The past few weeks had vanished, as if they were never there to begin with. Chuu slowly regained her sanity and as the ruins of Verminblight settled and the death toll was made apparent, the populace slowly started to approach the even larger and massively muscled form of their Goddess. Chuu had grown another few feet taller, but ultimately remained the same height as before due to the fact that her body was now in the same hunched over position that her lesser kin suffered from. Her horns had grown substantially larger and longer and not only glowed even brighter but also had small, short-lived emerald flames and lightning sputtering over the surface.

Beneath her fur and skin were seen glowing green blood vessels and her eyes no longer were anything animal and instead were pits in which burned eldritch fire. The entire city was in ruins, and no one who had stayed behind had lived. The Vermin-Queen was no longer anywhere near the being she was before; her feminine beauty and charms had been swept aside by the twisted form she had taken. She was no longer attractive, even by Rattan standards, instead she was an abomination to be feared and respected, a demonic god whose will must be followed at all cost.

Gone were any trappings of loveliness, and in their place was a towering Rat-Person wrapped in torn cloth, whose flaming eyes shone like perverse braziers from underneath a leather/ cloth hood. Chuu had fully become the monster that the Dwarves feared, she had accepted the true mantle of the Vermin-Queen, the Living God of the Rattan and the Ruin of All Under the Mountains. With every breath came shivers of terror from even the other four members of the Council, with every twitch came wincing and fears of unspeakable brutality.

Chuu, no, The Vermin-Queen’s gaze fell upon the other four members of the Five Clawed Paw and the four of them immediately were forced to their knees by the overwhelming power that was directed towards them.

“Gather, Every, One! Find, And, Return, The, Vermin, King! Destroy, The, Dwarves! No, Survivors, No, Mercy! Their, Cities, Shall, Fall, Before, The, Vermintide! They, Want, War? They, Will, Have, It!”

The Vermin Queen’s right claw pointed towards the distant place where the hated foe cowered in fear. With her left claw tightly gripping her staff, she raised her arm into the air and slammed her staff to the ground. Glowing cracks spread out like a twisted spiderweb across the ground and the earth split open as The Vermin Queen pulled her magical pawns into the Real World. The stuff of nightmares had been given form, and now colossal monstrosities that matched her in all but raw power walked the world beneath the surface.

“Prepare, For, War! Go!”

With but a few rather corrupted words, The Vermin Queen had given her divine command to her slaves. No one among the Rattan dared to voice a complaint or even offer advice, for to do so was beyond suicidal. The mass of bodies that surrounded the Living Goddess began to flow like furry, malicious water and the whole of the Under Empire began to mobilize en masse and as one cohesive whole for the first time in their entire lifespan as a species.

The abominations of Snikty’s Flesh Pits were herded towards the last great bulwark between the Dwarven Kingdoms proper and the hordes of murderous Rat-people. The warped war machines that Grima had spent untold ages perfecting were moved towards the foe’s fortifications with the intent to obliterate even the sturdiest of Dwarf-made constructs. Skwiik led her agents through hidden passages to prepare for sabotage, assassinations and to sow discord behind their foe’s lines while searching for the Vermin King. Rippa upped her drilling of the elites of The Under Empire until they feared her more than they feared the Dwarves and would gladly die in absurd numbers to take even the smallest spot of land.

The Vermintide had begun to surge towards the last great wall between Dwarf-kind and the inescapable damnation that the Rattan would deliver. All the while Vaile had no godly idea what had happened and what was happening and was being escorted along with every other non-dwarf in the whole of the underground to the surface.

…

“WHAT DO YOU MEAN THAT YOU CAN’T SPARE ANYTHING ELSE?!”

Gilder Ironheart the Ninth yelled at the dignitaries from the other Dwarf Kingdoms.

“You! You can’t honestly expect us to hold out against the full force of the Rats with this paltry assistance, can you?!”

“Your Lordship, please understand that we have the fullest confidence that you, the mighty heir to a long line of great Kings who come from the Hero Gods, can handle a few measly rats. Surely you don’t think that the vermin could use such a weapon more than once?”

Gilder stood from his throne. He could not believe that the Bulwark of the Dwarven Race was going to be abandoned, no, that the people he was protecting could not grasp the enormity of the threat that they were going to face.

“You cannot say that the reports of the movements of the Rats have been found wanting, can you? Can you not see the fuse that has been lit?! Can you not see the dragon waking up?! We MUST stand united or we will fall to oblivion! You and your Kingdoms MUST honor your oaths and come to our aid, or does Honor mean nothing to bureaucrats like you?!”

“Surely you are not afraid a little mouse, Lord Ironheart? Oh, sorry, King Ironheart. As for our oaths? Those were made by those long since past and even if there was a threat, which there isn’t, we would not be obligated to assist you if it meant putting our Kingdoms at risk.”

Gilder slowly closed his eyes and sat back down as the envoys from the other Kingdoms walked off. He had grown too used to the other Kingdoms treating his nation like a disposable shield, and now his lack of retaliation in the past had come back to bite him.

“What did my grandfather say? United We Stand, Divided We Fall? Then, I guess we can only put our faith in the Stone and hope for a miracle…”

Gilder didn’t hold out hope for something like that and began preparations for a last stand of epic proportions. He would make the Rats bleed for every inch of ground they took, and he hoped that somehow his kin would see the writing on the wall and come to aid him. If they didn’t, then all hope that the Children of the Stone would exist outside of bondage was nonexistent.

The Last King of the Ironheart Kingdom began to put a weapon into every hand and a helmet on every head. Multiple lines of defense had to be prepared in advance for when the Vermintide flooded into his home. Both sides of the War Under the Mountains moved towards their great confrontation, but which would emerge victorious was anyone’s guess. Neither side knew the full power of the other, and neither knew that the very cause of the war had already been removed from the playing field. Without the Vermin King, the Rattan Under Empire would continue to advance at any cost and without the Vermin King the Dwarves had no way to stop the vermin.

As Vaile reached the surface and breathed his first breath of surface air in what felt like ages, the War Under the Mountains started the extermination of one race with a battle filled with blood and pain.