If this isn’t what the rhyme meant, I swear I’m going to do my best to destroy this dungeon, Dominic thought to himself as he missed his target for the nth time. His frustration ticked up another notch. If he had to contain it much longer while still upping the heat, it would probably reach volcanic levels soon.
This task was a nightmare. He was pretty sure that the idea of getting the coloured meerkats into the matching coloured cages was correct – in the time since the blue meerkat had appeared, more stone wall tiles had shifted. Every two or three sets of tiles that moved, another coloured meerkat had joined the mass surrounding him. So far he’d seen blue, orange, red, and green meerkats.
At the same time, the number of normally-coloured meerkats seemed to have multiplied tenfold. It was impossible to count them as they moved far too quickly to be able to do that, but there must have been more than eighty of the things.
The most annoying bit of the whole scenario was that the normally-coloured meerkats were rather terminally driven to attack him, piling on him with the same fanaticism as always, no matter how many he killed. I thought it was meant to be lemmings that were randomly suicidal?
At the same time, the coloured meerkats – his targets – were the opposite: fleeing him whenever he approached them. Their favourite tactic seemed to be burying themselves within the mass of other meerkats, disappearing under furry bodies and then reemerging somewhere completely different.
If they’d actually properly tried to run away from him it would have been easier for him: a meerkat that was separated from the rest of the mob was an obvious target. I guess that’s why they’re not doing that, Dominic grumbled to himself. It was so much better when his opponent had no idea of strategy – better for him, that was.
Snap, blood filled his mouth and he consumed the body to bolster his resources as the notification of its death arrived.
[You have killed Meerkat]
Adding insult to injury was the fact that the meerkats barely offered any Prey Points. The vast majority of them weren’t even level 1 and gave him zilch.
Swipe, his paw batted at a group of three meerkats, encountering little resistance as his enhanced claws ripped through them. Two were fatally injured, the third dying outright as a lucky strike with one of his claws opened one of its major arteries.
[You have killed Meerkat]
A few moments later, two more notifications flashed up.
[You have killed Meerkat]
[You have killed Meerkat (Basic Beast level 1)]
[You have earned 3 PP]
Wow, three Prey Points. Big whoop, Dominic said to himself sarcastically. Even the level 1s weren’t worth much. It was clear that their sole purpose was to basically swarm him and distract him from finding the coloured meerkats.
Is this really all the trap has to offer? he wondered with no small amount of frustration. I thought it said this was meant to be dangerous? Honestly, it’s more annoying than anything else.
Then again, he supposed that every dungeon has to have that irritating room that everyone hates. This was definitely it for Dominic. Bring on statues trying to kill him again over this. You know what it feels like? Mosquitoes. Like I’m surrounded by a swarm of mosquitoes. I know that I can easily squish any one of them to death if I catch it, and that they haven’t got much chance of taking me down on any permanent basis, but god, they’re annoying.
There.
The blue one. Dominic narrowed his eyes at it, then pounced, fixing his teeth carefully around the body he felt with his whiskers. Lifting his head, he growled as he saw a hint of blue fur wriggle into the mess of other meerkats. Damn! Crunching down with his jaws, he dismissed the notification as it flashed up in front of him.
Maybe I should just kill all the normal meerkats – then the coloured ones won’t have any space to hide? It was a plan born of his pure vexation, but even on second thoughts it didn’t seem like a terrible one.
He’d have to kill enough to keep ahead of the additions, but he’d got a sense of how long it took for another two stone tiles to open. He’d have to kill a lot, but frankly his rate of killing would be pretty good if he wasn’t trying to concentrate on catching the coloured meerkats.
Actually, with the number of little rat-like creatures swarming him, he’d have to make more effort not to kill any than to kill them by the handful.
Besides, I have plenty of frustration to work off.
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With that thought, he put to one side his plan of catching the coloured meerkats and just set to genocide. He’d long got over any hesitation at killing Timon’s lookalikes – now he just wanted to massacre them all. With fire, if he could. Actually, could he…? Nah, probably better to just use his claws and teeth.
The young lion had to be a little careful to make sure that he didn’t accidentally catch any of his real targets in his attacks, but their efforts to stay as far away from him as possible, while not leaving the mob, worked out well for him.
Snap. Swipe. Lunge. Rear up and come down on a particularly dense knot of meerkats like a meteor. Snap. Swipe. Snap. Lunge….
Blood, gore, and other bodily fluids coated the floor below him; he was grateful for the sure grip of his pads. If he’d still had human feet, he’d have probably been slipping around.
His paws were coated up in the mess, blood staining several inches up each of his legs. Though not able to see his own face, he suspected that it would look like something out of a nightmare. Certainly he could feel the sticky substances pulling on his fur every time he opened his jaws. His tail tuft was heavier than usual, soaked with the red liquid.
