The dorm was as it always, cold, creaky and a hundred years out of style. The gang were sleeping peacefully in their dorms, not caring for the Demon King they had recently provoked. After they were dismissed from class, they scrubbed themselves down for nearly an hour. They were not told to return to class, so they used the time to pop into the nearby town for supplies.

They had bought things like caltrips, trip wires and concealed weapons with mechanisms for quick release. After Scrya mentioned that Adrian would also likely buy the same or similar things, they also bought some counters. Boots with iron caps and soles, Gloves with metal in the palms and a vest in a similar fashion, particularly thick around the vitals. It was all designed to look like normal clothing.

After that they went back for dinner and went to bed, when they left the first comers were arriving. You would think they would be asleep and by all rights they should be and would be, if it wasn't for that irritable scratching. They could all hear it as they shared a dorm, it was one of the reasons the group worked. Finally the source of the noise emerged from the wall. It was a rat burrowing through.

It lifted it's nose into the air, sniffing around to find what had drawn it here. Mark and Damian followed suit, unable to smell the source of their problems.

"It's probably the scheme of some arsehole trickster." explained Scrya "The same one who messed with our clothes.".

Satisfied with the explaination the other four room mates lay down to atempt sleep once more. The gang minus Damian searched for whatever had baited the rat. Damian was trying and failing miserably to catch the rat.

After this process went on for a good five minutes one of the room mates couldn't hold it in any longer and burst out into laugheter at the seeming stupidity of Damian.

Trozes sent the boy a silencing glare when he saw it. A second rat. His glare intensified, as if the force behind it would be enough to force it out of the room or even better yet, out of existance.

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"I don't think we are going to find whatever is drawing them." said Mark "Maybe we should just chase them away and block up the entrance.". They followed the plan and successfully chased away the rats, usimg the wire to create an impassable wall.

They got back to bed and got all of five seconds of rest before the scratching returned. It was louder than last time, seeming to come from all around the room. Two more holes appeared, with the rats bringing what seemed to be the entire extended family with them, all seventeen of them.

They say all things come in threes, and the tapping on the window. All eight inhabitants of the room were standing and chasing the rats out of the room. No matter how many times they chased them out they came back, bringing another with them. The scenario was not dissimilar to that of a hydra. Scrya had found the spikes and had created a ring around them. They were surrounded, and the spikes would do little in the face of the rats determination. The kept flowing out the holes into the sea of rats, soon they would be pressured and forced to make a move.

As if waiting for this moment the windows burst open with a satisfying slam, and in they charged with the force of a thousand horses. It was like all the crows from a kilometre radius had flown into the room and honestly, this was not far from the truth as they had chased the rats all the way from the woods.

The pressure of the rats combined with the introduction of the crows finally broke the dam as the rats flooded towards the room mates. All hell broke loose as the rats tried to avoid the swooping crowd, sweeping the other room mates into a corner, their attention on the gang. They tried to fight back but to no avail, there was simply to many of them. Seeing the others untargetted Scrya had an epiphany. "They didn't hide a bait in the room. We are the bait. It was probably that damn sticky shit that was through our clothes. It must have seeped into our skin. These are probably all the rats from between here and town, all attracted to our scent."

This knowledge could not save them as they were slowly overwhelmed by the horde, as the rats gnawed at the gang, piercing the skin and drawing blood.

They finally overcome the rats with the help of the crows and could finally go to bed. They were bleeding all over and would likely scar but they had no time to worry as exhaustion worked as the night's henchmen, dragging them down and entrapping them within slumber.

When daylight broke them free from rest they awoke to an absolute mess. The floor was a mix of blood, spikes, corpses, feathers and bird shit. Not all the crowd had left the room, deciding to rest upon the furniture instead. Trozes was particularly popular as his bed was crowded with owls and, by extention, crow shit. They picked up the spikes and removed the wire.

This was a job for the cleaners.