The Fifth rat had been an anomaly as it hadn’t increased in size like every other rat before it. Instead it had been much tougher at the same size. Now looking at the sixth Ozzy realized this was probably just the new norm. This rat was again effectively the same size as the last. Maybe slightly bigger. It still had a little room to move around on its square but it made sense they weren’t getting bigger as fast anymore. Otherwise they’d end up flopped on their bellies or backs with no way to move about. Well to be honest he had no idea if that could happen. Maybe they’d have more tiles to start out with?
There was no real way to find out other than pushing forward. With that he dispatched this next rat. The resistance again was higher but not quite enough to suggest he should stop here. Taking its core he confirmed once again that he’d gained a new tile back in his base and moved on to the next square that also showed itself. The Rat here confirmed that the new trend was strength increase not size increase. Though he was pretty sure now they were still getting slightly larger, just much slower than previously.
This seventh rat also fell easily. Though the resistance now felt like he was actually hitting something substantial, not popping a bubble or slicing through butter. Taking the rewards and again moving on he found the eighth rat was starting to have trouble moving about on its single tile. Even though the growth had slowed down significantly the fourth rat had already been easily half a meter long. He watched for a moment as it circled its square sniffing about as if looking for somewhere to go. He remembered wondering if the rats, or something else, could end up in his square through the same dumb luck that got him out. This rat was clearly looking for a place to go.
After watching the rat circle for a minute or so he got his head back in the game. It wouldn’t help him any if the rat showed up at his own squares and even less so if it went somewhere else entirely. With this rat he decided to take careful aim for its eye. He waited until it was sniffing at a particular spot for a moment before he pounced. It was good he’d taken the careful aim he did. He could even feel the spike at the end of his new weapon hit its eye. It went through that easily enough, and even popped out the top of the rat’s head but didn’t blast through it. Only protruding a bit.
As he went to collect the core the appearance of new connections caught his eye. Yes connections plural had shown themselves to be closer this time. Every previous time it had been a single one. He collected the core and set to examining the new connections. There was no obvious difference but after examining them he could tell one was like the rest of the rat squares so far, in that it was in the same direction as all the rest. The other was in an entirely new direction. He wasn’t smiling exactly but this was getting him quite excited. A new path to explore had to mean something different. It couldn’t be rats all the way down could it?
To start with he checked the next rat square in the line and sure enough it was just another rat sniffing about. Slightly larger than the last, but nothing special otherwise. As he wasn’t entirely sure he could quite so easily kill this one he pulled back and instead reached out to the first secondary connection he’d seen. What he found was that the way was blocked. He tried several times and at different angles to get through using his membrane extension but had no luck. He was about to give up when he tried something else. Sending out a bit of wispy domain he sent it through and was surprised to find the connection allowed it through fine.
That surprise was washed away with outright shock at what he saw on the other side. There in the middle of a square was a rat… Well not just a square. This square was three meters on a side and had obvious patches of grass indicating that it was not one, but nine squares. The rat was also easily a meter long. Something about it also seemed off. The way it moved, looked about, and its eyes gave the impression that it wasn’t just a simple rat. There was intelligence behind those eyes. At least more intelligence than the rat’s he’d seen so far.
That got him wondering. Could this rat be intelligent enough to communicate with? With only a slight hesitation, wondering if this was a good idea, he tried to take that step into this new square. Thankfully he rebounded as if he’d smacked into a wall. He was letting his loneliness get to him. There was no guarantee that some random rat was friendly simply because it was smarter than another. As he was thinking this he saw a change in the rat through his domain in its worldlet. The rat had turned and looked directly at his domain. Or more likely, at the directly he’d just tried to enter from.
The rat walked over to the nearest square and sniffed several times. Its ears perked up as it’s eyes focused even more onto where my domain was protruding into his world. Then it took a step forward and disappeared. I jumped backward instinctually but then remembered the delay. Casting about I quickly grabbed the largest branch I had and jumped behind my recliner. It wasn’t exactly a great protection but at least the rat wouldn’t see me for a moment. I had my spear tip hanging past the chair ready to strike if need be. I was getting more tense with each passing second. It seemed like this was taking quite a bit longer than any of the other transfers before. By now it had easily reached twenty seconds. Which was of course when the rat showed up standing on one of the eight grassy squares peering around. It didn’t seem to be ready to attack but there was also a tense look to the stance it had.
