Wishrats: A brief introduction

Long before primates developed flat feet, another civilization rose to rule Earth. They still do. There is a species of rodent who saw the sun set on the saurian empire. In the gaping space left by terrible lizards, these rodents built empires of their own. They played out epics, often parallel to human histories, often not even close. They tugged at the tension between competition and cooperation, learning how to transition from warring ecosystem to a social superorganism. They succeeded halfway, by defeating scarcity. But even among people who wanted for nothing, there developed disparate values, unable to reconcile. And so, the empire fractured into dozens of different groups, and scattered to lead half-separate lives. Some grew living ships to colonize sea and space. Some dug hidden cities in cave and soil. Some returned to live as animals, wild, truly unruled. And some opted to use their limitless power and freedom to give it forward, make life better for the beings still bound by biology and pain. Among the last group, a few determined to place their focus on humans. Aquatically adapted, they took up residence in human-dug wells, scraping out humble homes for themselves. Over time, they built a network of wells, all connected by canals in a web. They used advanced technology to rearrange space, making the distance between wells smaller and expanding dry areas to create cities, hubs. All of this was toward one end: that the engineers could effectively work together to make life better for the humans that visited their wells. Their world finished, all that was left was to listen, and grant. These space-shaping heroes took on the colloquial title Wishrats. At least, that's how every human I've encountered refers to them, when she knows they exist. They still live there, in wells, the reason they are sometimes called wishing wells. In recent decades, they have expanded their domain to fountains and water towers, and even the modern plastic black hole Wishing Wells you find in museums. Still, the classic well is their heart-home, and you're most likely to find a wishrat there if you need their aid. Don't go looking for them. Their cloaking technology is far too good to let them be found by accident. But if you have a need or an earnest dream, bring something of value to the well. Tell it your desire. Let it go. And you may just receive the aid of a hundred unseen paws.