85. The True Vermin
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The next conscious thoughts of V was someone softly patting his cheeks. "Hey, you should uh, probably wake up. All the animals have lost their minds!" V forced himself awake; he was laying on the ground in some sort barn. Luna's face was inches away from his as she squished his cheeks together with her hands. "Oh look! You're back!" V nodded, shooed her hands off of him and sat up. "W... what happened?" Luna looked around, "You fell over, the animals froze for a few seconds, Eika and L ran away, and then the animals went crazy." V did hear what sounded like a skittering horde outside of the walls.  "Where is L? And Eika for that matter." Luna shrugged "Running away maybe? They were carrying the stinky man." V stood up, he vaguely remembered trying to stop the swarm of vermin. He wondered if that was why the Champion of Vermin only seemed to be able to give them generic commands? The few moments he had interacted with the swarm had been an impossible cacophony of instincts and primal thoughts. Perhaps trying to give that... horde... specific commands was impossible? Although, if anyone could it would be the Champion of Vermin...so... As V continued to try to reason out the Vermin Champion's powers, he looked around again. "Wait... how did I get here?" Luna did a fist pump in the air as she proudly spoke. "I dragged you here!... well... more like rolled you over and over. I could not shoo all the animals away they were everywhere! So, I helped you roll away to safety!" V shrugged; it made as much sense as anything else Luna did. On the other hand, by the sound of things, this barn would not qualify as "Safe" for much longer.

"We have to get moving and find the others." V checked his gear; it did not seem as if he had lost anything while Luna was... rolling him to safety. Luna nodded "I’m a little worried about Eika, the crazy animals were biting her and stuff until you passed out! But I think the animals started chasing her again." Examining the layout of the barn, V climbed up onto the hay loft, covered his head, and jumped through the ceiling, landing on top of the roof of the barn. He examined the situation as he pulled Luna up alongside of him. Somehow there were even more vermin than before, which one would, at first, assume to be a bad thing. However, as V watched the out-of-control horde, he noticed that they were well and truly out of control, eating each other, fighting, moving seemingly at random. He wondered if the swarm was somehow driven insane, like some sort of... psychic... rabies. Whatever the case, V had to figure out what to do now. From his vantage point, he could only see part of the village. If L could not get to him, he assumed she was one of two places. Either with Eika, or with the center of town, where the villagers had retreated to. He could make out the top of the village hall building, but that was not especially helpful unless he decided to travel there. As he examined the horde and ignored Luna's babbling about fuzzy animals, he realized two things. First, if they still had the man captured, L would not have taken him to the center of town and placed the villagers in more danger, and secondly, every so often a few members of the vermin horde would run off to the north east.

V pointed toward the fleeing animals. "I think we should follow them, maybe Eika and L fled with the Champion. His horde might be trying to re-form near him, or something. Look I don't have any better ideas." V then wondered to himself for a moment why he was justifying his thought process to Luna, she would agree with him even if his plan was "Do a fun dance and hope the animals go away." Regardless, Luna nodded "Ya! Let’s follow the fuzzy boys!" And she began to climb down off of the roof. "Wait stop. Let me carry you. I can run faster... and better, than you. I don't want you left behind in the horde." Luna shrugged as V picked her up. Even for her small frame, she was light, but she was part fairy according to her status, and every fairy he had seen so far was a ball of fur and air. V slid down onto a cart full of hay before making the final leap into the horde. He was immediately beset by small bites and scratches, but the damage was extremely negligible as it was not a coordinated attack, and they seemed nothing more than normal vermin, well, other than the sort of insane horde aspect of their behavior.

V fled the town, with only a handful of the horde following him. After they passed the last house, V unceremoniously threw Luna off of him and ripped off the various animals biting him. After the stabbing and stomping was over, he checked Luna. "You did not have to tumble me so hard!" V brushed himself off again, checking for bugs. "Ya sorry about that. It is very unsettling to have bugs and various small animals biting you. I just sorta... acted out of instinct." Luna nodded and pointed "O hey a guy and another animal." V quickly readied himself to save someone from more vermin, but instead what he saw was a man on a horse, his bow was strung but hung on his back. "W..what happened here?!" The man asked incredulously. "What happened to the village?!" V guessed that the man was some sort of hunter returning from a fruitless hunt. "Uh... a monster summoned a bunch of rats and other animals to eat it. To eat your village. In theory I am trying to stop this from happening. I think most of your people have taken refuge in what, from what I can tell, is the only stone building in your city, and are trying to hold out there. As for me, I am chasing what I hope is the monster behind all of this. I really can't stay and talk." As V quickly grabbed Luna and started to run in the direction that the vermin would occasionally head, the man called, confusion and panic still laden in his voice. "Careful, there is a sheer drop over that way, it leads into a frozen canyon! The edges are slippery in the snow and ice!" V called back a thank you, but was unsure if the man heard him. 

