I peeked out around the mouth of the tunnel leading down to the shroom forest. The giant fungi that filled the chamber were encrusted with a thick layer of white guano. The reason for that was simple, the entry ceiling was a living sky of bats. Thousands of them. I focused on one swooping after some morsel or other with [Devler’s Insight].
[Monster type: Wolf-Bat ]
[Level: NA ] [Hp:4/4 ] [Mp ??? ]
[Title: Invader ]
[Perks: ???, Sound Sight, Hungry Swarm ]
[Drawbacks: Dungeon Marked, Minor Pest Bounty ]
[Dungeon Points: NA ]
Well shit. This is a problem.
Wolf-Bat’s were a monster that could be encountered both in the Dungeon and out in the wider world. While not terribly large or physically tough they made up for the fact with an oversized fang filled muzzle, jaws that snap with enough force to crack bone, and good old fashioned ruthless aggression.
A few dozen were a common nuisance that if encountered unpareded would take a couple chunks out of you for the trouble. A full swarm however was a deadly threat that could strip a horse to bones in minutes.
I carefully retreated back down the passage where Tim and the birds were waiting for me. Bert had raised quite the fuss as soon as he smelled the trouble ahead. Lucky well before we rounded the last few bends before the shroom forest. Being a sneaky rat with sneaky skills I had offered to play scout.
“I have never seen that many wolf-bats in one place.” I informed the waiting Goblin.
“Don’t suppose you have a side gig as a mighty pyromancer?”
Tim spat a handful of words I am not going to repeat here. Fuck me, but goblins curse on an entirely diffrent level when they have a mind to. [Dungeon Babble] had to keep translating for nearly a solid minute to unpack it all. A dwarven sailor would pull out their beard to swear half as hard. I did my best to memorise them.
“So, no fireballs handy I take it. How big an issue is this gonna be?” I asked after recovering from Tim’s unintentional psychic assault.
“Big enough.” The goblin huffed out. “All the passages around here converge on the shroom forest’s crevice before going on. We’ll have to backtrack all the way through to the tangle to ruote around the little bastards. Not that it’s going to be a safe route ethir, mind you. That’s why I was using this set of grub tunnels in the first place.”
“Safer than a hungry bat swarm?” I might have had the glimmer of an idea but wasn’t sure it was worth the risk.
Tim rocked his hand side to side in answer.
I unconsciously groomed my whiskers as I thought things through. It looks like the choice was danger and a sizable set back or just danger. I decided it was worth at least sharing my currently completely unbaked plan with Tim for a second opinion.
I leaned into my post and gave a ratty smile full of sharp teeth. “I may have an idea but I’d need to borrow your whittling kit… and your cooking gear.”
Tim the best goblin returned an equally wicked smile.
~~~~~
The plan in its essence was about as simple as it gets. We were gonna book it across the forest as fast as Bert and company could carri us. Which by Tim’s renocking, even factoring the iron they were hauling was pretty damn fast. The problem was keeping the bats off our backs as we legged it. Fortunately I knew just the piece of gear for the job.
While we worked I asked Tim what he knew about dungeon Wolf-Bats. He told me based on the numbers these wouldn’t actually be Dunagien spawned variants, but natural beasts that got into the Dungeon from the Outside at some point and found it very much to their liking. Breeding like stink into huge swarms that can Ravage any area lacking in the kinds of predators needed to keep them in check. Repeatedly depopulating them till the monster spawn rates grind to a halt before moving on to a fresh hunting ground. It really explained the invader title [Devler’s Insight] showed me.
I also filed away that little tidbit about the correlation between repeated deaths and spawn rates for later consideration, but bats now, dungeon secrets later.
Apparently they were enough of a problem that the Dungeon actually awarded points for exterminating them. Sure, only a fraction of a point each but if what I heard from Vivian Fukn’ Winterbloom was true about Dungeon points being better than gold I won’t complain about netting a little extra pin money to work with if we pull this off.
Tim also scratched out a rough map of the shroom forest and covered what we might encounter besides the bats. Besides the giant mushrooms that apparently made decent lumber once kilned, the local mobs were a kind of armoured badger and a few varieties of oversized horned beetles. However they were usually smart enough to give the murder birds a wide berth.
