“Wow, there’s a lot of big guys surrounding us,” Bell commented as we all nervously glanced around the growing circle of weapon wielding communists. “If my complexion was any lighter this would look just like that meme with girl on the couch. You know the bukk-”

“I get it,” I said, holding up a palm to silence her, “you don’t need to explain.”

“But jokes are funnier when you explain them,” she pouted, “though from the looks on their faces there might not be enough time to make any more, hope you guys are ready to throw down… on your Marx…”

Before she had chance to finish the rest of that joke the gnome I’d punted jumped up from the floor and charged towards me wielding a comically large axe.

I drew my dagger, but before I had the chance to use it Asmodeus swept down from my shoulder and grabbed the little guy’s arms with his sharp claws.

With extremely precise agility, he flew upwards as the gnome squealed and began desperately trying to hit the dragon with the flat side of his axe.

As the rest of us watched, Asmodeus jerked to the side, knocking the gnome’s aim off, and continued to gain altitude.

“For a little guy, he’s certainly feisty,” Panda observed, placing a paw over his eyes to block out the sunlight as he stared upwards.

“Which one?” Bell asked.

“Maybe you should take a page out of his book,” I replied, “we could always use another combatant in the team.”

Panda gave me a flat look as we continued to watch the struggling gnome and I wondered if that was what it looked like when a full-sized dragon kidnapped a dwarf for lunch.

“Cease your squirming little man!” Asmodeus shouted as he dodged yet another attempt by the gnome to slap him with the axe. “If you wanted me to let go of you so badly, all you had to do was ask.”

I could see the dragon grinning evilly in my mind’s eye as he said those words and let go of the struggling gnome.

“Ahhhhh!” He screamed in a shrill, squeaky voice before impacting the ground with a bone crunching splat.

His body exploded from the fall, arms, legs and head shooting off in all directions, followed by a wave of blood which covered me and some of his horror-struck comrades.

The gnome’s death signalled the start of the battle, and mere moments after his fall the communists, as if suddenly woken from their slumber, began screaming and charging.

“I guess we’re doing this,” I shrugged, lashing out at the nearest opponent, a busty lycanid.

My dagger sliced her breastbone and then I ducked as she slashed at the space where my neck had just been with a scimitar.

Her chest began to bubble, but instead of screaming and casting horrified, wide eyes at me, her fur stood on end and she growled at me before bringing her blade down over my head.

Surprised, I raised my dagger to block but her blow was strong and forced me onto one knee. Luckily for me, I’d become quite agile in recent weeks and I rolled forward, using the momentum of her attack to knock her off balance, and slashed at the tendons behind her knee.

She fell to the floor in a heap and I leapt to my feet and moved onto the next opponent: another gnome.

I kicked him in the face and his neck snapped backwards, then I performed a pirouette and slashed at the windpipe of a catonid with a bow before dropping to my knees to narrowly avoid a swipe from a double headed axe.

Flames brushed the top of my head as Bell sent a fireball cascading into my attacker who screamed bloody murder as his fur caught alight. He threw himself to the floor and tried to roll to put it out, but I knew that he’d be dead long before those flames were smothered.

“Gwah!” I heard and glanced upwards to see the garuda divebombing towards Panda.

Part crow, part man, the garuda had jet black wings and feathers where his body hair should be. He swooped downwards, screaming like a man doing a bad bird impression and opened his hands to grab my familiar.

Instinctively I swapped my dagger for the bow in my inventory and fired off a shot which sailed slightly to the right of my target, embedding itself into the shoulder of a lycanid who was sparring with Bell.

The garuda closed in on Panda who shouted for help, but just before it could grab him Asmodeus darted in from above, headbutting the garuda on the jaw.

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Both of them tumbled away to the side as the dragon gnashed his fangs and scratched at the crow man who began bleeding all over.

Then they soared into the sky to continue their fight up there.

Wow, he’s vicious, I thought with a smile.

“You were my comrade, Kaleb!”

I turned towards the squeaky voice to see another gnome, staring up at me with a twisted, pained expression on his face.

“We were to take this city together! Why have you decided to fight against us, why now?” He squealed and aimed a loaded crossbow at my midriff.

“It’s over Gnome-akin,” I shouted back as the fighting continued all around us, “I have the high ground.”

“Short jokes, at a time like this! Really comrade?”

He fired off his bolt which I nimbly dodged before diving forwards and slicing through both of his legs with my dagger, which I’d resummoned.

The gnome fell to the floor with an agonised squeal and I stepped back, panting as he glared up at me with hateful eyes.

“There are thousands of us, you can’t kill all of the vessels, adventurer.”

Before I could reply a stray fireball whizzed past me and crashed to the ground around the gnome, splitting the stones and setting his body alight.

