Today's Earth date: November 18, 1991

Horcus is acting like this hunter is his first girlfriend. Very well could be.

He's a Chosen Hero, and he's behaving like a twelve-year old boy. Even Rathain is losing patience.

-The Journal of Laszlo the Paladin

Thus far, Wayne had successfully avoided entering a monster nest, in either of his lives. Rattlins, goblins, ratmen–he knew better than to head into a network of tunnels constructed by man-eating monsters. That was about to change. He knew it had to, but he allowed himself a few minutes to embrace reluctance before doing what had to be done.

The ratmen had clearly accessed this space, but it was unclear to what end or if they were still active. If they were active, they represented a danger to all of the explorers working over their heads. Leaving ratmen unculled would never end well.

"How are we on supplies?" Wayne asked.

Armond thought for a moment. "We could do three or four days if we stretched it. At the least, we'd have to go back to basecamp to get more, but most of our restock is on the wagon in Asplugha."

"I, for one, am curious to explore," Fergus said. "I believe the skeleton lord was crafted by the first dwarves. This is too similar to Julian's sculpture to be a coincidence."

"And the ratmen may be connected?"

"They had access to first dwarf technology. We know that much now. What I can't say is if they removed anything from this area."

"Ratman is edible if you cook it well enough," Armond said. "Did it in the service more than I'd like to admit, but if we get low on food, we have that option."

Fergus was appalled.

"Let's see how much ground we cover in a day," Wayne decided. "As long as the HUD maps the tunnels, we can find our way out." Like with Vanilli's tunnels, the hidden rooms of the dungeon didn't appear on his map display, but the entrance to the tunnel was visible. The other blessing was that the tunnels were large enough for the party to stand upright, even Hector.

As the party delved the darkness, Wayne observed that the tunnel seemed direct, like the rats were aiming for the hidden rooms. That could also have been his own creative license coming into play, but there were no offshoots and the curve was gentle. If the rats tunneled there by accident, it was a monumental stroke of luck. If the angle of the tunnel was different by a few degrees, they could have dug right past the ruins and never realized what they missed.

The party walked for five minutes before the tunnel opened into a large, round chamber. This space too was dug out by the rats, and Wayne noted that meant breaking through rock, not just dirt. The stone he rubbed his fingers against felt like it had teeth marks. Fergus said he wasn't aware of ratmen chewing through stone in any of the research he had seen.

They found four broken Diagnostic Cubes in this burrow chamber as well as a few oversized bones, smaller than the skeleton lord but still larger than an ettin.

"Wayne," Fergus said. The old scholar squatted low, his Light spell cast on a specific pile of bones. "What do you see?"

"Looks like a ratman. Same teeth, same–" Wayne blinked and leaned close. "More mutants?"

The ratman's left arm was twice as long as it should have been and ended with a single bony hook, almost like a scythe. Fergus was troubled by it too.

"This is similar to the specimen we preserved," Fergus said. "Do you see the shape of the bone here?"

Wayne squinted. The length of the forearm had a distinct right angle, so perfect that it couldn't have grown that way. He thought of the hammer he saw on the table at the entrance to the tunnel.

"I'm not ready for a hypothesis, but this is concerning," Fergus said. Wayne agreed.

Searching the room more thoroughly, they found two other hook limbs made of bone. Neither were attached to a ratman, but it was unclear if they had been removed from a living ratman or crafted separately somehow. Wayne couldn't decide if finding them was good news or bad news.

A single tunnel exited the chamber. Fergus took some notes and the party ventured onward.

Probe picked up a red dot around the bend of the tunnel. It approached, but slowly.

Wayne went first.

A troll's upperbody crawled on all fours toward the party. It had the hind legs and tail of a ratman. The end of its tail had a bone hook. The monster held the weapon over its head like a scorpion stinger.

Though the Light spell shined in its glossy eyes, the monster didn't react. It continued crawling forward, sniffing as it went. Wayne slowly stepped backward. The troll head twisted and listened. It coughed and spit green phlegm, and continued crawling.

Wayne beheaded the monster. It went limp.