The forest itself filled the floor of a large steep walled crevice, long but relatively narrow. Tim pointed out which of the numerous connecting passages was our destination. Luckily it looked like we only had to cut diagonally across the width of the forest to the tunnel opening we needed to take. Maybe a ten minute dash. It improved our odds of secsuss consiabliby. Though the mobs and bats weren’t the only hazards, according to Tim the crevice also had a bit of a sinkhole problem where it crossed over an aquifer, bringing the odds back down to where they started.
In the end it only took a couple hours to get everything ready as it was going to get.
We set off back towards the shroom forest to test our luck.
~~~~~
As we neared the entrance to the crevice I signalled Tim to unleash my latest creation. I was a bit of kit a ranger had shown me once, he called it a screaming bullroarer. He used it whenever he wanted to spook the ever loving shit out of some wild thing. It was a simple enough design. A hollow wooden wing about the length of a man’s forearm with a few carefully placed holes and slots in the sides. The whole thing looped on to the end of a cord.
When whipped in a circle the edge of the wing rips the air in a deep bull like bellow while the wind blowing over the openings layer a discordant corise of shrill whistling screams. All together it’s an absolutely horrible teeth grinding cacophony of a sound. They’re also just plain loud as hell.
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Mine wasn’t quite as transcendentally awful sounding as the ranger’s had been but it still had a wailing soul’s of the damned quitaly to it that I was rather proud of.
The birds weren’t a fan, squawking and looking like they wanted to blot when we were testing it out, but Tim wasn’t a tamer for nothing. Before long he’d gotten the flock calmed down enough to acclimate to the sound.
Now they barely flinched when the goblin stood on Bert's saddle wagon bed thing and let loose with the screaming bullroarer.
While I had hoped the noise would have been enough to drive the bats off us completely. It was an overly optimistic hope, sure, but a rat can dream.
The wolf-bats quickly took notice of the giant birds stampeding through their newly conquered territory dropping from the ceiling to form a ravenus cloud of wings and teeth.
As the swarm descended it was looking like my plan was a bust and we were about to end up today’s special when bats began veering off course crashing into one another. Hundreds falling from the air as they tangled up with each other.
I let out a squeak of triumph as the birds trampled over the downed bats. The bullroarer hadn’t been enough to deter the swarm but it looked like it was enough to to wreak havoc on a creature with hypersensitive hearing like our wolf-bat friends.
The fight was on and we had a real chance now that they couldn’t simply overwhelm us.
Confused and disoriented as the wolf-bats might have been, they showed no signs of giving up and with their sheer numbers more than a few successfully closed to striking distance. If they managed to do enough damage to slow the flock down or stop Tim whipping the noise maker we’d be done for.
That’s where I came in. It was time to put on my proverbial defender pants. Good thing I’d prepared for the occasion.
I had commandeered a long handled cooking spoon and an iron pot lid from Tim’s mess kit (though he made me promise to return the lid if we lived). Using an arrow head, a length of spare cording and some judicial knot work I was able to equip myself with the Spear of Poking and Shield of Not Getting My Ass Bitten.
I leaped across the backs of the birds frantically bashing away any of the bats that managed to close the distance while slashing at the Delicate membranes of their wings whenever possible. Even if they weren’t killing blows, robbing them of even a little mobility was enough to take them out of the fight.
I did my best to keep half an eye on Tim but it seemed like the bats weren’t quite willing to brave the epicentre of the cacophony giving them so much trouble.
All the while the birds continued their head long charge, maintaining a tight formation with Bert at the head as they weaved through the sparse forest giant mushrooms. Sometimes veering sharply to one side or another avoiding unstable looking patches of open ground like they had a sixth sense for it. Maybe they did, Dungeon creatures were weird like that.
They were also snatching any bat that made the mistake of getting in front of a sharp beak out of the air. Bert and the girls were more than holding up their end of the fight as far as I was concerned. Damn good birds.
