It had been a month since Vaile had been put under what effectively amounted to house arrest. Not once since he had arrived in the twisted palace that Chuu called home had he been allowed beyond a few certain rooms, all of which linked together. He had at first preoccupied himself with trying to exercise, but after Chuu had forced him to stop due to his scent carrying outside he had become beyond bored.

He had no way to entertain himself, and he was almost certain that his imprisonment was meant as a form of retaliation from Chuu due to his outburst about the little rat girl. Given no other recourse, Vaile did the only thing he could do in this situation.

He escaped.

There was no tracking device or spell placed on him that he was aware of, and with an item granted to everyone in the game who visited every nation capitol he was able to teleport himself out of his confinement. All he needed to do was select a destination and activate the item and he could escape even from the harshest Raids. Vail was unsure whether the item would even work, but he was running out of ways to keep himself from dying of boredom.

“Let’s see…. The Human Kingdoms are out, for obvious reasons. The Elves can see through my mask, or at least they could in the game…. The Werean would find me out due to my smell, so I guess I have to go to a Dwarven nation and make my way to the surface from there.”

Unfortunately, the item in question had a severe limit to its effective range, and thus you had to be within a certain distance from another nation for it to work at all. Thankfully, Vail was just in range of a new Kingdom that he could go to, a Dwarven nation called The Ironheart Kingdom. Donning his mask and a special outfit designed to counteract his skill, Vaile activated his item and the countdown began.

…

Chuu was in the middle of a Council meeting with the other four members of the Five-Clawed Paw. She had been wanting to get the current topic of debate out of the way ever since Vaile had been secured, but only now was there time to deal with this issue. Between the suddenness of Vaile’s appearance, the ‘incident’ that resulted in his death, the process that resulted in his resurrection, their triumphant return to Verminblight and the outburst Vaile had released regarding her merciful killing of a single being, Chuu had been swamped.

Now, however, there was time. Not a lot of it, but there was still time. The Five were getting anxious, and they wanted to solve the issue at hand as quickly as possible so they could enact the plan they had all unanimously agreed upon.

“All in favor of having a statue built in honor of our Husband-King alongside our own, raise your paw.”

As you would have expected, all five members of the Council raised their paws.

“Good. Then the motion has passed.”

Chuu rose from her seat, followed by the other four.

“Now then, shall we get back to the business we were going to conduct before the Dwarves so rudely interrupted us?”

The other four nodded in unison, their tails twitching in anticipation of what was to come. They had been forced to wait a month for this moment, and now that Vaile had been fed a strict diet designed to reinforce his stamina and virility there was no better time than the present. Based on Snikty’s estimates (which were based in a substantial amount of highly unethical experiments) Vaile should have reached the point where he could easily satiate the lot of them.

As they were far superior to their lesser subjects, they needed to give him a diet specially designed to allow him to last against them, as well as magical reinforcements that would help build his potency over a longer period of time. In truth, they likely could have waited longer, but they were true to their biology and lacked the patience necessary to achieve the fullest effect from their little plot.

Chuu began to open a portal, but quickly began to expedite the opening process. It was obvious that something was bothering her terribly, and the other four were unsure of what it was. As the portal opened, Chuu raced through, followed by the other four who were now feeling quite concerned about the haste that their Vermin-Queen was exhibiting. Once they exited the other side of the portal, however, they realized what had forced Chuu’s paw.

A glowing runic cylinder was partially formed around Vaile, and before any of them could interfere he was swallowed up by a blinding light and was gone.

“No….”

Chuu’s body began to tense up as her divine power started to force a change in her form. Her eyes started to smolder and then burn with green flame as emerald lightning crackled around her now significantly more muscled frame.

“No, no no, no, NO!”

At that precise moment, throughout the entirety of the underground and in every single Rattan and Dwarven settlement a scream of demonic proportions echoed like the shockwave from a high explosive. Even those who had not viewed the Vermin-Queen as a serious threat were sent reeling in pain as the magical storm of anger and malice flooded out from Chuu’s even larger form. The other four members of the Council had already taken cover the moment that they realized Chuu was going to rage, and they were using whatever means they could to flee Verminblight as fast as they could.

The entire population of the city itself and those in the immediate area around emptied themselves of occupants as the rage of the Vermin-Queen sent waves of Terror throughout the realm. Fleeing for their lives, they abandoned anything they had and everything they were doing and ran, for the fury of the God-Queen of the Rattan was not something that could be stopped, all you could do was run and hope she didn’t level her malice in your direction. With the absolute power of the white-furred Vermin-Queen on display, there was no way that the Dwarven Kings who had so vehemently denied Gilder Ironheart IX’s call for aid would refuse now, right?

…

In the center of the town square, a runic cylinder appeared and from within emerged the form of a tall Human wearing a mask and heavy robes. As the citizens of the Ironheart Kingdom cowered due to the rush of killing intent that flowed from the Rattan capitol, Vaile merely began to walk along the path leading to the exit of the Kingdom. He couldn’t get a ride, not could he tempt fate by summoning one, so he relied on his feet to get him to the end of this Kingdom and to the beginning of the next.

Completely unaware of the fact that he had just directed the entire force of the both the Rattan and the Dwarves upon a single place, Vaile continued to walk without a care in the world as he attempted to get to a place that would let him reach the surface and escape from the lecherous Rattan females that had imprisoned him.

Had he just stayed put and let them do what they wanted to him then who knows what might have happened, but now there was no turning back. Chuu had already determined that he was in a Dwarven Kingdom due to the tracing spell she was able to cast at the last moment, but as Vaile had already started to leave its area of effect Chuu was in the dark about everything else. Vaile had inadvertently focused the unbridled power of the Five-Clawed Paw and all of the Rattan Under Empire on a single objective.

They would destroy the Dwarves and get back the Vermin-King, and may the Gods help whomever or whatever stood in their way.