I took a last look at Nate’s body as I gained control of my sobs. That shit’s been bottled up since before the System, Fuck me sideways. Then I rejoined my companions at the intersection. Brother Coyote and Lulu were huddled to one side and Johnny and the boy waited with their backs to the animals and I saw bare feet shifting around behind the large coyotes.

“I take it Alyssa is sharing some clothing with that other girl we found?”

Johnny nodded and smiled. Something else is up then?

“We need to decide what to do with those two.” I nodded at the boy and waved towards where the girls were apparently changing. “We can’t send them back on their own, but I don’t want to leave until we kill the rat fuck running this place.”

“Alyssa cleared out the other wing, and we cleared the… kitchen. I believe Brother Coyote can wait with them here while we tackle the rest of this place.”

I nodded at that thought and looked again at the boy, he shuffled his bare feet across the smooth stone floor and looked down the hall towards the entrance with apprehension clearly written on his face. I thought to move to comfort him then thought better of it, We were covered in blood and dirt and I was emotionally wrung out.

I was saved when Brother Coyote padded up and sniffed the boy's hair then licked him fully on the face. He froze for a second then let out a throaty giggle. The young woman with the missing arm walked up cautiously wearing Alyssa’s heavily shredded hoodie and white cotton panties. Through the tears in the hoodie I saw that Alyssa had also given up her bra to further help protect the woman’s modesty. She walked up to the boy and looked cautiously at Johnny and me.

I looked around and noticed Alyssa was apparently hiding behind Lulu. Lulu caught me looking and gave a short huff and then pulled away from her soulbound companion. My mouth fell open when I finally saw her. She still wore my old cargo pants and boots. What replaced her hoodie stunned me. She now wore what appeared to be a red leather corset that pushed up her ample bosom. Her eyes locked on mine and shot wide open and she blushed furiously. I’m so going to hell.

I heard Johnny quietly chuckle then stepped forward and saved me from stuttering out something stupid. “We are going to leave Brother Coyote with Samantha and the young one, are you ready?”

“Ok, I am.” Then she looked at me still blushing, then to Lulu and back to me with a bit more confidence and placed a hand on her hip “I got this as a reward for defeating the boss in that room…” Anger flashed in her eyes then quickly filtered away.

“Uh... cool, looks good.” WHAT THE FUCK AM I SAYING!? SHUT THE FUCK UP KARL!

I turned and headed down the hall to the last door. Johnny, Alyssa, Lulu and Kaia followed. I looked back over my shoulder to Brother Coyote and the two people we saved while avoiding ogling Alyssa’s new found cleavage. “You got her to talk, got her name, I take it?”

“Yeah, Johnny hit her with a heal, it didn’t replace the arm obviously, but it seemed to snap her out of her head. She’s still super skittish but I think she will be ok, who knows, maybe something in the system can replace her arm? I mean, we have magic and skills.”

“Veep?”

“Most definitely, several options are available from cybernetics to actually regrowing the limb, though both options are rather expensive, they are possible.”

“Then she just needs to work through the mental trauma. She mention where she was when she was taken?” I asked the group as we reached the door.

“She was at the creek. Said dozens of the little rat bastards came out of the canyon and started knocking out the people that ran and killing the ones that fought. She said the heavier people were taken to where you found her, the more… attractive… ones were taken to the room I cleared.” She slowed her explanation at the last bit.

“What was in the other room?” I turned with concern.

She looked distantly for a moment then smiled at me “Nothing I couldn’t handle.”

Hmmm, she don’t want to talk about it, no reason to press.

As I touched the door to open it the war drums began to sound along the passage again. I stopped, looked at my companions and took a step back and launched my foot at the latch doing my best impression of 300. The door exploded inward and I stumbled through not expecting it to give so easily. Splinters of the door smashed into a smooth stone wall and shattered further on impact.

