Unknown to the rats who lived in this Sub-Space, a dimensional crack had now fully bridged two different systems, two separate worlds. The humans had already invaded.
It was highly unlikely, the rats concluded. Even with reports of anomalies occurring, no human had managed to enter the dimensional crack. Not even once in the thousand years since its existence. The rats could come and go as they pleased, but the humans on the other side couldn't.
This was why the city of Eryndorath fell. Now called Dolmurath, the Eternal Tomb-City, it had collapsed under the combined weight of many monster invasions. The rats had learned they weren't the only ones to invade this space hundreds of years ago. There were many others on different floors. This floor that they occupied, the first floor, had been the easiest to conquer.
It was also why they made no effort to post sentries at the dimensional crack, the gateway to another world. They believed humans couldn't possibly come here. They couldn't then, so they couldn't now. Such was their thinking, dismissive and built on legends passed down through generations rather than proof.
Still, the recent disturbances lingered at the back of their minds. Just in case this was something worth worrying about.
---
Meanwhile in the cave, the four people were busy making plans. They had seen enough to understand what they were working with. Now it was time to return to the labyrinth, to tell the others and check on them.
Benny voiced what they were all thinking. "We should return soon. We've seen enough and proved enough that this is all true. The water is real. The fruits, or whatever they were, can be eaten. And other beasts exist here too. Just like our world, this place has wildlife and sophistication from intelligent monsters."
Gustav agreed. They had also learned that the mutated rats they encountered in the cave seemed to be the lower tier, the bottom rung of the hierarchy of this place. They were expendable, and their loss wouldn't affect the greater collective.
Then there were the rat people. The higher tier walked upright on two legs like humans. They had sophisticated language, culture, and most importantly, military organization. That was the most threatening thing about these creatures. They weren't just wild, untamed monsters, they initially thought. They were sophisticated, organized, and dangerous.
Ripler sighed, his worries different from the others. "I wish I could fight those strong-looking rats."
Meredith felt her stomach turn. Those things moved and acted too much like humans for her comfort, even if they didn't look like them.
"So what have we actually learned?" Gustav asked, more to organize his own thoughts than anything else.
Benny counted off on his fingers. "That I'm not crazy. That this place is real. That we can survive here if we need to."
"That these rats have a whole kingdom," Meredith added quietly.
"And that the labyrinth is stranger than any of us thought," Gustav finished. "If this floor has a Sub-Space like this, do the others have it too? I mean the labyrinths we explored before, did they have these too and we just never found them?"
It was a sobering thought. Benny, despite being the newest to dungeon exploration, had stumbled onto something the veterans had missed. The horrible circumstances of his discovery didn't change the fact that he'd survived something none of them had encountered before.
They looked at him differently now. Less like a coward who got lucky, more like someone who'd earned his place.
"We should return home tomorrow if all goes well," Benny said. "After that, maybe we should check the second floor. See if there's another space like this one."
"Then let's rest for now," Ripler said. "After we hunt that wild fowl again."
His excitement was almost childlike. The meat they'd caught earlier tasted like the domesticated poultry from his hometown, nothing like the rat, scorpion, and rabbit they'd been choking down for weeks. For a moment, he wasn't the arrogant fighter who looked down on others. He was just a man remembering home.
It didn't last long. His usual demeanor crept back in soon enough. But they'd seen the crack in his armor, and that changed things.
Meredith, meanwhile, felt something she hadn't felt in weeks. Genuine happiness. Not relief, not desperation, but actual contentment. A couple of weeks ago, learning they might never return to the surface had nearly broken her. Now? She'd made her peace with it. Dwelling on something you couldn't change, no matter how hard you tried, was just another way to die.
After their brief hunt, they returned to the deepest part of the cave. The depth ensured that the light and smoke from their campfire wouldn't be noticed by those overly sensitive rats.
---
But their invasion had not gone as unnoticed as they believed.
While the Orders of the Rustedtails stood proud and visible, defenders of the brood and champions of plague, there were others who served the kingdom differently. The Intolerance Division operated in the shadow, where the knights would not tread. They were investigators, spies, assassins and hunters of threats too subtle for military minds to comprehend.
Where most of the Rustedtails leadership were too dismissed of the slave rumors as delusion, the Intolerance Division investigated. Where the knights trusted in legend and tradition, the Division trusted in evidence and paranoia.
Captain Vrek of the Intolerance Division was one such paranoid creature.
His squad had scoured the kingdom looking for signs of intrusion. They'd found nothing concrete. Just traces. Disturbances. The kind of evidence that meant everything or nothing depending on how you looked at it.
He was about to file his report when the feeling hit him. That nagging sensation in the back of his skull that had kept him alive through two decades of hunting threats in the dark. This was something more than it appeared. He knew it in his bones.
But knowing and proving were different things. He needed evidence. He needed confirmation.
"Position a vanguard at the dimensional crack," he ordered his second-in-command. "I want eyes on it at all times. Every shift changes, every unusual movement, every strange smell. I want daily reports on everything, no matter how insignificant it seems."
"Sir, the crack has been inactive for centuries. The legends say—"
"I don't care what legends say." Vrek's tail twitched with irritation. "I care about what my instincts say. And they say something is wrong."
His subordinate saluted and left to carry out the orders.
Vrek stared at the parchment on his desk, at the scattered reports of anomalies that individually meant nothing. But together? Together they formed a pattern.
Soon, he would have his proof. And when he did, the revelation would change everything.
The rat kingdom had grown complacent in their thousand years of safety. They were about to learn that complacency was a luxury they could no longer afford.