Chapter 39

She kicked at his limp foot and laughed. “Oh my you have caused a fuss. I’ve never seen an Inquisitor as pissed as you made ours, she was practically spitting acid!”

“She sent you?”

“Of course. Although she did ask for you to be taken alive, and I quote: ‘Get me that monster so I can skin it alive and wear its fur while I draw and quarter what remains.’ Town was like a kicked beehive let me tell yah. Well, no sense dawdling.” She hefted the axe. “I was going to take you alive but after that display I think it safer you come as a corpse. You can thank me in hell.”

Rain’s eyes widened in suprise, but he wasn’t looking at the dwarf. An Elf-sheep had suddenly become visible just behind the Dwarf. What was this? The Elf-sheep had betrayed him?

The Dwarf noticed his look and tried to turn but before she could the Elf-sheep stabbed a black blade into the side of the Dwarf’s neck with an anguished cry. The Dwarf’s mouth opened to scream but she could only gurgle as blood flooded her mouth.

The Elf-sheep stepped back with a horrified expression at what she had done, her eyes snapped to Rain who was staring at her and her legs nearly buckled underneath her. With a yelp she turned and vanished into thin air.

The Dwarf was still up, her hands scrabbling at her belt. Rain suddenly recognised that the glass bottle she was desperately trying to remove was a healing potion. He swiftly leaned back and pawed the skull sitting atop the throne.

“G-get off of me you damned dog! I- no stooop!”

With one swift motion he threw it forward and just as the Dwarf managed to get the potion free from her belt the skull struck it. It was knocked from her fingers and flew across the ground to shatter on the stone. The skull bounced up against a pillar with a crack and the last flickering dancing green of undeath whisped out of existence. The skull rolled to a stop, still and quiet.

The Dwarf stared at him in silent fury but even as she did her legs buckled beneath her and she toppled backwards. She was dead before she hit the ground.

Rain let out a rattling breath but then his head snapped around as Opal rushed past, another black clad leveler chasing her, this one a Human.

The Goblin turned and her cutlass swung up to deflect a sword stroke from the leveler. She was clearly outmatched, she was just a small monster and he a powerful leveler, the cutlass was nearly blown from her fingers with the strike and her arm was wrenched around brutally just from the colliding metal. She held him back only by the skin of her teeth, even as he watched her legs buckled, going weak at the knees, the Goblin somehow used her unreliable legs to her advantage and dipped below the Human’s blade, letting it whistle over head. She backpedaled, desperately trying to stay balanced atop her own unreliable legs. It was going to happen again, the same as when she was kidnapped by slavers, falling at the worst possible moment.

“Save her!” he roared, but no one answered. He searched around for something to throw, but nothing was in reach; he could only watch as Opal desperately parried using her two swords, each blow nearly her death.

A Kobold crawled from the mound of undead at that point. He looked around surreptitiously and then ran toward one of the doors. The chain ran out and with a squawk he fell on his tail as it yanked on his neck. He scrambled to his feet and tried to pull the chain free from the undead but it was caught underneath something. He looked around fretfully and spotted Opal as she was backed up against one of the pillars. The Kobold clawed at his face and then with a miserable cry he ran toward them and leapt on the leveler’s back. The leveler cried out and tried to grab at the Kobold biting and clawing at him.

Opal didn’t hesitate and she plunged her rapier through the leveler’s chest and into his heart.

The leveler dropped to the ground, the Kobold still attacking him.

“You can stop. It’s over,” she said, breathing hard, her hands on her wobbling knees.

The Kobold slumped on the dead leveler’s back.

“Oh gods why me,” he moaned.

Opal looked around at Rain and her eyes widened. Rain couldn’t blame her, he was sitting in a slowly growing lake of his own blood, meters across.

She rushed over to him.

“W-what happened!”

Rain nodded at the Dwarf. “Assassin, like the one that attacked you. From the Inquisitor.”

Opal made an unhappy face as she fretfully looked over his wounds.

Rain simply snorted, trying his best to ignore her worry. With difficulty he pushed himself backwards using his paws so that his back rested against the foot of the stone throne.

“They must have been following us for a while, looking for a moment of weakness to attack. Attacking something while it’s distracted or weakened is a plan we would try, but this time it was used against us.”

Opal’s hands clenched and unclenched. “I’ll kill her for this.” She suddenly seemed to realise just how far gone Rain was as he coughed and blood flecked from his lips. She turned on the Dwarf and quickly began stripping her, efficiently removing her clothes until she was butt naked. She then dragged her over to Rain’s side. He weakly gripped the Dwarf and brought her to his mouth where he bit off her head, not bothering with starting at the extremities.