A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.
Ozzy watched as it sniffed the ground and paced about looking for something. Likely trying to find another rat to kill. He was content to let it do so until it started sniffing at his recliner which had hundreds of rat cores in it. As its head pushed into the fold Ozzy stood up and said “Hey!”. Which he realized was probably not the right way to try to greet a strange rodent of unusual size. The rat bear seemed to agree as it growled at him. Which of course caused him to jump back and land on one of the rat squares. In turn that rat started to growl at him, as unfortunately this was the fourth rat. With the limited space it didn’t just growl it also swiped at his calves which caused him to yelp and jump forward.
The resulting tangle with the mysterious rat was less than fortunate as it bit down unceremoniously on his left leg. He swore he could hear his bones crack slightly at the intense pressure. Instinctually he smacked it with the branch as hard as he could but it shattered. That at least caused the rat to let go and aim for his hands instead. As it lunged at him he instead put his upgrades to use once more jumping backwards, this time with as much force as he could put into it. At the same time he shot his spear tip forward into the rat's open mouth. As he hit the edge of his domain he traveled to the only place he knew would be safe. This crazy rat’s worldlet.
Landing he immediately jumped again to the underside leaving his spear tipped appendage topside to meet his enemy. Even as he was touching down he heard a wet screech sound topside and could see through his extension that the rat was spraying blood with its attempted roar. Not missing the opportunity he again sent the spear tip in and this time aimed for the eye. While it jammed through the eye just fine it clanked against its skull solidly and stopped dead. This rat was definitely leagues beyond the rats he’d been facing so far.
The rat again screeched in outrage and whipped its head around trying to find the attacker. Even as it did so the speartip found its way back into its mouth not stopping at just stabbing blindly, but instead force fed the rat. Immediately the rat started biting at the offending limb, but Ozzy hadn’t forced that section solid so it was ineffectual. The rat realizing the futility instead started whipping his head around and jerking his entire body along with it which was actually helping dislodge the foreign object. As strong as it was, the thing was still rather light. So, with nothing else to do Ozzy lifted the whole rat up off the ground and hung it in the air. The whipping of its head was now the only thing it could do as it had no purchase on the ground to bring its considerable strength to bear. Worried at first that this would free it, Ozzy watched for a few more seconds, but eventually confirmed that the rat was bleeding, strangling, and dying with no way out.
Closing his connection to the disgusting sight topside he leaned over cradling his damaged calf and sobbed. In all the dreams he’d ever had of traveling to a magical world none of them had included strangling a rat in a fight to the death. It especially didn’t involve listening to its struggles. Of course it also didn’t include the fact that Strangling took incredibly long. Minutes in fact. Over those minutes he eventually covered his ears and tried to calm himself down.
He’d tried to come here to say hello, not fight the thing. Granted he had been killing rats essentially nonstop since ariving, but those were quick dispatches not the drawn out torture that was happening right now. He knew his emotions were going wild, but didn’t really have a good way to reign them in right now. Not when he could still feel the twitching of the rat. He did start breathing slowly and steadily at least. There was no sense in letting himself lose it before he’d confirmed the rat was dead.
In the meantime he took a minute to examine the damage to his leg. It looked like he’d stepped in a bear trap with the strength the rat had bitten down with and the wolf sized teeth. Using his domain he put a wrap around it to stop the bleeding and tightened it until it did. About when he was finished he felt the fight go out of the rat. Instead of heading up immediately he waited another minute as he couldn't be certain the rat was gone. Then he set the rat down and hobbled topside.
Still not absolutely sure if the rat was gone he left his spear exactly where it was and instead used his multitool to cut out the core. What he found was another difference. This rat's core wasn’t the small coin sized one like the others. If Laid on his palm it almost touched his fingers and was more spherical than coin like. Inside he could feel the energy of something like 200 of the initial rat cores energy. Which made him sober up significantly. As much as he didn’t want to go torturing rats for no reason, he could easily see himself dispatching rats like this by the dozen. The caveat being if he could just figure out how to do so without injuring himself so severely and also avoiding strangling anything as human-like as this intelligent rat.
Wrapping the immense core in his shirt he stood to head back to his square when he heard something behind him. Whirling around he saw a boy standing there in a rough spun tunic and pants. Something straight out of the middle ages. “Hello!” the new arrival said while waving.