The room we entered curved around in each direction. The wall in front of us was about 3 meters in from the door and also curved around. I walked around the right and Alyssa climbed onto Lulu and disappeared into the shadows and moved left, Johnny and Kaia followed me out into a brightly lit atrium. My eyes adjusted to the bright light which I realized to be the sun, this room was essentially built like a crater and open to the sky above. Stitched leather tarps spread from the edges to provide areas of shade under which fur bedding sleeping areas, wood tables and benches and bronze braziers were spread liberally throughout.

A rich red carpet, trimmed in gold circled a slightly raised dais with an ornately carved stone throne, covered in soft furs. On the throne sat a large muscled kobold that looked more like a werewolf than he did any of his kin. He had a thick gold hoop running through the middle of his nostrils that was connected to several more gold hoops in his left ear by a glittering gold chain. A simple crown of silver and gold hugged his scalp tightly and ended at a point directly between his eyes. A scar spread from his milky right eye to the torn and mangled right ear and a small drop of drool formed in the corner of his mouth. He wore a dark metal breastplate with intricate gold inlay and thick leather pauldrons sat upon his shoulders. A heavy leather cloak with red stitching draped his left shoulder and he leaned to the side of the throne casually eyeing us.

His arms were wiry and taught, they ended in wicked looking three inch black talons. A metal bracer wrapped his forearm and connected to it three black blades with gold inlay similar to the breastplate and extended a foot past the tips of his claws. His feet and lower legs were covered in the same metal as the rest of his equipment, brown leather padding peaked out from the edges. A pair of gold plated chains extended from under the cloak that covered his left arm and ended on a collar that surrounded the necks of two naked women.

The woman on his right sat at the base of the throne and hugged his leg, her long dark brown hair cascaded across his leg and full breasts pressed against him. She had honey gold eyes that tracked Johnny and I with a flash of hope, though she didn't speak or move. The other woman was something else altogether. She lounged on the beasts left side and regarded us curiously with pitch black eyes, no iris' to speak of. The first thing to stand out about her was the green color of her skin, the second was where her hair would have been was a large 'afro' of leaves. She had a round face that narrowed to a point at her chin and full dark green lips. The rest of her was as one would expect save for what appeared to be bark across her forarms and shins.

In front of them stood four dark furred kobolds with armor in a similar style to that of the chieftain, though without the gold inlay. These kobolds carried the first ranged weapons we had seen from their kind. Wicked looking black limbed crossbows with serrated broadhead bolts and heavy looking cranks on the sides. In front of them were six more of the warrior kobolds, again with the same armor, though the weapons varied to each. I spotted a nasty looking bastard sword, a long sword and shield, a pair of bearded axes, a studded flail, a mace and tower shield, and a giant two handed dark iron mace. To each side of the room was what I assumed to be a healer of some type. I analyzed all of them to confirm my suspicions.

Shaad, the Unbroken, the Defiler, the God-Touched. Lvl 20** Kobold Chieftain

Little full of himself, huh?

The rest analyzed as variations on Kobold Warriors, Crossbowmen, and Mystics, all at Lvl 15*

Veep, what do the one star and two stars mean?

"One star is a veterans with enhanced skills and health. Two stars are Elites or Bosses depending on whether or not they are named, either way, they are even stronger with more skills and abilities to muster."

Great, this fight is going to suck.

The Chieftain rose as he saw us enter and looked on us like one would look at an ant that had crawled into his food. He must have stood just over seven feet tall and he looked down his muzzle at us with his good eye and spoke, surprisingly clearly "Who enters my domain uninvited? Who dare challenge my halls and disrupt my meal!? WHO ARE YOU HUMAN!?!?"

Johnny had already begun quietly chanting behind me as soon as he took in the scene. I saw the sky darken above the wide atrium and smiled "Name's Karl. Just the local rat catcher. Got a call about some big ones here."

"INSOLENCE!!! K - uRGHK!!!" He tried to give the order to kill us, unfortunately for him Johnny's lightning storm reached him first. The energy seized him like someone getting struck by a taser and he fell over backwards, regrettably the energy then travelled down the chains he held in his hand and stunned the women attached to the other ends. They fell over as quickly as the chieftain had though, unlike the chieftain, they remained down. Hope they are still alive, nothing for it now though, got some rats to catch... or kill. Mostly kill.

