Born in the Undercity of Zobeck, Slug was one of many ratfolk children struggling to survive in a tangle of damp tunnels, filth, and whispered secrets. The eldest of eight, she spent her early years honing the arts of stealth, thievery, and scouting to keep her younger siblings fed and clothed.

When her parents died during a smuggling job gone wrong, leaving her orphaned at just eight years old, Slug became the pups’ sole protector. The night of her twelfth birthday, however, everything was ripped away from her.

The job had started like any other, observe the target, map their routine, and steal the requested object for her client. Simple. The object was sealed away in the cellar of a noble estate; arcane, ancient, and irrelevant to her. Slug never cared for the trinkets of surface-dwellers. Gold rusts, magic corrupts, but family endures.

She slipped in through a storm drain, ghosted past guards, and picked the lock with her carved fishbone. As she stepped into the cellar, her murky, moss-hued fur bristled. Something whispered to her from inside the chest. It called, seductive and hungry. It was snuggly cradled in spidersilk wrappings, a soft white glow bleeding through the gaps in the fabric. Her bone-yellow claws trembled as she reached in. The moment she touched it, the world vanished into black.

Consciousness came slowly. First, sound.

Drip. Drip. Drip.

Then, sight.

Her amber eyes opened to horror, darting from one sibling to the next. Dead. They were all dead. Their bodies lay broken and strewn around her, their blood staining her fur, her blades.

Vat was crumpled in the corner; his small body curled around his exposed entrails. Maggot lay just at her feet, nearly decapitated by the brutal, jagged cut across her throat. Slug tried to close her eyes, tried not to see. But the horror persisted.

Drip. Drip. Drip.

Scab and Blister were entwined in the middle of the room, with Scab coiled protectively around his sister. The blood and viscera made their ravaged bodies appear melded together. Mere feet away lay Grime, face down in a growing pool of blood. Slug could see splintered parts of her battered spine jutting from her bloodied back.

Drip. Drip. Drip.

Cricket was nearly unrecognizable, her small face flayed to ribbons. Still clutched in her paws was her treasured blanket, Rags. Once a creamy yellow, it was now a deep maroon, irrevocably stained. Rot was slumped in the corner, his face frozen in a mask of utter terror. His eyes, carelessly torn from their sockets, sat next to his tail. One eye had been crushed; its inner fluids splattered on the concrete.

Drip. Drip. Drip.

Slug was quivering, locked in place by the seemingly endless, rhythmic dripping. It had a hypnotic effect on her, further clouding her already foggy mind. To escape this hell, she forcefully bit down hard on her lower lip, drawing blood. The physical pain freed her at last.

Slug unclenched her paws, dropping the blades cause the dripping to cease. The full weight of what she had seen, what she had done hit her all at once. Her throat tore with a scream that never came. She ran. Blinded by grief, guilt, and shame. Why, why, why, why? It was **the one question she carried with her into the dark.

Now, nearly a year later, Slug is a suspicious and cautious creature, her soul stained with the trauma of that night. She gathers intel before striking, trusting shadows more than people. She barters when she can, deals in coin when she must, but always keeps her distance. Her heart belongs to ghosts.

In the pouches beneath her patchwork cloak lie her greatest treasures, the trinkets of her siblings.

Maggot’s green button. Cricket’s rusted screw. Scab’s sewing needle. Blister’s gear. Rot’s copper pin. Grime’s yellow ribbon. Vat’s broken spoon.