The Dungeon's Worst Little Mistake

Dirt and splinters rain down from above, the world shaking as explosions rip the landscape apart and leave comrades and friends alike cowering and holding their heads in the trenches. Holding his helmet down on his head as debris and dust falls like snow all around him, Souris Boulanger closes his eyes, whimpering as his ears ring and the loud voices of those around him, calling out and yelling and mixing into a chaotic mess, fills his head with so much noise that he can't even hear his own thoughts clearly.

All he can do is tightly clutch his rifle to his chest, his heart beating like a drum beneath his clammy hands and try to not panic as he prays and thinks of home.

What was he thinking, coming here? Joining the rebelling like this even when his old ma and pa had begged him to stay at home and hide in the basement of their little bakery. To wait for the fighting to roll over and hope that they make it out the other side alive.

But Souris couldn't do that. Their bakery had been in steep decline for a while now, and it is all the fault of the rich fat rats living on the top of this hill. The taxes are too high. Far too high! His poor ma and pa can hardly afford to pay for the flour for making their specialty rolls and croissants, and not to even mention buying sugar.

When was the last time Souris had tasted one of his sweet ma's pastries? He can hardly remember the taste and it even more distant now that so much death is filling his sinuses and dirt coats his tongue. Of course, even when they manage to bake a decent batch, it's not as if their neighbors can afford to buy it anyways. Most days, they have to give away what little they manage to make, lest it harden and mold and have to be thrown away for the beggars to dig out of their trash in the night…

No. Things can't continue this way. His family can't continue to suffer and scrape by as those fat rats on their hill continue to grow fatter as his friends and family continue to starve and wilt away. He won't see his poor ma and pa end up like the Boucher family down the street. Oh, poor sweet Aimée, Souris can't even begin to image how she must be suffering, living all alone now.

Souris tightens his grip on his rifle, pressing his back up against the wall of the trench as bullets go flying overhead. Not too far down the line, a comrade, more a boy than a man, peeks over the edge and gets his head blown off for his troubles. His still twitching body is quickly caried away, his rifle handed to another who takes his place.

Closing his eyes, Souris thinks of that girl. Aimée, he had spoken to her in some time, but in the past, they had been rather close. He doesn't even remember why it is that they had drifted apart, but Souris remembers having had something of crush on her when he was but a wee lad.

He thinks back to the last time he had visited her family's butcher, which hasn't been in quiet a while given how expensive fresh meat has become.

She's only grown more beautiful with age. When this all over, if I survive. I think I will ask her to be mine…

Souris's thoughts are interrupted as a loud whistle blows through the air, people screaming and shouting as the grizzled old veterans of wars past, who had sided with the plight of the people, grab frightens boys by their shoulders and push them to climb out of the trenches and take that hill.

Three deep breaths. One, two… three!

Souris pushes off from the wall, turns around, and then climbs up and out. Head down, rifle raised. This is the first time he had even held such a weapon in his life, and so far, his only experience with using it had been blinding shooting over the walls of the trench. Gods only know if had even hit anything other than the hill itself, but here he is charging up under a hail of gun fire, ready to kill the first bastard that gets in his way! He has to be. He is here to fight after all. To kill those bastards that had been making his family suffer! This is why he is here!

All he can do is run forward. Just run and hope he doesn't get shot or blown up or fall into a trap or trip and get caught in barbed wire or anything else. Just run forward!

All around him, people are screaming and crying out and dying. Someone running ahead of Souris gets turned into swiss cheese and goes down without even a whimper. He hadn't even seen what had hit him, but Souris knows he doesn't want to be next. He swerves right, making for the cover of some sandbags, his vision becoming like a tunnel as he pants and sweats and forces himself to just keep moving.

Explosions rip out and shake his world, landing far to close. His ears are ringing, his hands shaky, his ma's last meal for him sitting uneasily in his stomach. Someone screams and he has to turn and look, immediately regretting his decision.

A group of comrades had made to an enemy bunker and been met with the business end of a flamethrower. Out from the squat concrete building comes a rat in a full bodysuit and gasmask, a big round fuel canister slung on their back as their implement of death is leaking green fuel and flames from its barrel.

The poor bastards that had been set ablaze are still screaming on the floor and trying to crawl away as their bodies burn away into shriveled carcasses, screaming for anyone to save them. They are already dead; they just don't know it. Don't want to accept it…

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Souris can smell the fumes from the burning volatile mana crystal infused petrol, black smoke billowing off of the burning men as the rubber-suited rat steps over their corpses and looks around through tinted goggles. His visage is like death itself having come to this place, fear filling Souris's whole body as he continues to run and dive into cover. He can only pray that he had not been seen or that the flame wielding rat will choose to hunt him down. If Souris is to die, let it not be by fire!

Others quickly join him behind the temporary safety of the sandbags, occasionally aiming over to take shots at the enemy before ducking back and reloading, ramrods going up and down as they slam more bullets into barrels only to fire them out again not a second later.

Souris joins them in firing at the enemy. When he takes the risk to look out from cover, he can't see the flamethrower anywhere anymore, which is scary, much like losing sight of a spider in the kitchen. But he continues to unload and reload, his hand constantly going back to the pouch on his belt to grab a fresh bullet and feed it into his rifle's hot mouth one after the other, only to be regurgitated and spat back out right up the hill.

