“Hope these cleanout quests will all be this easy,” said Tyrone as they walked towards the next encampment. “Don’t think I have the heart to evict a homeless family just trying to survive.”
Travis- “don’t jinx us man, now we are going to run into that kind of moral mumbo jumbo for sure. It’s the concrete jungle up here. If you let your guard down, these desperate people are going to tear you apart. Think you got soft growing up in the orphanage.”
“Are you kidding me bro!? Ain’t nothing soft about that place. 8 hours of physical training, then 4 more hours of learning Latin and Aramaic, all so we could spend 2 more hours trying to memorize the Bible. After classes, it’s chores if we were lucky and if unlucky, sewer duty.
Same grueling schedule everyday, 7 days a week and don’t get me started about Sunday school. But the worst thing is that we do all this hungry. They control us with the food, a slice of apple if you get top marks on a test, a piece of kale if you can run the mile in under 9 min. You know this, you used to be one of us. Why do you gotta disrespect me?” -Tyrone.
Travis thought for a moment and realized that his standard of living in the sewers, with the rats, was actually much better than life in the orphanage. Most days he got enough to eat and there were no angry nuns to beat him when his test scores were low.
“Damn, guess you're right Tyrone. Suppose we should count our blessings.” -Travis.
Travis and Tyrone turned the corner and lo and behold, it was exactly the situation they dreaded. A family of 4 dressed in rags were huddled together at the entrance of the alleyway. They held signs that read: Please Help, God Bless, and Will Work for Food. It broke Tyrone’s heart.
As they approached, Tyrone could see 3 children and one adult, probably their mother. It looked like they wore everything they owned, the kids were bundled under many layers of clothing. This seemed kind of strange in the Australian heat. Their dirty matted hair covered their faces and eyes.
Who knows why the homeless do what they do. Maybe it was mental illness. Or maybe they kept all of their belongings on their persons to deter theft.
Tyrone turned to Travis, turning his back to the poor homeless family. “Don’t think I can do this one bro.”
Geppetto hissed in the direction of the homeless family.
“What’s wrong Geppetto? Hey hold up, maybe we don’t have to fight. Was this spot an inspection and not a cleanout? We don’t need to clear them out if it’s just an inspection. Check the quest papers please.” -Travis.
Tyrone put the blade of his shovel down and leaned the handle between his head and shoulders to free his hands to search his pockets for the quest papers. As he pulled the papers from his pants, he was suddenly knocked down to the ground. His head bounced once off the asphalt and he was unconscious.
Geppetto watched in horror as the adult homeless fell forward and split into 3 parts, knocking Tyrone to the ground. The raggedy children threw off their disguises and charged towards them armed with shanks and dirty needles.
Geppetto finally realized what was making his whiskers tingle. These homeless were not humans, they were Murder Midgets! An offshoot of humanity that had devolved to hunt their kin.
He yanked Travis’ reins to the side and screamed, “giddyup!” pointing him and his mount towards the closest sewer grate.
With the Murder Midgets close on their tails, Geppetto arrived at the sewer grate and he squeeked the distress siginal. The Rat Army instantly responded by boiling out of the sewers and forming a defensive screen between his human and the charging Midgets.
The 6 monsters stopped mere feet away and squared up with the Rat Army. They jabbered to each other in their strange midget language, then nodded to one another. One midget climbed on top of the other and they formed a monsterous 10 feet tall living totem pole.
Individually, the Midgets were weak but when they combined to form a Mega-Midget, they became a force to be reckoned with. The mega totem fell forward and smashed down onto the Rat Army with an area effect attack.
Injured rats squealed in pain and were dragged off by the Ritualist Rats for healing as the rest of the swarm piled onto the 6 midgets that had divided after their totem smash attack.
But the totem smash was not their final form! The midgets quickly reassembled into a 7 foot tall giant, with each midget acting as a leg, arm, torso, or head. It was becoming a long and difficult fight.
When the rats would get the upper hand by poisoning or crippling one midget, the monster would be swapped out with an uninjured midget from the torso. The midget that formed the head seemed to have the ability to heal.
The battle dragged on for 10 long minutes with the Mega-Midget going through 2 more forms. It turned into a snake that bit and slapped. Then into its final form, a giant hamster exercise ball. Like the circus freaks that they evolved from, the five midgets linked arms and feet into the shape of a hollow sphere, and the last midget ran up the inside of the living ball, giving it unnatural speed.
The Hamster Ball attack was fast, rolling over and away from the Rat Army before they could strike back. When all seemed lost, Geppetto ordered Travis to do his ultimate attack; Backpack Revolution.
As the hamster ball rolled in for another attack, the human spun his backpack round and round, like a hammer throw olympian, and slammed his pack into the Mega-Midget exercise ball.
The Murder Midgets, already weaked by the Assasin Rats and Rat Pulguist poisons, fell into a heap as their giant hamster exercise ball attack formation broke apart. The Rat Army overwhelmed the exhausted midgets in detail, killing each midget as they desperately tried to reform.
*YOU HAVE DEFEATED 6 Murder Midgets!*
*CLASS UNLOCKED: Drug Mule, you can perform donkey kicks that do double damage. Your backpack can carry twice as much drugs.*
*LEVEL UP!*
The exhausted Rat Army took a few minutes to catch their breath.
Following the sound of mayham and murder, Tyrone stumbled back to the resting Rat Army while holding his bleeding head. “Okay, what did I miss?”
