<div class="floatright">(http://s3.amazonaws.com/cdn.roosterteeth.com/uploads/images/54063e01-6933-4e38-b195-d0fc28595a06/md/2181220-1448930942333-Warrior_Karsten_Face.jpg)</div><br/>Of course they didn’t run. That would have been showing at least the semblance of desire for survival and a smidgen of common sense. Cerias slowly lowered the foot to the ground and felt his face slacken in a feebly struggling mixture of disbelief and consternation as the pair of pig-headed newbies held their ground. Their thickheaded stubbornness was worse than a damn gnoll with an actual bone to pick. What the hell were they thinking? Even the most glory drunk peasant boy with his cock in his first farmer’s wife would know to pull out and run when the husband could be heard outside the door. No matter how much their balls might ache for release.<br/><br/>Yet all he got in return for his helpful advice was a hearty ‘Fuck you!’ and pissy looks. He hadn’t expected them to be grateful of course, but at least to listen to him.<br/><br/>Instead both girls released their load all over the oncoming rats, and rather spectacularly so. One of the larger rats popped like an enormous zit, spreading gore so vile around it that even the other rats threw themselves into cover. As victories goes it was as ugly as it was spectacular, though he had to admit well earned. Both girls looked like they had went through an actual shit storm by now and he didn’t particularly envy them trying to get the stench, not to mention the faintly acidic feces, out of hair or clothes. There was pretty damn compelling reasons that this was an area frequented only by those with no other options, or those with a competent wizard in the group.<br/><br/>Cerias dreamed fondly of the days when Anerak just waved his fingers making all the dirt, gore and bile evaporate in multicolored little rainbow-colored bursts that smelled of lavender and ginger, as he watched the two girls scrabble around in the fetid pool of muck in so many colors of brown, green and yellow that it made a multicolored and sickly looking quilt. He truly didn’t want to stomp down there. It would probably take as much time getting his boots free of the putrid gore as to walk to the temple for revivals. Yet the bitching would, by all evidence, be even fouler to deal with than the noxious shit down there, and longer lasting.<br/><br/>At last the priestess managed to get her own ankle seen to and once more Cerias paused with his foot about to take the first step down the path to much dubious, but surely shit stained, glory.<br/><br/>“Why didn’t she do that to begin with….Seven hells….”<br/><br/>He muttered, his voice a purring growl of dismay as the man-sized monsters trudged out of the caves, scattering the smaller members of their horrid species around them. Those were E-DROUS, Elite Dire Rats Of Unusual Size and the closest consorts to the Q-DROUS herself. They had somehow managed to make that monstrous walking boil of teeth and disease rouse from the depths of the caves.<br/><br/>Gritting his teeth he stomped down the path towards the girls that still held their damn ground. He had to give them that at least, they didn’t lack for courage or determination. If that determination seemed to be dedicated to making things as difficult as they possibly could for themselves, well, who was he to stop them? Only he was charging in to help he realized belatedly as the brown sludge of rat shit, blood and rotting gore spattered against his boots and leggings with every step he took. Obstinate and headstrong he could do something with, it was far better than timidity and fear in an adventurer. Not to mention that when they actually decided to use their powers, they had some force behind it.<br/><br/>His sword left the sheath with barely a whisper and the runes decorating the spine of the blade flared up, shining like molten sapphires and hissing as it burned away the stray drops of offal that came in its way. Still grumbling he plowed right between Lesniya and Sophia, meeting the oncoming storm of snapping teeth and ripping claws head on. Or he would have if he’d intended to fight them.<br/><br/>Slamming his right foot down with enough force to send a rippling tsunami of slime the color of day old diarrhea, he channeled all that pent up frustration and ire into a thunderclap of a bellow from the depths of his powerful chest. With it was unleashed a terrorizing shout that froze the oncoming beasts in their tracks, making them tumble and crash into the pools of noxious fluids, scrambling and scratching in the ground to stop their lumbering advance. Screeching and barking, sounding more like scared dogs than vermin, they fled heedlessly away from him in a spray of kicked up shit.<br/><br/>The matriarch had only paused and her beady eyes burned a bleak yellow as she considered them for a moment, weary of the presence of the warrior that had joined the two intruders into her kingdom.<br/><br/>“When the tank says run, it’s a damn good time to listen!”<br/><br/>He growled at the two women as he kept his gaze on the bloated rodent queen. Entirely sure by now that they were both somehow allergic to doing anything that even hinted at being sprinkled with reason, he backed up until he stood next to them.<br/><br/>“We aren’t fighting these so if you can’t move your damn asses up the path then I’ll have to move them for you.”<br/><br/>Not giving them a chance to prove him right he unequipped both shield and sword, how they just appeared on his back and in his scabbard when he did so only the gods knew, and hunched down as he wrapped his long arms around around the waist of the two ladies. One of the few advantages with swinging around a sharp metal stick all day while wearing heavy armor was you got a pair of pretty impressive shoulders, as well as a pretty toned body, and he used every ounce of that as he pulled the girls around until their stomachs hit his shoulders and hoisted them into the air with a grunt.<br/><br/>“Time for a little talk girls….”<br/><br/>He muttered as he carried them bodily back up the path, hanging over his back like a pair of very uninspiring and thoroughly uncooperative banners.<br/>