RB liked things that caught the light. He did not recognize the distinction between an abandoned washer and the screw keeping an infirmary cupboard off the floor. Frank had spent twenty years explaining such distinctions to workers with full sets of fingers. He had not expected to start again with an animal that had exposed ribs and no interest in departmental property rules.
That morning the equipment cupboard outside the infirmary stood open by a finger's width. Three hinge screws had been laid neatly beside Frank's cart. RB was braced against the lowest shelf, trying to loosen a fourth, with the devoted attention of a tradesman who believed he'd finally been given the proper job.
"Leave that where it is," Frank said, crouching to get the rat's attention.
RB stopped turning the screw. It had worked the fastener nearly free, and Frank could see the bright edge caught between two of its toes.
"I know it's shiny. It's also holding the door on. If you want to dismantle something, I've got a bucket of broken things you can take apart. This door has to open tomorrow."
The hinge went back together. Frank tested the door twice, then wrote himself a note to bring a matching screw. RB watched from the cart as though waiting for his next assignment. Frank made him sit in the dry parts tray while he worked; a rat that could dismantle a cupboard could also get crushed when the cupboard came down.
A young goblin crossing the corridor with a basket of tiles had stopped to watch. "Does he actually understand what you're saying?"
"Sometimes I think so," Frank said. "Sometimes I think he just likes the sound of somebody else getting blamed."
"Could you teach mine? My little brother's got a rat in his room that keeps chewing his boots."
Frank considered the question while RB tried to slide a fallen screw under the cart wheel. "I wouldn't start with boots. He's got expensive taste already."
The goblin laughed and continued down the hall, stepping around a wet patch beside the infirmary wash station. Frank caught the movement and went to see whether the leak had reached the grout he repaired last winter.
Frank moved on to the valve. It belonged to an old wash station outside the third-floor infirmary, where staff washed up before entering the treatment rooms. The valve had stuck half open after somebody used the spout as a foothold. Water ran constantly into a floor trench. The trench was designed for spills, not full-time drainage, and a line of pale mineral residue traced the route the overflow had taken through the mortar.
Sella was bandaging a laundry worker's hand when Frank arrived. A kitchen worker with a burn on her neck sat close to the exit while her sister held a muddy bag in her lap. Sella glanced at the dripping valve and returned to the bandage without taking her fingers off it. Frank could see the order of importance without asking: stop the leak, yes, but don't crowd the people who'd come to the infirmary to be treated.
"Can you take the water off from behind the wall?" Sella asked. "I need this basin for the next group, and they aren't going to stop bleeding because Maintenance sent me a delay notice."
"I can isolate that branch. The valve housing's split, though, and if the thread's damaged it'll take a little longer."
Sella looked at the man's hand, then at the open doorway where another patient was waiting. "Twelve minutes is what I can give you before I have to wash instruments somewhere else. If you need more, tell me soon enough to move people, not when they're lined up."
"You hear the shutoff, you keep the patients clear until I call it back. I can manage the rest."
She nodded and went back to securing the bandage. The laundry worker, who had been listening, asked whether it mattered if the wash station was cursed. Sella told him a broken valve didn't need magic to be dangerous and asked him to keep his fingers still.
Frank isolated the wash station, caught the loose parts in a tray and found the retaining ring split almost through. His personal spare tin held the old size that Stores no longer stocked.
On the other side of the wall the burned kitchen worker tried not to cry out while Sella cleaned her neck. Frank caught a glimpse of her shoulders drawing tight and turned back to the valve. The wash station mattered because the room was full of people who needed to use it. No work ticket said that as clearly as the noises behind him.
RB followed the dry lip of the trench, pausing when his injured foot caught on uneven mortar. The salve from Monster Operations had eased some swelling, but it hadn't replaced a tuft of fur or covered the patches of bone along his ribs. Frank would have noticed if it had. He made a mental note to put a strip of timber across that rough spot before somebody else tore a foot open.
RB disappeared behind the wash station and came out dragging a metal object nearly as long as his body. It was a silver ring set with a dull green stone. A hooked tooth hung from the inside, and the band was smeared with the black residue Frank associated with curse-treated metal.
"Put that down, if you don't mind," Frank said, reaching for the tongs. The rat dropped the ring beside his good foot and watched as Frank eased it into a ceramic dish, dark residue and all.
Sella looked over from her table. "That came out from behind my sink?"
"Looks as though it did. I haven't touched it. There's something on the band I'd rather not get between my fingers."
"Leave it away from the instruments," she said. "We had a visitor's confiscated ring sent here for an injury report yesterday. It had swollen around a man's finger so badly the visitor-side healers couldn't remove it without cutting the band. Nobody's told me why it ended up behind our sink. Take it to Lost Property and tell them it needs inspection before anybody puts it on again."
"Blood-binding?"
