Cracking the Clanrats

“...”

“...”

“...”

“...Go right.”

“So are any of us-”

“No,” the girls said in unison, causing John to hold his hands up in surrender. After he and Naoto had come out of the sex room, things had… gotten awkward. While yes, Talia and Mavis messed around to the sound of him fucking Naoto’s brains out, Talia was quite peeved at him. After all, Mavis and Talia were his girlfriends, and she felt that he should have asked before messing around with Naoto. When John explained about the gas and what it did to them, she was a bit more understanding but still mad. Turns out, as Mavis later told him, that Talia wanted to talk to Naoto without John nearby about possibly joining the relationship/growing harem. Granted, it was going to be just a basic proposition of “If you wanna, we can talk more about it and see if John shares feelings for you.” But that ship had clearly sailed.

John was actually surprised about how open Talia was to adding more people to the threeple they were, but Mavis had explained (apparently they had talked A LOT while John was incarcerated) that Talia really explored her gay-er side over the past month, and discovered that she had really been missing out. After all, she had been dating males for the past 40 years or so, and in all that time she had never tried anything with girls. She had a lot of catching up to do.

‘Well, I’m sure she will be fine sooner rather than later. She just needs time to cool off,’ John thought as his gaze drifted over to Moira. The paladin had been… embarrassed? Ashamed? Turned on? Honestly, John wasn’t sure exactly what emotions the redhead had been going through, only that when he and Naoto emerged from the sex room, Moira had been red as a beet and stammering over half of her words. Granted, she didn’t shame John for what he did, nor throw any shade in Naoto’s direction. She simply tried to stay on task, talk about their findings, and ignore the fact that the room they came out of smelled of sex, sweet aphrodisiac, and cum.

Speaking of, the other three had been rather intrigued about what they discovered. Talia and Moira had taken a quick look through the codes, while Mavis poured over the copy of the Prose Edda to find any similarities behind the highlighted phrases. Unfortunately, no one was able to garner any new information other than the fact that most of the highlighted phrases were specifically ones that had strong connection to the gods and other similar beings.

“Maybe we have to guess his favorite god?” Moira pondered.

“Could be, but even if that were the case, each god still has several phrases attributed to them,” Mavis said, flipping through the pages. “I mean, if it turns out his favorite is Thor, then we go from having a whole book to look through to having a quarter of the book to look through. Doesn’t help us very much.”

The conversation had dropped off after that, with Naoto pointing out that they should get out of here as quickly as they could before anyone discovered them being here. (Mavis pointed out that, if time were of the essence, maybe they shouldn’t have fucked for a few hours). With a quick gathering of their stuff and all the evidence they found, as well as a quick sweep of the house for safety and peace of mind, they were back in the tunnels and headed to where they started.

In silence.

In awkward, awkward silence.

“...”

“...”

“...”

“... Wasn’t that tunnel closed off before?”

The party turned and looked to where Talia was pointing. Indeed, one of the tunnels that had been in the main chamber, the place that the skaven had been slaughtered in, was now unbarred and wide open. Moira walked closer to it, looking at the now gaping hole in the boards.

“Teeth marks. Lots of them. Mavis, do you-”

“Yeah, I recognize them. Those are skaven alright.” She ran her fingers across them and shuddered. “The distance between these grooves… Whatever kind of skaven made this was much larger than a normal rat.”

“So as big as the rat king was? The one you killed?” Talia asked.

Mavis shook her head. “No. Bigger. Much bigger.”

“Look at the ground,” Naoto said, gesturing to the dirt around the hole. “Footprints and… some sort of deep gouges. From our large rat, I assume?”

Mavis nodded, though a look of confusion still remained on her face. “I must admit, I don’t know what could have caused this though. Skriskrueel’s clan, at least as far as I know, didn’t have anything this large…”

“Then I would assume we are dealing with another skaven clan,” John said, stepping forward. “And that we are dealing with some sort of mutant skaven creature. Probably something that checks the boxes of horrifying, disgusting, and an affront to nature. So, you know. Standard skaven shit.”

Moira continued to look closely at the broken boards, lightly touching the chewed edges. “Whatever chewed through these would have to be powerful as well. Most Order seals have deterrents in place to rebuke anyone who tries to break them.”

“Okay, so we are dealing with something horrifying, disgusting, and an affront to nature that can also probably use our bones as toothpicks. Duly noted,” John said, shaking the stiffness out of his hands and fingers. “Still doesn’t mean we can leave it alone.”

“I would argue it does mean we can leave it alone,” Mavis said, crossing her arms. “Leave it to be the council’s problem. Besides, they would probably blame us for the mess anyway.”

