Pandora Unchained B1C18 - Coordinated Horde

With the rat lord dead and the lesser rockgnaw rats gone, Sorin was finally able to take stock of his injuries. Heavy damage to the pectoral muscles, he as he looked over his wounds. Potential nerve damage to the right arm. Chipped bones on the upper ribs. Estimated recovery time without healing potion: 3 weeks plus rehabilitation. He took the half healing potion Stephan had tossed him and carefully applied it onto his open wounds. He then stitched them up with a needle and thread to ensure they were healing properly before examining the rest of his body.

Healing is going much faster than expected. Is it a side effect of the Ten Thousand Poison Cannon? Increase and strength in speed are also unexpected. Further analysis is required. A full adventurer’s investigation is reccomended.

“Thanks,” Sorin said to Stephan when he opened his eyes. The healing potion had all been used up.

“Don’t mention it,” said Stephan. “It’s coming out of the group pot. A potion like that is worth about 100 gold.

Despite the expense, there was no denying that defeating the group of rats had been well worth it. There was a 5-gold bounty on each rat, and their demon cores, weak as they were, were still worth about 5 gold apiece. The entire group, excluding the rat lord, had been worth about 400 gold.

“This rat lord is an upper level one star threat,” said Stephan, “We’ll get a 100-gold bounty for it at least, though the core will probably only be 50 gold.

“Why the disparity?” asked Sorin.

It was Lawrence who answered him. “Bounties are awarded according to threat level, both present and future. But cores are only worth as much as the demonic energy inside them. Have you never gone to offer cores at a temple?”

“Once,” said Sorin. “For a wish. But never like adventurers do.” It was a well-known fact that the greatest customers of the Temple of Hope weren’t the poor and the unlucky, but rather adventurers, especially after a big haul.

“We’ll go there as a group after everything is said and done,” said Stephan. “But for now, it’s best to figure out how we’re going to tackle the rest of this nest.”

“We should scout ahead and see if any tunnels become dead ends,” advised Gareth. “Make a proper map of the place like the one I’ve been keeping. Once we clear off the side branches, we’ll make our way to the bigger clusters. Given that we just ran into a rat lord, there’s a hundred percent certainty of us finding at least a juvenile rat king.”

Their team spent the next hour salvaging the battlefield and three hours recovering their energy. Fighting in evil-occupied territory meant exposure to corruption, and it was necessary to expel this corruption to maintain the purity of their mana. But when Sorin sat down to expel his own corruption, he discovered something shocking.

There’s… none? Sorin realized. He scanned his entire body to make sure. Typically, corruption started off in the mana and then worked its way into a cultivator’s blood before infiltrating their meridians, bones, organs, and acupoints. Yet try as he might, he found not a trace of corruption in any of these, which amazing even by the standards of a city-dwelling cultivator with a top-tier cultivation method.

It’s not just my mana and flesh that are absent of corruption, thought Sorin. Even my clogged up extraordinary meridians are loosening up. My blood and mana are eating away at the corruption.

This was both a wonderful thing and a worrying thing. Wonderful because it meant that his cultivation method and the mana it granted him were truly overbearing but worrying because of the greed someone might feel if they ever discovered this.

Sorin decided that this matter was best kept secret. If anything, he needed to find an opportunity to cleanse impure in public and show off the amazing skills of the Kepler Clan in clearing out corruption. This was the Kepler Clan’s signature skill, and his family wouldn’t be able to openly criticize him for doing so. At least in theory.

After the three hours were up, their group continued the extermination. Gareth and Lawrence identified branch paths from the main cavern that they carefully explored and purged out before proceeding down the main tunnel.

The walls were made of stone, not earth. Rockgnaw rats had hard teeth that could eat away even volcanic rock. Their digestive systems secreted mana-rich acids that could melt most of it away. And what they couldn’t digest was excreted into rat ‘piles’ that were kept in separate caves within the complex.

“I’m surprised at the level of intelligence they’re showing,” said Sorin to Stephan as they finished clearing out one such cave. “To keep one’s waste separate from one’s living space isn’t something rats typically do.”

“Now that you mention it, that is rather odd,” said Stephan. “Gareth, any insights?”

“Doesn’t it all come down to having a king again?” said Gareth. “A rat lord would make them stronger, but only a king would make these rats more intelligent. Oh? It seems like Lawrence is rushing back. I wonder if he tripped a trap or something?”

“We hit the motherload!” exclaimed Lawrence as he arrived before their group. He was out of breath and hadn’t even bothered hiding his presence. “There’s a large mana crystal on the ground. A huge one. Biggest I’ve ever seen.”

“Calm down,” said Stephan. “You said you saw a mana crystal on the ground.”

“Yes,” said Lawrence.

“Crawling with rats I presume?” continued Stephan.

“No!” whispered Lawrence excitedly. “It’s like they don’t even know it exists!”

Sorin frowned. “That doesn’t sound very smart at all.”

“They’re rats!” said Lawrence.

“Sorin’s got a point,” said Gareth. “And them ignoring a giant mana crystal would also run counter to the observations we’ve been making os far.”

“I scouted out all the caves leading into and out of the room, and there was not a rat in sight,” reassured Lawrence. “Maybe they hate mana crystals! Maybe it scares them. Either way, we can jump in and excavate the mana crystal, then retreat. We’ll come back later to clear out the rats.”

“But then we’d have failed our mission,” said Stephan.

“Not to mention this who thing smells like a huge trap,” said Gareth. “Daphne, back me up.”

