His gathering of goods for sale… and documents to ensure he was able to handle the DMV properly… was interrupted by something… irritating.
The sound of scurrying feet; larger, dog-sized ones, at least… moving through the basement beneath him. Grey grumbled to himself; he might want to turn this place into a base of operations in the future, and would claim it as his home; god forbid he let it be infested with rats.
A newer, more subtle anger filled his mind as he found the basement door; and readied his new weapon; it might not have infinite ammunition, but it was highly unlikely there were more than ten rats in the basement. After all.. Rats weren’t communal, like the ants were.
He slid open the basement door, looking down into the darkness… surprised that, despite the absolute lack of light, he could still make out the heated forms… dozens of them. All of them at least the size of a man. He grumbled… and shut the door… looking at the floor of his new kitchen.
He could call for backup; or he could just make it himself. He could hear shrieking noises and chittering on the other side of the door as he used a knife to start carving a ritual circle into the hardwood floor; he liked hardwood as much as anyone, but for a kitchen? Something waterproof, please….
By the time he’d finished carving it, the rats were starting to scratch at the door, and he glowered at it with irritation…. Before placing the first Soldier ant corpse on the circle.
When it rose from the floor, he tasked it with holding the door shut… as he proceeded to the next… and the next… until the kitchen was veritably crowded with giant insectoids… and the door into the basement was more gap than wood, having been broken apart both by the rats trying to reach him… and by the ants holding it in place.
He shook his head, leveling the shotgun at one of the gaps… and fired a round of buckshot down the stairs; he didn’t think he’d need the slugs for such light work… and as it turned out, he was right… the creature he hit directly practically exploded; most of the pellets boring straight through it and sinking into the rat behind it.
As he kept the gun leveled on the stairs down, he kept pumping the shotgun, pulling the trigger… what was left of the door breaking apart, and bits of rat splattering everywhere as he kept firing, over and over… a vicious melee as two of the rats tried to fight their way past the blade-faced soldiers.
Congratulations! Title gained!
Rat-Slayer: +10% damage against rats.
* As you already have a ‘Slayer’ title at rank 3, your existing ‘Intimidating Shout’ has now been upgraded, and can work on rats if you choose.
By the time he ran out of shells, most of the rats in the basement itself were gone, he’d received a new title popup… but he could see that his new home’s basement was connected to some larger tunnel, some underground cavern… from which he could hear even more chittering and screeching. More rats. Lovely.
He looked at the soldiers… “You. Go guard the entryway from that cave into the basement.” and of course, they trundled along… forming a phalanx much like they would in life, armored, bladed heads forming a wall at the entrance… even as he could hear chittering rats moving in.
He reloaded the shotgun, and considered his options. If he called for backup, its quite possible the Chosen might arrive. But from the sound of things, there might be a hundred rats, or even more in there… how had they gotten so high level so quickly? Who were they killing and eating?
He could likely hit level 7 fighting them, if he played it smart.
He backed into the kitchen… and started dumping out piles of the more intact worker ant corpses. He couldn’t keep them under his control; but they’d tend to obey whatever his last order, right? And preferred killing living things over other undead? So… easy enough.
He laid a pile of six of them; the most he could do at once of the smaller, level 1 ants; and glanced down at the Soldiers. He couldn’t command any others while they were still under his sway.
“Back up. Let them into the basement… and then kill any who come in.”
He waited… and after the first handful of Ants entered the room below him, and started fighting his pets… he brought the first batch of workers out.
“Join the soldiers. Kill any rats you can, and keep going.”
He had plenty of stamina; the free points hadn’t brought him back to a level 6 human level, but he had less power.. And more ability to re-use his spells… than a normal Serpentkin. Still… summoning undead was taxing. He’d either need to take it slow, doing one at a time, or give it a break for a good while before doing the next.
And so… he decided to take it slow. Keep pace with his recovery… summoning one ant at a time, sending it down… and while he was recovering, he could use the shotgun. Take out any large concentrations of rats.
