He tried to focus his sight on the small rat, and sluggishly swiped at it, missing the rat, and it scurried away from rapidly, seeking shelter around the corner again. He tried to recover his balance, but his swipe had tipped him over and he collapsed on the torn bodies of a few of the rats he had killed before. He faced the wall on the opposite side of the stream and his vision swam before his eyes.

His breath was ragged, and his thoughts a jumble. His entire body ached from the exertion of trying not to get killed by rats. He tried to focus his eyes on his arm, which lay on the ground in front of him, but the strain almost made him lose consciousness. He closed his eyes and tried to steady his breath, but he passed out, his body giving up the struggle to stay awake. His ragged breathing grew shallow and silent.

You have passed out from exhaustion.

[ST 0/20]

After a few moments, a hesitant pair of whiskers came around the corner, quickly followed by a frantically sniffing snout. The head of a small rat poked from around the corner. Quickly it skittered to a pile of dead brethren and peeked around the corner and observed the goblin from its concealed position.

After watching for a few moments, sniffing the air all the time, it approached the goblin, sniffing it cautiously. It let out a squeak and skittered off to hide behind some rubble. When nothing happened it returned to the goblin again and bit the goblin quickly before skittering away towards safety hastily. Observing the goblin from its hiding spot, the rat noticed the blood trickling from the little bite mark, the goblin not moving an inch. It hadn't even twitched at the bite.

It scurried as fast as its legs could carry it back towards its remaining family members and collected them, to emerge victorious over the big goblin. Not many rats had survived from the nest that had been invaded. All the big and adult rats had been slaughtered, their corpses floating in the water and littering the walkways. Only a handful of youthful young rats remained alive after the battle, many bearing great bleeding gashes on their bodies, or limping with broken limbs and missing tails.

Slowly the small group limped and shoved their way towards the goblin, ready to run away at the first sign of movement of the goblin. But when the goblin didn’t move as they started sniffing his skin and wounds, they moved with more purpose and started biting and nibbling at the goblin, biting at the arms and legs. With some more adventurous rats climbing on top of the goblin, biting and scratching at the back and behind of the goblin in the soft tissue.

Soon all the rats were covered in murky goblin blood, slowly making way through the goblin skin with their small bites and claws. They didn’t have the strength of the adult rats and needed to work hard to afflict some damage to the giant creature. But by working together they managed to chew and claw a few holes in the flesh of the goblins. The fresh meat and blood seemed to invigorate them, and enthusiastic squeaks started to emerge from the giant pile, as their stomachs were filled with fresh meat.

But then a muffled scraping sound and a few thuds resounded through the tunnel, freezing the rats in their business of eating and clawing away into the goblin. They frantically dug into the flesh of the goblin with renewed vigor, trying to get every scrap of meat in their stomachs before the next danger would approach them.

The great wall that had blocked them in collapsed, and a harsh bright light flooded the tunnel, sending the blinded rats scurrying away in a panic from the bright light, the sound of their little claws ticking over the stones of the walkways as they ran away and vanished around the corner.

“Gah, that's disgusting!” A loud voice resounded.

“What do you see Flut? A mirror?.” Another voice replied jestingly.

------

Mereah stepped through the breach Flut had made in the wall that had blocked access to this part of the tunnel. She took in a sharp breath at the sight before her, taking a moment to observe every detail, before making space so Jora could enter as well.

Before her laid a veritable battlefield in miniature. Dozens of dead rats were strewn about and floating in the murky water, their corpses torn, severed, entrails spread out, and trod on. A goblin corpse laid a few steps in front of her, bite and scratch mark all over it and a few nasty wounds. Blood covered nearly everything on his body from the multitude of smaller wounds. Large chunks of flesh were missing from the limbs and back. A puddle of blood had spread around the small body. She was amazed at how much blood such a small body could hold.

“What the heck happened here?” She asked.

Serin was crouched near the body, prodding it with a gloved finger, but no reaction came from the corpse. She put her entire hand on it and waited for a few moments.

“Still warm. I guess this goblin chewed off a bit more than it could handle. It probably built that wall to lock in the rats, to try to kill them for his tribe or something. I’m honestly surprised it managed to kill so many rats. I would have been very hesitant to face so many rats with all four of us working together.”

She stood up and kicked a rat that was the size of a young housecat into the water.

"These critters have a mean bite and can tear through leather easily, and with how many lay here, they could easily overwhelm you. Brave little bugger though."

She pulled a knife from her belt and with a smooth motion cut off an ear from the corpse. She flicked the ear a few times to get the blood out of it as much as possible before putting it in a purse on her belt.