A visceral scream left his lips as he erupted in flames, his skin blackening and his violent eyes staring straight into my soul. I wondered how agonising it must be for a hive mind species to fight like this.

Since they all shared the same mind, then every death, every horror, every moment of agony must have been felt by all of them. At least for most of us death was a one-time deal. Horrible pain followed by nothing, but for them it must have been like torture.

I’d have pitied the gnomes if they weren’t so deranged. I like to think of myself as a pretty reasonable guy, but I don’t easily forgive those who exploit my team and then try to murder us.

The battle continued for a little while longer as I slashed and shot my way through over a dozen communists. My stamina was waning and my health took a few hits, but overall I was doing alright.

Bell seemed to be enjoying herself at least, and after Asmodeus defeated the garuda we had air support to help mop up the last of the fighters.

Plunging a dagger deep into the throat of a catonid, I finally allowed myself to drop to the ground. Breathing heavily, I took stock of my stats and saw that I still had half of my HP left, my stamina, on the other hand, was running pretty low so I downed a potion for it.

“That was fun,” Bell gasped as she plonked down next to me. “Nothing like a good scrap to get your blood racing.”

“If you say so,” I replied, “I’m just glad none of them were too high levelled. We’re still considered pretty lowly in this place.”

“In terms of adventurers you are,” Panda said as he pulled out his bamboo pipe and lit it, “but it’s important to remember that a person’s level doesn’t always equate to their fighting prowess. Take a local blacksmith for example, he could be twice your level due entirely to his crafting ability and have never wielded a weapon in anger in his life. In a case like that you’d probably have the upper hand.”

“I never thought of it like that,” I mumbled, “do you think these communists were higher levels than us then?”

“Check your stats and find out,” he said, “I’m not your mother.”

With a slight chuckle I went to open my HUD to look at the notifications I’d been subconsciously waving away as we fought. However, before I had the chance I was interrupted by a loud banging sound.

Turning my head towards the source of the noise I felt the ground tremble beneath me.

“What the hell is that?” Panda asked.

I looked around, and from the corner of my eyes noticed the manhole cover, which led to the Under-Slums, bouncing around on the concrete. With each subterranean bang, the circular cover bounced and clattered against the ground.

“I don’t know, but I think it’s coming from down there,” I said, pointing towards the manhole.

“I’ll fix it,” Bell said with a smile as she jumped to her feet and wandered towards the cover.

“What is she doing?” Asmodeus asked.

“Nothing good,” I replied, standing up and bracing myself, “get ready.”

Bell waltzed brazenly towards the entrance to the sewers, her scarlet robe billowing in the pleasant, summer breeze.

Leaning slightly over the entrance, she held out her hands and sparks tickled the tips of her fingers.

“Fireball!” She roared and a brilliant orange and red flame erupted from her palm, disappearing into the abyss.

“Ouch!” Something shouted in a deep sounding, yet oddly familiar voice. “That hurt!”

Bell took a step back and suddenly the ground below our feet began to violently shake and rumble.

“Bell, get back here!” I shouted and she took a few tentative steps backwards.

That was when the ground beneath the manhole exploded like a volcano as sewer water and earth erupted into the air, covering us in nasty smelling gunk.

The fireball mage stumbled backwards and I dashed forwards a few steps, pulling her away from the centre of the impact as the ground beneath our feet began falling into the abyss.

“Is that a sink hole?” Panda asked.

“More like a stink hole,” I replied, wrinkling my nose at the vile smell of human waste.

We kept moving backwards until the floor stopped disintegrating. Standing on the edge of the large, dark hole, we waited in silence.

“Who burned me?” The bassy grumbling voice said from within the hole and, as the dust settled, I got a glimpse of where it came from.

Standing in the middle of the sink hole was a massive gnome. He looked to be on steroids as his huge arms split his crudely made shirt at the sleeves.

He was wearing a ripped V-neck and I could clearly see a hammer and sickle tattooed on his bulging chest. A floppy eared Russian hat sat on his head and he quite literally held a hammer in one hand and a sickle in the other.

As I stared at him in horrified amazement, a notification entered my vision.

You have discovered a unique creature:

Proto-Gnome

The Proto-Gnome is the culmination of centuries of stored rage for an entire species. Gnomes are small and often overlooked and kicked around, the Proto-Gnome is what happens when you step on the little guy one too many times.

He's a bruiser, bred to fight, with the knowledge of an entire mistreated species roaming around in his nogging.

Gnomes are a hive mind after all, and the Proto-Gnome is no exception.

Oh, also, he’s reached the level cap.

You are royally fucked.

“You can say that again,” I mumbled, swallowing hard.