“Tough. Guess that’s to be expected from a Dwarf.”

He quickly devoured the rest of her, only requiring two dozen or so bites to completely swallow all of her down. While he ate Opal dragged over the Human and stripped him too. The Human quickly followed the Dwarf into his gullet as the Dwarf was digesting. He expected there to be at least some growth from having eaten two likely quite high levelers but he was disappointed by what turned out to be next to nothing, his body too heavily focused on healing to do anything else.

He checked his wounds and to his relief the bleeding had stopped although he was still in bad shape.

His eyes wandered over to where the healing potion had been thrown and broken. Could there be?

He pointed at the shattered glass. “Opal, can you check that glass, it is, well was, a healing potion.”

A little hope lifted Opal’s brow and she scampered over to the glass and crouched over it.

“There- There’s a tiny bit in a curved piece of the glass!”

“Good, bring it here.”

The Goblin reverently lifted the little piece of glass, careful not to let a single drip fall.

She carried it over to him and carefully put it to his lips, tipping it back, the sip of remaining liquid landed on his tongue and Rain swallowed.

They both checked his wounds. Gradually, slowly, they started to visibly heal, then the healing seemed to slow down, the sip of healing potion limited in what it could do with so much damage and his body being so large.

“It’s not enough!” fretted Opal worriedly checking him over.

She rushed over to the pile of undead and dragged free a Goblin corpse.

Rain eyed it dubiously.

“You need to heal better, you got to eat this!”

She shoved the body into his paws.

Rain looked over the inedible looking corpse. It looked absolutely terrible, but it was true he needed it.

He hesitantly raised one of its arms and tore it off.

“Eurgh! It tastes like bitter jerky marinated in garbage!”

He made a face but managed to force it down and then started on the rest. Three bites in he started to slow and then come to a stop. He looked down at his stomach and grimaced.

“I ... I think I’m going to be si- BLEURGHH!”

Bits of partially digested undead splattered against the floor as rain heaved up the Goblin.

He spat the taste from his mouth and wiped his tongue with his paw.

“Gods that was disgusting. Can’t eat undead. Noted. Bottom of the food ranking you go.”

Opal dropped the corpse she was dragging over with the help of the Kobold and gave him a hopeless look.

“I’ll live Opal, I just need to sleep, and I’ll heal.” he left his worries and doubts unsaid as there was nothing else to do but hope the worst of his injuries would fix themselves.

The Kobold stared at Rain warily, it wasn’t hard to see that he was hoping Rain would drop dead.

Rain glared back at him and the Kobold flinched.

“Why did you help Opal?”

“Because I am an honourable Kobold, I see a monster in need and it tugs at my heartstrings, I could not leave such an injustice.”

Rain narrowed his eyes. “Why did you help Opal?”

The Kobold swallowed and looked away. “Because I can help the team! I’m all in with you guys!”

Rain snarled and the Kobold took a step back in fright.

“Okay! Okay! Fine. It’s because had the levelers won then I would have been nothing but an experience snack for them, dead where I stood. Levelers don’t let monsters live without reason, I was either definitely dead with them or maybe going to die with you lunati- uh, very nice monsters!”

Rain nodded in satisfaction.

“What’s your name?”

The Kobold blinked at him in surprise. “Y-you want to know my name? Really?”

Rain nodded.

The Kobold coughed into his fist and cleared his throat. “Rixquintalios’alos the third, third in line for the noble house of Salamansos’firilianaranse. Esteemed giant rat hunter, famed amongst my peers!”

“ ... I’m not pronouncing that. Your name is now Red.”

“Wha- You can’t change my name!”

“Your name is Red.”

“Nuooo! That’s not even a real name! That’s the name of a child’s toy!”

“Red.”

“-But!”

Rain loomed at him, which was impressive given he was slumped against the throne still.

The Kobold whimpered and looked at his feet. “My name is Red.”

Opal slapped him on the shoulder. “Thanks for saving my ass Red.”

The Kobold stumbled forward under the slap and made a pained face.

“That’s ... you’re welcome...”

Rain snorted then turned to look around the hall. He narrowed his eyes.

“I know you’re here, watching, listening. Show yourself.”

The hall remained still.

“You did what you did for a reason, Don’t Leave Me Waiting.”

Standing half behind a pillar the Elf-sheep suddenly became visible, her pale face stared at Rain and her legs visibly trembled.

“H-hi ... It’s, uhm, me ... again.”

“You saved my life.”

“ ... And m-murdered a leveler, oh g-gods, what have I done...”