Souris doesn't know if he hits anyone. He just continues to fire at anything that moves, any shadow that looks like it could be an enemy. With every gun shot that cracks out from ahead he flinches and pulls back. Far too many times now a bullet will come close to hitting him, leaving holes in the surrounding wood or blowing sand out of the bag he is using for cover. One flinch has him pull back and the next instant Souris is feeling pain.

His hand goes to the side of his head and comes back, wet with fresh blood. Feeling around, he can't find his right ear, all sound on that side of his head becoming nothing but static.

Before he can begin to panic about getting shot, he gets pulled back behind cover, not even realizing that he had been sitting half exposed and gets turned around. A comrade he doesn't recognize is yelling at his face, the words going unregistered and unheard. He gives Souris a shake and a slap, pointing up the hill.

Souris turns and looks. Comrades, fellow revolutionaries are starting to charge past their position and take more ground. At some point, the bunker that the flamethrower had emerged from had been reduced to a blown-out shell. Probably hit by artillery. Souris hadn't seen it happen. Too much is all going on at the same time for him to properly register anything. He can hardly even focus on what he is aiming at half the time in all this chaos.

The man is pointing up the hill again and yelling into Souris's remaining ear, the message is clear this time.

"Take that hill!"

They break from cover, joining hundreds of other young men as they run up under a hail of gunfire. Everywhere Souris looks, someone dies.

He watches as a man loses his leg to a massive bear trap, falling as he clenches at the stump and cries. Elsewhere, another man is simply erased as an artillery round hits him dead on and explodes. When the smoke clears there is nothing but a hole in the ground and burnt blood. Far off to one side someone screams and calls for a retreat.

Grenades are being thrown down the hill, their round bodies of blown glass shattering as they hit the ground to release clouds of caustic green gas that expands out in every direction. Everyone in that area tries to run away from the gas, even dropping their weapons to hopefully try and move faster as the gas nips at their heels.

They don't all get away as the gas is surprising fast, especially when moving downhill. Those that don't make it and get caught by the gas fall to their knees while clawing at their throats and faces, blood pouring from their eyes. If he survives, their choking screams will likely haunt Souris's dreams for the rest of his life.

Tearing his eyes away from the deadly gas and the dying men, Souris looks to the other side of the battlefield and nearly instantly regrets doing so.

Spinning barrels of death, spitting out bullets by the hundreds as they crank belt-fed weapons of death. Dressed in heavy armor from head to toe, they march down the hill side-by-side, sweeping their miniguns left and right across the assaulting revolutionaries, mowing them down by the dozens.

They try to fight back against the juggernauts, firing at them and uselessly pinging rounds off their thick armor.

All he can do is keep moving. Just get to the top of that hill. Just keep climbing! If he can just get to the top of the hill, Souris can save his family and everyone else. He just needs to-!

Souris looks up and sees more armor, more barrels, more fire, more death all aimed down the hill.

He raises his rifle, the barrel shaking as he aims forward and up the hill. He pulls the trigger and watches as the bullet just uselessly pings off a helmet. That just gets the juggernaut to turn and look his way barrel spinning up as it prepares to unleash death.

I'm about to die…

Souris lowers his rifle, his shaking arms going oddly still as he accepts what is about to come, his world growing slower as the barrels spin up to speed. Oh, if only he could smell the delicious scent of freshly baked bread one last time.

The minigun fires and bullets tear apart the ground as the line of fire is dragged up and towards Souris, splinters flying everywhere as he sees his death drawing near, the only noise in his head being the ringing in his ears, soon to made silent.

…

But it never comes?

A hand grabs him by the shoulder, shaking him hard to knock him out of his daze. Someone is yelling for him to keep moving. Why isn't he dead?

Souris opens his eyes and looks forward. The juggernauts are dead, a small figure standing with one foot on the armored corpse, draconic wings billowing in the wind behind her. With a stolen minigun in hand, the figure turns it upon the enemies and guns them down, war cry billowing from her throat as she cranks the lever and turns death upon those above.

Not too far away a crimson-haired swordswoman slaughters fleeing enemy soldiers by the dozens, cutting into their lines alongside some strange dagger wielding bone spider creature… thing? But Souris has no attention to give to her. His eyes are locked on the back of his hero.

"The-the legends were true. The Dragon of Chaos has come. We are saved!"

Souris is shaking now, but not from fear of death. No, not anymore. Never again.

With smoke escaping from red hot barrels as they slowly stop spinning, the hero raises the minigun- almost as big as she is tall- above her head and yell for all to hear.

"Forward men, make lively and take that hill! For Rarisét Ville!"

""For Rarisét Ville!!!""

Souris hadn't even realized that he had raised his rifle and cheered along with everyone else, the excitement flooding through him as cheers roar up the hill from thousands of voices like an eruption traveling through a volcano.

His moral revitalized, he rejoins his brothers-in-arms as they resume running forward, that winged back always remaining ahead of them for all to see.

Just wait ma and pa, I'll come home alive, and we'll all be free! We can't lose now!