VERMINTIDE

Although that encounter left John with some things to think about he deemed it unnecessary to keep track of it right now. He had to level up and then kill Thana. THAT was his primary goal. Prophecies be damned. “Master, I think you should...” “I don’t care, Aclysia!” John didn’t even let her finish, pushing the hand that was trying to help him up aside and getting on his feet on his own. He had no time to be reasonable. He tried to, but if he thought about what Rave must be going through at that very moment, his logic boiled into nothingness.

For once Aclysia did not ignore being interrupted as she just bowed with a hurt expression. John felt the sting of regret, so he sighed, “I am sorry, it’s just…these are long days,” and mumbled that apology before advising her to take the lead again. It was a weak apology but all that he could muster right now. At the same time, the Killer Queen(Bee) spotted the boss room. So that was where they were headed.

Confusingly though the boss room was empty. That was not to say that it was a blank room, on the contrary, it was a large banquet hall with wooden tables filled with food and drink of rather measly quality but a quantity that made John unsure how any of the Skaven could become that malnourished. He took a step into the room. Nothing happened. Perhaps he was in the wrong area? No, that was unlikely, the big wooden door at the back of the hall looked exactly like the ones he had used to get down here.

He grabbed one of the plates and inspected the food further. The silence was unnerving as only the sound of the stone plate grinding over the table echoed through the hall. Even his breaths and Salamanders constant crackling were somehow unable to cut apart the silence. On the plate lied a small ensemble of differently sized mushrooms as well as parts of some sort of light meat he couldn’t identify.

Carefully he put the plate back down. It really didn’t help that he didn’t get notifications for bosses in floor-based dungeons. He walked deeper into the room, Aclysia, her new dagger in hand, following him closely just like the four elemental girls did.

Suddenly half his vision was gone. That was to say; he could no longer watch through the eyes of his bee. He could still feel it, but he had no idea where it was, just that it was hot there. It had happened so suddenly and he had paid so little attention to his second body that he didn’t know where in the room it last was. Panicked he looked around, carefully, everyone going into a defensive position. Then, at last, he looked up.

Under the ceiling hung hundreds if not thousands of rats. They were of the normal size for such vermin, about the size of his own feet, but the sheer number of them.

Just as he finished looking over Observe, the rats let go of the ceiling. There was a moment where John was certain that he was done for. What was descending unto him was a solid wall of writhing bodies, the impact alone would burn away his mana. However, as he remembered, he was not alone here.

‘SALAMANDER!’ He screamed mentally, pouring more than half of his mana into the Elemental. He thought he heard an anarchic, satisfied giggle but that might have been his imagination as Salamander unleashed a pillar of flames towards the ceiling. Like a burning candle that falls on a rug, the Vermintide had a small hole burned into it, bodies reduced to ash. These rats, even though they looked mostly normal, had a strong resistance to magic it seemed.

However, even the tiniest of holes took a huge burden off of Mana Protection. Salamander continued burning through the mana that John had given her, the inferno spreading as hundreds of rats and ashes rained down. The pre-emptive barrier broke down pretty much immediately and then the remaining rats that were forcefully repelled from the barrier cost him another quarter of his mana.

The Vermintide, now on the ground, was held back only by the inferno Salamander kept unleashing. A ring of fire that spared John but burned all around him. Salamander kept burning and burning; she likely had killed over half of the Vermintide on her own at this point. However, what she did only kept John safe, and he didn’t realize that until he felt a wave of agony crashing into his consciousness and rapidly ebbing away again, a message following the blink of an eye later.

He knew instinctively that it was Undine. Aclysia was immune, Gnome didn’t care much about fire and Sylph was able to find a safe spot in the air but Undine was both unable to get away and naturally at odds with fire, and so her slime body was vaporized in the flames of 500 Mana. ‘She must have blocked the pain from our mental connection until the very last moment,’ John realized as the fire finally ran out.

The Vermintide around them was an ocean of brown and grey fur. The swarm didn’t hesitate a second. The fire was gone and their prey apparently helpless. With John's Mana down to 270, they were not entirely incorrect. ‘Aclysia, left, Cleaver of Streets, Gnome, Sylph cover my right, Salamander keep my back protected.’ He quickly sent out his orders.

It was impossible for them to stem this tide. The only thing they could do is make this a match of grindstones. It was either that John died or the enemy ran out of numbers. This was it. In this scenario, John wanted to prolong the fight for as long as possible. As long as the defense held the best way to take care of the enemy was to give Salamander as much of his mana as possible so she might bathe them in AoE goodness and for that to happen he needed to regenerate mana.

