Cestié looks on where you point and listens to your concern. He frowns. He had enough reason to hate the rats before you came into his life; and with you came more. The conversation with his father the night before has only added to it.

"We... can spare a moment to kill a rat - ... but perhaps we shouldn't. We can't afford to fight a whole... a whole swarm of them. You're good, Taalia, but..."

But a bit of bad luck could change a lot of outcomes, whatever he was going to say behind pursed lips. You, however, know it's vanishingly unlikely that there is a great many rats here. The skaven hate the surface. They are paranoid backstabbers and they feel afraid and exposed on the surface - much better in a nice hole in the ground where you can put your back to a wall and point your eyes facing out. If there are skaven dwelling up here long term, there cannot be many - perhaps an outcast or two, like Rashabang was destined to be for the short interim between his escape from the assassins and his capture by the humans of Verezzo.

Cestié thinks you can spare time for the diversion - the thieves guild isn't going anywhere in the next few minutes - but mostly it comes down to how confident you are wading armpit deep into a watery ruin which probably contains a hostile little rat monster.

Is your desire for safety stronger than your hate for the creatures?