As V ran, he saw more and more vermin heading in the same direction as him. Well, even if Eika and L were not this way the man certainly was. He did not actually have a great plan to deal with him yet, but if he only had forty or fifty small creatures with him, then perhaps it would be possible to kill both him and the creatures trying to eat him. As he ran, the terrain quickly became filled with rocks and small hills, perhaps heralding the canyon that he was warned about. V attempted to stay more vigilant than before, he did not expect he would overlook an entire canyon, but you never know. As he crested a particularly steep hill, he heard a familiar voice. "I’ll be damned if a bunch of rats are going to kill me." As V slid down the other side of the hill, still carrying Luna, she pointed "Hey look! its L!" And indeed, near the bottom of the hill L was fighting off another small horde of animals. In-fact, this seemed to be the focal point of the vermin who fled the town, they were converging on L.

V's presence startled L for a moment before she realized who he was. "It is difficult to sense your location when I am under duress, but I was hoping you would follow us." L sounded exhausted and beaten, her body was covered in small wounds and insect bites, and to be honest, she smelled impossibly bad. "Hey! You smell like this one place I used to sleep all the time before the city guard came an-" L cut her off and spoke to V, continuing to fend off vermin. "Don't get close to me. He hit me with some sort of greenish magical cloud or something. Ever since then, I have been accosted by all manner of vermin, endlessly. The numbers are increasing as well, I think I can only hold out for another ten minutes or so before I am overwhelmed. If you get close, the smell, or magic, or whatever might transfer over to you and Luna as well. I can't give you the entire story, but after you stopped the horde for a few moments, Eika and I ran with the man’s body, trying to get away from the horde. As we feared however, he had more cards to play. I can't explain it exactly, but he woke up suddenly. He broke free of my grasp, his body moved in a strange manner. Before I know it, he hit me with his gas or magic, and then I was swarmed. He ran off, and Eika chased him, but she looked like she was faltering, so I don't know how much longer she was going to be conscious. I was unable to follow due to this... situation." For every mole L stabbed, and rat she crushed in her bare hand, two more appeared out of the snow, ground, or air. "You have to go save the girl; I don't think she realized she was at her limit."

Dragging Luna with him, V nodded and ran. "Good luck." he said with a grim resolution. "You too, we will need it." L grimaced as she held off the swarm. After only a moment of running, he dropped Luna and gripped his weapon, V had encountered a terrible sight. He was fairly confident that the Champion of Vermin could not become more disgusting than constantly having his body devoured, but he certainly had managed to make V pale a second time. The man was hunched over Eika's unconscious, hopefully not dead, body. A few meters to the man's back was the edge of the canyon, his right eye was gone, and maggots crawled in the open socket. The man's movements were jerky and strange, his joints bent in all the wrong ways. Flies left his mouth when he opened it, and took a bite out of Eika's shoulder. "He...he's eating her!!!!" Luna screamed in horror. V held back the bile that threatened to pour from his mouth. The man had a small swarm around him, the swarm was also trying to take bites out of Eika, but the Champion of Vermin was keeping them away, like a jealous predator guarding his meal. V was unsure if he would be able to deal with the vermin and the new, incredibly horrible form of the Champion. However, he needed to save Eika, and it was clear he had... bitten her several times already, she was bleeding somewhat badly. On the upside, she was bleeding heavily, which was fairly good evidence that her heart had not stopped yet. "He is eating her!" Luna started screaming uncontrollably. Luna grabbed her head as her eyes turned silver. V really did not have time to deal with Luna's situation right now, and started carefully moving toward the man. As he bit Eika again, he grabbed one of the rats who tried to sneak a nibble and threw it into the canyon. The man's good eye followed V's movements carefully as he approached. V could not afford to rush into the situation blindly. If he easily escaped L's grasp, then the Champion of Vermin was not to be underestimated. "HE'S EATING HER!!!" Luna's voice echoed off the surrounding hills as she screamed and gripped her head. "THE MONSTER IS EATING GILLY!"

 

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