Warning: Extreme violence and gore scenes (17+ recommended)

Day 78

(Spear Commander Ape)

The tunnel is quite straight. It is several hundred paces long at least. Leading the charge of my squad I can see scrawled messages above the door. They are not readable, some kind of code perhaps. I'm running, not trying to read but weird designs like that or the carved walls are eye-catching.

Probably some warning not to enter their territory. When have words ever deflected a raised spear? Laughable.

As we near the entrance, two bright shining things appear from a recess and hurtle toward us along the wall following what I thought to be a decorative carving in the wall. I fall into a roll, narrowly avoiding these things, whatever they are.

The men following me aren't so lucky: only three see it coming, the men on either flank of me and the tall corporal behind me.  

They drop to their bellies almost as I do, but no one else can react in time.

I'm watching the result. It's a nightmare!

They fall apart mid-step. Blood sprays, guts fly out. The shields they carry are splinters. The armor that has been their final protection from harm in battle is sliced like the soft skin of a fruit.

I glance back at the words above the door... what horrors do they speak of?! This can only be the work of that brutal sage rat.

A figure stands in the door. Unnatural features of strange metal covering it in places.

All I can hear from it, the rat we seek is 'Tch!' It hoped we would all die here...

I'm angered by that response but as we are now, a handful surrounded by a deadly trap and the dead we can only retreat.

We dare not stand, instead crawling and shoving the bodies aside under the blades of certain death that spin past our scalps faster than a bow-shot.

It is difficult work, horrible in ways I cannot describe to claw through the men I served with and lead: spilled across the rock like squashed fruit.

It has us all on edge, but the rat seems to want to let us leave like this. Disturbing. With such a formidable defense, why let us go? Surely we are helpless, easy targets.

When we reach the far side, where the blades of death retract the army we were part of; the one filled with confidence and aggression is deathly quiet as they see us, bloodied. We were destroyed to less than a tenth part of our unit in a single assault.

The blow to the army's morale is extreme. To suffer the loss of skilled commander and many crack soldiers in what was considered to be a job that was simplicity itself is a blow to the prestige of our armed forces. One I do not think we will take back in a hurry. The only way we can accept this loss I see in the eyes of my men is to kill the enemy to the last.

But deep down, in my heart I feel dread. For we have barely skirmished with them and lost so much.

Not knowing what else to do, lacking the General and the Ghost's regiments as we are the vanguard of our formation, I order my men and the Brute's to barricade the tunnel entrance. This may need to be a battle of attrition.  

Let them stay behind their gate and traps, until they starve and eat each other.

At least this is my intention, but before we can three large metal creatures burst out the tunnel with the rat on the shoulder of the lead. They carry cloth bundles. They trample our unprepared men and flee down a side tunnel.

The weapon rat has fled.

My heart sinks at this. The rat is smart to run, now. Using this moment, while we are at our weakest.

I dread the long and extensive campaign we will be forced to commit to, simply to corner our enemy. Yet we are not allowed to break our orders... and shoot it dead. I can only wait for the General and hope for his deft touch to hem the monster in.

As we wait the blades are noticeably silent. They ceased as the rat leaves... are they switched off?

Disarmed?

I send a man at a crawl down the tunnel. He dies there. Like the jaws of a terrible beast, toothed walls spring out and cut the man apart, sealing the tunnel for a moment before retracting. Are all those lines from traps...?!

Merciful spirits preserve us! The tunnel is the work of insane genius.

The way they section off areas; bend and twist... some of these traps are inescapable.

Even if we have seen their limits, which I sincerely doubt... we will be hard pressed to enter that OPEN door.

I have the men set camp in the far end of the room, at the only viable exits massed troops.

Perhaps we missed some slaves. They could serve as hostages.

Unlikely, as they are rabble: but not impossible. A distraught kinsman might be willing to disable the passage way traps in exchange for mercy.

To our shock as we have barely made camp; the rat and it's metal monsters return. The creatures carrying bulging bundles nearly their own size, each. A hail of javelins and arrows strike at them as the initial shock wears off.

However these present no threat to the metal monsters, deflecting off them without causing any damage we can see. Not even the rat riding on the shoulder of the leading monster is harmed, as it swats away the missiles with it's left hand. It is a dismissive gesture.

As a final taunt the monsters pause to gesture rudely at us to follow as they enter the death tunnel. The rat smirking at us.

The arrows and spears did however strike the sacks; which allowed us to find some spilled evidence of their contents.

Food. The metal creatures hauled food enough for an army. All of it better quality than our own. That was the really cruel final blow. Even trapped in there, they still eat better than we do.

As expected, the traps ceased to act when the rat and it's monsters were in the tunnel.

Still we are relieved some hours later when the General's main forces arrived, the Ghost's scout force at their rear.

The old man's look was bitter. He had received the reports from dispatch riders. He asked me what my true impression was of the trap filled tunnel.

