Walking through the gate Urist’s eyes opened wide as he looked at the ground. Seeds as big as heads and patches of blood littered the forest’s ground making the air smell rotten.

“It’s more like a forest of blood…”

“You say something, boss?”

Shaking his head slightly Urist responded, “It’s nothing. Let’s go slowly, for now, I only want us to travel one thousand meters in. Unlike the other days, no rats are milling around so I think something might be up. Although I don’t want to explore the outside because of last night we need information.”

Petting one of her tigers Reaver laughed, “Heh boss, I think you should relax. Personally, I think you’re overthinking things.”

“Perhaps, but even so I’ll take the lead on this one. Let’s move.”

…

Holding his spear with one hand Urist took up the role of vanguard while being flanked by Rat and Elrish. As they headed out, the construction team and the defense force followed after them to connect the new maces to the wheels.

It wouldn’t take long for them to finish up applying the defenses since they had already gotten half of them in place during the previous days. Unicy stood on top of the wall keeping an eye out as she watched the fading backs of the exploration team.

She, like Urist, felt like something was wrong but she couldn’t put her finger on it. Sure, the forest looked bloody and the bamboo seeds were giant. It wasn’t normal, but not something to be scared of for no reason.

No, something had been picking at her mind for a while. Something she had forgotten about that should be obvious to her. It took until every dwarf was well into their work along the wall that she realized why everything felt wrong.

“Where is the sound of bugs and birds?”, the thought made her heart quicken.

As she called out for the dwarfs to return to the base a scream resounded from where the expedition had been heading.

“GET IN THE FUCKING BASE NOW!”

…

Walking at a slow pace Urist and the rest of the team conversed while keeping their eyes peeled. 

“Did the rats eat one another? I haven’t seen hair nor shadow from the little bastards except for the footprints,” remarked Elrish offhandedly.

Petting one of her tigers' Reaver shrugged, “Perhaps the rats killed each other off.”

To which Uora questioned with confusion, “If that’s so where did all the bodies go?”

Urist kept his guard as he answered, “I’d bet that the rats ate every bit of meat they found. Though from all the noise they made there shouldn’t be that many of them. Based on Vlad’s information I bet the rat king ordered such a bloody frenzy. Although it’s a little crazy to head out with such an unknown factor, we need information on the current size and population of the rats.”

“Still don’t you think it’s a little… rash, boss?”

Urist shook his head and pointed at his pouch, “As long as I have this little ace we should be good enough to handle such troubles.”

With such assurance, the group kept scanning the ground while moving along. As they made their way Fatty and co. picked up the seeds from the ground and on the bamboo along the way.

Heading three-hundred meters south into the forest nothing really out of the ordinary jumped out of the forest. The only exception being the lack of rats or creatures they usually see. Despite moving so far away from the base no rats came out to attack them. 

This alone put the already on guard Urist farther on edge. As warning lights went off in his mind,  he tried to figure out what was going on. On the previous day at this point, they would have run into rat galore that charged at them without regard for their lives.

Maybe he could be a coward and head back home. But the will to know drove him forth he needed to at least see one rat. Step by step the expedition reached the five hundred meter mark and that was when Urist finally noticed the silence of the forest. 

Why are there no birds or insects making noise? Despite coming to this realization Urist threw away his distraction and pressed forth. His knuckles had become white from how tightly he held his spear tighter.

Six hundred meters… Seven hundred meters… Eight hundred meters… Nine hundred meters…

By this point, the dead silence that surrounded the exploration team had stripped away their joyful air to lay bare a somber mood.

The first to voice their concern was Emu the wind mage, “Hey boss, do we need to go any further? The forest is seriously creeping me out. Besides Fatty is loaded up on enough seeds to make a trip back.”

Urist stopped and turned his head slightly, “Alright, but let’s go a little further first. I want to at least see one rat before heading back. Collecting the seeds is a secondary objective, the main one is seeing how big the rats have grown. That’s our job as the exploration team, understood?”

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Fidgeting with his spear Emu nodded his head. Being a wind mage he had heightened hearing that outclassed an average dwarfs hearing by a few times. At the moment he dreaded his previous statement when he said not to worry.

It weirded out the dwarf that only shallow whispers of wind and droppings of seeds entered his ears. And so they pressed forth through the silence reaching the one thousand meter mark. At that moment the dreaded silence which had been weighing down on them broke. Emu picked up the sound of movement first; the sound of feet and claws moving towards their position made his skin crawl.

Emu stopped the group, “Wait. I hear I movement headed in our direction. It sounds like something bigger than a normal rat. No, it’s more than a rat! Thirty? Fifty? Seventy? One hundred? That seems about right yes. An estimation of one hundred rats. Boss what should we do? I don’t think it’s wise to fight them so far from home.”