But his efforts were having an impact. The mob of meerkats was thinning, slowly. The coloured meerkats were finding that their hiding places weren’t providing as much protection as they had been before. It’s time.
This time, instead of attacking a group of meerkats which was practically begging for him to swipe them off their mortal coil, Dominic lunged for a coloured meerkat. It was the green one, and it had ventured too far away from the others to easily hide itself.
Using Quick Strike to add speed to his attack, Dominic snapped his jaws shut around the fleeing rodent. I don’t care if meerkats aren’t actually rodents: they certainly seem plenty rat-like. It tried to dodge his attack, but was unable to react in time.
This time, instead of crushing the creature as he really, really wanted to, he carried it towards the green tile and the cage beneath it.
The reaction of the other meerkats around him gave him a clue that he was on the right track: they went mental. If he’d thought they were fanatically trying to attack him before, their reaction now proved him false. In comparison to what they started doing as soon as he captured the green meerkat, their previous behaviour had been positively shy.
Now, they seemed to be trying to bog him down in place by sheer force of the number of bodies fixing their teeth in his flesh. Four meerkats clinging on each leg was one thing; twenty on each was something else. Growling in pain at their bites, Dominic refused to let his prize go as they clearly wanted.
Reduced to shuffling instead of trotting, Dominic fixed his eyes on the cage door. His health bar had taken a noticeable dip by the time he got there – the meerkats might not do much damage individually, but as a collective they could make an impact.
Shoving the meerkat in through the open doorway, he then spat it out. It turned around as soon as it was free, trying to escape even now. Dominic had to fumble blindly for the door of the cage with one paw: he was afraid that if he withdrew his muzzle for even a moment, the meerkat would squeeze out.
By the time he’d managed to ease his muzzle out, dragging the door down to replace it until it clicked and became immovable, his lips and gums were bleeding from the meerkat’s determined efforts. Still, triumph went through him at the sight of the little bastard trapped in the cage. Man, I hope that I’m right! If I have to instead put the buggers in different coloured cages, I’m going to...do something. Something bad.
With one meerkat in place, and no indicator of whether it was the right or wrong choice, Dominic could only continue with his plan. He alternated killing normal meerkats with making attempts at capturing one of the coloured versions.
Interestingly enough, as soon as the green meerkat was trapped in the cage, the other meerkats went back to their normal behaviour. Dominic was glad of it – and so were his legs, though they still felt the painful aftereffects of so many bites.
Not all his attempts at capturing went well. He fell painfully on his face more than once as the meerkat he was lunging at managed to pull a successful dodge a fraction of a second before his teeth would have made contact. The orange one seemed particularly good at avoiding him.
Even when he did manage to capture one, it wasn’t all plain sailing. Twice, a bloody – literally – meerkat succeeded in wiggling its way out of the cage while he was trying to close the door on it.
Dominic only just managed not to kill it the next time he managed to grab that one – the red, as it happened, though they were all getting a reddish tinge. The murderous urge just to bite down until his mouth was flooded with its blood was almost irresistible. Only the thought that he might have to do the room again if he did that was sufficient to curb his desire.
Still, finally, he managed to get the last one into its cage. With the door clicking into place behind the purple meerkat, the remaining normally-coloured meerkats fled for the open stone wall tiles as if the devil were chasing them.
Which, to their minds, had to be the case. The prey instinct of the lion urged Dominic to chase and kill; he made no effort to resist this time. Leaping after the fleeing mini carnivores, he made five more kills before the rest escaped beyond his reach. Lucky you, he thought at them darkly, a growl rumbling in his chest.
Still frustrated, but now without any targets on which to vent his ire, Dominic was forced to try to calm down by himself. Eyeing the room warily, the human-turned-lion hoped that no new facets of the trap would suddenly reveal themselves.
The grinding of stone once more met his ears and he watched as the cages containing the coloured meerkats descended once more into the floor. So far, so good.
Next, the blood that was coating the floor like a macabre layer of sticky paint was somehow...absorbed. It shouldn’t have been possible – it wasn’t like it was drawn to the cracks between the tiles, after all. No, it just became thinner all over until suddenly, the floor was clean and dry. Like nothing had ever happened. Dominic himself was still coated, though, and he grimaced at the thought, the stickiness starting to become unbearable.
His attention was drawn away from his coat’s sorry state and to both ends of the room. Once more, the door was sliding open at the same time as the altar was shifting to reveal the top of one pillar.
Dominic licked his lips, not caring about the tang of blood that the action garnered. Last time he’d earned his gorget; what would it be this time?