Probe didn't pick up any other dots.

"Troll and rat?" Fergus asked.

Wayne concurred.

"Fleshmancy isn't supposed to be this versatile."

"But we agree these are pieces of a monster reassembled?" Wayne asked.

"We do. Perhaps this relates to the rats' interest in the first dwarves?"

Wayne didn't know that ratmen were sophisticated enough to have strategic research interests. Fergus admitted that he didn't know that either, but the creepy as hell evidence was right there, bleeding on the floor. Armond cauterized the troll neck with his torch. They weren't sure if a troll rat would regenerate but no sense in taking the risk.

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"Okay, here's the plan," Wayne said. "We're going to clear the nest and then go back through and research."

"Can I take a few more notes?" Fergus asked, inspecting the rat-troll.

"Later. If there's a rat capable of this, we shouldn't give it time to organize."

The abominations were endless. All combinations of rat, goblin, and troll parts shambled down the tunnels to attack the party. Most of them were too uncoordinated to be real dangers, but there were dozens of them.

Ratmen with goblin heads. Trolls with ratman hands. Goblins with rat teeth and tails.

Those were disturbing on their own, but then human pieces began appearing in the machinations, arms and legs, mostly. The few human heads they saw attached to the bodies of monsters looked tortured and lost. Wayne suspected they were the missing diggers, but he didn't mention it. The solemn quiet of the party told Wayne that the rest of the party had the same suspicion.

For two hours, Wayne's HUD was nothing but windy tunnels with smatterings of red dots for abominations lingering in the passages, but a distinct square room appeared at the edge of his fog of war. It was full of red dots.

Margo volunteered to stealth ahead to investigate. She returned thirty minutes later with her report.

The room looked dwarven, like a blank version of the skeleton lord boss chamber. She counted fifteen abominations. Half of them had bone scythes for limbs and seemed more agile than their previous encounters. She reported two ratman ettins, a pile of human and monster parts, and a central ratman that appeared to be in charge.

"What makes you think he's in charge?" Fergus asked.

"He was putting them together."

"Reasonable hypothesis."

The last detail she shared was that the abominations seemed to attack the central rat, or attempted to. They bounced off a barrier around the workshop area, eventually losing interest and wandering away before repeating the cycle all over again.

The party didn't need to confirm it out loud: This seemed like their mystery fleshmancer, and it had access to Forgemaster tools. What those did, they weren't sure, but monsters and strange fantasy tech could never be a good combination.

Armond got the Zeroes into formation and followed Wayne as he jogged down the tunnel. His HUD lit up with all the red dots Margo counted, including one stationary monster in the middle of the madness.

Linebacker Bot followed Wayne into the chamber chanting, "hut, hut, hut, hut," And bumrushed a ratman with troll arms, headbutting the monster in the stomach with his metal forehead. Wayne peeled off to the left and Blitzed through five abominations in a flash. Fergus came in behind Hector lobbing fireballs while Margo's bow never stopped moving.

One of the scythe rats shattered their bone weapon on Hector's shield, and the tank followed up with an upperhanded swing, connecting his mace to the underside of the ratman's chin.

The ettins lumbered toward the party. One dropped a hammerfist at Hector. He held his ground, taking the full brunt of the blow. Then Hector activated his shield and released the stored energy, blasting the ettin backward. Armond topped off the tank's health and blocked a kick from the other ettin with an air barrier.

Skulls wrapped in green fire bounced toward the party. One detonated against Armond's barrier. Wayne felt the shockwave in his chest from across the room.

The fleshmancer stood in the middle of the chamber, holding two more skulls. Wayne watched as the ratman injected mana into the bones, setting them alight.

"Block!" Wayne yelled to Linebacker Bot.

The dutiful robot threw itself between the Zeroes and the next skull grenade and absorbed the blast, leaving no piece of the robot behind.

A skull bounced at Wayne's feet. He summoned all of his youth soccer experience and kicked it back. The rat hissed but didn't flinch when the skull exploded against the ratman's protective field. It responded, throwing five skulls threaded together with rough rope, the green fire inside flickering as if the skulls were laughing.