“And that’s precisely why we can’t leave it alone,” John explained. “If they do discover it, which they will, they probably will find these tunnels. And in doing so they might find evidence that leads this back to us, which not only puts us in danger, but any family or people close to us who they think would help us. Like a certain elf’s parents.” John then pointed to Talia whose eyes went wide at the revelation about what danger her parents would be in from the council alone. “Trust me, while I would love nothing more than to make the council clean up this mess for all the shit they put me through, we need to deal with this before it gets out of hand.”

“It could be messy, though,” Naoto said, peering down the opened tunnel. “More than likely this will lead us to a skaven nest, which can have anywhere from hundreds to thousands of rats each. Granted, many of those will be young or slaves, but there will be plenty of warriors or monstrosities ready to fight us, to say nothing about what magics they may have been granted by their god.”

“Would that god have any real pull here in Alfheim?” Talia asked. “I can’t imagine any of our gods being happy about rats on their front door.”

“Trust me, said god will still find a way to help his rats,” Moira chimed in. “The Horned One, as they call him, is infamous in the Order for being a constant thorn in our side. No matter how consecrated a place is, or how safe we think a location will be from the skaven, The Horned One is somehow always able to spread his influence anyway. You can never get rid of rats entirely, and you can never get rid of The Horned One either.”

“Except you can. Gas ‘em,” John said with a shrug.

“You can’t gas a god to ****, John.”

“That sounds like quitter talk,” John replied with a smirk. “But gassing gods is for later pondering. For now… let’s go catch an abomination."

_________________________________________________________________________________

“Your story makes little sense, boy.”

John did not respond, electing to instead take several deep breaths as he tried to regain his composure. Despite the fact that his Gamer’s Body buff should have been blocking out pain and just translating it into damage numbers, Warden Bourraeu had been getting… experimental with how far his buff would go before actually causing him to feel pain. Apparently said limit was a little less than the voltage used in an electric chair.

Oh, and his vision was red from pain and tears. So that was fun as well.

“You, an out of shape rather bland nerdy mundane, somehow obtains not only the attention of our Lady, but the attention of the gods of the Norse as well?”

‘Jealous much?’ John thought to himself. ‘I bet the only attention YOU ever get is from your doctor when he tells you that 250 should be the bill, not your cholesterol level.’__

“And just look at the rest of your story! Skavens, ghosts of ancient kings, high council lords, criminal scum. You really expect us to believe all these people would have been interested in YOU?”

John smiled at him, blood dripping from his mouth. “I have been known to be quite charming. Probably helps that I don’t look like a hardboiled egg sitting in a bowl of pudding.”

Bourraeu gave out a sound of disgust before motioning to a knight John couldn’t see. Instantly his body was racked with pain as several hundred volts of electricity passed through his body. A scream died on his lips, as the effort to strain his vocal cords would have been too much for the young runic mage to do while he was electrocuted. Finally, after what felt like a lifetime and a half, the current stopped, allowing John to slump forward as his body smoked like a roast.

Bourraeu walked forward before pushing the end of his riding crop beneath John’s chin and forcing him to look up at the warden. John’s vision hazed in and out of focus as he desperately tried to meditate the pain away.

“Would you like to make that comment again?”

John took a few deep breaths. “Why? D-didn’t hear it th-th-th-the first time?”

Bourraeu growled in anger before pulling his crop away, signaling again to the knight. John could feel his health drain as the volts passed through him, and for a brief moment John wondered if this is what it felt like to have Thurisaz casted on you. The pain, the smell of his own flesh slowly cooking, the feeling of his body trying and failing to stay alive. As his vision began to fade, he looked over to Bourraeu’s fat face. He tried to reach out with his hand, his overcooked brain hoping that maybe he could shoot the electricity that was killing him at his tormentors.

“Thurisaz… Thur..i..saz… Thur… thur… thuuuurrrrrrr…”

___________________________________________________________________________________

“THURISAZ!”

34 Dmg!

John wiped the sweat from his brow, his fingers still tingling with mana as the power of the gods coursed through him. The battle had NOT been going well, and John was starting to regret the decision to deal with this on their own. Not completely regret it, as he still considered it necessary that they dealt with the skaven as soon as possible before they got out of hand, but he wished they had contacted some members of the Order or even Halfdan and Frida before they went into the tunnel.

Things had started out fine, and they had walked about a mile into the tunnels without seeing any living ratmen. John had been able to use his Observe on some of the tracks they found in an attempt to identify what they were coming up against, but unfortunately Gaia did not want to make things that easy and had just labeled the tracks as “Mysterious skaven tracks.”

