Trouble Comes Knocking

"What is that creature?"

Volran turned around and saw Alena and Tobias. He sighed lightly and turned back to Nellus with a smile.

"It's just a local beast we have found in the Dark Forest. I am sure it is a new species we have found. It seems to be taming well. The girl has been training it."

However, Nellus' eyes narrowed. His chubby cheeks shook with intense thought. Then he smiled in that nasty way that most fat, low-level villains do when they are scheming against the protagonists. Nellus took out his rapier once again and pointed at Tobias. Feeling the hostile intentions, Toby's attack claws unfolded. Nellus suddenly shouted.

"A daemon hound! You dare harbor a daemon hound? That girl must also be an accomplice! I will have the Imperial Cult and the King's Inquisitors swarming upon your village!"

The villagers tensed. They did have some reservation about Toby because of his looks, but he had been good to them with all the meat he brought in. Also, they didn't like Nellus. Volran, however, was much shrewder than the others. He took a step to block Nellus' vision and took out a pouch from his belt.

When the pouch jingled with metallic clanging of coins, Nellus' outraged expression softened markedly. Volran spoke in hushed voice.

"I am sure you are mistake. The light must have confused you."

Nellus paused for a moment, and then took the pouch.

"I could have been mistaken, but the creature does look too... dangerous to be normal. Mutants are also an enemy of the King's Inquisitors."

Volran narrowed his eyes and crossed his arms.

"What other 'proof' can we provide you to satisfy your questions, Master Taxman?"

Nellus smiled.

XOXOXOXOXO

An hour later, Nellus and his ten soldiers rode out of the village leading a cart drawn by two horses. The cart was full. Beside the things demanded by the Baron, the cart also carried two sacks of wheat, two sacks of beetroot, a sack of carrots, three rolls of cloth, five pieces of leather and a large slab of salted boar meat.

Nellus and his men were half a day out of the village when they stopped at the crossroad. Nellus turned around and narrowed his eyes in deep thought. Then turned back to his men.

"Six of you will deliver the Baron's tax to his castle, and two of you will deliver the rest to my house. The remaining two of you will come with me."

After separating from his men, Nellus headed to the nearest monastery and had the scribe write a letter to the King's Inquisition. The monastery was dedicated to the God Emperor but was not really part of the Imperial Cult. These were the local priests who did simple tasks such as blessing the newborn and the dead.

Sending the letter to the King's Inquisition at the hands of the two men, Nellus rode toward the nearest Imperial Cult monastery. For three days he rode his horse hard and purchased a new horse with the money he got from the village. On the fourth day, he arrived at the huge fortress-like monastery belonging to the local chapter of the Imperial Cult and their military.

Within hours of his arrival, the monastery sent out a dozen carrier pigeons and the church soldiers were arming themselves. Returning to the Baron's castle, Nellus gentled opened up his shirt and touched the small burn-scar right above his heart. It was a big 'I', the symbol of a servant of the Cult.

In the meantime, the capital city had its own set of bustling movements. A dozen or so Inquisitors, the King's secret police who dealt harshly with any dissidents, heretics and witches, quickly returned to their headquarters with their troops. A message was sent to the King, and the King dispatched a renowned knight in heavy armor and a dozen of his Imperial Guardsmen. The King's Inquisition provided the rest of the troops.

Nearly thirty knights, all under the purview of the Inquisition armed themselves. Ten knights were on horses with finest armor and weapon, while twenty were on foot and had little less ornate armor but still well-armed. An Inquisitor entered the city's barracks with orders from the King, and he came back out with fifty archers, and a hundred swordsmen with chainmail, long sword and kite shield. Then two Inquisitors came back from outside the city and brought with them a hundred pikemen each, who were armed with a long pike and think chainmail.

XOXOXOXOXOXO

The Overseer continued to travel further south. The sparse forest upon the vast hills changed as the climate changed. As the land became colder, the trees became taller and greener. The boreal forest continue to dominate the landscape. Amid the forest were dozens of small Ork villages sparsely located around the forest to the south. The Orks thrived in the forest and large bear-like creatures that fought them. The forest was infested with the giant bear-like creature with thick hide and sharp claws. Although the Orks were stronger individually, the bear-creatures spawned a lot faster than the Orks.