"That's what the injured man called it. He still wanted to put it right back on."
Frank seated the new retaining ring, cycled the valve, and waited for Sella to check the other side of the wall. The water stopped properly when he closed it. The kitchen worker with the burn had shifted from the chair to the nearest cot, so Sella asked Frank to bring the dirty bucket around by the outer passage rather than pass it behind her patient's head. He did, aware that even a well-repaired pipe could still be in the wrong place while somebody was frightened and hurting.
When Sella signed the repair ticket, the burned kitchen worker caught sight of Frank’s bare fingers and recoiled. He kept his tools close to his apron, well away from the cot, while her sister thanked him for clearing the passage. Sella had an empty basin again, which was the part of the encounter he intended to report.
In the corridor outside, RB ran ahead several paces to inspect the join under the wall. Then he returned to Frank's side and resumed the same slow walking rhythm without being called.
Near the loading stairs, a squabble in the public departure bay had blocked the collection hatch. Two adventurers insisted the same shield belonged to them, while their injured companion sat on a crate, trying to fasten a broken boot. Frank waited behind the staff-side mesh. By the time the pair remembered their companion, the departure clerk was recording the hold-up as a traffic delay.
Frank waited for the retrieval cart with RB perched on its handle. A bronze buckle had fallen between the boards on the public side. The rat could see it, but the locked mesh kept him from reaching it, and Frank had no reason to open the hatch while visitors were still disputing their equipment.
"Leave it," Frank told him quietly. "It's still attached to somebody's troubles."
A clerk monitoring the public-side exit signaled the injured woman toward her own party's healer and the departure route. He recorded the discarded buckle as lost equipment for Security, without crossing the collection hatch. Frank recognized the same exhausting arguments whenever a worker lost a tool and two departments had to decide who would log it. The woman picked up the buckle and tucked it into her pack rather than abandon it.
Only after the gate closed and Dispatch confirmed the bay empty did Frank take the staff route through the collection area. RB waited by his boot instead of slipping into the public side. Whatever excitement the rat had found in the argument, Frank was pleased to leave it to the people being paid to settle claims.
"If you're bringing another loose object, I'll need a moment," Latch called from beneath a storage rack. "Someone signed in a boot after the shelves were counted, and now every report I've filed today is going to be wrong unless I find out which one."
Frank set the ceramic dish well away from the ordinary returns basket. "Found this behind the infirmary sink. Sella says it's a blood-binding ring. I wouldn't let anyone try it on until somebody who knows curses has checked it."
Latch emerged from beneath the rack. He left the boot where it lay when he saw the ring. "Don't put that on the wood. The glaze on the dish will hold it, but I need a sealed-effects form before it's moved again."
He fetched a lidded box, lined it with protective cloth and made Frank wait while he wrote out the recovery details. Frank might have been impatient if the handling rules hadn't existed for the same reason he wore gloves around strange chemicals. People had a habit of treating an item as harmless once it was sitting on a shelf.
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"If nobody claims it, the dungeon takes it after the holding period," Latch explained when Frank asked about the recovery credit. "The department that registers the item gets the fee. That doesn't mean your familiar can keep things he finds in the meantime."
"I don't want a cursed ring in my room," Frank said. "What I'm trying to find out is whether I can turn in harmless scrap without having to bring him here every time he digs a washer out of a wall."
Latch gave RB a wary look. The rat had climbed a low shelf and was studying a row of brass tokens like a shopper comparing prices. "If he's under your registration, his finds can go against your account. But the route matters. Staff quarters, restricted vaults, treasure rooms, sealed effects. There are places I don't want a rat entering just because he's small enough."
"Neither do I. He doesn't know the difference between somebody dropping a screw and somebody setting it down. I'm working on that."
"Make him a returns basket. And if he carries off a token, I still have to write it up as missing. I can't simply believe you meant to bring it back."
Latch brought out a packet of numbered tags and showed Frank how to tie one to an object without damaging it. He tried to make RB part of the demonstration; RB stole a tag while Latch was speaking and had to be persuaded to return it. Latch kept his irritation to himself until the rat was safely back on the floor, then said, "I'll expect you to come in with the whole packet tomorrow, Frank. Not half a packet and an explanation about the other half."
"I'll do my best," Frank replied.
That afternoon Frank reset a handrail and two floor grates near the infirmary stair. The cart driver who kept catching a wheel on the rail stayed to test the turn. When the cart cleared by an inch, she asked if that would still be true with a full load. Frank admitted he hadn't tested one. They agreed to leave the floor marking provisional until her next delivery, rather than certify a result they hadn't measured.
On the next test, the cart cleared the handrail only when the driver started near the inside wall. She wanted a guide mark for new drivers, but ordinary tape would stick to wet boots and peel up during cleaning. They agreed to ask Moss for a permanent marker after a fully loaded test. Until then, the turn remained a known constraint, not a completed improvement.
