“She went right the first time, let’s assume she’d do it again.  Everyone knows once you pick a direction you should keep it up.  Until you can’t.”  With a last look down the left tunnel, he went right.  He moved as quickly as he could while scanning the floor for any hint that they’d come this way.  Maybe fifty yards down the tunnel, he froze.  A chittering sound echoed faintly from the darkness outside the range of his light.  He gripped his weapon tightly and spread his feet, preparing to battle whatever monster emerged from the dark.

What he heard next sent him sprinting forward.  A little girl’s scream of fear bounced off the rounded concrete walls.  “Aaaaahh!  Mommy!  Rats!”

Allistor’s light finally reached the little girl, who was huddled up against her mother, the two of them pressed against one wall of the tunnel as half a dozen rat-like creatures surrounded them.   The mother looked up at him, only able to see his rough outline behind the light shining in her eyes.  “Please, help us.” She gasped.  Her voice was weak, and she looked to be on her last legs. She held a kitchen knife in one hand, her grip so tight her knuckles were white.

Without even thinking, Allistor jabbed forward, skewering one of the rat things.  It died instantly.  He turned and swung the spear with the rat-thing on the end like a golf club, smashing another of the creatures down the tunnel and clearing the first corpse from the end.  The remaining four backed up as he moved to stand between them and the other humans.

Vermin Scout

Level 2

Health 250/250

They were larger than normal rats, at least the ones Allistor had seen before the assimilation.  These were the size of overfed housecats, with wicked-looking claws and incisors as long as his fingers.  Their eyes were bloodshot with bright red pupils.

One of them lunged at him, leaping into the air with surprising speed and strength.  He didn’t have time to bring his weapon to bear, and his instinct was to dodge.  But his brain screwed with his instinct, reminding him that the unprotected females were behind him.  The hesitation allowed the nasty thing to latch onto his thigh with its razor claws, then chomp down with its teeth.  Allistor screamed, his voice nearly as high-pitched as the little girl’s, as the thing removed a solid chunk of his jeans and the flesh of his leg and swallowed it whole.