Last time on Ratcatcher, office politics! Ratcatcher lost in social combat to a mortal. He did not immoliate himself in shame for some reason, and now he’s in Nexus.

Ratcatcher loved the docks of Nexus.

This is why I shouldn’t really be in charge of Abyssal characters, because it’d be a nonstop resonance fest. Stop fanboying the living world, Ratcatcher! It makes the neverborn ragey. We get the usual description of a bustling fantasy city. It’s really generic – Nexus has a number of interesting quirks, like how slavery is technically illegal within the city’s borders, so traders have this complex runaround to sell them, but all this book does is mention there’s slaves there.

Independent traders were forced to the older, run-down piers at the end of the waterfront, and often their cargoes met with “accidents” unless the Guild-backed labor gangs that unloaded those ships were paid off.

Furthermore…Nexus’ core rules are to protect the city’s functioning as a trading hub. They have six constant laws where violating any of them lead to the insanely powerful thing that rules Nexus showing up to murder you, and one of those is that you can’t obstruct trade. The strangest thing about this is that a few lines later the author remembers this factoid:

Smaller trade associations were less lucky. Their ships often foundered mysteriously-not near Nexus itself, where trade was sacred, and interference with it brought death – but upriver, or off the coast

Because destroying cargo isn’t obstructing trade, just the ships themselves, I guess.

Ratcatcher says he’s left the horse, scary armor and scary hounds with some woman who serves the Prince as well.

She’d offered him her body as well, but he’dspumed her. She was not uncomely, but his thoughts were all for the hunt, and willing prey did not appeal to him.

Also sleeping with people makes the neverborn smack you with resonance. They’re anti-life and therefore anti-sex. This kind of thing is a large part of why resonance rules were changed so much between editions. First edition Abyssals could just go hang out at a brothel until the sheer outrage of the neverborn exploded their surroundings.

Anyway, Ratcatcher paid for passage on a boat like a chump. Then he wanders around asking people questions like a bigger chump. So first he asks about Malaky, and he’s told to go ask some guy, because that guy might know his guy, and then an eight year old offers to help him out.

Find me either one of them and I’ll pay you.” Ratcatcher attempted a winning smile, then realized what effect this might have in conjunction with his mask and settled for a carefully neutral expression.
“Wrong.”
“Oh?” He drew back in surprise.
“First you’ll pay me, then I’ll find those men for you.” Her tone was flat, brooking no argument.
Ratcatcher laughed. “The Guild doesn’t know what it’s missing without you, girl. Fair enough, a coin to you to find my men, and another to buy your silence. Do we have a bargain?”

Ratcatcher first loses social combat to a mortal, and now to a mortal kid. Next up, I suppose a baby will steal his candy.

Incidentally, Ratcatcher is paying all this with pieces of jade. Jade is the setting’s gold. The smallest legal unit of jade, the obal, is a year’s wages for a regular person. The smallest illegal unit is to cut a obal into four smaller pieces, so, now a fourth of a year’s wages.

Or in short, you don’t pay urchins with any size of jade.

Also, way to fuck up Ratcatcher. Is there any better way to ensure everyone will know you were here than to offer to pay double if she doesn’t talk?

Can this get dumber? Yes.

Who do you want me to find?“
“Greenstone,” Ratcatcher said, satisfied, “and a Guild factor named Malaky.”
The wagon finally rolled past, and she laughed. “Greenstone? You are new here. That’s him,” she said, and pointed to a figure in the near distance, haranguing a dockside foreman. Still laughing, she fled, and vanished into the crowd.
Ratcatcher debated going after her, but decided against it. She’d given him what he’d paid for, after all

Let’s just take a moment to bask in this.

It’s really not bad writing – amusing, even. It’s just not what this particular book should involve. When I want to read about unstoppable god-kings warping the world with every step, I don’t want to read about some dofus losing a battle of wits with a little kid, let alone one who then says he won’t even try to get revenge because hey, no real loss. What the fuck is the point of being a scary Abyssal if you’re not going to murder a little kid for fucking with you?

