A short while after I had gotten my bearings, Chuu wove a spell around me to hide me not only from sight, but also from smell and hearing. As they were rat-people, the Rattan were very sensitive to sound, smell and touch, especially touch regarding the whiskers on their face. The magical shroud that covered me was designed solely to keep the masses from noticing me and thus prevent mass confusion, celebration, anarchy and more. She would not have the well-oiled cogs in her nation’s mechanisms be stalled and/ or damaged just because she wanted to parade me through the streets. She knew full well the potential hell that such a move would cause, with Rattan females charging the parade to get to me and Rattan males causing absolute havoc as they partied like it was the end of the world.

As such, the parade was kept to a minimum, with the procession having a massive turnout, but this was only due to the fact that failure to witness the parade of the Five-Clawed Paw would be a death sentence at best. The people viewed their living goddess as they were expected to. They were Rattans, and they viewed those above, beneath and at the same level as them with hatred and malice. When they worshipped Chuu, it was with both reverence for her power, beauty and control, and hatred that she was not being dragged down to their level or lower. Every Rattan, male and female wanted to be Chuu or one of the other four members of the Council, but they lacked both the power, connections and control that they had and thus their lives were forever at the mercy of their cruel and despotic Council.

There was no hope of reaching the top, all they could do was vainly believe that they had what it took and that with a bit of sadism, a bit of deception and a bit of backstabbing they could one day rise to reach that level. There was no way that the short-lived rat-people would be able to live long enough to do so, but that didn’t stop them from holding on tightly to the many delusions that kept them from simply committing suicide. Salarymen from Black Companies knew nothing on the hell that no Rattan could ever escape from, and if they lived but a single day in the shoes of a Rattan, they would welcome their Black Company as heaven.

As the procession wound its way through the maze of crooked and garbage filled streets of the Rattan Capital, the parade found itself flanked on either side by hordes of Rattans who bowed, scraped and sang praises about the Five-Clawed Paw in the foolish and pointless hope that they could be elevated from their position in life. I personally was flanked by four of the Five, with Chuu in front acting as regal and pompous as she could. As the procession moved into the final straightaway before the palace, a small female Rattan squeezed through the crowd and into the path of the heavily armed Rattan Elites.

It was a child, a little girl carrying a poorly made doll that remotely resembled Chuu. As the doll swung from one of her little paws, she held aloft a small shard of magicite crystal in the other. It was obvious what she was trying to do, at least to me. She was one of the freaks among the Rattan, those who honestly loved their leaders with every fiber of their being. She was innocent, a trait that no Rattan worth their salt would be found possessing, and Chuu was not amused.

As the Elite Bodyguard of the Vermin-Queen picked up the orphan rat-girl and brought her over to Chuu, I felt a sickening, sinking feeling that I knew what was going to happen. Chuu reached down with eyes that seemed motherly and lifted the little rat-girl up. As the girl tried in vain to muster a semblance of resistance, Chuu’s hand tightened around her neck until an audible snap resonated throughout the entire city. Chuu tilted her head even as her motherly gaze washed over the dead Rattan child, who had the remains of tears streaming from her dead eyes. With an unfeeling swing of her hand, the little rat-girl was flung into the crowd that dared not look up.

At Chuu’s feet were two things, the magicite shard and the doll. Chuu grabbed the shard and as she looked it over, she ground the doll into the floor of her palanquin with her foot before kicking it away. Eventually she grew disinterested in the miniscule shard of raw, crystalized magic and tossed it over the side like it was nothing but garbage. The procession moved on as if nothing had happened, but as we moved away, I heard the sounds of starving rat-people tearing apart the little girl’s body as they desperately fought with each other over even the smallest scrap of meat. After the girl was gone, they turned their attention to the coin-sized piece of magicite and the fighting began once again.

I shuddered as I realized the true extent of the utter cruelty and sadism that pervaded the entire existence of the Rattan race. From top to bottom, with very few exceptions, they were a reace truly worthy of being called evil. The sound of the snapping of the little girl’s neck and the tears of confusion and disbelief were still stuck in my mind, and no matter what I tried to do I could not rid myself of that sound and sight.

“Don’t be like that. It was worthless. They all are. Compared to us, they are nothing, yes-yes.”

I marveled at the sheer lack of care that they all felt for their own kin, but that sense of wonder was added onto by their next line.

“It is wonderful that you fell-care for everyone so much. Your compassion-mercy is something we can use to our advantage, yes-yes!”

…

On every street of the city there came the sounds of metal clashing against metal and the billowing smoke of furnaces and smelters. For as long as anyone could remember, the Kingdom of Ironheart had been in a state of War Economy, where the needs of the civilians were less important that the needs of the military. However, even for the always-mobilized nation, this was on a whole other scale. Bolts and bombs were being commissioned in numbers never before heard of, while the need for weapons and armor was so immense that grumbling old men and women were leaving retirement to help shoulder the load.

Children helped their parents and parents helped theirs as the whole nation began to truly take on its role as the Final Bulwark between the rats and the less militarily minded Dwarves. As bolts were shipped directly to the front lines from the forges, gradually the endless tide of rats was pushed back. More ground was gained and thus traps could be placed and when the line fell back, and the tide of rat-men surged forward they were met with terrible suffering. The cycle continued again and again, but there was never an end in sight, for the rats were without number, and the Dwarves only had so many.

But now, with the nation mobilized on a scale never before seen in anyone’s lifetime, it was believed that the valiant defenders of the Kingdom could slowly begin to push back the rats to their holes. There was hope that perhaps with a bit more effort on the part of the civilians that even one of the two Lost Dwarven Kingdoms could be retaken.

For the first time in what seemed like an eternity, the Ironheart Kingdom seemed poised to bring the fight to the ancient enemy. At long last, a blow, no matter how minor, would be stuck against the Vermin-Queen! Even as the pleas of their King fell on deaf ears and all that was sent to aid the Kingdom were slightly larger shipments of ore and foodstuffs, it was believed that they now had the means to deal with the rats. After all, it was only a few days ago that the first sighting of the Dwarven Race’s Guardian Idol in over 1000 years was made.

Old Ironsides had begun to wade through the river of bodies that tried to drag him down and its destination was the next target it had to protect. The more than 15-meter-tall metal man crushed countless vermin with every step and obliterated countless more as it swung its massive blades.

“PRIMARY OBJECTIVES; DEFEND, THE, DWARVES. TERMINATE, RATTAN, MENACE! DECLARATION; THE, CREATORS’S, WILL, SHALL, BE, DONE! COMPLETE, GENOCIDE, OF, ALL, NON-HUMANS/ DWARVES/ ELVES/ WEREAN, WILL, BE, EXECUTED! DEATH, COMES, FOR, ALL!”