Street Rat vs Sewer Rats [Quest: It's Always Rats]

[Ash]

While the guard couldn't wait around all night, he came back to the unlocked doors of the sewers as frequently as he could; which was about once an hour, sometimes twice. It made it easy to keep checking on the doors because he was patrolling the area around it, but he was concerned all the same when the sun began to rise over the rooftops and he hadn't even heard of rumors of the girl in the leather in the area. At no point in the night did he find drippings of water either, but she could have avoided that all the same. He was due for a trade off with the other guards, but decided to go by the place once more for good measure, sure that he'd not see her again if she didn't resurface after by the time he went back to work later that night. He came close enough to kiss the door, pressing his ear against it and listening intently for any sign of life. As he did every time he came near, he also checked the area for wet marks, foot prints, or rat tails that might have slipped out of her hands while she was leaving the sewers; he found none. With a sigh, he stood up right, straightened his armor, and was about to leave when he heard something slap against the door.

Then again, and one last time before silence. It was unsettling for the guard, but he turned to look at the doors, expecting them to open from such hardy shoves. He wondered if it was her, but readied his weapon just in case as he moved to step closer to the previously chained entrance. When he was about to reach the steps, the door flung open! And out flew a creature of nightmares! The guard screamed a high pitched sound as he shoved himself back away from it, and scrambled to keep ahead of the bulbous, diseased, mold covered head of a black rat who's fur was matted up with all kinds of things. The tangles around its cheeks made it looked infected with something out of this world; its eyes were popping out of its head, and its tongue spilled out of its mouth, the two large pairs of teeth spread apart in its slack position. It crashed to the ground, a single head, but attached to it in some way or another were giant snake like things. The spilled out and about over the ground, making him recoil at the wet sound of brain matter hitting the cobblestone. After a moment when it did not move, the guard regained his composure but not his shock. His plate sized eyes turned to the doors that were still open, and in the middle of it a female.

Or at least he thought it was a female, the female he'd sent down. The clothes were the same, although badly tattered around her body. As gruesome as the rat head was, he stopped breathing when he saw her full form. The curve female not only had strange colored skin, but two ebony black horns that curved out from just above her ears and around the curve of her head to meet in the middle, looking almost bull like. She glared at him through blank canvases, metal rings piercing her brows and ears multiple times, and her lip once. She leaned on the door way with one arm hooked up and supporting most of her weight; she was hunched over just slightly and leaned into her arm, she was gasping heavily, and she looked like she had not avoided the water at all as it dripped from every strand it could. He stared in bewilderment and horror. She looked like a devil, although half drowned and exhausted; large amounts of blood and other things smeared into her image. She then picked up the limb that had been dangling from her shoulder, clutching a bunch of rat tails of two different sizes.

"How much does this ear me?" She panted, the stunned guard moved towards her, picking up his hand automatically to accept the bunch and count them out. But she lifted one finger to point to the abomination that had appeared on the ground. "And that? I want to be paid double for that." The man didn't want to look again, but did so. The image of the rat with tails for dread locks would forever be burned into his mind. Suddenly he didn't want to go to sleep.