Hero Scout 98 Chapter 26 - Cannibal Gnomes

"This place gives me the creeps," Armen said as the Raid group entered a dark world filled with dim blue light.
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Everywhere gnomish buildings spiralled up into the sky, their crimson roofs and hearty songs filling the land. And yet the gnomes themselves remained unseen, even as the Raid team trudged down cobblestone streets after the slithering Blake.

"Just this way!" she said encouragingly, "they keep all the Grade [A] meat in a big vault - and don't think of them as 'people', better you just imagine this as taking honey from a beehive, ay?"

"Sure," Ellie murmured, both her rat knife out and a new one procured from the dungeon. It had a soft purple glow and has the chance to poison a target on each hit, useful if they were fighting a big enemy.

A swarm of gnomes less so.

"Gnomish loiterers ahead," Black hissed, the Raid team finding their first enemy. Having come at night time the gnomes were mostly indoors, while the higher levelled gnomes patrolled the streets in lesser numbers. And the target of those high-levelled gnomes were the loiterers, those gnomes who stayed outdoors after dark and were now free game for the gnomish 'Gnomehunters', 'Butchers' and 'Grinners'.

Indicating with her tail, Blake had them go around. Soon that distant street was filled with screaming, cut short and replaced with malevolent cackling.

Arriving at the butchery, Kenji discovered tall walls with small windows constantly flittering with the dark shadows of the guards within. So caught up with the sight of the huge stone building designed for creatures no taller than his knee, Kenji tripped.

"Oi, watch it wise guy," muttered a gnomish loiterer, a whole pack of the scrabby bearded and old clothes wearing creatures marching through. Their shabby red hats had certainly seen better days, and their thin frames were making the pointy-toothed gnomes peer at the heavily armoured adventurers with a look of possibility in their eyes.

"Get ready to fight!" Ellie ordered, no sooner than s.h.i.+elds were raised had the arrows come. Long as a finger, yet deadly fast with far too much impact for their size. Dwargon staggered as several arrows. .h.i.t with the force of large rocks, Fial unleas.h.i.+ng a rapid-fire volley of arrows to pick off the Gnomehunters cloaked in darkness on the surrounding roofs.

"Get 'em boys!" called a bright grin from an alleyway, a series of plump gnomes with bandits leathers and pointy teeth bursting after him. Just like the Gnomehunters, they were small yet deadly. Their blows caused disproportionate damage to the adventurer's iron, their little feet moving lightning fast as they came upon the Raid party in a flash.

A blast of the Sundrakes's spells set the Grinners aflame, froze them in place and blasted them against walls with gusts of wind. From there the Bloodhorn cut them to chunks and crushed their little skulls like eggs.

"To the butchery, we have little time," Blake hissed, loiterers by the dozen becoming drawn by the blood. They feasted on the corpses were they lay, the Raid party barely having s.n.a.t.c.hed off the most valuable trinkets from the dead before they were pressed on as the loiterers in turn pulled in a greater number of Gnomehunters.

"Dwargon, if you would," Ellie said.

Grunting, the heavily armoured dwarf surged forward to use [Smash] to cave in the butcheries walls.

"Sundrakes!"

A blast of magic and targeted arrow fire ended those Butchers who had waited beyond in white smocks.

"Rams, Bloodhorn!"

Charging through, the Satyr fighters and the single Minotaur butchered those crimson eyed butchers who rushed through every door. Fanatical and in great number, the tide of butchers was a problem even before they started appearing with armour and halberds.

"Grand Guildmaster Kenji, could you hive us a hand?" Ellie said as she decapitated a pair of wide-eyed gnomes, who had started to chatter in their grating tones.

"Blood! Muscle! Fles.h.!.+ Bones! Eat it up, make it moans!" they giggled as they rushed to their deaths, each splash of blood seemingly drawing in even more of the insane gnomes.

Turning into Dana, Kenji began to raise the dead gnomes as tiny Ghouls. So small they were easy to control, and after a single [Ma.s.s Summon] a whole host of the skittering creatures had burst to life all around to start gnawing at the living's faces. Pretty pleased with the effect, Kenji was glad he had bought that [Ma.s.s Summon] spell, even at the Far King's outrageous prices.

"The meat!" Blake reminded them, each blur of her tail sending several gnome's heads to explode. Her power alone seemed well enough to take care of everything they had faced thus far, and Kenji began to properly understand just how powerful the friends of Bazza were.

Entering a vast storeroom filled with chunks of flesh on meathooks, Kenji heard humming deep within.

"I'll slow down the reinforcements, you get the snags," Blake said, and slithered into a hallway filled with a.s.saulting gnomes of all types. The two human parties along with Kenji's ghouls sealed off the other pa.s.sage, leaving Ellie's crew, Bloodhorn and the Sundrakes to walk within.