“A blood soaked meat grinder.” This seemed to sum up the place nicely in my opinion. “It has yet to give us a taste of it's true measure.”

Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

“You are certain?” [General]

“Every trap has used a line to attack us with extending moving parts. There are many lines we have yet to see used. This rat has made his gate a domain of death for intruders.”

“What of these metal beings, what would you consider their greatest strength having seen them in combat?” [General]

Recalling that single disastrous attack hurts...

“They are not flesh or bone. We cannot rely on numbers and standard weapons. Nor on the traditional tactics. Fighting that huge one... was not a fight. It was running toward death. If it did not run out of ammunition it would have kept up the attack. I worry it will strike at us by attacking our command structure again.” I explain. "There are more besides that one. We have seen three others. One with the form of a Giant. Two that are smaller than this but still bigger than the largest of our men. They were swift and very strong. If they fight us, even individually we will take large casualties.”  

The bulging belly of the Strategist interjected with complaints over the lack of dinner.

“Someone get the fat ass a bowl of soup...”

The look of indignation from the overweight man means squat to me.

“Just because you are an officer doesn't mean...” [Strategist]

“Shut your bloated hole. If you want some respect, think of a way we can use to crush these savages!”

The fat man smirks at me.  

Oh?

“You have one?”

“A few, actually.” [The strategist replies, proudly.] “We'll get started in an hour, once the men have time to catch their breath from travel.”

Day 1 of the siege.

Day 79

The plan begins with scout soldiers armed with slings hurling burning coals down the tunnel and into the sealed room. Thousands, over several long minutes. As the smoke builds in the room we hurriedly build a wall of rocks to cover the mouth of the tunnel.

The plan is simple, but a most effective technique. We will smother them in their sealed off room. We aren't entirely sure of the scope of the room but it isn't as big as Bastion city. With a build up of bad air we should win quickly. The only downside to this tactic is that we sacrifice our main goal of capturing the rat. However, we fulfill our other goal which is to eliminate it as a threat.

Our orders may have been 'at all cost capture the rat'. We are not capable of doing this and keeping our army whole. So we will probably be forced to figuratively fall on our swords. Or at least our careers will. You just can't explain this kind of dangerous enemy to a patrician. They don't know what the tunnels are really like.

We had them. We could taste it.

As smoke leaked out of crevices in the pile we were toasting our success.

Until the wall of stones crumbled.

Walking through it, the familiar form of the giant metal bird wreathed in black smoke. It stomped on a soldier stunned by the rock slide and ground him under it's heel until he was pulp.

It tried to shoot us again, but for some reason the burning attacks couldn't kill like before.

There was a battle cry as heavy soldiers with sledges and axes tried to reach those legs and hack it down while it was weak.

It didn't flee... which made us see this as a golden moment.

Until I noticed it was different.

It had a long tail I had never seen before, trailing down the tunnel.

Instead of escape it raised it's arms and sent us a small ball of ghastly evil: pale blue fire the size of a man's head.

It was the stuff of folklore.

The all-consuming flame.

It ate through every man in it's way, every tent, shield... spirit save us... it didn't stop until it reached the far wall and melted into the rock.

The metal creature disappeared from the open passage, after bombarding us liberally until it felt satisfied.

However the ordeal had just begun: the man shaped creatures gathered around the rock pile, hurling them at any soldier that didn't run for shelter.

It was not until late that afternoon when we were finally able to recapture the main room... or more to the point: the rat abandoned it.

And so we were left staring down that long tunnel of traps, with a door still wide open... and our morale plummeting.

When I see that fat ass again, I'm going to blacken his eyes with my fist. We lost seventy two men today. For nothing.

Current Ape Forces:

Ape Commanders: 4 (General, Strategist, Ghost and Lieutenant)

Able Ape Soldiers:

* 921 Heavy Infantry

* 619 Spear Hoplites

* 722 Skirmishers

* 771 Scouts

Current Fatalities:

* 1 Commander (Brute)

* 132 Heavy Infantry

* 74 Spear Hoplites (53 to a single trap)

* 32 Skirmishers

* 17 Scouts (2 to radiation poisoning)

Current Wounded: 95 ranging from light gashes to maiming injuries. 32 of these are completely incapable of fighting.

Niala's forces:

Currently has 548 escaped slaves.

Working Golems:

* 1 Golden Doom

* 1 Mecha golem AKA Giant (pilot-able, survived train crash)

* 2 Guardian model golems (left behind by Rick as reserve supply)

* 1 Railgun golem (survived train crash)

Current Fatalities: 4 Slaves.

Current Wounded: None. (Niala healed them)  

What we missed:

Since no one present knew how lasers worked (or that they even existed beyond their lethal effects) the ape couldn't explain it's sudden failure in narration. (Smoke interfering with the laser.)

The inscribed messages over the doorway read in English:

-'Only the penitent man may pass...'

-'Abandon all hope ye who enter.'

-and finally 'No solicitors.'