Cursed Claws

I dedicate the following entry to whomever may find this - whether I live for another hundred years or if the lynx I’m hunting kills me in the next few weeks.

My name is Skreet Snickertooth. I’m two things if I’m anything: a brown rat and a detective on a losing streak.

Every now and then when a case - or even just life itself - gets a little too crazy, I like to take a moment and mull things over. I find it usually helps me center myself and sometimes I find myself catching things I missed at first. I was definitely up to my rodent muzzle this time.

How’d all this begin again? Oh, yeah... 

I was one of New Nottingham’s best investigators. The only rat with that title on the force. Rusty - my terrier partner - and I had cracked many cases together and were steadfast friends... until that one grisly murder spree. 

Several beasts of high social status were murdered in their own homes - a few even found in rooms locked from the inside. One such case brought us a lot of attention: Everyone from the urchins to the lords were eyeing us for answers. To make matters worse, that snoop-of-a-meerkat reporter - Amber - was making her own conclusions and painting us in a not-so-flattering light. 

That broad, I swear. 

Focus, Skreet. 

Rusty didn’t take one of her articles too well. The cases were pulling him in too deep. He turned to the Veilwinter wine that someone kept leaving for him. I did what I always do - obsess over the case. After a few weeks I uncovered the killer, one of our own in the constabulary: Margot, the lynx that worked in clerical. Unfortunately I was too late to catch her, and too late to stop her from killing a fellow constables on her way out. 

After that, Rusty quit the force but I vowed I would bring Margot in - even if I had to go outside my jurisdiction and - Gods above help me - outside the law. I tracked her down across oceans and continents to Vulane: A city of secrets upon secrets. A city where it’s always raining.

Clandestine. Shadowy. Sleazy. Insane. Cursed.

Entertaining.

I got lost in its seductive song at first. Lost the trail. Things were a blur for a bit. Some nights I can’t even fully recall and sometimes they’re just flashes of images and feelings. 

It sets my whiskers to twitching. 

I know there was a lovely mink who called me by another name: ‘Rask.’ Apparently I had spent an evening in the ‘House of the Moon,’ the party manor of the vixen witch queen of Vulane herself: Selthia. I have no idea how I ended up there, or even what transpired. 

Guess I had too good a time. 

After I made my way through the haze of pleasures and mysteries, eventually I got back on task. Ran into Rusty again: A shell of his former self. A sad, small-time merchant addicted to the bottle. Hurt my heart to see him reduced to that. 

But to my surprise, after I’d lost a friend I found a new one: A big ol’ reptiloid, of all things. An escaped gladiator from Vulane’s fighting pits named Draknor. I also made a new acquaintance, Farah, the infamous ferret thief. Somehow the three of us combined our efforts to help each other, and each of us had a common grievance. A certain Lynx named Margot. 

But before we could really pursue her we ended up getting into each others’ business. Farah needed to resteal a clock and hide it and Draknor wanted his sword back. The gem in the pommel was magic or something. We learned where to look thanks to none other than Amber, who showed up recently. It also put us in the sights of Vulane’s patriarch, some crazy fox mage. 

We fled to the undercity, which is even more strange than the upper city - and that’s saying something! We had to fight through till we found a ladder up and into a storeroom. 

First thing we did was make sure the trapdoor we had just climbed out of was bolted shut, and for good Draknor rolled a barrel over the exit. I looked from Draknor, to Farah, to Amber. All of us were still catching our breaths from running and fighting for our lives from the horrors down below. Amber finally broke the silence. 

“Heard rumors about the Undercity.” the meerkat spoke as her eyes went to the trapdoor once again. “Imagine that, just below everyone’s paws.” 

I heard Farah chuckle from the dark corner she had instinctively slipped into. “If you only knew the secrets that lie just below our feet.” 

“Hurr,” Draknor growled, probably about to launch into a lecture about the things he’d seen before us mammals. I knew it was time to take charge of things before they spiraled even further out of control. 

“Alright, let’s see where we ended up. Only one way out of here.”

I held one of my fighting sticks at the ready, slipping the other in my belt. They had served me well so far. Draknor started to go first but I halted him. 

“I don’t think you should go first, big guy. I’ll go.”

“Right behind you mister rat,” Farah declared as she took position behind me, her muzzle plastered with that infuriating grin. 

“And I’ll be behind her,” Draknor growled. 

Amber looked to the trapdoor again. “I, uh, suppose I’ll bring up the rear.”

...

Amber's Parchment™ delivers the juiciest tales from the depths of the unholy citystate of Vulane straight to your waiting paws. 

Today's edition is filled with scandalous secrets and sordid affairs that will make your fur stand on end and your whiskers twitch with excitement. So grab your copy, dear readers, and prepare to delve into the underbelly of the City of Secrets with me, Amber the Meerkat: your trusted reporter on all things scandalous in Vulane.

As many of my readers recall, I detailed the use of a strange magic sword at the docks: a sword that was once property of a certain reptiloid gladiator that escaped the fighting pits. 