"Disgusting," muttered the Sun Elf leader as he found the ground was slick with crimson blood. A shallow pool coated the entire floor, and stretched out of sight.

"It has heard us," said the ebony horned leader of Bloodhorn.

"Who is it~" warbled a strange tone, as two flares of crimson red flashed from the darkness.

Crimson flames lit the torches through the vast room, a distant gnome tall as a man yet rail-thin grinning from a hundred feet away. The creature's aura flared, Kenji left shuddering as it's power lashed his own.

"Retreat-"

Iron gates descended behind Kenji, bocking off their escape. Pulling his hand from the lever, the creature pulled forth an immaculately gleaming knife, that sang as it swished through the air. It was made of intertwined silver and had an aura of its own as powerful as any man. An aura of steel, and utility, of a blade that would cut iron as easily as flesh.

"Spread out, and don't let that d.a.m.ned thing get close!" Ellie searched the room quickly and found several islands of earth amidst the pool of blood. "Get out of the blood too-"

"URGH!" Armen collapsed into the blood, several spiked retracting through where they had skewed his legs and back into the floor. Quickly hidden by blood, the spike trap was impossible to see.

"Come now my pretties, let's play, shall we?" plump gnomes in butchers smocks appeared from little doors to the left and right, each twice as tall as the ones outside, and their blades made of a lesser version of the boss's s.h.i.+ning steel.

"Sundrake, keep the boss off us, Bloodhorn don't let us be surrounded. Ellie's crew fill the gaps," Ellie said in quick succession, "Master Kenji-"

"Focusing on holding up the reinforcements outside right now," Kenji jutted in, feeling his ghouls die one by one, "without me, they'll be overrun."

Ellie grit her teeth, but continued. Pulling out her bow she took a shot, but the boss stepped behind a carca.s.s on a meathook, blocking her view. Fial fired a shot at one of the lessor butchers, the gnome deflecting the arrow with a flash of a gleaming blade.

"Sundrakes, roast that pig!" Ellie yelled, waves of flame spurting out along the meathouse to scorch flesh, scour blood and set the entire area the tall gnome stood in ablaze. Howling it flew out into the open, three arrows smacking into the creature's side before it could slip behind another carca.s.s and begin weaving it's way closer.

To her left and right the Bloodhorn were fully engaged with fighting the Butcher's apprentices, the occasional lance of a spike trap reducing them to wounded wretches.

"Taki, heal the wounded please."

"Already doing so," the little furbolg said, a flow of green leaving his hands to bind wounds closed and return the adventurers to the fight.

The Butcher had closer in - Dwargon used [Smash] and missed, his mace cras.h.i.+ng into the ground instead. Rams used [h.e.l.l Blade] and sent a slash of h.e.l.l flame, he Butcher hiding behind a carca.s.s only for her power to slice right through the carca.s.s and bite into his side. Howling, the boss was exposed as the carca.s.s fell to the ground.

Muttering a prayer to some horned G.o.d, Fial unleashed his [Power Shot], the Butcher deflecting the arrow. In doing so he raised his blade at an odd angle, Ellie appearing to his side to use [Critical Strike] to pierce his spine. He cut back all the same, silver blade slas.h.i.+ng right through her right hand as if air.

Screaming Ellie plunged the knife in her left hand in the Boss's eye, Armen spearing the tall gnome through the back with an [Ice bolt] while Dwargon used another [Smash] to shatter every bone in the Boss's body.

Collapsing face-first into the pool of blood, the Boss died.

And just like every other boss in this G.o.dforsaken dungeon, a chest appeared. It was b.l.o.o.d.y, small and stank of the freshly dead. s.n.a.t.c.hing at the Boss's silvery knife, Ellie allowed Taki to stop the blood flow from her missing hand and smashed the lock.

Inside were health potions of excellent quality, an enchanted smock that increased movement speed, a skill book and various plates of high-grade magic meats. Sausages amongst them.

"Let's get out of here," Ellie shouted, Bloodhorn finis.h.i.+ng up with their gnomish enemies plucked them free of loot. The doors opened too, both revealing the way behind as well as several hallways leading further within.

But Ellie had had her fill with butchery.

Stumbling back, Taki held her side. Smas.h.i.+ng her limb back on, he blasted healing magic to fuse the skin and get the blood flowing. Her hand was pale and limp, yet with an effort she could curl the fingers, although not a hint of feeling returned.

"I'll help you walk-"

She shook him off.

"I'm fine, focus on the fight Taki," Ellie said. She couldn't look weak, not now that she had earned their approval. Peering to the Bloodhorn and the Sundrakes she found them ready to obey at the drop of the hat, "focus on healing those in battle. That's an order from your Raid Leader."

Sighing Taki complied, as the Raid Group got stuck into the long slog back.

And Ellie tried not to worry about her ruined hand.