(Scars do not appear to be cause of death –shock ... - Bad Request

Chapter 52
I hated the fetid smell of wererats.
It was the musty stench of an old cupboard, stale with the dust of mold
spores and old dried-up vermin droppings. At the very least the wererats
were intelligent enough to not live and eat where they defecated, but it was
little consolation when I did have to make my way back through their
caverns. How Lothar could trust them, I'll never know.
The planks of the wooden bridge creaked under my feet as I crossed, and I
suppressed the urge to take a few test hops on it to see if it would splinter
under my weight. Even if the Dabus came down here to fix things up it'd be
a matter of putting patches on a mass of rags and trying to pass off the
travesty as wearable garments.
They said the Planes would always turn, but seeing Sigil going to hell in a
handbasket for as long as it existed, I wasn't sure if this was a good thing.
"Have you retrieved the particular skull the master wants?" Mantuok
chittered. His whiskers twitched.
"Yes," I grunted, "from the wererat Soego."
"Give it to me, and I shall take it to the master. Your services are no longer
required."
A muscle in my cheek twitched. "No, I think I'll take it to him myself."
"You misunderstand..." Mantuok's claws clenched and unclenched, and his
tail began to sway. "It was not a request. Give me the skull. We do not wish
trouble... here of all places, biped. Such troubles even one such as you
would be hard-pressed to deal with."
I looked him straight in the eye. The man-rat towered over the others, his
fur was laced with pitch-black streaks and his armor was first-rate. There
was something dangerous about him, a cunning and terrifying ambition
beyond what a lycanthropic wretch could normally muster. He hated me,
that much I could tell, from the way his gaze seemed to bore holes into my
skull.
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