The expression “rocks fall, everybody dies” apparently did not apply to large felines of the infernal variant, dragons on the other hand? Especially when they are at the epicenter of kitty related chaos? Well suffice to say our firebreathing non fiend friend was currently hoping the next dungeon to spawn him would give him either a. wings, or b. a rockfall proof skull.

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Rascal meanwhile smugly groomed himself just clear of the collapse. Until something small and shiny caught his eye. It looked a little like the jingly ball he played with at home, but instead of jingling when he batted it it screamed at him in human. Usually words he recognised as swear words. It was most entertaining. As he played with his new toy however the ceiling started to creak ominously. Well whatever Rascal didn’t care there was no more fun stuff here. So he started back towards the exit, he was getting out while the getting was good. He was almost in the clear too when CRASH it all came down, and things went even more pear shaped with a GULP.

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Up on the surface the fight was interrupted by a rumble, a creak, a crash, and most unexpectedly of all a ruddy great sinkhole. The lizardmen were left in a rather sudden state of disarray by their erstwhile burrow suddenly collapsing. They had the core and it was guarded by a dragon (granted not the big strong flappy kind, but none of them dared say that to his face.) So how in the hell had this happened? They could have used that thing to spawn a whole army, and now they had a crater.

To say they were pissed off would be an understatement, and the ones who were left were putting up a valiant fight, if for no other reason than sheer spite, when from beneath their feet something stirred.

Whoever came up with the expression “hell hath no fury like a woman scorned” had obviously never encountered a pissed off feline of the hellion variant who has just had a close encounter with a collapsing dungeon. As Rascal clawed their way free of the hole those bloody lizards came from, and discovered them messing with his food servant, his lackeys, and his featherpillow. Now as anybody who has ever been foolish enough to interfere with a cats toy knows, the end result of such an ill considered action is usually a mauling. Taking a cats food supply results in the same, taking both? Nobody knows, as nobody has survived the attempt.

So the battle was interrupted by a ROOOOOWWWWWWWWWWWWRRRRRRRRRRR, as a thoroughly pissed off hellcat joined the fray.

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Rargagrdargra was confused, she was well aware that She had manipulated a dungeon core in order to produce a lair, and to do so she’d bonded the core’s auric signature. Now for some inexplicable reason the signature was coming from inside the cat. How the hell was she supposed to control it from in there? Since that wasn’t an option she settled for plan b, and tried to wallop the creature upside the head with her feathered staff. This did not work out quite according to plan, and the oversized feline was chasing her around, until in sheer desperation she hurled the staff away.

It then pounced on the damned thing and started kicking hell out of the feathers.

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Mibbet meanwhile had had quite enough of this, and was in the process of unleashing a full on Rosalind Von Harmsworth moment. She wasn’t even aiming anymore, just letting Rosalind wreak as much havoc as she wished. Which in the circumstances was quite a lot. Resulting in Errol who had been flagging realising that letting a princess show him up would make him something of a laughing stock, so he joined the fray. Sir Leeroy of course noting all this mumbled some nonsense about “true companions” in order to justify himself before reverting to family tradition.

Before long the fight was finally over once and for all, the remaining lizardmen would have run off with their tail between their legs, but being lizards and all they’d dropped them in order to run away faster. Leaving Mibbet and friends (after giving Errol a smack of course,) wondering what in the god’s names just happened.

“Well Wannashowa, not sure if you were involved there or not but thanks anyway,” Mibbet said, hoping that it would count as a prayer, after all it never hurt to seem properly thankful, especially where gods were involved. Particularly when one seems to have marked you out for particular attention. (Failure to seem properly thankful to said gods may single you out for a different kind of attention, and if the books were all to be believed then nobody knew how to hold a grudge like a god.)

Errol and Sir Leeroy meanwhile were exploring the remains of the site formally known as a dungeon, and the core issue of... well.... the core. Where the hell had the bloody thing gone. They sent back to Podunk for a team (poor Errol was running yet again, well at least he was good at it.) Then began the excavations, finding a number of collapsed tunnels, and eventually to everybody’s concern the rather flattened remains of a bloody big wyrm. The remains of the traps were of course on no fit state to go off, (Rascal stared forlornly at the remains of his hot spot for a little while before getting distracted and running off again.) But after much digging, and even more searching not a trace of the core was found, and they were no closer to unravelling the mystery.

This confused everybody, unless this was a hitherto undiscovered variant of Lizardman with unexpectedly good Architecture and Civic engineering skills, the odds of such a luxurious burrow being of their own make were slim.

They were all far too distracted, or really did not expect the real answer. While they all farted about digging, exploring and theorising Rascal played with the new feathery toy, in the middle of a freshly spawned patch of Catnip.