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Talon, gives a young rat a smack on the back of the head.
The young rat he is slapping is his apprentice, and the first, sort-of mage the rats have acquired. He is an extremely weak Carnimancer. But so far all he's been doing is augmenting the rather weak Rats, and he seems unable to enter any sort of real combat.
His most recent work was a rat, whose hands they replaced with dual bloodstone muskets. With Talon's help of course. This was, in fact, not very effective, as it's hard to reload, when your hands are guns.
This poor creature ran into enemies before being killed. Far too much effort, for far to little reward.
They continue to work but… I'm certain this won't last long. One thing I have irrefutably programmed into the brain of every rat is that the moment they gain an inkling of power, they must have it all. This rat will surely rebel, and start his own group of rats.
As they continue working they hear screaming, and gun fire. In the central cavern a group of goblins riding Stallhorns breaks in.
Five Goblins, one of them is the highest ranking creature so far other than the treants. He and his mount are covered in armor made from the bark of a fire attuned treant, who volunteered itself to create this armor.
His entire body is wraithed in white hot flames. His mount feels not a bit of the heat, protected by the armor. He dances forward, and swings his spear. The long obsidian tip slicing through flesh with ease. The wave of heat that follows his swings leaves many rats broiled alive.
His Stallhorn bucks, and drives his back hooves through a skull dashing many more rats with his brains. His rider the goblin holds onto one of his horns with his left hand while his right hand holds the spear by the base, and swings it wildly.
The goblins following behind him cringe at the heat he emanates. All the rats surrounding him slowly back away in fear of being cooked alive.
The few rats armed with the bloodstone muskets raise them to their cheeks, and fire.
The goblin laughs as their muskets embed themselves into his armor, but fail to break through.
Another shot rings out, and pierces through a gap. He gasps, and reaches into the wound removing the copper ball, before throwing it back at the rat firing on him. The copper ball flies faster than the musket made it fly, and collides with the rat's skull, killing him instantly.
The other rats eyes widen, and begin to fire on him with more gusto hoping to kill him.
He growls, his flames flaring up, and burning hotter. The wound quickly cauterizes under the blistering heat.
He charges forward, and mows down 8 or so rats on his mount before arriving at a musket man, just in time to receive another full wound through a gap in his armor.
The rat man smiles as he pierces the flesh of his assailant but gasps as it fails to kill him. The rat quickly attempts to draw a small knife, but is speared before he can.
This continues on for a while. Our goblin protagonist wipes out nearly 200 rats, while his lackeys follow behind cleaning up whatever he doesn’t get. He is eventually intercepted by Talon aboard the battle train.
The train rides into battle, crunching over the corpses of their comrades. They arrive to find the goblin smiling, his body covered with holes, most of them cauterized, but some still bleed.
At the sight of the train he jumps forward onto the train, and attempts to get inside of it. He jumps aboard, and scratches at the metal doors. He pushes, and pulls in an attempt to brute force it, before forcing his spear through one of the holes usually used for muskets. Instead of his spear hitting anything the tip is lopped off by a pissed Talon.
Talon draws his flintlock, slipping it through the firing hole, and blasts the goblin. The goblin takes the shot straight to the chest.
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He lands on the ground, and as he tries to get back up, 3 more shots ring out, this time from rifles. They slip through the armor, their marksmanship the best of the best.
He stumbles, and his vision finally begins to grow blurry from blood loss. His muscles begin to ache, and his mana begins to run dry.
He turns, and stumbles aboard his mount, and they disappear back down the passageway to hide in the safe forests of floor nine, and ten.
Talon sighs, and cracks open the doors. “Collect meat-meat.” He waves his hand dismissively at the corpses littering the ground.
He grits his sharp teeth. “Need-need stronger weapons.”
I turn my attention to the Goblins, who gallop deep into the forest of the ninth floor, before meeting with a Bull shaman, who allows them to use a tree passage to drop a floor deeper into the 10th floor.
The strong one drops himself into a pile of leaves. His skin, turning a shade of brown as it attempts to turn red but mixes with the green. He shivers as steam pulses from his flesh, and the leaves tickle his bare arms.
His stallhorn stands standing beside him, before dropping to the ground, barrel chest heaving in and out with deep breaths.
The other goblins gather around, and drop into crossed sitting positions while their Stallhorns lap up water from the puddles.
The goblin laying on his back reaches into a pouch, and removes a clay container holding a salve of some sort. He quickly rubs it over his open wounds, as well as the closed wounds.
“Did I miss any?” He asks quickly, and spins around trying to look at himself from every angle.
Another goblin grabs his leg, and stabs a finger into a hole cutting deep into his calf. “There.” He responds shortly. Before removing his finger, and wiping it on his clothing.
“Fuck you!” The strong goblin curses out the other one who just smiles, and seems to enjoy his anger.
The stronger goblin calms down quickly, and his anger turns from real anger to mock anger. “Screw you,” He chuckles, and rubs a closed fist over the weaker one's head before squatting down again, and quickly packing the wound on his leg with the salve.
The surrounding goblins chuckle, and laugh.
The stronger goblin reaches out, his hands covered in the greasy salve, before rubbing it into the sparse hair of the weaker goblin, slicking them down to his skull.
The smaller goblin reaches out, and wacks away his hand. “Leave me alone, you ass.” But he chuckles along anyway.
The strong goblin squats down, laughs, and throws up something akin to a rude gesture.
They all laugh along.
As I turn my attention back to Talon I finally notice some adventurer breaking through the gateway on the eighth floor. It's the same group as before, but one of them holds the simple key clutched in a white knuckle fist while their tank's entire body is red, and covered in puncture wounds from the air snakes.
I laugh, and they step forward. They press the key to the gate, and they slip right through. They appear on the other side, with no key, and completely surrounded by fog.
The large man who was acting at the tank waves his hands back and forth as if to wave away the fog, seemingly intoxicated, either by a loss of blood, or by the high quantities of snake venom pumping through his veins.
They continue to walk, and one of their backline fighters cries out as his foot sinks into the edge of a river.
“Wet! Water! Cold!” He yelps, and tears his foot free from the mud, “My slipper!”
He holds his staff by the top and tries to use the bottom of it to grab at the slipper, but it disappears below the surface of the mud.
He sighs deeply, but the others just laugh at him.
The woman reaches into her pack, and removes a pair of simple leather, and fabric sandals.
The man once again nods dejectedly, and thanks her. “Thanks Donna…”
She sighs, and pats him on the back empathetically.
They step deeper into the fog and along the river edge. Until a clack rings out. The poor man who lost his slipper has found the wooden dock. His staff clicking loudly against the opposing wood.
The others gather around him in a tight formation, and they step forward, slowly but surely, probing forward with the staff so as not to fall in.
Another crack rings out. They all peer to where the wooden staff has met with another wooden staff disappearing below the surface of the slow moving water.
They peer back upwards to find the Bull standing in his boat, glaring at them, his staff planted firmly in the mud.
They quickly draw their weapons, and step forward. He waves one hand, in a slow, and calm gesture.
They step forward, the tank leading the charge. Our Bull instead of responding with combat simply pushes off in his boat, and disappears into the fog.