Once upon a night in Langstay, on a lonely road to the village to Furgleton, Rumfus walked.

Slightly behind him was Mitsy pulling along a cart with five barrels of ale in it, covered by a tan-colored makeshift tarp.

Rumfus had forgotten to deliver his scheduled shipment to The Drab Chair, a Tavern located in Furgleton.

Rumfus had attempted to blame this mishap on Cetrid by saying that Cettrid didn’t write the delivery schedule properly.

He then went on about how Cetrid was going to receive a pay cut for this mistake.

Rumfus doesn’t pay Cetrid to begin with, so this was an empty threat.

Whoever’s fault it was, the ale still needed to be delivered, or else Alwan, the owner of The Drab Chair, was going to be very upset with Rumfus.

This wasn’t the first time that Furgleton had been forgotten about.

As Rumfus walked, he began to hear a bit of a scuffle happening on the road ahead of him.

Rumfus had no torch or lantern lit so as to not draw attention to himself and the cart.

His eyes had adjusted enough to be able to make out the road, but it was too dark to see what was causing the noise that had been getting louder as he continued to walk.

Rumfus had stopped walking as he realized that the noise was coming from someone, or something, on the road ahead of him, but he still could not make it out.

Tiny flames crackled and formed in the air around Rumfus’ hand, he then waved his hand through the air in front of him.

A fire then erupted on the road ahead of Rumfus, enough to light up the area so that he could make out what was happening.

The fire had erupted right in front of a Ratman, who had now fallen backward and then scurried across the ground away from the fire.

Rumfus realized he almost scorched the Ratman.

“Oh, oops, sorry about that, almost toasted ya.”

The Ratman stared at the fire for a moment before turning towards Rumfus.

“Wha… what was That for!?”

Rumfus shrugs.

“It was dark and I heard some noise, I was just trying to see what was going on.”

The Ratman gets up off the ground and starts walking towards Rumfus.

“What is your Problem!?”

Rumfus begins to frown.

“Hey, look, I said I was sorry, just be glad the fire missed you, what were you doing on this road in the middle of the night, anyway?”

The Ratman stops and points towards the fire.

“Missed me?

Yeah, but you set my brother on fire!”

Rumfus leans over and looks at the fire and notices that he, in fact, did light a Ratman on fire.

“Huh… So I did… what were you two doing, sounded like you were fighting or something.”

The Ratman lifts up a hand that has been holding a chunk of bread.

“He was trying to take my chunk of bread…”

Rumfus looks in disgust at the burning corpse.

“Filthy thief… got what he deserves, I say.”

Saddened, the Ratman looks at the bread then at the ground.

“We hadn’t eaten all day… I should have just let him have the damn bread, he’d still be alive if I just let him have the damn dirty bread!”

Rumfus takes a step towards the Ratman.

“Hey, don’t be too hard on yourself… I mean… better him than you, right?”

The Ratman is speechless with grief.

Rumfus begins to walk away.

“Chalk this up to a life lesson, generosity can save lives, farewell.”

The Ratman then fell to his knees and began to sob.

The delivery to The Drab Chair was made and Rumfus stayed for a drink before heading home.

He even left a tip for Alwan, something he never does.

Alwan looked at the number of shillings Rumfus had put down.

“Hey, Rumfus, your count is off, you left me an extra shilling.”

Rumfus looks at Alwan for a moment.

“Keep it.

Who knows, it could save someone’s life.”

Rumfus then turns and walks out of the Tavern.

Alwan shakes his head.

“Cheap prick.”