them not to be an illusion.
"How...? And why?" He muttered, mystified.
"Those beggars asked to buy some, they resell them to folk around town. I said ok, and these are the profits. You deserve it, after saving her, and for helping me." Turning sharply away, Violet seemed to fix on something in the distance as she tried to hide her darkening purple cheeks beneath her nun's cloak.
'Congratulations, XP has been increased enough to select your reward' Violet said with black cracks around her eyes, Tenko having leapt away to chase a mouse.
"Noir...it's been too long," Kenji smiled.