The Dungeon's Worst Little Mistake

With a dip, the waterway suddenly lurches down, and the raft picks up speed, gravity taking its hold as rapid water flows downhill. With the raft picking up so much speed, the skeletons in the water that are supposed to be helping push, end up just getting stuck holding onto the raft for dear un-life as they are dragged along for the ride. If anything, they are just slowing them down now by getting dragged through the water. Bug, with a glance at their sorry states as she holds onto the rails, decides to let them go.

Go and attack the rafts following behind us. Board the enemy vessels!

The skeleton Lizard Men obey and let go, letting themselves be carried by the current as the enemy rafts catch up to them. On board, the bipedal rats are nosily screaming and throwing what Bug can only assume are slurs at their back, swinging around crudely shaped weapons of rusty metal and serrated edges. When the skeletons leap out of the water and land on their rafts, the situation turns to chaos.

The nearest rat gets grabbed by its nose and thrown screaming bloody murder into the water. The poor rat, struggling in the water and presumably yelling for help, ends up getting eaten by a pursuing Gary who looks to be enjoying himself quite a lot right now what with all this free food he is getting.

Bug only watches the fighting for a short while before returning her attention back to the front. The skeletons won't win.

With only four of them, two for each raft, they are quickly getting swarmed and beaten. Even with the rats only being about five feet tall, making them taller than Bug much to her annoyance, they seem to be a greater threat than the Lizard Men. Still, it slowed them down a bit and the skeletons were expendable, so Bug doesn't care.

But something is weird. These bipedal rats hadn't been anywhere on this layer until now, and suddenly they're here by the dozens. Bug quickly gives her notifications a look and finds something strange.

//Killed a Follower of Chaos – (Error/0) exp gained!

//Killed a Believer of Chaos – (Error/0) exp gained!

//Killed a Worshipper of Chaos – (Error/0) exp gained!

//Killed a Lover of Chaos – (Error/0) exp gained!

//Killed a Venerator of Chaos – (Error/0) exp gained!

//Killed a Revere of Chaos – (Error/0) exp gained!

//Killed a Idolizer of Chaos – (Error/0) exp gained!

…

"What the heck? I'm not getting anything from killing these things? And what sort of race name is that?"

Bug turns and scans over the rat men with Identify, but the results she gets back is just more confusion. With each one, the race name always changes to some form or other of '_ of Chaos,' with none of the rats showing any signs of having a level assigned to them by the System.

'Glorifier of Chaos. Through Chaos, there is order. Through Chaos, there is peace. Through Chaos, there is harmony. Return to Chaos. Embrace Chaos. Love Chaos. When all eventually ends and the Void has returned all to zero, there shall only be Chaos. And through Chaos; creation, life, and being shall return. Do not fear that which you do not understand. Embrace it.'

"Alrighty then… No idea what all that all is." Bug says to herself as she looks away from Identify speaking some nonsense. "Susan, have you seen these things before!?"

"What? No, first time!" Susan yells back over the sound of the drums.

Then where the heck did the Dungeon pull these things from? Ah, not important! We need to just get through here.

The boat lurches as it reaches the bottom of the sloping passage, water splashing everywhere as Bug and Susan have to hold onto the rails to not fall off. The skeletons simply continue to row to the beat of the drums, not bothered in the slightest even as they are drenched. Mimmie herself doesn't even stop, still banging away at the drums even as she gets drenched.

Hardly slowing down, their raft shoots through the water and down the passage, heading for an entryway that seems to lead into a larger room. Behind them, one of the rafts doesn't fare so well when it reaches the bottom and stalls for a short while as the rats mess up their rowing and fumble their oars. This ends up dooming then as Gary quickly catches up and smashes into the stalled raft, practically tearing it in half and sending rat men flying through the air and splinters of wood flying in every direction.

The rats on the remaining raft scream at the Boss Monster, some of the archers even firing arrows at him as they row away, but it doesn't stop Gary from enjoying his meal in the water. At the very least, this gives Bug's raft a chance to draw some more distance as they make for the entryway.

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Passing through, they find themselves in a large circular rum with a domed roof, the entire circumference of the room being lined with wooden docks and rafters from which shanty homes are made. There are hundreds of these bipedal rats living here, and even with a quick look around, Bug can see them going about their business and walking from place to place across rickety bridges and carrying things. I one spot, Bug's eyes settle on what she assumes to be a mother, leading her child by the hand with two more little infants wrapped to her chest.

Babies? How can there be babies? Families? How long have they been here, it couldn't have been longer than a week or two… But, the Dungeon doesn't make families?

"What the heck is going on here?" Bug has to ask herself as she looks at what is effectively a small city all around her.

The rats have begun to notice them as well, fingers getting pointed their way as everyone is turning towards the raft that just arrived and is blaring music.

Soldiers start to mobilize, rat men in full metal gear and wielding spears and shields running about and yelling. The other rats start to panic and run, Bug watching as the mother she had seen quickly scoops up her child and runs, a basket of food being dropped on the floor in her hurry. She flees with her children, heading deeper into the city and out of Bug's line of sight.

