The next morning I awoke feeling refreshed once more, and I got up early enough that I could see the sun rising beautifully from outside the window. For some reason, even though the stench of death had been steadily getting stronger over the last few days, it didn’t seem to bother me as much this morning. Either my nose and brain were learning to ignore it, or else yesterday’s increases in CON were helping me resist the stench. Maybe a combination of both.

I was wanting to get an early start on exterminating the rats in the other room, so I didn’t even bother eating anything yet for breakfast. I downed a partial bottle of soda and went over to what little remained of the goblin’s remains and proceeded to put on my “Blood Armor” so I could go do battle with the rats a little more safely. Unfortunately there wasn’t a lot of blood left to be harvested, no matter how hard to tried to squeeze an extra drop or two out of the goo that remained of the goblin, but I did my best. Once I’d squeeze out as much liquid as I could, I then smeared all the “squishy stuff” as I could across my chest and legs to try and pick up as much of the remaining scent as possible.

After that I grabbed up my “secret weapons” for fighting the rats in my right hand and picked up my metal rod in my left hand and I headed to the door. I’ve learnt my lesson about just walking into things, so I stood still for a moment and listened to make certain I couldn’t hear anything, and then I cautiously peeked around the corner. The hallway was thankfully deserted this morning and I eased myself up to the room where the rats had built their nest.

Once again, I stopped before doing anything else so that I could listen, and all I could hear was a few lite little squeaks and squeals from inside the room. Tentatively I peeked my head around the edge of the doorframe and tried to access the situation ahead of me.

One thing immediately obvious to me was the fact that the room wasn’t packed full like it had been the first time I boldly (more like stupidly) walked into it. Before, there must’ve been close to 50 or 60 rats in the room. Now, I only saw 3 of them – but they were all of the larger variety like the one that tried to chew my arm off yesterday. I have to admit, I was scared, but I was anxious to try this as well.

Taking a few deep breaths, I drew back my arm and tossed my “secret weapons” down towards the floor, in the middle of those three large rats, and I was rewarded with the satisfying sound of breaking glass. Almost instantly the rats started to squeal and roll on the ground, and with a second deep breath I charged in and started bashing on the first one.

The smell of perfume made my eyes water, and even without breathing it in, the stench was almost enough to make me run from it. For the rats, which seemed to have much more sensitive noses than me, it had to be almost the ultimate attack! The three large rats in the center of the room weren’t paying any attention to me as I pounded away on them; and dozens of tiny rats which ranged from the size of a normal mouse to almost the size of a half grown kitten were starting to emerge from the piled nest of garbage that took up most of the rest of the room. Whenever one of the scurried and stumbled anywhere near me, I swatted at it and was rewarded with a pleasantly sounding Ding also.

For the next minute or two, I was an unstoppable rat killing machine! Honestly, I don’t know how many of those little buggers I squashed as they tried to get their way to the exit, but I know for a fact that I managed to put all three of the larger ones down for good. But, like most good things in life, it quickly came to an end too soon for my liking.

I couldn’t hold my breath by for so long, and the moment I actually gasped in a rush of air to my lungs, I was almost in the same shape as the rats. Beyonce, Chanel, Elizabeth Taylor, Victoria’s Secret, and even Disney brands of perfume were all intermingling in with the stench of the rats and the smell of the decaying corpses, and all combined it was…

There’s no real word which I can use to describe what it was. It simply WAS! It kind of reminds me of that passage in the Bible where Moses asks God what his name was and God answered back, “I AM!” God is what He is, with no other name needed to describe Him, and that stench was what it was. It simply WAS.

Poisonous fiery air went down my throat and instantly my lungs protested and tried to shut down. My throat tightened and locked up and my eyes squinted shut almost instantly as tears poured like a river down my cheeks. I could see why the rats weren’t fighting back now, and I – like them—was only interested in trying to choke and gag my way to the exit and out of there. Countless little dings were still going off as I staggered to the door. I assume the fumes were too great for most of the smaller youngling rats and were simply overwhelming them.

Puking and gagging, I collapsed to my knees at the doorway and tried to gasp in as much fresh and untainted air as possible into my lungs. While I down on all fours and hacking and coughing, something large slammed into my back and toppled me head over heels into the wall with a resounding crash hard enough to make my teeth bleed. With blurry eyes, I squinted up to see what had basically trampled me, and I was greeted with the sight of a rat twice as large as any I’ve seen before staggering down the hall and ramming its head and shoulders into first one wall and then the other.

Thinking, “It’s got to be the Boss Rat,” I fumbled around half blind for my makeshift club and slowly I half crawled, half staggered down the hall after it. Luck must’ve been with me, as the rat was heading down the hall towards the goblin’s room, and not down further where who knows what might still be lying in wait to find us!

If anyone could’ve seen us, I’m certain they would’ve been laughing at the scene we made – oversized rat drunkenly staggering down the hall, with me retching and hobbling after it and trying to beat it down before it could get away – but I don’t care. I just wanted payback for all the death and destruction these things had caused (and for my own multiple deaths at their hands a few days before), and I wasn’t going to let my chance slip away. Even while retching, crying, choking and coughing, I staggered after the beast and pounded on it every chance I could get.

There wasn’t anything glamorous about my first “Boss Kill”, but by the time it’d started up the stairs to the roof I’d managed to somehow beat its life down. I was rewarded with that silly DOO DOO DA DOO trumpet sound, several pop-up windows, and most importantly – a breath of fresh untainted air from the roof! Perhaps the beast’s destination wasn’t quite as dependent on luck as I’d first thought. Like me, it just wanted to escape to where the air was the freshest.

I sat my ass down on the steps with my back to the pop-up windows so I wouldn’t walk into any of them as some might have important information on them, and I slowly scooted on my rump up the stairs and towards the fresh air. Somewhere along the way, I managed to shave several hit points off myself from the splintered remnants of the door that the minotaur had busted down on the first day, but that wasn’t important to me right now.

All I cared about was getting to fresh air, and not closing those messages by accident. A few splinters in my ass was a more than suitable price to pay to achieve those two goals as I slowly scooted up the steps and out into the early morning air. It took me hours of painfully trying to gasp for breath before my eyes and lungs settled down somewhat. My “secret weapon” certainly was effective. In fact, it was almost too effective!