After about 15 minutes of walking, though, things went from boring to terrifying. Red eyes glowing from deeper into the tunnels, the echoing sounds of maddening laughter and the scrambling of claws, and then the battle cries of dozens of skaven warriors descending upon them, some literally as they had climbed to the ceiling of the cave and dropped down like bats… John was just thankful once again for his Gamer’s Body trait keeping him alive and uninjured as he was the main target of the skaven at first. The five of them were **** to back up into a small alcove in the cave, with Moira in the front acting as a shield, Talia and Mavis at her sides stabbing ratmen whenever they got the chance, and Naoto alongside John sniping various enemies from the backlines.

Despite the fact that their backs were protected by stone walls, and the fact that Moira was essentially a divine shield, and the fact that most of the rats went down in a single shot, the battle was heavily stacked against them. It became obvious to the five of them that the battle they were fighting was a losing one, and that it was a war of attrition. Either the rats would run out of resources to throw at them or they would drown underneath the vermintide. John suggested they could just use his Aki rune to escape into Midgard, but Talia pointed out that they were currently dozens of feet underground, and a portal out of here would probably put them in a similar location in Midgard. If they were lucky, they might find themselves in a cave in Midgard and might be able to get out. But more than likely a portal here would just open to stone and mud back in the human realm.

So here they stood, trying to defend themselves for as long as they could, waiting on a miracle to save them.

“INCOMING!” Naoto yelled out, signaling Moira to put her sanctuary spell up again just in time for a volley of sickly green shots to disperse against the holy golden light of Moira’s shielding magic.

“Damned warplock jezzails,” John muttered as he sent another lightning spell towards the origin of the shots. The rats had, apparently, decided that just throwing bodies at the adventurers was not going to work and instead brought in the long range units to hopefully snipe them. Thankfully Moira was able to keep them protected with her Lady-blessed powers, but constantly keeping a sanctuary spell up drained her mana too quickly. So instead Naoto was keeping an eye open for whenever a volley of shots would come in and signal Moira to ready the defenses whenever that would occur.

“Any ideas yet on what to do?” Talia asked, her blades dripping with rat blood as she kicked a corpse away from her.

“I’ve tried sending out a signal to the Order, but I can’t get a connection established,” Naoto said, reloading her pistol as she spoke. “I don’t know if it’s because of how far underground we are or machinations from the skaven, but either way we are on our own.”

“Well, at least we will go out in a blaze of glory,” Mavis said, her sword arm impaling a pair of rats who snuck past Moira’s shield. “Vahalla awaits us all, if you wanna look on the bright side.”

“I would prefer to look on the brightside where I don’t die in a rat-infested tunnel,” Moira said with a low growl as she pushed back a rat who had been clinging to her shield. “Damn! I mean… dang it. Where are all these rats coming from?”

“I assume from a clan nest,” John said as he casted another Kenaz rune on some of the rats, scrambling their numbers as one of them lit up in a fiery blaze of magic. “Also, did you just self correct in cursing?”

“She did!” Talia said with a smile. “I didn’t know our favorite Warden was so nervous about swearing!”

“S-shut up!” Moria said, whilst blushing. “Swearing is frowned upon for a Warden to do! I’m supposed to exemplify the best traits of the Order!”

“Mmm, and where is not swearing in those traits?” Mavis asked deadpan as she stabbed another skavenslave. “Is that before the slaughter of heathens or after imprisoning the innocent who are in the wrong place at the wrong time?”

“I apologized for that, Mavis! Are you going to give me shi-... crud for that forever now?”

“I dunno, how long are you going to live with the PTSD of prison, John?”

“Guys-” Naoto tried to say

“Mavis, drop it. It wasn’t Moira’s fault that I got imprisoned, and you shouldn’t give her shit for it.”

“Oh, so we are gonna all be so hunky dory now that we are all about to die together here in some skaven tunnels?” Mavis accused, retracting her sword arm and walking over towards Moira and John. “Hell, we wouldn’t BE in this mess if the Order could do their gods-forsaken job and actually have gotten rid of the skaven infestation to begin with!”

“Guys-”

“Oh I’m sorry that the Order I WAS BORN INTO makes mistakes! I’m sorry John got imprisoned, but again, Mavis, it’s not my fault!” Moira yelled over Naoto’s interruptions.

“Well, maybe you should take some responsibility for it!”

“Why? Why do you care how guilty I feel about other knights imprisoning John?”

