Donner and Thalia: The Lair of the Rat God (Episode 1)

Chapter 11

11.

Thalia led the three boys into Hasbeek, once again holding Donner's hand in hers as Lenny and Paul each rested a hand on her shoulder while she cast the four in her invisibility spell. Lenny almost blew their cover when he tripped over a rock. He held tight to Thalia's elbow as he tried to keep himself up.

"Sorry!" he called out, Thalia and Paul both shot him a stern "Keep your voice down!"

"Oh, sorry," Lenny whispered as they continued.

"This is the house," Donner said as he pushed the door open, still open from Thalia's unlocking spell from the other night. The four made their way inside, Paul and Lenny scrunching together to keep hold of Thalia's shoulders as they squeezed through the door. The four let go of each other, and the invisibility spell dispirited once they were all inside.

"This is it," Donner said as he drew his sword and reached for the cellar door by the back of the hut. He pulled it open and looked inside, "I'll go first, Thalia, can I get a light?" he said, reaching his hand out.

"Right," Thalia nodded as she waved her hand over Donner's palm to give it a glowing orb of light. Donner took a deep breath, pumped his chest as he stuck a leg down into the entrance and mounted it on a rung of the ladder leading inside. Once he hit the cave floor, he held his sword at the ready as he slowly panned his light back and forth to see if there was any threat. "It's clear, so far," Donner called back up to the entrance. Thalia was the second one down, followed by Paul, then Lenny, losing his footing and almost tripping off the second to last rung of the ladder.

"I'm okay!" Lenny said as he caught himself on the ladder and kept himself from falling.

"Keep your voice down. We don't know what's down here!" Paul hissed at Lenny.

"Shut up both of you!" Thalia hissed just as angry, "Did you hear that?" she said as she looked around, inching closer behind Donner, partly to get a better view of what he could see with the light she gave him, and partly because being around Donner just made her feel safe for some reason.

Skitt-skitt

"I hear it too, everyone quiet," Donner took a deep breath as he panned his lighted hand over. He jumped back the instant he saw a giant rat leap towards him. Even in that second, Donner could see it was even bigger than the one from Miss Gall's basement, bigger than the one outside the pub the other night. His reflexes threw his sword up and caught the rat between its ribs as he fell to his back. The creature was bucking and kicking as the blade sunk into it, wilding scratching at Donner as the young Knight used his other arm to cover his face.

Lenny reached his hand out, called out "Waprobar!" from one of the elvish spells from his arcane study tomes and sent a ball of fire forward and struck the rat, lighting it ablaze as it bucked, skewered on Donner's blade. It finally halted its movement as the fire engulfed it, and the sword in its chest became too much for the beast. Using his other hand, Donner pushed off the ground to get back to his feet. He held his sword down, and the burned carcass of the rat slowly slid down it.

"You're right, Paul, Rats are pretty gross," Donner said as he held his sword down and used his boot to push what was left of the rat off his blade. Donner again opened his hand to let Thalia's light shine their way, "Let's go," he said as he took a deep breath and pressed forward.

As they made their way through the twisting hall of the cave, Donner held his light up, and the group saw, written in a shade of red they didn't want to think about, cryptic symbols written much like the symbol on the door of the house from the other night.

"Paul, can you read this?"

"I can, but I don't want to," Paul took a cautious step behind Donner and squinted his eyes as he tried to read the crudely drawn symbols. "His hour approaches, from death we come and to death, we shall be again, hail rats," Paul shook his head and turned to Donner, "I am never helping you with anything again after this," he said as they came to an opening in the cave.