The bear-creatures were actually insects and they spawned through sacs of egg. Each female would lay a sac that contained nutrient-rich eggs by their hundreds. Normally, most of the eggs would be consumed by the local creatures, and the tiny younglings were eaten by the larger predators. However, in the last several hundred years, the local predators were hunted and consumed by the Orks, and as the result, the eggs hatched and survived. Then once they grow to maturity within months, they would hunt the Orks. The Orks loved it. They loved to fight, and this was the fight to the death every day.

However, the bear-creatures lived only the cold areas, making the northern territories of the Orklands, which was warmer, didn't have as many bear-creatures. This naturally meant that fewer Orks would live there since less fighting would be found there. The first Ork village found at the edge of the forest was filled with weakest Orks. It was the smallest Ork village. The Overseer was able to gather so much information about the local Orks through a good use of Changelings.

The Overseer was able to find that the Ork invasion was indeed in the planning stages, but not in such scale that the humans had expected. It was the only one large clan, the weakest of them who resided to the north, who wanted to invade the humans for the fight and for resources. The five larger clans, each of them being almost double the weakest clan in number and weapons, were too busy fighting each other and the bear-creatures.

I was able to gain an understanding of the possible invasion size. The Warboss of the clan was not about to leave his base empty, so he would only commit about a third of his forces, which should number no more than fifteen hundred units, including a large number of Gretchins. The Gretchins were still the majority of this feral Ork clan and the guns were scarce among them. However, they did have a Squiggoth. If humans or I was to fight these invading Orks, then the presence of the Squiggoth should really be considered.

In order to fight an Ork invasion of such size, I had to move fast. I needed more resources and more units. Although I had my fifth Hatchery built near the volcano, I still needed better way of collecting gas. Then I remembered what I did with the Hatchery roots and the Nutrient Pits. The new Hatcheries would automatically have a Nutrient Pit built near them, and the new Nutrient Pits would automatically oozing a better acid for the Hatchery to absorb.

The idea of the Hatchery root being the primary method of the obtaining the resources gave me an idea. I had a Queen plant a series of Creep Tumors between an Extractor and the Hatchery. Extending the Hatchery root, I had the Creep Tumor dig deeper into the ground and form a tube of hardened creep underneath the tumor. It took several different methods but eventually I got the combination correctly.

With the liquefied volcanic gas pouring into the Hatchery through the Creep Veins, I was able to build and connected eight more Extractors and then link the Hatchery with the Primary Hive Cluster. Other Hatcheries were also built near resource rich areas including near a large deposit of sulfur, which was vital in fabricating Vespene gas effect. Once the Creep Veins were well connected, I rerouted the Drones to other Hatcheries and assigned them new mining missions.

Feeling pressed for time, I quickly expended all my minerals to the construction of more Hatcheries, Queens, Drones, Overlords and Zerglings. Also, I made more Roaches and a few Banelings. Also, the first Hatchery was now in a cocoon to become a Lair. I made another Hatchery into a Lair just in case, and I had the resources. The idea was that Squiggoth could be effectively dealt with Ultralisks combined with air units.

Once the Lairs were done, I had three Spires built as well as a Hydralisk Den and an Infestation Pit to facilitate the upgrade to Hive. While the new buildings were being built, I had more Spine Crawlers built around the Hive Clusters. The Drones were working hard as the colony became larger every day. I now infested an area equal to Ireland, though most of that infestation was the Creep and Creep Tumors. I also continued to make more Zerglings as they were my primary warriors.

However, the problem was that this was not Starcraft 2 the game. The enemy did not have 200 population limit where 100 Zerglings would be a serious problem. In this world, in this galaxy, 100 Zerglings were nothing to the scales of war. The 'feral' Orks numbered in tens of thousands and they were the leftovers of an Ork invasion grown from the few Orks spores. If I was ever to get off this planet, I needed the numbers and individual strengths to fight in a scale of war that is much larger than anything I had ever known.

Although I had used up some more gas, I attempted to experiment with the Zergling DNA strains. I first tried to remember the little information James had before he died. There were rumors of upgrades for the Heart of the Swarm, the expansion of the Starcraft 2. The ideas of Swarmling and Raptors were in James' memory as well as Gorgeling and Splitterling. The Swarmling was a good idea to provide significant number of Zerglings into the battle in short amount of time while the Raptors would be stronger and able to strike hard.

Unlike Kerrigan or James, I had full access to the genetic knowledge of the Zerg Swarm, including all that original Overmind had absorbed from the last of the Xel'naga. The knowledge into genetic manipulation was impressive, and my unique capacity to influence the genes like James was able to, I could easily make the Swarmlings and Raptors, albeit the research would cost me much gas and minerals in the process. However, I was in need of such units, and had enough resources for it.