***
He received a new pair of notifications as he kept working; the Rat-Slayer II upgrade was convenient; his shells would be even more effective. What was more interesting was the other upgrade;
Congratulations! Title Upgraded!
Ranged Slayer II: +15% range for ranged weapons, +10% damage for ranged weapons, +50% collection range for Mana acquired while using a ranged weapon.
By then, the basement was absolutely filled with both rat and ant corpses.. not much later, when he was considering what he might need to do to handle things with so few shells left, he was rudely interrupted… by what, at first, he was worried was even more rats coming in from behind.
Instead… two El Paso police department officers, with AR-15s, were standing in his kitchen, looking first at him… and then into the basement, one of them shining a flashlight into the mass of bloodshed downstairs. They were wearing tactical vests, full body-armor… and seemed half frozen as he emptied the shotgun once again; beating back another pack of rats that had overcome the mass of undead ants in the basement.
“Good day, gentlemen. Welcome to my home. I’d offer something more welcoming, but I seem to have a rat problem. At first, I’d thought the first one came through the window… but I suppose not. No clue what got the window at this point.”
If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.
As the ants pushed the pile of corpses, forming an improvised wall, he started to reload, pressing another handful of shells into the shotgun.
One of the cops stared at it for a moment, then at him. “...Mister Grey? Is that… is that you?”
He looked at the man, pausing in mid-reload. “...I’m sorry, but I can’t remember you. The past couple of days have been a bit stressful. But yes, I’m mister Grey. There appears to be a rather significant rat infestation beneath my neighborhood. I’ve been able to get these ants to slow them down, and kill a handful at a time… but they keep coming. I don’t want to just run away, or they might flood the place and eat everyone.”
And he would stop making progress towards level 7.
“I know most of you are out hunting the giant wasps. If you wouldn’t mind helping, I’d appreciate it.”
He was getting close, now. Even with the reward split three ways, he should still hit level 7 by the time this infestation was cleared out.
The second cop looked at the first. “I thought Mister Grey was… old. Like… world war two vet, maybe?”
Grey thought of what he’d seen in the man’s effects. “Korean. Though… I can’t remember it all too well. I can remember everything since I got all scaly perfectly. But the time before that… not so much. Is that an answer?”
The first one nodded. “Hell yes. Greg, hang here and help out. I’m gonna grab all of the ammo out of the trunk. You good on shells, sir?”
“I kept a couple hundred in the safe, but I’m down to… maybe sixty.”
“I’ve got a shotgun… not as good as yours… in there. I’ll bring you some more, just in case.”
As the man who apparently once knew Joshua ran off, Greg took up a position beside him; and Grey let the last of the ants fall… the two of them simply opening fire in single shots; Grey now firing slugs, while the cop seemed to be firing some sort of enchanted rounds; or otherwise augmented; that set the rats on fire.
There was a pause in the firing… Grey checked; all he had left were slugs, which was fine. The birdshot had been the worst; it could only kill a single giant rat. He fed the tube until it was full once again.
“So, Greg. I seem to be able to… feel… heat, so I don’t really need light. But if you’ve got something other than that flashlight… I’d recommend it. If we want to save the neighborhood, we’ll need to go in there, drive out the last of them.”
Greg patted his chest. “There’s another light attached to my body cam, but they use the same battery. I’ll flip it on once we head down.”
The first man re-entered the kitchen, a duffel bag slung over his shoulder; and handed Grey a box of shells. “We’ll need to talk when this is over, sir. You should’ve called us when you saw the first one.”
He looked at the cop thoughtfully. “I figured if ya’ll were able to come, you’d come when you heard the shots. Took… a bit longer than I thought it would, honestly.”
“Well. There’s quite a bit of shooting going on right now. Wasps, scorpions, a giant gorilla… but this is pretty damn nasty right here.”
“A giant gorilla. King Kong is attacking my town?”
“Not quite, sir. Maybe twenty feet tall, which is bad enough. He’s throwing cars at people.”