“BECAUSE JOHN ACTUALLY THOUGHT HE WAS GOING TO DIE IN THERE AND CONSIDERED DOING IT ON HIS OWN TERMS!”

Silence hit them like a wave of skaven. No one spoke a word or made even a squeak. Mavis was crying slightly, with tears dripping from her cheeks as Moira stood there flabbergasted. Talia looked up from the skaven she had been stabbing to **** with an expression of shock before turning to John with pity and worry. John, meanwhile, could feel the heat rise to his cheeks as he turned to look at Mavis.

“Privileged information there, Mavis,” he said coolly. “You weren’t exactly supposed to see nor share that little thought of mine.”

“I… I’m sorry, John,” Mavis said, her gaze averted from his. “I was doing a quick look through to see how prison was for you and… Look, I knew it would be bad and wanted to help but I didn’t-”

“Mavis, enough,” John said, before turning to the rest of the party. “As for the rest of you all, I would kindly appreciate it if you forgot she said that and don’t bring it up again.”

“But John,” Moira said softly, “if you were thinking about committing-”

“No, Moira,” John said, silencing her with the raising of his hand. “What I thought while incarcerated is none of your concern. I’m doing better now, and would kindly like to keep moving forward and eliminate the skaven. None of you are my therapist, and I don’t want you to be. I’m going to handle this on my…” John looked up and deeper into the tunnel. “Where are the skaven?”

“John, you can’t just-” Talia stated before turning and looking down the tunnel, her words dying on her lips as she too noticed the lack of ratmen. “... Did they… run away?”

“That’s what I was trying to tell you all,” Naoto said. “I noticed them running towards something deeper in the tunnels and leaving us alone. My guess is they either lost enough rats to warrant retreating and trying again later or something more deadly than us was hitting them from the back.”

John looked to his runic sheet again, recalling his Heimdallr rune’s effect. “Hold on, I have a rune that can enhance my sight… sorta. It will show me if there are any skaven waiting for us in the tunnel.” He held out his hands, taking a deep breath before calling forth his mana to his fingers. He could feel his hands start to draw out the complex runic language before him on their own, like they were pulled by muscle memory rather than John’s own active actions. As he wrote the runes in the air, words began to spill from his mouth.

“He dwells in a place called Himinbjorg, near Bifrost,” John said, his voice sounding layered as he tapped deep into legendary runic magic. “He is the ward of the gods, and sits at the end of heaven, guarding the bridge against the mountain giants. He needs less sleep than a bird; sees a hundred miles around him, and as well by night as by day. He hears the grass grow and the wool on the backs of the sheep, and of course all things that sound louder than these.” John’s hands continued to trace before him, and as he spoke the final words, a deeper and more ancient voice joined his. “He has a trumpet called Gjallarhorn, and when he blows it it can be heard in all the worlds. Heimdallr, Watchman of Asgard, lend me your sight.” And with that, John clapped his hands together, activating the legendary rune.

John cracked open his eyes, and before him was… almost too much. He now could see everything in the tunnel, from the tiniest of bugs to the hairs on the rats that died charging at the party. He could hear the soft dripping of some of their blood, and could even hear the dying breaths of a couple of them that weren’t quite dead yet. His mind began to flashback to when he was in prison before he got moved to his own cell and one of the prisoners mentally snapped. He could remember the scream as the prisoner plunged a shiv into the chest of John’s cellmate, the laughter as the prisoner was dragged away to god knows where, and the soft sounds of his cellmate’s dying breath as he slowly bled to dea-

‘Focus, John,’ he thought to himself, shaking away the memory before focusing deeper down the tunnel. He was surprised he could even handle such perceptive abilities, but he assumed that the only reason he wasn’t screaming in overloaded madness right now was the protective measures of the rune. And that, you know, Heimdallr probably did not want John to die from using his legendary rune.

‘Heimdallr. What the hell is this? I thought it was only supposed to give me the ability to see enemies, not… all this.’

‘That’s putting it mildly,’ John thought as he tried not to act like an ADHD kid off his adderall and actually focus on what he needed to look for. ‘Dead rats, rocks, moss, dripping water, broken spears, smashed warplock jezzails, Viking warrior, bloody swords, more- wait.’ John shifted his focus again before locking his gaze on the Viking warrior who was currently pulling a bloody ax out of the head of an armored skaven.

The viking warrior was almost ethereal to look at, with greyed out skin and a strange green glow around his tattoos and his eyes and weapons. Before John could say anything to his party about his discovery, the Viking looked up suddenly and turned to look right at John. He smiled, put his ax on his shoulder and slowly said,