Within moments, the entire place is up in alarm. More rafts are deploying from the docks, rat men in fancy helmets barking out orders and swinging around strange weapons that Bug has never seen before. Some kind of metal rod held on a wooden stock.

Surprisingly, when the rats get their own rafts moving, they don't do so by rowing with oars, but instead by using some large fan that whirl to life, black smoke billowing out of a pipe beside it as it screams to life with the sound of grinding gears and contained explosions. With the fans spinning up to speed, their rafts quickly cut through the water and begin to gain on Bug and the others, the skeletons still rowing as quickly as they can while Mimmie continues to play.

Looking around, Bug spots where the water continues to flow out and directs the skeletons to turn towards it as the new rafts quickly follow behind them.

"They're catching up!" Susan yells as they make it to the exit, the new rafts quickly following them through as some split off to try and deal with a rampaging Gary who was still chasing the other remaining raft.

From behind, Bug can hear what sounds like a loud cracking noise and the Boss Monster roaring in rage. The shanty city is left behind and then they are back into the waterways.

It doesn't take long for their pursuers to catch up and begin to flank them on both sides, and angry rat men in full armor snarling and screaming as ready hooks and spears. The moment they get close enough, they throw the hooks and pull on ropes to capture Bug's raft, drawing theirs in closer.

Bug and Susan immediately move to either side of the raft, cutting down any rats that try to board. Surprisingly, their armor is thick and the leather that covers any gaps is quite resilient, making them more difficult to cut down than most enemies. But still, there is only so much that can be done to stop Bug and Susan from cutting them down, and the extra protection only serve to slightly slow the process down.

In the midst of the melee, the rat with the fancy helmet shoulders and aims the metal rod at Bug from the safety of his own raft, a hole bored through its middle and so dark inside that Bug can't see what is at the end of the tube. When the rat goes to pull the trigger, she gets a bad feeling and moves out of the way. Not a moment later, a loud crack rings out, even drowning out the sound of Mimmie's music. Bug suddenly has a fist sized hole in her right wing.

Her wings are durable enough to block arrows with ease…

What the HELL!?

"Susan, watch out for the metal rods! They are dangerous!"

Deciding that the fancy helmeted rat needs to die first, Bug cuts down the enemy before her and charges forward, leaping onto their raft. The others try to stop her by leveling spears at her, but with a push of magic Bug transforms her arms into blades and cuts their poles in half, not stopping as she rushes forward to butcher everyone in her way.

He frantically tries to reload by dropping a metal ball down the pipe and pushing it in with a rod, but by the time he is about to level the weapon at Bug again, she is already on him and tearing both his arms off, a foot to the chest sending him flying back into the water screaming.

Still held in his hand is the weapon and Bug gives it a quick Identify.

'N/A. You lack permissions to access any information pertaining to this object. Please note that the value for this item and others like it have been assigned an increase value in the point store. Please sell it.'

More weirdness. What the heck is up with these rats?

Over on the other side, Susan is busy turning the second raft into a bloody mess as well, a second rat wielding another of that weird weapon and turning it towards Bug's raft. She goes wide eyed when she sees where he is aiming and panics, raising her stolen weapon up as well and aiming it at him in a hurry.

He is aiming at Mimmie as she continues to bang on the drums, still playing her heart out despite everything that is going on, utterly lost in a trance.

Bug pulls the trigger, the wooden stock slamming back into her shoulder. Faster than even her enhanced eyes can see, the rat man's head simply disappears in a mist of red, his body going limp and falling backwards.

"Nobody hurts my baby girl!" Raising her hand, she points at the now headless rat and says, "Raise Undead. Bring that weapon to me now. I have no idea what the heck they are, but I'm keeping them. Susan! Hurry up and cut them loose so we can get moving, we have more coming!"

"Right!"

Susan follows the headless rat zombie as it hops back onto their raft, turning to use her sword and cut the line holding the rafts together. Bug does the same on her side and joins the others. Meanwhile, back the way they came, even more rafts are coming their way with more angry rats, only this time Gary is hot on their tails as well. He continues to try and catch the fan propelled rafts; the entire time the rats are stabbing at him with their spears and screaming. With another bang, more of those weapons get fired, one of the rowing skeletons getting its shoulder blown off.

Susan readies her sword. "They're going to catch up again."

"Not yet. Look."

Bug points to the raft that Susan had turned into a bloody mess and they both watch as most of its dead occupants get back up.

"What… oh. Oh, I can do that now!?" Susan asks with a shocked look.

"Anything you kill has a chance of turning into a zombie. Now then, headless, give me that and empty out your pockets. I need to figure out how this thing works."

Another bang rings out and Zax gets a hole blown through his ribs as he defends Mimmie. Luckily, no more shots come their way after that as the zombie raft, left to move without a driver, starts to go out of control and smacks into one of the oncoming rafts. The zombies immediately attack and everything back their falls into chaos. It only gets worse as Gary finally catches up and starts to ravage the rafts full of rats and zombies.

Using the distraction, Bug and crew quickly make their getaway as Bug takes the two weapons and moves to quickly examine them.