It made John annoyed that he had nothing to contribute to this situation himself. Mana Ray was entirely useless against multi-targets and possessing benches or tables was not practical against this see of small enemies.

The rats jumped at Aclysia and, to Johns surprise and horror, actually sank their teeth into her sturdy exterior, dealing damage. ‘Core bosses are no joke, huh?’ He asked himself. Compared to Radio Head this was a whole different beast though. His skillset was way better at dealing with singular enemies or small groups, this whole mass he had trouble with. If only Rave were with him, she would have just kicked a few times and…Rave…Rave his girlfriend that was being held hostage by a crazed Cold War experiment.

Gnome, with the little earth that was around, was next to no issue for the rats to ignore. They streamed around here, only a chosen few jumping at the earth elementals eyes to blind her. It was remarkably effective. Aclysia was just as effective against them though. Whirling around with the Cleaver of Streets she cut trenches into the assaulters and ground alike. The sturdy weapon was creating screeching sounds as it cut through stone. Sylph actually managed to hold back most of the rats that streamed by Gnome, but most of hundreds meant that dozens still got through. Dozens that clashed against John's shield, dealing minuscule damage to his mana. However small things added up. This was ruining his plans. He couldn’t call Sylph or Gnome back to deal with this, the second the line broke he would have even more of the rats storming through. Even though he was able to kick a few of them away, others soon took their place. Similarly, Salamander only held the enemy back thanks to their respect for her initial inferno and the moment she turned to help they would descend unto him like the swarm of hungry vermin they were.

His mana bar dwindled under 200. It was then that John decided something. To hell with caution, he would be ported out anyway if he died. There were no stakes involved here, but the time he would lose. ‘Even if it destroys me, every risk is worth it to safe Jane!’ he decided and deactivated Mana Protection and poured all of his mana, every second of regeneration, towards Salamander.

The rats instantly jumped at him. -3 HP -3HP -2HP -1HP -5HP, every bite of the Vermin at his feet stung, and some of the beasts started to climb up his body. He did his best to throw them off him, but the rats were much nimbler than he gave them credit for. They just jumped on the hand that was trying to swat them away and climbed up his arm instead. He was roughly aware of the fire meeting the Vermintide, as Salamander's powers, red and burning hot, filled the room, however as more rats climbed up on him he was eventually **** to the ground. The stings, previously reserved to his feet, now bored into him all over, the worst one was the rat that managed to get to his face. Never before did he and never after would he want to experience the pain of being bit in the eyeball. The image of a furious beast opening its tiny mouth, tiny teeth revealing themselves and snapping forwards.

-4HP, -8HP, -3HP, -12 HP, -1HP, -3HP it continued and continued all he could do was keep pouring his mana into Salamander as his HP-bar dwindled under the one-third point. He had the wisdom not to scream despite the pain he felt how somebody started ripping the rats off him, finally removing the one that was terrorizing his face.

‘Thank you, Aclysia,’ John sent as he looked at his artificial guardian. To his surprise he received no answer, no ‘You are welcome’ or ‘Certainly, Master’ just cold, dead silence as she cleaned him of the rats that were eating away at him. Every other person would have died of blood loss or infections but thanks to Gamer’s Body the wounds just closed, using up his lifeforce.

The question how Aclysia was even able to help him quickly became apparent. The Vermintide was almost entirely defeated by Salamander. The fire elemental had burned the whole room to a crisp, even the tables were set on fire, and the few of the rats that still were about were too aggressive to know better and stormed right at John and his party. Thus the last rat was eventually squashed under Gnomes foot. Afterwards, everyone turned to John.

Aclysia was still silent, Salamander, despite the glorious inferno all around her, did not laugh, Gnome kept her distance, and even Sylph was not uttering a single sound. John tried to get up. His HP had fallen to a mere 40 before Aclysia had managed to rip the last rat from him. There was no hand extended to him, but he still managed to get up. On shaky feet, he stood. He had never felt this way before. Normally when he had low HP, he was healed almost instantly by a level up, and the one time that hadn’t been the case a high dragoness had kept his senses occupied otherwise. Now he felt tired, burned out, but he still needed to keep going.

“Let’s do the next I.D.,” he stated and raised his hand. They were teleported into the black in between dimension that laid behind the Gates. John was ready to choose the next challenge when Aclysia grabbed his hand.