Fire Extinguisher.

When the grenade was out, Wayne used the smoke to disguise his movement. By the time it was clear, he flanked the ratman fleshmancer, surrounding the barrier with burning bushes as he went. The rat inside cackled, safe from the flames.

The top half of an ettin flopped against the barrier behind the rat, interrupting its laughter. The torso smeared over the round shell like dead deer on a windshield.

Hector didn't see the other ettin recover and paid the price. The tank somersaulted across the room like he had been ejected from a car crash. Armond and Fergus pivoted to help their tank, shifting in his direction while Margo went the opposite direction, trying to draw as much attention away from the downed party member as she could.

A laser came down from the ceiling and struck the fleshmancer's barrier but didn't penetrate, filling the ratman with even more glee.

Four of the smaller abominations, trolls as their base body with ratman claws, ran at the rogue. The ettin abomination, one ratman head and one orc, stomped over to finish Hector. Arrows sank into its back, but it didn't flinch or change course.

Wayne noticed a cube at the rat's feet. He couldn't read the dwarvish on its sides from here, but he had a guess at which cube it was.

The Zero Hero charged Sword of Water and smacked the ettin abomination in the side of one of its heads then he ran to the ratman fleshmancer, choosing to forego Blitz in favor of weakening the ettin. Wayne managed to pelt it with two more balls of ice before locking eyes with the fleshmancer. The rat charged more of its dark magic grenades.

The ratman didn't flinch as the distance between it and Wayne rapidly dwindled.

The laughter cut off when Wayne passed through the barrier line like it wasn't there. The rat conjured a shield from mana, narrowly saving it from a deathblow. As Wayne's sword bounced off the wall, a violent chill went through his body. His muscles seized as if he was electrocuted.

The rat bit into Wayne's shoulder, its teeth like speartips piercing through the bone. His health dropped to 76.

The artifacts from Wayne's system menu flashed across his vision, and his connection to his own body felt distant, like his fingers were barely on the controls.

Then the ratman fleshmancer liquified before Wayne's eyes, leaving its head clamped onto the Zero Hero's shoulder. Margo was there, shock on her face, one of the Chosen Rogue's daggers in her hands.

Of course! The daggers did backstab damage!

Margo had two more abominations to finish, but the ettin was closing quickly on the other three Zeroes. Hector hadn't moved. Armond tried to pull the tank to safety, but the ettin was there, lifting a foot to stomp the humans to death.

Fergus stepped close to Armond and activated Deban, Armond's air barrier spell. His new staff's ability generated a shield at the last moment. The ettin slipped on the barrier, stumbling sideways to recover its balance.

Wayne pelted the back of its head with Missiles and a laser arrow went through its back, through its heart, and into the wall on the other side.

The room was clear. Wayne flipped to his party menu. Hector had 19 hitpoints left, and Armond was healing him. Margo and Fergus had lost about half of theirs but were otherwise fine. When Armond was happy with Hector's condition, he used his group heal ability to bring everyone back to full. He had to help pry the fleshmancer skull off of Wayne first, but they got it, eventually.

Wayne let out a long breath when Probe confirmed for certain that the enemies were down and no more approached from the half dozen tunnels feeding into the room.

As Wayne suspected, the fleshmancer had a Dwarven Diagnostic Cube, the variety with Access selections for each face. There was no pedestal or other dwarven construction anywhere near the Cube, however. Instead, it sat in a puddle of what looked like black tar. What that tar was made of, Wayne and Fergus were unsure. They were sure, however, that a ratman had figured out how to activate Diagnostic Cubes.

Wayne saw Forgemaster Mallets and Chisels like those they saw below the skeleton lord room, and the ratman's workbench had a human torso with two ratman appendages attached. They must have interrupted his latest project before he could finish.

"Wayne!" Fergus called.

Following the scholar's voice, he saw the wizard in front of a chest, not far from where they made their stand against the last ettin. The chest was open, and Fergus was more pale than usual.

He held up a catalog page.

"You won't believe this," Fergus said.

"I was going to tell you the same thing."

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