The Door That Would Not Open

The camp gave them names, but it did not give them the stash. The route still ran through the rats. A pack had gathered near a narrow opening, clustered together in a way that made the passage feel less blocked than occupied. The party paused, briefly considering whether there was a better answer than violence. After the sewer had already punished them for rushing, the hesitation made sense. Jonah prepared Ash before they moved, calling protection over him for the next ten minutes. Then Maine started blasting. His Eldritch force tore into the rat cluster, and Blastbelle followed with the solution she understood best: a bomb. Fire and stone burst through the opening, clearing enough of the swarm for the group to push onward. They covered their mouths, held their breath, and moved through sewer water that was not as foul as it might have been, only because Gravenhurst had spent years sending so much waste into the Void. That did not make it pleasant. It only made it passable. Past the water, the tunnels widened into another section of the Rat King-side sewers. Rats moved everywhere with a strange sense of purpose, not attacking outright but hurrying through the space as if serving some larger motion. Blastbelle believed they were close. The old stash was supposed to be near the big rat, and the big rat was clearly nearby. The party tried to avoid it at first. Maine moved carefully, aiming not to disturb the rats. He saw one direction open toward a torn-up nest area, where many rats gathered around a huge shape that looked at first like a sculpture. Then the illusion broke. It was not stone. It was a massive rat-shape made of rats, a hive body crouched over its own refuse and domain. The group chose the other direction. There, at the end of the sewer path, they found what looked like the locked room Blastbelle had been searching for. A hard lock guarded the entrance. If the stash was anywhere, this seemed like the place. Blastbelle tried first. She checked for traps, found none, planted a bomb, and blew the charge. The door did not move. The lock held. Whatever protected this room had been built to withstand more than a casual explosive tantrum. The iron key from the chest did not work either. Dhaz tried his tools next, but the lock resisted him too. It was not simply difficult. It was the wrong problem, the kind of barrier that makes the party realize the missing answer is somewhere else. Blastbelle looked back toward the Rat King's pile. Maybe the key was there. The stash was close enough to touch and still unreachable. The iron key belonged elsewhere. The lock wanted another answer. And the answer was probably under, inside, or behind the huge rat-thing the party had been trying very hard not to fight. The mission had narrowed to one ugly conclusion. To open the stash, they would have to deal with the Rat King.