Thinking a bit Urist gave a nod, “Agreed, we shall fight a retreating battle. Emu cast speed on Fatty so he can keep up with us. Reaver, have your contracted animals do hit and run tactics to slow the swarm’s advancement. Rat, Urish, you will cover the backs of Fatty and Uora. I’ll cover the back with Reaver’s animals by using my flames defensively. Everyone understands the plan?”  

““““““Yes!”””””””

Under Urist’s quick thinking the expedition team moved out following his plan. They got to the eight hundred meter mark, back to the base when the rat wave caught up to them. It took a moment for Urist to see rats that had grown to a quarter the size of a dwarf.

He figured he’d call them quarter class rats to make it easier to call them out. But he would tell the others later, for now, he needed to run interference. Gathering flames along with his spear he lightly used his strength to cause the waves to spread in a wide cone. 

Not yet done he tethered a line of flame to the cone and his spear that he dragged on the ground. He did this after for the reason that after doing some tests, he found that as long as he remained connected to the source he could easily retrieve the flames. 

“That should slow them down a bit, luckily I can tell the flames what to burn and not burn otherwise the whole forest wou-- What!? Are they insane!?”

Animals in their nature try to avoid fire at all costs. Such knowledge picked up as his time as a boy scout. He had expected the rats to stop at the fire and work their way around. At that time Reaver’s animals would hit them at the sides taking out as many as they could before retreating thanks to being faster.

But these rats defied logic and ran through the hellish blaze in a spearheaded formation. Thirty or so rats died but thanks to them the remaining rats were able to run through unharmed. Urist knew at this point that the rat king had taken over all the rats in the area. At this moment he regretted being rash as to not listen to his and other dwarfs suspicions.

As he kept running, he swore to himself that if they made it out of this he would reflect on his mistakes. Reavers animals turned on her command and washed into the smaller swarm opening their jaws grabbing one rat each before running out. 

Although they had cut down a dozen rats the swarm kept on moving hellbent on the exploration team. At this point when Urist was about to gather his flames and set up another flame wall a wall of screeching from the right and left of the exploration team.

‘Too many. Simply too many to fight. This noise isn’t simply tens or hundreds of rats, but it's in the thousands. That bastard of a king has taken total control of the rats in the forest and set a trap.’

“Boss, they are coming! I hear thousands heading for our position! If we stay here we will be overrun!”, Emu cried in fear.

Urist closed his eyes and inhaled deeply before sending a fireball at the remaining rats behind him. He then issued his new commands, “Cast Haste on the group, Fatty drop the seeds and everyone get ready to run like hell. I shall hold them off to gain you time to escape, after some time I shall follow after you guys. ”

“But Boss, that’s insane! If anything we should hold them off while you escape!”

Urist laughed while running, “Haha! No need to worry about me, I’m confident in escaping thanks to my ace. So escape and survive! This is an order of your selfish leader! Do as you’re told and get your asses moving!”

Reaver noticing Urist’s confidence, pulled Emu and Uroa away who were trying to stay with Urist. Biting his lip Emu cast Haste on Fatty and the group of six dwarfs ran and left Urist alone to deal with the horde. To try and help his fellow dwarfs Urist took a deep breath and screamed, “You think you are a king?! Come vermin as I send you to meet your maker!”

His roar resounded throughout the forest and although he didn’t think it would work the rat tides turned directly in his direction. By how they acted he figured that the exploration team would be able to slip out relatively unharassed.

‘What a welcome boon! Come, Come! Rat king, I shall kill you!’ Roared Urist as he prepared himself for the confrontation.

They were fast for rats, he estimated that within twenty seconds he would make contact.

‘Man I wish I had a good cigarette right now. At least it would stop the trembling in my legs.’

Stabbing his spear into the ground Urist slapped his cheeks with his hands before grabbing the berserk potion from his pouch. The black liquid swirled inside as he prepared to pop the stopper and drink its contents.

Ten seconds left.

Grabbing the spear’s handle Urist took control of his breathing as Unicy showed him to help quell the fear building in his heart.

Seven seconds...

Breathe in, breathe out.

Three seconds.

He got into stance and popped the bottle, downing the contents in one go. The liquid tasted of bananas, which almost threw Urist for a loop if not for the rats closing in on him. In an instant the potion took effect as he felt his heart start racing, his thin muscles bulged and his veins popped up against his skin along his body.

He was ready and not a moment later. As thousands of quarter-sized rats lead by rats hundreds of half his size exited the brush and charged at him.

“SCREE!”, The rat army roared.

“KILL!”, The lone dwarf screamed back.