RB fetched a fallen bolt from beneath a cabinet and later carried out a piece of glass from a gap in the stone. Frank wrapped the sharp edge and let him keep the harmless fragment in his box, on the condition that it stayed out of anything that might be mistaken for an approved parts tray.
Moss was counting returned tickets when Frank returned with RB. She glanced at the rat before looking at his papers. "Has he found anything today that belongs to you?"
"Bad spring yesterday, cabinet screws today, and a cursed ring behind Sella's sink," Frank said. "None of those belonged to me, come to think of it."
"Not what I asked." Moss's mouth twitched. "I wanted to know what he's cost you."
Frank considered the buttons, the extra journeys to Lost Property and the time he'd spent keeping RB away from working hinges. "Ask me next week. I'm still counting."
“Better than some apprentices,” Moss said. She went back to her sheets without waiting for a laugh. Twenty-four XP had posted for the day's accepted repairs, but Frank looked at RB's hind leg before he looked at the running total. The animal had managed the entire route, which told him more about the salve than the system was likely to.
On the back of his work slip, Personnel had printed a reminder that the new bound trainee, Bob, remained in orientation. Frank had been asked to confirm the man understood the staff/public boundary. Below the request, in a separate hand, someone had written: HE HAS ASKED WHAT A BOUNDARY IS FOUR TIMES. Frank initialed the note and filed it for tomorrow.
At home, RB had put the bent nail in his box and was resting with his bad foot tucked beneath him. Frank hung his apron on the chair and found the worn hinge screw resting against the rat's rag. He held it up.
STATUS WINDOW
Name
RB (Rat Bastard)
STATS
Shiny Things
11 (ﾉ◕ヮ◕)ﾉ*:･ﾟ✧
Confiscated by Frank
-1 (ノಠ益ಠ)ノ彡┻━┻
Collected
+6 ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)
Hidden
3 ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Missing Somehow
2 (ಥ_ಥ)
Found
+1 ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)
Familiar
Frank
"So that's where the old one went. I was wondering how you got into my scrap tray."
RB stared back without apology. Frank went to return the screw, then changed his mind and took out two shallow tin lids instead. He put an intact washer in one and a nut with a split running through its threads in the other. There was no point making a lecture out of it. He let RB examine both, moved the usable part to the first lid and the scrap to the second, and watched what happened.
RB lifted the cracked nut, rolled it between his paws and deposited it beside the sound washer. Frank moved it back, showed him the split threads once more and left the lids within reach. After a while the rat pushed the usable washer toward him, then returned to his box for the bent nail and dropped it with the scrap. That was encouraging, although Frank had no idea whether he'd taught the animal anything or merely watched it sort objects according to a rule of its own.
He left the experiment on the floor while he put his tools away. RB would have to share the quarters with him, and there was nothing to be gained by spending the whole evening correcting a creature who couldn't explain his choices. Frank did lock the toolbox. Tomorrow he would need that screwdriver, and he wasn't keen on discovering which part of the chair a rat could dismantle with it.
Frank fetched the salve and sat on the floor beside the chair. RB backed into his box when the lid came off. The wound was still there; the treatment had made only a modest difference. Frank set the tin between them and waited. He was good at forcing stuck mechanisms loose. That didn't mean every problem improved when he pulled harder.
"You can have the box," he told him. "I only need to look at the leg."
The rat did not come out. Frank could reach him easily enough, but the ankle had been pinched badly by the wire in the drain, and he had no intention of making the animal afraid of every hand that came near it. He returned to the table to sort the salvage tags Latch had given him. There were enough of them for a year's worth of ordinary finds, unless RB took up collecting bottle caps by the sack.
A few minutes later, Frank heard the faint scrape of claws on wood. RB had edged to the opening of his box. The rat planted his good feet firmly, set the injured one down on the rag and looked toward the open tin. Frank knelt again and applied a little of the salve where Nera's instructions said it might help, keeping his fingers clear of the loose skin. RB tolerated the first touch, protested the second, and caught Frank's sleeve with his teeth when he tried to close the tin.
"All right. I've finished," Frank said, freeing the cloth carefully. The rat returned to the box and began examining the treatment with an expression Frank couldn't pretend to interpret.
From the corridor came the rattle of a late supply cart and two workers singing badly enough to make the words impossible to distinguish. Frank usually enjoyed the quiet when he came off shift. He still did, though now there was a second occupant in the room making small, irritating noises with the objects he'd stolen.
When Frank reached for the viewing glass, RB pushed the sound washer into the tin for usable parts. Frank left the screen dark. It might have been coincidence. He couldn't prove he'd taught the rat anything, and for once he didn't need to. He had spent enough of the day watching broken things; this evening he wanted to sit with one that was still learning.