“What?” said Daphne, who was currently making marks on the wall with a dagger. “Oh yes. Huge trap. Typical adventuring storyline.” Then she paused. “How big of a mana crystal did you say it was?”

“Barely portable,” said Lawrence. “Just standing there in the room. I think it’s connected to the ground, but mithril knives and a bit of elbow grease should pull it out.”

“Be specific, Lawrence,” said Stephan.

“Oh. The size of two human heads,” said Lawrence.

Stephan hissed. “That’s got to be worth about 5,000 gold pieces. What do you think, Gareth? Is it worth the risk?”

Gareth hesitated. “We could look, but I still smell a trap. We should be ready to bolt at a moment’s notice.”

“I’ll lead the way!” said Lawrence excitedly.

They soon arrived at a large cavern measuring 300 feet across with a stalactite-covered ceiling thirty feet above their heads. The bottom of the stalactites were conspicuously chewed away. It was clear that the rockgnaw rats often frequented this space.

As for the mana crystal, it was in the center of the room as Lawrence had said. Moreover, his scouting of  the tunnels a second time indicated there were  no rats over 300 feet in every direction.

“All right,” said Stephan, shaking his head. “Let’s do it.”

“You sure?” asked Gareth.

“They’re rats,” said Stephan. “How dangerous could their trap really be? Moreover, they need time to pull it off. But looking at that crystal, I can probably yank it out of the ground with my bare claws.”

“Fine,” said Gareth. “I’m in. Any objections?” Sorin and Daphne exchanged a look but did not dissent. That chunk of mana crystal was worth 1000 gold each. “Then let’s go in and out. Two minutes at most. Move!”

Their group sprinted into the room and arrived at the mana crystal. Stephan assumed bear form and hugged the crystal, while Lawrence pulled out a dagger and began cutting away at the stone trapping it. As for Daphne, Sorin, and Gareth, they looked around the room with furrowed brows.

“Something feels off,” said Sorin.

“The rat smell in this room is too strong,” agreed Daphne, crinkling her nose.

“My instincts are telling me we’re surrounded,” said Gareth. “But I have no idea how we’re surrounded.”

As soon as the words left his mouth, the walls trembled. The rocks on one wall burst open, revealing a group of twenty rats that came pouring into the room. “It was a trap!” swore Gareth. “Weapons out, everyone! We’re cutting a path out of this mess!”

Stephan had already dropped the mana crystal, and Lawrence, vexed that his plan had been ruined, stopped chipping away at the rock. “How was I supposed to know they were hiding in the walls?” complained Lawrence. “That’s not typical rat behavior.”

Another rumble sounded as several dozen more walls crumbled. Rats came pouring into the room, cutting off their retreat and completely encircling them. “There’s hundreds of them,” said Stephan gravely. “A completely unmanageable number.”

“I can kill us all and take them out with us,” suggested Daphne. “If that’s something everyone would like to consider,” she added, noting their shock.

“How about we try to get out of here if we can?” said Sorin. This was his first real adventure. His life was finally turning around, and he wasn’t going to give up on it now.

“Hold formation,” said Stephan as Gareth pulled his bow back. “They’re not attacking on sight, and I’d like to avoid forcing the point.

It was only when the last of the rats poured out and quieted down that they heard scurrying on the far end of the tunnel. A small group of rats poured out, complete with three huge rats that were clearly rat lords and a much smaller rat, barely the size of a fist.

The rats parted respectfully for this group. The three large rats and the smaller rat trotted up to the mana crystal, and the smaller rat hopped onto the mana crystal and used it as a podium. It began squeaking imperiously at Sorin’s group.

“Does… does anyone here speak rat?” asked Stephan uncertainly.

“Stephan must,” said Gareth.

“I’m a beastshift warrior, not a druid,” snapped Stephan. “What about you, Daphne? Don’t you have spell or something?”

“Translation is a Tier 2 spell,” said Daphne. “I’m smart. Verysmart. But the only Tier 2 spell I’ve managed to learn is the authentic version of fireball. And unlike the knockoff I use, it takes my entire mana stock to pull off.”

Seemingly enraged at their lack of comprehension, the rat ‘king’ squeaked and pointed to a group of rats. The rats kowtowed to their leader in a seeming demonstration.

“I think they want us to pledge loyalty,” said Sorin. “What a strange fellow.”

That wasn’t the only thing Sorin felt. Looking at the creature, he didn’t feel awe or respect. Instead, he looked down on the creature. That mouse was prey, so it should behave like prey.

“Well we can’t pledge loyalty to rats,” said Lawrence.

“And why not?” asked Gareth. “I like my life, thank you very much.”

“It’s the logistics of it,” said Lawrence. “Would we ever get real food? Would we ever get enough sunlight?”

“Would we remain disease free?” Sorin chimed in. “Sorry, I thought that was the most salient point. I’m personally not for pledging loyalty if we can help it. Assuming it’s a group decision.”

By now, the rat king was infuriated. It was shouting at the rat lords in his escort and pointing at them. And surprisingly, the rat lords were completely subservient to the tiny creature they could gobble up in a single bite.

That being said, the rat king was currently the only thing stopping the horde of rats form eating them alive. Since that was the case, it was clear that the rat king was their ticket out of here.

“I have a plan,” said Sorin. “And it’s a risky plan.”

“That’s more than what anyone else has,” said Stephan. “Speak away.”

“I also have a plan,” said Daphne. “Like I said, I can kill us all along with these rats.”

“Well I have a workable plan,” said Sorin. “One that involves us staying alive. But to pull it off, we’ll need to capture the king.”