Digging bit by bit, the rats moved like a well-oiled machine. One tunnel became two tunnels, two become four and four become eight. The rats were worked to death until they couldn’t dig any longer, those that died were dragged out and given to the rat king to feast.

Using this method, hundreds of tunnels had been created before the first rat broke into the female dwarf bedrooms. But they didn’t attack right away and instead began to connect all the holes into the dwarven base. Another hour passed before the rats also broke through the males' dormitories.

In position, the Rats moved under the Rat kings commands and broke into teams. Team one job was to get ready to rip out the dwarfs' throats. Team two would spread around the room and target the sleeping dwarfs' necks to kill them. Team three would enter deeper into the base and search for the thing tugging at its mind. While the rest of the army would wait outside and wait for his signal before sieging the base.

If everything went to plan, the rats would be able to overrun the dwarfs before they knew what hit them. The rats silently climbed down the wall without waking a single dwarf up. With their night vision, they were able to see all the dwarfs soundly sleeping.

Taking a few whiffs the rats moved towards their targets. The main one is to locate the Urist and the secondaries being the mages. It didn’t take them long to find them and get into position. The one who found Urist connected his mind to the Rat King and allowed him to borrow his body. The rat king did a quick look to see that the rival had a leaf covering most of his body, especially around the neck area. The Rat King retreated his mind and began sending mental commands to his rat assassins. The team scurried around finding their targets and waiting for the order to attack.

Before giving the order the Rat king moved his mind over to a member of team three. After all, it pretty much had the dwarfs lives in his hands. What did it need to fear? It had to see what was calling to him.

Heading out into the hallway the rats delved deeper down the path towards where the civilization stone was held. It didn’t take long for them to enter the room and gaze at the blood-red shard and a glowing blue orb made out of stone.

When the rat king laid eyes on these two items it knew instinctively that these were the items that called to his mind.

With these, it would become a true king and not one in name.

With these, it would enter the world of rulers.

With these, the rat kingdom would rise as it’s founder.

Licking his lips the Rat King had almost forgotten about its arch-nemesis. Almost. Taking control of the rat hanging over Urist, the Rat King order team three to steal the stones before it and it’s assassins went in for the kill.

Listening to their leader’s orders the two dozen rats climbed the pedestal and had decided that the two of the biggest rats would carry it on their backs and had a smaller one rat hold it in place.

Everything was going according to the Rat kings plan until the Rats touched the crystal. Urist eyes suddenly shot open startling the Rat King he didn’t get to stare long before Urist erupted into a blazing screaming inferno.

“YOU RAT VERMIN! DIE!”

Urist yell awoke the soundly sleeping dwarfs up to see hundreds of regular-sized rats surrounding them. In the confusion, the Rat King order for the rats to attack the dwarfs who were arming themselves with their clubs. He also messaged for the rat army waiting outside the wall to attack now and swarm.

Some of the dwarfs were slow on their feet and watched as rats ruthlessly bit into their necks repeatedly with their long teeth. Those more resolute pulled the rats off their necks causing a chuck of their flesh to go with them.

Grabbing the Rat in front of him, Urist burned the Rat King’s puppet to ash causing the Rat King to experience horrifying pain before disconnecting. Bleeding from his remaining eye, the Rat King entered a hateful rage sending a command for his kin to attack in a frenzy.

Cutting the flames off of one of his hands, Urist dug into the ground and pulled out the oxygen light crystal and began to blow as hard as he could. Within moments the room and the girl’s rooms lit up with clear light allowing the dwarfs to see.

They were shocked to see holes in the walls with rats coming out of them. Then just as soon as they could see, the guardsman outside blew the horn causing more shock to the dwarfs.

Gathering all this information Urist gave a sudden command, “Rats are trying to steal our civilization stone! Fatty, I need you to carry me and a few people to stop them! The rest of you split up into two teams, one to protect the wounded and mages as they plug up the holes and heal. Second team reinforces the wall! Go! Go! Go!”

Like Urist, Unicy had made the same commands except the civilization stone team. Although bleeding, confused, and scared the dwarfs listened to their leaders and moved out with their weapons.

Five dwarfs, together with Urist and Fatty entered the hallway to see the rats just about pass them. Urist scorned the rats, sending a massive fireball into the group of fleeing rats burning them to ash.

“You five carry these back and protect the other crystal. No matter what you hear do not leave these unguarded until you are relieved of duty. Understood?”

“We will carry out your orders boss!”

Sucking the flames back into his body, Urist gave a Fatty a slap on the back. “Good. Fatty let’s go to the wall and give them hell.”