A twenty foot gorilla. Good lord. “Well then. Shall we?”
Greg snapped on the light on his vest; as did the other cop. “We should tell you to hang back, let us deal with this… but really, you seem to have a handle on things, and we can use the help.”
“Good. Not like I was gonna sit on the sidelines anyway; these things are trying to take my house!”
The cop chuckled. “Well, at least some things never change. Come on. Lets see how many more of these bastards there are.”
***
The colony of rats turned out to have already expended most of its adult members. By the time the trio worked their way to the end of the cavern; and they could see multiple spots where it attached to neighboring basements, meaning the occupants of other homes were likely also dead; there had only been three times that Grey had used his Intimidating Shout to avoid the trio being overwhelmed; and the officers both looked a bit amused at him shouting ‘Get the fuck away from my property!’ at the rats, and the way they scurried away.
There were a few dozen females… and hundreds of babies… left in the colony.
“Best not let any escape… or they’ll just setup another one somewhere else.” The two officers both nodded; falling in on either side of the man they thought was an old war veteran; as they stepped forward; the slaughter of the giant rats absolutely merciless, as the tiny infants; some newborn, blind, and yet already the size of a housecat.
Once the last of the adults were dead, Grey started using Cold as a club, crushing the babies; working methodically, not wasting ammunition. The two cops both seemed a bit startled at his brutal efficiency… but soon started up the same; taking out batons and getting to work, cracking the skulls, one by one.
He received the notification he’d been waiting for long before they finished clearing up the last of the rats.
Congratulations! You have gained your seventh level!
You have 3 Free Points available to spend. If you do not use them by the time you gain your next level, they will be spent for you.
You have gained One ability upgrade. If you do not use it by the time you gain your next level, it will be spent for you.
You have Three(3) Abilities which are at reduced effectiveness due to your class blend. You may use that ability to upgrade all of them to full effectiveness, giving you the full skillset of a starter member of both classes.
He ignored it, for now. He’d consider which way to go after this was all over; and after a nice, hot shower. Either Undead Animation or Control seemed like the best bet; with Animation as a strong contender; if he could control… 14… levels worth of undead at level 7, it would certainly be kickass if he could create something that big. There must be some sort of limit, though; surely he couldn’t reach level 10 and make a level 20, or even higher, undead? If he could, that’d certainly make killing Nightfire easier.
When the last rat was crushed beneath Cold’s wooden stock, the three looked at each other; all covered with splatters of blood, and from the smell of things, a bit of sewage as well.… They were standing in an enormous, mostly natural cave, which seemed to have been burrowed into the rock, attached to any pipes or basements that were convenient as the colony expanded. Grey sighed.
“Well, gentlemen. If you’ve got fresh uniforms to change into… and no emergencies to rush to… you can feel free to use my shower before you go.”
The one who seemed to know Joshua chuckled. “Actually, I’m not sure if your water still works. I think some of the water pipes got busted by what the rats did down here. How about if we reverse that… and offer you a ride to the station, you can get cleaned up there.”
He glanced at greg. “And in the officer’s showers, not in the one for prisoners, just to be clear.”
Grey looked at the two, thoughtfully. “Tell you what. You promise to help me get my ID sorted out, and I’ll come along. I was planning on heading to the DMV after I heard that announcement about folks who changed, but when I got home…. I got sidetracked.”
The three climbed upstairs… Grey locking the front door, pocketing the keys after they stepped out… and headed out to the patrol car parked on the street.
Half a dozen neighbors were standing outside, watching the trio, murmuring, as they headed out. Grey thought for a moment. So many of them… and none of them reacted to the one gunshot, of Joshua killing the rat that almost killed him? Did none of them care until it sounded like it was a warzone?
On the one hand, they were clearly assholes. He almost regretted wiping out the rats. On the other… if they’d been decent human beings, it would’ve been much harder to steal the man’s identity.
It all balanced out, it seemed.