The development and experiments, however, would require time, and time was something I had very little of. With at least nine Extractors providing my Swarm with gas and eleven mineshafts full of Drones stockpiling minerals was not quite enough to cover for the lack of time. The Orks were mobilizing and would invade within few weeks and the villagers weren't ready to fight them at all, let alone fight fifteen hundred Orks with a Squiggoth.

In order to save Alena, though I still didn't quite understand why I wanted to save her and her village, I needed to fight the Orks, and I didn't have the numbers. By the time Orks would march, I would probably have five hundred Zerglings at most and no more than one hundred fifty Roaches and fifty Hydralisks. If I timed it right, I could also get three Ultraliks, but that was pushing it. I could probably get a few Infesters and about thirty Mutalisks, but that was pushing it too.

In any case, I had work to do, and I was on it with all my consciousness. The Queens continued to pump hormones and enzymes at the Hatcheries and Larvae would turn into Overlords and other units. I continued to make more units, but I was only barely catching up to the estimates I had set out beforehand. Then something worse happened. One of my new Overseers saw a small army of humans coming in the direction of the village.

I had placed four Overseers in the human realm, with one near Alena's village and another at the Baron's castle and town. Other two were deeper into the human land and regularly used the changelings to check out the humans' movements. Then one of the Changelings, pretending to be a random mercenary in a tavern heard about a small army sent against a village that had a 'daemon hound', the name Toby was called by the chubby taxman. I instinctively knew something was wrong. The Overseer looked for that army.

Indeed, it was a small army for this galaxy. Made up of three hundred eighty men and a powerful-looking knight in the lead, the men were ready for war. The problem was that the men were not coming to fight the Orks, but kill the villagers and, more importantly, kill Alena and Toby. Another problem was that the Orks were moving. The Overseer had tracked the movements of the Ork clan and the Warboss finally appeared with a large army and the Squiggoth behind him. I did not have the Zerglings to spare.

Several ideas went through my head. Mutalisks would be effective in wiping out the humans, but I needed them against the Orks, and while Zerglings in enough numbers would do the trick, I also needed them against the Orks. Hydralisks and Roaches would be effective but I could not spare them or risk them. I did have a few Infesters on my hand as well as a handful of Banelings. I had hoped to use Banelings to cut off the retreating Orks or support against the Warboss, but I would have to do without them.

With the fully upgraded 'old' Infester as its leader, four Infesters and thirty Banelings were loaded on to the Overlords and shipped north to counter the humans. The rest of my army moved out against the Orks once three Ultralisks were born. The idea was to have my units burrowed underground until the right moment. I had that ability upgraded as soon as I could. I still had some Banelings so I sent them first to get into right position.

Against the Orks, I had 3 Ultralisks, 49 or so Hydralisks, 144 Roaches and 497 Zerglings supported by 31 Mutalisks. I just had hoped that the Orks didn't have too many guns.

XOXOXOXOXOXO

Sir Haliban, the Champion Paladin of the King, was a proud man of great skills. He was a baron by title and with decent land that kept him well fed, armed and horsed. He was also a dedicated member of the Imperial Cult, and the King had often loaned his champion to the King's Inquisition to take down the heretics and rebels. This time, he was going fight a real daemon hound, not some hocus pocus fakes that local tricksters made up or the very minor daemon so weak that could be killed by a few shots of lasgun of the Imperial Guards and good hacking with the sword.

He and the soldiers on loan from the King's Inquisition were almost at their destination. They had traveled a week and half, including three days on the river boat, to get to the remote village that was about to get wiped out in an Ork invasion. However, the King's Inquisition did not want a prize kill to be left at the hands of the barbaric Orks. They wanted this girl to be crucified and her head decorating walls of the Inquisition to show off their piety.

They finally reached the very flat lands of the south. The vast plain to the south of the Kingdom was a fertile land, but it lacked good water source. Only in the summer that the melted ice from the mountains would flow down and made the land farmable, but at the moment, there was no one to farm the land. The two fiefdoms had collapsed ten years ago and the people were killed by the Orks in the atrocious invasion. Since then, no one would settle in these lands in fear of an Ork attack.