She then stabbed the goblin in the chest and wiggled the knife around a bit.

“Huh, no notification. It must have been dead already. That would have been easy experience.”

She shoved the goblin into the water with her boot and eyed the tunnel ahead where rat corpses were strewn around up and around the corner ahead, wiping her knife clean with a cloth she had pulled from somewhere before sheathing it.

“Mereah, note down the location of this rickety wall and that we found a dead goblin here. The nest must be nearby.”

She pulled out her wax tablet, which had little notes on it so far, just marking which tunnels were clear and a few repair notes, and dutifully scribbled it in the wax with the stylus, whilst her troop mates shoved the rat corpses in the water with their boots to make the path more walkable.

She made a quick guess on how many rats were strewn around here, and their sizes and made a small footnote in her notes about the rats near the remark of the goblin corpse. She put the stylus in the container at the side of the tablet, before wrapping it up in leather wrappings.

The path ahead was slick with the blood of the little creatures, and she had to be extra careful in joining up with her team who were ten feet ahead, standing at a corner in the sewer, discussing something they were seeing ahead, Serin making notes on her wax tablet. Mereah joined up with them and took in what held the attention of her comrades.

A giant blockade of fat mixed with trash and feces, about thirty feet into the tunnel. Green, grey, and lumpy, making her stomach churn with just the vision of it. Small wounded rats were scurrying around in the corners against the walls trying to get as far away from them as they could, squeaking in terror. She counted twenty-three rats on the fat lump.

Flut faced Serin and waited until she was ready with the notes she was scribing on her wax tablet.

“Permission to kill these rats? They might just what I need to push me to level three.”

Serin nodded affirmatively to Flut, who took out his knife and made his way towards the panicked rats. Serin faced the remaining members of her troop with a smile edging around her mouth.

“Well, whilst he is busy playing with his pets, what do you say to a sip to drink and bite to eat?”

“Aye” came from two mouths near simultaneously.

Mereah was starving after having spent for what felt an eternity walking through these dark damp sewers. She didn’t even know what time it was on the surface. Time sort of lost its meaning down here, but the feeling in her stomach said it must be around dinner time.

They sat down, backs against the wall. Jora passed around the water flask, and they filled up their mugs with the clean water. She then got out a portion of her hardtack and soaked it in the water for a bit before chewing on it.

“Gah, this tastes like shit.” She remarked.

That got her a few snickers from her companions, as they all dutifully chewed on their own hardtack. The sewer air, which had become more bearable with time spent in it, still ruined her taste and appetite, but her body was screaming for some food.

“Five copper he doesn’t manage to kill half of them,” Jora spoke up, whilst chewing his hardtack.

Serin took a sip of her mug before answering.

“Deal. I think hell get almost all of them, he’s eager enough I say he’ll get three-fourths.”

Mereah felt compelled to support her friend, even though she didn’t think her chances were high of winning.

“I’ll join too, I think he’ll get almost all of them, if not all of them.”

They spat in their hands and shook on the bet. Mereah took a sip from her water as she observed how Flut was chasing after the small rats on the unstable fat mound. He had gotten a few easy kills with the limping ones, who couldn’t move out of his reach fast enough, but now 16 relatively mobile rats were left, and they could move over the fat clog with ease, whilst Flut sank into it deeply and had to struggle to move over it, chasing after the rats, only for the rats to move in fear to the other side again.

They hollered encouragement to Flut and gave him not all too helpful pointers where the critters had now run. They were having a great time watching their mate struggle to grab a rat, catching the struggling little critter, only for him to lose grip on his knife, it falling point down in the fat, sinking deep within the mound. In his effort to catch after the knife, the rat used his lapse in attention to wriggle out of his grease-covered glove.

With a curse, Flut tried to grasp after it, but the rat rolled away, and found its way to the water, and swam out of reach quickly. With a lot of swear words, he started to dig with his hands in the fat mound where his knife had vanished.

“You lost something buddy?” Jora shouted good-naturedly.

“At least your knife is sharp, it vanishes like a hot knife through butter.” Serin jeered.

Mereah threw a junk piece of metal that laid there towards the rat, which had crawled on top of the goblin corpse to catch its breath. The small brown rat was obviously exhausted from the blood loss from the gash on its side and running around so much. The iron piece of scrap lodged itself in a wound in the corpse of the goblin, making it top-heavy, flipping it on its back. The rat squeaked in terror at the sudden instability of its refuge and jumped back in the water moving away from her, back towards Flut.

“Here you go, you get a second chance if you ever find that knife.”

They had great fun observing Flut struggle after finding his knife to maintain a grip on it and to catch the slippery small creatures on its edge.