As the God-Touched struggled to his feet I summoned my ballistic shield from my inventory, swung my rifle into the appropriate spot on its side and activated my new special ability BRACE. I crouched slightly behind the shield and rifle and felt the thump of four metal bolts striking the face of the shield then I activated CONTROLLED BURSTS and began pumping round after round into the Kobold Crossbowmen. The rounds were deflected by the sturdy breastplates they wore, however, where a round met flesh it penetrated cleanly through their small bodies. I had managed to disrupt the enemy reload and kill one of the little bastards at the middle of the formation before my rifle clicked empty. I dropped the magazine for a tactical reload and began to work my way back across the crossbowman formation when the Chieftain launched into the air and slammed into my shield with a vicious kick.

I didn't fall but I was pushed back hard a good 10 feet. Wonder what that would have done to me if I hadn't had BRACE active. I was now pushed into the narrow hallway and the Chieftain had reared back to take a swipe with those wicked looking blades on his forearm. In the moment before he struck I saw Johnny sliding around the inside of the wall, already preparing another lightning strike. The strike hit in a shower of sparks and I didn't move. He swung his other hand rapidly and I blocked his attack again. Need to get this fucker off me!

I shifted and began dumping rifle rounds at point blank range into his midsection. The rounds struck his unarmored midsection but didn't penetrate through the other side. Blood splattered where they struck and he stumbled backwards in shock. I continued firing as he brought his arms up in a cross block and deflected the flurry of rounds off his bracers. I reacted immediately and stepped forward with a BRUTAL STRIKE with my shield. He caught this on the bracers too but the impact was enough to send him flying back into the room.

When I looked into the room I was pleased to see Alyssa sowing chaos in the ranks of the melee fighters along with Lulu. Kaia was pressing back one of the Mystics that barely held him at bay with a glowing green shield. The other healer was unengaged and had currently restored the health of the three remaining crossbowmen. Can't let that happen again... I aimed at the Mystic and activated SELECTIVE AMMO: EXPLOSIVE and pulled the trigger. The round smashed into its barrier and exploded in flames, a half a breath afterwards the shield visibly dropped and the Mystic began to reconstruct it. SELECTIVE AMMO: EXPLOSIVE was activated again and the round caught the Mystic in the neck and exploded. Everything between his upper jaw and shoulders disappeared and the top of his head shot off into the dark recesses of the atrium.

Then Johnny's second lightning storm of the afternoon began discharging in the ranks of the melee fighters. All but one caught a bolt in the tops of their heads. The five that were struck seized up and toppled over just like their Chieftain had done before. Alyssa had enough time to decapitate the one with the giant mace before the bastard sword wielding kobold closed on where her swords appeared. Lulu body checked him and the remaining fighters gained their feet once again.

I turned to help Kaia with the last Mystic when a trio of bolts smashed into my shield. As I hadn't activated Brace the attack caused my aim to shift and the explosive round I had primed flew wide and showered Kaia and the kobold in rock and dust. Damn it. I turned my attention to them as they reloaded their weapons and decided against using explosive ammo, they were still on the dias in front of where the two women Johnny had inadvertently shocked were now slowly regaining consciousness.

"SELECTIVE AMMO: PENETRATING" I intoned and then aimed at the head of the one on my right. The round tore through his brain almost as soon as I pulled the trigger. Kobold brain matter splattered back onto the pretty brunette just as she was looking up and she recoiled as if struck, then proceeded to throw up on the floor. Before I could line up a shot on my next victim I felt a searing pain smash into my right side and I was flung across the hallway and sliding across the smooth stone floor to stop when my head hit the back wall of the atrium.

My vision swam and my ears rang. I thought I heard another lightning strike come crashing down, but it sounded distant. I looked up and saw the blurry form of the giant kobold Chieftain stalking towards me. He was saying something I couldn't understand and was about to strike when he tumbled sideways followed by a gray and brown blur the size of a small car.