In point of fact, I tracked down that very gladiator as well as a somewhat capable ferret thief, along with a rat detective far from his jurisdiction. 

Exclusive interviews to follow! 

But first, imagine the rumors of the horrific undercity. It exists, and it’s right below your paws dear reader! In the line of delivering the freshest news to you, I nearly lost my life down there, but it was what I and my compatriots found after making our escape that I am detailing here.

We found ourselves in a storeroom and - appointing himself leader - the rat made his way up the ladder, followed by the ferret. I brought up the rear after the reptiloid.

The detective flung the door open with a worn-but-sturdy fighting stick in hand, and one by one we filed out a heavy, wooden door and found ourselves in a— 

...

—Cold, dark cellar. 

Seemingly the cellar of some vast, mammalian brewery or winery or some such thing. 

These warmbloods love their brews.

There were some quick discussions as we made our way through the darkness, but eventually - as always happens in this cursed city - we ran into trouble.

The curving halls of barrels and stone walls hid enemies as well. Too small for me to swing my newly-recovered blade, I had to watch as my new rat friend fended off the fiends - more creatures from the abyss with glowing red eyes.

One of them - some revenant or other kind of undead - caught my tiny companions off guard, scratching the rat and ferret with its cursed claws before I could assist. The low ceiling - low for myself in any case - thwarted my attempts to help.

But I still had the claws and strength granted to me by the draconic goddess. I managed to seize one of the horrors and slam it into the wall repeatedly until it was but bone dust. 

The meerkat hung back as if observing things but when one of those undead creatures lunged for her she managed to use its momentum against it and throw it against the floor. I brought my feet down upon the creature and heard the sickening crunch of bone breaking. 

I could barely maneuver. My movements were restrained by the walls and my attacks sluggish. But I was doing the best I could. I felt pain in my side as one of the creatures managed to get in my guard, I spun my hips and my tail bashed it against the wall.

...

Why can’t a ferret thief like me catch a break? 

The fiend’s claws - some kind of glowing-eyed feline - had gotten past my leathers, and the chill I felt I knew I had more than blood loss to worry about. My pendant protected me from most curses and magic... did that mean I would have to keep it on forever now? Or had the nature of the attack circumvented it? Gah, this is why I hate magic. 

Anyways, I had more pressing concerns, using my shortsword and handaxe I managed to re-kill some of those creatures. A gurgle to my right and another dead beast was lunging for me, I used my shortsword to cut off the grasping hands, and my handaxe to destroy the skull. Skreet was doing his best with those sticks, and Draknor was just brute forcing his way through them. 

Finally though it seemed we had seen the last of the undead creatures. My eyes were heavy and I staggered up the rickety staircase, Skreet, Amber, and Draknor close behind. 

I flung the door open weapons at the ready and found we were on the ground floor where more kegs were stored. I staggered towards main door and axed it open. 

“You’re obviously injured,” my huge draconic friend said.

“You don’t say,” I replied.

“Those claws were cursed,” Skreet grunted as he clutched at his own wound. 

“We have to do something,” my rival - the little meerkat - stated. “What about the witch queen we met earlier? She might know something.” 

“Hells no,” I said, wheezing, holding my wound on my forearm. “To be in debt to her? No no no.”

“Agreed,” Draknor rumbled. “I was enslaved to her once already.” 

I saw Skreet’s maw open and close as if his detective mind had made a revelation, but it was time for me to salvage this.

“I know someone. Just follow my directions.” Draknor picked me and Skreet up and balanced us on the shoulders as if we were but kits to him. With that we sped through the rain soaked streets. I took great satisfaction in seeing Amber scurrying to try and keep up. 

It took us some turns and twists but I knew I could find Grisha’s place even while being carried. 

…

In all my years as a detective I’ve had many brushes with death, but that moment in the storehouse with thos undead guards or whatever they were was one of the worst. I felt a chill of darkness coursing through my body, probing it and trying to shut it down. My mind was fogged over but I heard Draknor speak of being enslaved to the Witch Queen herself. I had already suspected that given our encounter with those thugs but a few days ago. 

I awoke to drinking some foul tasting liquid that a hyena woman was forcing me to drink, I could see her eyes were both milky. She was blind. 

“There, there, drink it all down.” she said softly as if she were bottle feeding a cub. She spoke to Farah who was sitting nearby with a potion in her paws as well. 

“You always get into such trouble Farah. Grisha expects you to bring her a pretty pretty bauble for this.” 

“You know I will, Grisha.” 

Amber sat on the counter of the shop I found myself in, and Draknor watched the door, arms folded. 

I took a breath, I knew this wasn’t the last time I’d be close to death. Soon as my paws had feeling in them again I was going to make a journal entry about all of this. Just as I suspect Amber was going to make her own account of things. 

I looked at the calendar on Grisha’s wall. 

A week had passed? But we had only been down below the previous night! I couldn’t dwell on it. But we were no longer any closer to catching Margot. Actually, maybe we had a lead.