Enacting psychological warfare was a very messy and very gross business as it turns out. Looks like he could also add “Desecrating corpses” on the list of messed up things he was doing.
“To be fair. Desecrating corpses is pretty tame compared to killing babies”
“Not helping” he complained while using the Rat Kins curved sword to chop off as many rat heads as he could. He really wished he had stuff he could use as pikes or something but he only really had the mop that was in the break room. So he decided to use both the rat kins heads for that.
He wondered if Vlad Tepes personally put some people on pikes or if he had other people do it because it really was a gruesome business that involved him upchucking a little. Still he eventually got it all placed. The mop was impaled on the ground in the secret tunnel just under the secret door with both rat kins heads impaled on the mop. He then placed all the other rat heads around that in a morbidly tasteful way.
“Well. This will certainly piss them off. The rat kins don’t seem to care much for their dire rat brethren but they do seem to care about their fellow rat kin. Either way, you will certainly have a lot of angry rats wanting to murder you now.”
“That’s the plan” he responded with a mix of depression and pride.
“Not sure that's a great plan. But at least you are playing your character well.”
“Playing a character? What character?”
“An insane one.”
He ignored that comment and climbed out of the secret tunnel. He was about to dust himself off but considering he was now soaked in blood. Didn’t really see much point. Now onto phase two.
He started with the vending machine in the break room. Awkwardly wobbling over to the entrance and laid the whole thing down onto the trap door. (After liberating all the snacks of course). He then placed some heavy debris from the kiosk on top of the vending machine as well as the dead, headless, adult dire rat corpses.
“Ick. When I get out of this tutorial I hope to never see another rat. Plus I hope to get deposited somewhere with a lot of water that I can just bath in. Like a waterfall or something.”
“Yeah. It’s a good thing I can’t actually smell you. Would probably be a big turn off. Or maybe a turn on? I’ve never actually smelled before. Also you know this isn’t going to hold off the attack from the rats right? Especially with that little display of yours for them to find.”
“The idea isn’t for this to stop them. Just make it difficult enough for the perfect opportunity to present itself.”
“Ooo! Intriguing. Care to share?”
“No spoilers.” He responded feeling just a tad more confident.
“Woah woah woah, that’s not fair! I’m allowed to tease you! Not the other way around. Come on! Tell me!”
Quill smirked a little but kept himself silent and made sure to not think of the thing that would give it away.
“Yet you’d happily think that to clearly tease me with the information! Boooo!! BOOOOOOOO!”
“Hush now. I need total silence so I can listen for when these reinforcements are supposed to arrive.”
“HuSh NoW I NeEd ToTaL SiLeNcE sO i CaN-” Quill tuned her out as he both started to listen but also mentally prepared himself for the fight to come. He didn’t know if the plan would work. In theory it would but the theory was still just a theory and-.
“Oh my god stop! You are doing this just to tease me more!”
“Perhaps”
Incoherent grumbles were his only response and he smiled some more as he sat and waited. Appreciating both the time he had to rest and appreciate the company he was with.
“Buttering me up with compliments isn’t going to make me less angry with you” She spoke in a much happier tone.
“Whatever you say” he responded and fell silent. It took maybe 2-4 more hours if he were to hazard a guess, and it was faint but there was scurrying sounds coming from underneath him and a whole lot of muffled squeaking too.
He wasn’t sure what they were thinking about his little display as he pressed his ear to the floor to try and listen better. Which, of course, was when a very loud and very enraged scream erupted from underneath causing Quill to jerk his head back.
“Looks like you got their attention now.”
“No shit.” He swallowed and took a deep breath. He was playing with fire here and didn’t really have a back up plan so this would have to work no matter what as he carefully eyed the secret entrance to the secret tunnel.
Stolen story; please report.
It only took a few more seconds before heavy thuds could be heard and the trap door barely budged with how much weight was still on it. Quill stood up and prepared himself. Not summoning his energy manifestation ability just yet and was waiting for enough room.
The trap door started thudding even harder and it was ever so slightly wobbling but again nothing until he heard a very loud and very pissed off “Move It!” from below and the trap door stopped for a small second before it started to lift up by something very strong pushing it open.
The moment it had cracked open enough Quill summoned up a whip with a spike at the end of it that he had decided to name Rat Tail. Though if he was being honest it was more just a rope with a sharp, pointy end. But that didn’t really matter because he didn’t really need to know how to use the whip since he could control the energy without movement.
He shot the sharp end into the crack made by the door with as much speed and strength as he could. This created a very audible crack like metal getting broken through followed by a shriek of pain and the trap door instantly slammed shut.