And now he’s going to go talk to an adult, because obviously he can totally manage this.

Ratcatcher caught up with him. “Your pardon, sir, a moment of your time ?”

I…

That is Abyssal diplomacy.

The man, Greenstone, has the distinction of being the second ugly character to my reckoning. His description is far different than the girl earlier, though:

He was an ugly man, with a square face that someone had introduced to a knife a long time ago. His left ankle bulged in his boot, and Ratcatcher surmised that it had been broken and set poorly. His hair was raggedly cut, but rings of gold and jade gleamed on his fingers.

That is, his description means something. This is a man who gets into fights, including nasty ones, and probably came out on top given he’s still here.

Anyway, Greenstone tells Ratcatcher that if he wants to be hired this isn’t the place or day for it and turns to go, because people can tell at a glance that Ratcatcher is someone to blow off.

“You misunderstand me, sir,” Ratcatcher continued, and reached out to catch the man’s elbow. He whirled, and suddenly a dozen thugs with knives, wooden clubs and the odd belaying pin materialized out of the crowd. They formed a circle around Ratcatcher and Greenstone, and the rest of the traffic flowed around them.
“Don’t touch me,” Greenstone said quietly. “You never touch me.”
“I most humbly apologize,” Ratcatcher replied, releasing the man’s garment and taking a step back.

That isn’t sarcasm. Ratcatcher continues to grovel, then pays half what he has left to the guy for the right to ask him a question. In return, the guy tells him that he knows of Malaky, and to find him, Ratcatcher should go find yet another guy who he’s friends with.

Ratcatcher bowed his head a fraction of an inch. “I thank you for your assistance-”
Greenstone waved him off. “You thank me for not having you dumped in the river. Now if you ever have another question for me, rethink it and find someone else to ask. We’re done.”

Ratcatcher doesn’t even blink, just skips off to find this other guy. Ratcatcher sucks so, so much.

The guy, Stone Turtle, is just a fantasy mobster thug, whose job includes tying barrels full of rocks to the ankles of those who displeased his employers.

Ratcatcher, for some reason, decides to be coy. Okay, the reason’s obvious, it’s padding.

“I’m told you’re a man who knows things,” Ratcatcher said, and squatted on his haunches in the barrels’ shadow.
“I’m a man interested in learning things.”
“Hunh. Whoever told you that was having fun with you.” Stone Turtle’s voice was deep and slow, as if it came up from the bottom of the river itself. ‘‘I ain’t interested in knowing a damn thing except which barge gets loaded next.”
“Hmm. That’s strange, a man who called himself Greenstone told me that you’d be the man to talk to for what I want to know.”

Pad pad pad. Then finally he mentions the name, and Stone Turtle gets all upset and we waste more paragraphs on some misunderstandings and then finally he explains that he seriously just wants to find the damn guy and he’s not there about any illegal things they may or may not have been doing, and then there’s a length bribery bit, and, shockingly, Stone Turtle actually coughs up a location instead of sending him to go find someone else. So Ratcatcher sets out for a tavern.

Ratcatcher’s life sucks, so the tavern is vile. Also, there’s a slave working there, despite the fact there’s no slaves in Nexus.

For an instant he pondered shouting “Is Malaky here ?” and waiting for his target to flee in panic, but as amusing as the resultant brawl would no doubt be, there was no guarantee that his target would not wind up accidentally perforated in the fracas. Reluctantly, he abandoned the notion

Once again the book mocks us. Instead, it’s time for more mortals fucking with Ratcatcher.

“Hah. You look the type. Try the Distinctive Jade Garden, or if you’re low on cash, the Turning Mirror down by the waterfront. If you’re pretty enough under that mask, you might even make some coin there. But we don’t deal in that here.”