Still wolf-bats were starting to latch onto the flock’s backs and necks, wherever their packs and saddlebags left them exposed. Tearing away feathers and the little protections they provided. Dislodging them as quickly as possible rapidly became my main focus. Briefly anchoring myself with Entrenched Footing for a maximum leverage shield bash was enough to send them tumbling to the ground stunned. Boosting my hits with [Rat Bastard] Interspersed with flares of Vitality Burst when my [MP] dropped low. Attempting to stretch my resources as far as I could.
That’s how it went as minutes stretched on. Dislodge one bat, fight my way to the next doing as much damage along the way as possible. It was one of the most frantic running battles I’d fought in.
I’d taken a couple painful scratches in my exchanges but the bats were far and away more intent on getting a piece of the [Delicious] birds, all but ignoring me right up until I was already on them, ready to ruin their day. The flock was starting to looked a bit plunked and bloody but were still going strong.
We were holding our own against the tide of leathery winged death, if only just.
The exit was coming into sight when things all too predictively went to complete shit.
Tim let out an astonishingly ear piercing whistle that even managed to cut through the overwhelming ratct of the bullroarer. Having Immediately caught my attention he pointed out the absolutely massive badger covered in bone plates charging towards our flank. The poor bastard was clearly having a day just as shitty as ours, ragged wounds showing on its hide wherever there were gaps in its natural armour. After already having to put up with a batpocalypse it must have decided that the big fuck off birds invading its terrioty agian was the last goods damned straw and it was time to put it’s enormous claws down once the matter once and for all. That’s how I chose to interpret it’s suicidal charge anyway. Regardless it looked utterly pissed off and was bringing down its considerable mass on a collision course with our formation at ramming speed. Nine pin bowling style.
Foramble as the beast looked, in and head to head brawl I would put my money of the full pack of giant murder chicken evertime. However the badger didn’t have to out match us to completely ruin our shit. All it needed to do was fowl the birds footing and the bats would finish us all.
I reacted instantly with and utterly idiotic and suicidal charge of my own. I raced across the bird's back and launched myself at the oncoming Monstrosity.
Have you ever seen a rat jump? If not, let me tell you, they are really fucking good at it. They’re able to clear eight or nine times their body length with ease. It’s the equivalent of a human leaping a two story building in a single bound. Now impressive as that is, it wouldn’t have been anywhere near enough to close the gap with the badger in time. And I doubted [Rat Bastard] or Vitaly Boost would have given me the distance I needed ethir. So I used both. At the same time.
Holy shit was that a bad idea... Still it’s hard to argue with results.
My world exploded in pain as I hurtled directly towards the badger's ugly mug like I’d been spat out of an arbalest.
In the split second I had Pulsed the skill-perk combo my [HP] dropped to one and I suspected the Dungeon was rounding up because it felt like, Ugh. You know what? I’d rather not get overly descriptive here. Just imagine something really unpleasant then multiply it by ten. It felt like that, but wrose.
[Drawback Incurred: Overload ] Flashed before my eyes, but I barely registered it as the convulsions hit me.
My entire body clenched as I flew with the Spear of Poking stretched out in front of me. I swear I heard its shaft creaking under the force of my little ratty grabbers.
When I had decided on my course of action it was with the vague notion of grappling on to the badger’s back, climbing my way to its face, then doing some good old fashioned eye stabbing. I’d have improvised from there.
What actually ended up happening was my spear took the brute dricticly in the left nostril while I clung on to it for dear life.
Whatever’s inside a badger’s nose must be pretty sensitive because, yeah, it flipped its absolute shit and took me along for the ride with it.
But hey, I Successfully diverted its charge, so yay me. I caught glimpses of Tim and the birds rushing past as the badger tumbled and failed in a panic.
If they could power through the final stretch and make it to the narrow confines of the passage they should be able to deal with any pursuing wolf-bats till they make it clear.
I was just getting enough control back over my spasming muscles where I thought I’d be able to let go of the spear and be flung free. With any luck the landing wouldn’t kill me and I’d be able to catch up to Tim while the bat’s occupied themselves with my armoured dance partner. My overly optimistic plan was immediately dashed when the ground gave way under the massive badger’s relentless thrashing.
Gods damned fucking sinkholes. I knew it.
Geuss Tim isn’t getting his pot lid back. Was my last thought before things went black.