Well sorta slammed shut. The rope part of his whip kept the whole thing from closing entirely which was exactly as he intended. With the spike still down in the tunnels he started having it fly haywire in every single possible direction he could, as fast as it could, as far as he could, extending the rope part as much as he could to reach further than it normally would have.
Screeches and sounds of terror began instantly echoing up from underneath him along with sounds of clanging and crashing from his spike that was probably hitting both metal from what he assumed was armor along with concrete from the tunnel walls.
“This sorta feels like cheating…. Way to go!” Her voice echoed in his head and he almost lost concentration. As easy as this was compared to what could have happened, it was still taking Quill a considerable amount of willpower to keep things going as they were.
Finally after only a couple minutes at most, his headache was starting to get worse and that was the sign he needed to stop so he quickly dissipated the energies and let out a breath of relief as the trap door slammed shut.
Quill then took out a mana potion and stamina potion and quickly chugged both of those down. He had a bet that using this pseudo energy manifestation stuff put a strain on not just his body but also used up stamina and mana as well. While he would have to wait for his body to heal a bit, he hoped to lessen the negative effects by drinking the potions.
Sure enough he felt his headache disappear and a sense of exhaustion he didn’t really know he had also went with it. He still felt some slight aches in his body though, similar to an ache of bruises but they were perfectly manageable.
He closely eyed the trap door for the next few minutes while keeping his enhanced hearing open. When nothing made any moves he promptly flopped down on the floor relieved.
“Well, I’ll admit, that went much better than I expected. Nice job!”
“I don’t think it’s over yet. Call it a hunch but I think they will come back with something stronger soon.” She was quiet after that, allowing Quill to focus on listening as best as he could, which he appreciated.
He checked his statuses to see if he got a level up and was surprised at the notifications.
You have leveled up to lvl 8!
You have leveled up to lvl 9!
You have leveled up to lvl 10!
He got three levels up from that!? How??
“Can I speak now?”
“Yes. Yes you can speak. How on earth did I level up three times??”
“When I said this felt like cheating I wasn’t exaggerating. I don’t think you realized how many higher leveled monsters you killed just now. Not just higher level but also higher quality. A same leveled rat kin seems to give more experience then a same leveled dire rat. And you killed a bunch of rat kin with that little stunt of yours. They were literally all crowded around the entrance so you did a lot of damage.”
He took a breath. That was pretty surprising to him but he certainly wasn’t going to question it. The extra points into his body would do wonders right now and the extra free points in his mind would also benefit him greatly.
It probably took no longer than thirty or so minutes before Quill heard the sounds of scampering coming from underneath, along with the sound of a very heavy and very big foot falls. This was it.
He got up from where he sat and took a deep breath as he prepared. Soon the heavy footsteps stopped underneath his barricade and Quill mentally prepared himself. He hadn’t really expected the whole door to be flung open as a massive armored rat erupted from underneath causing his makeshift barricade to fling everywhere.
Thankfully Quill recovered quickly and summoned up his pizza cutter and brought it down to the rat as they shot upward. Its upward momentum and Quills downward strike cleaved through the whole rat's head as the spin of its blade met resistance but still managed to cut cleanly through.
A shriek came from underneath and an equally large rat with equal amounts armor shot its way up screeching “BROTHER KILLER!”
Unable to bring his Pizza Cutter to bear, he shot his rat tail forward. The large rat kin managed to dodge the first strike but made the mistake of thinking it was done. The spike whipped around as Quill dodged the Rat Kins blow and shot into the back of the neck going all the way through. The Rat Kin stumbled with shock as it looked down at the spike which gave Quill just enough time to bring his Pizza Cutter across their neck decapitating them.
The second giant Rat Kin collapsed and when no third giant armed rat kin jumped up at him he breathed a small sigh of relief but he wasn’t done yet. Before the other rats could rally again he jumped down into the hole, letting his Rat Tail Skewering a couple of nearby dire rats and his Pizza Cutter cutting through a Rat Kin as he stared at all the beady eyes watching him in stunned fear.
“That is right! You now face me, The Slayer of all Vermin Everywhere! Stand in fear and despair!”
Silence hung in the air while her voice echoed in his head “Laaaaame!” which Quill promptly ignored.
The other rats clearly didn’t think it was lame cause after a brief pause they started shrieking and running away like there was a fire underneath their feet.
“He has a title! He has a title for the killing of our kind! Run! Run!! Warn the king we must run!”
Quill blinked with some surprise but was grateful nonetheless as he dissipated Pizza Cutter and Rat Tail. He was certainly pushing himself and he was hoping to make them flee with that little stunt. That title thing was weird though.
“I don’t suppose you know what they were talking about?”
“Not a single clue” She said in a tone that very much implied she knew exactly what he was talking about.
You have leveled up to lvl 11!
You have leveled up to lvl 12!