And it goes on and on like that. This doesn’t even fit canonically – homosexuality isn’t a big deal, and therefore exists outside of prostitution, and therefore there shouldn’t be long, contrived conversations revolving around how you think someone’s gay and looking for hire someone for fucking.

Then it gets irritating.

Ratcatcher took her hand in his and squeezed. She was not a weak woman, and the calluses on her fingers spoke to many years of holding a sword, but her efforts were like that of a child trying to break free from his father’s stem grip. She whimpered once, and looked up to meet Ratcatcher’s eyes. He shook his head slightly, then raised his other hand to his lips. “Shhh,” he said. “Say anything, and I’ll squeeze tighter. Now, take your other hand and point out Malaky to me. When you do, I’ll let you go and leave a very nice handful of money on the counter for your trouble. If you shout, scream, or try to stab me in the back, I’ll kill you. If you tell anyone that I was here looking for Malaky, I’ll come back and kill you. And if you serve me a mug of beer that you’ve spat in, just to prove how marvelously brave you really are, I’ll burn this place down around your ears with you and all of your customers inside. Nod if we have an understanding.”
Slowly, she nodded. Tears formed at the comers of her eyes.

This is how Abyssals should be acting. So I can’t fault that, exactly. But Ratcatcher has been taking lip from people all day. He doesn’t do this to the men who are being far more obnoxious. Perhaps it’s just that his patience has worn out, but between that and comparing her to a child trying to get lose, and the bit about tears? Bad implications all around. He bows and scrapes to the men yet intimidates the woman.

The woman is, naturally, duly awed and asks what the fuck he is, setting Ratcatcher up for some dramatic posturing.

“A slave,” he answered more or less truthfully. “And a man who is very impatient for his beer. If there are no further questions. ..” He let his voice trail off meaningfully.

Haha, Abyssals and their drama.

Whether or not “a slave” is a good answer depends on how you view canon.

The Abyssals are very much bound to the neverborn, and things are set up so they can’t really rebel – aiding the living just lets the neverborn focus their hate on that location. The most an Abyssal can do is play hookey, hanging out in the underworld and maybe trying to mess with plans and things down there. But the Abyssals, by nature of exaltation, are not the sort of things you can keep as slaves or expect to follow orders long – canon makes it clear they’ll outpace their current masters, the deathlords, in short order and may even end up bypassing the neverborn to become direct avatars of oblivion itself. Solars do everything better than you, so when applied to Abyssals, it’s not a stretch for them to end up being better at neverborn void stuff than the neverborn themselves. The situation Ratcatcher finds himself in should never happen.

So anyway. Ratcatcher goes to sit with Malaky, who’s drunk but not so drunk he’s stupid. “Nobody ever buys a drink for me unless they want something. What do you want from me, eh? Indeed, Malaky, indeed.

Ratcatcher says he just wants info. About a dagger. Much rambling happens but at length, Malaky says he sold it to some other Guild guy, and tells him how to find out about the route.

We end the chapter with Ratcatcher leaving and talk of the things he did on his way out, which are a mix of baffling and lame.

Greenstone was left unscathed, but strode forth from his home in the morning to find a pouch of severed ears pinned to his door with his bodyguard’s knife. Neither the bodyguard nor the owners of the other ears in the pouch were ever found.
Ratcatcher also left a small pouch of jade with a street runner with instructions to get it to Bright Amber by morning or else face the wrath of the river dead. Unsurprisingly, the jade was in the girl’s hands by sunrise.
Unseen, he left a bottle of fine wine on a certain table by the fire at Threecreeks, which Malaky the factor passed around the house so that others might toast his generosity. Everyone who drank of it spent the next hour emptying their guts on the tavern floor, and word spread that Threecreeks’ wine was not to be trusted. It closed a fortnight later.

Why doesn’t he just kill Greenstone? Why doesn’t he fatally poison the wine? Why is he apparently angrier about the bartender than Greenstone? What the hell’s up with giving the street kid more money? Who knows.