Haliban and his men marched in a single file, and were full of ideas of pillaging and raping and glorious murder of the witch-girl and her daemon hound. However, things did not go as planned. With a sudden popping sound, a half dozen pikemen at the rear of the column were covered in bright green liquid and they screamed as they melted into a pool of blood and acid.

Haliban immediately stopped his horse and turned around. Then another pop, and another five men, swordsmen this time, were bathed in green acid from the ground. The knight's eyes flashed in anger.

"To arms! Enemy is here! Scatter formation!"

The men were panicked but Haliban's voice was loud enough to jolt them back into action. They quickly spread out, with each man at arm's length from another. Only the knights on foot were still clustered together, but not because they were slow. When Haliban shouted his order, something popped in the air right above them.

The tiny spores rained down on the knights, and suddenly large purple and green fungus grew on them, with the roots digging into the flesh and armor. The knights screamed as they tried get them off but for the few seconds the impossibly fast-growing fungus ate their way into the arms and heads of the knights. One of the knights had the fungus grow in his right eye, and the fungus had chewed its way into the brain, and killed him.

Before the knights could respond, a creature exploded out of the ground in front of them. It was a large creature, as big as a foal but bloated with green sacs of liquid. They instantly recognized the danger, but their reaction was too slow for the creature that rolled itself toward the knights. One of the knight blocked its path with his shield and another knight struck the creature with a sword, but it was to no avail.

The creature was too fast and too strong, and the knight who blocked its path was thrown aside, and when the creature was in the middle of the knights, it exploded. The green acid showered most of the 19 remaining knights. Six of them died instantly as their armor and flesh instantly dissolved and seven followed suit as the acid ate their ways into the various gaps in the armor then into the body.

With a single explosion of acid, 13 knights died. The men panicked, and as men often do, they ran in a similar direction, unwittingly clustering together. Haliban tried to stop them, and sent his knights on horsebacks against the deserters, but it was unnecessary. Two explosions later, the men returned, their number now 21 men fewer. Such attacks were unheard of, and Haliban did not know what was going on.

Suddenly, a large ugly creature with purple belly appeared not too far from them, and it spit out something into the air. The Fungal Growth was once again cast upon the men, and nine swordsmen died, and ten had their weapons and armor ruined. Before the archers could fire at the creature, it burrowed into the ground and disappeared.

Another pop and 17 archers died as they aimed for the Infester. Another pop and two knights on horses died, and three horse also died, throwing their masters to the ground. Another Fungal Growth killed 18 pikemen. Two more Fungal Growth were applied to the men, and they died, leaving a sum of 28 men dead in those few seconds. Haliban could only watch in shock and horror as his men were slaughtered.

Then something new happened. From five different points in the ground, pods shot out. The pods landed on the ground and they pulsed with heartbeat. Haliban instantly recognized the danger.

"Men, attack those sacs! Now!"

The men immediately took to it, and they stabbed and cut the pods and shot arrows at it. Two of the pods died and screamed as it collapsed. Inside were corpses of what looked similar to a very large human. However, they were too slow and too late in attacking the pods.

The pods burst open and large man-creatures appeared. Almost two meters in height, they had left arm with three large claws, with two tentacle-like things in the back with equally terrifying claws. On their right arm, they had strange tube that beat with heartbeat. Their body was covered in thick carapace and their marginally human face with tentacles squirming around them.

The creatures raised their tubes and fired. With hissing noise, sharp ammunitions struck the humans. Haliban stopped several of the attacks with his steel shield. He looked at the ammunition of the enemy. They were bones. As thick and as long as an adult male's forefinger, the bones are as sharp as a bradawl and dripping with acid. A dozen men had quickly fallen to this attack.

Haliban was not about let an enemy to kill his army when he could finally see them. He charged at one, blocking the bones with his shield and thrusting his sword. The sword was sharp and it cut right through the throat of the creature. Unfortunately, the Infested 'Terran' didn't really use throat. It gurgled for a moment, then it grabbed Haliban's arm with its left hand. Then fired its bio-rifle into Haliban's chest.

As Haliban fell to the ground, the world around him seemed to slow down. The acid was poison to humans, and he felt burning pain all around his chest. Each breath was so painful. As he fell, he saw more pods opening and his men slaughtered. More explosive creature came up from the ground and exploded upon the groups of Haliban's men who banded together to fight against the Infested Terran.

Then Haliban saw no more.

XXXXXXXXXXX

Without Terran Marines to infest, the Infesters had spawned a new type of creature. It was actually impressive how the Infesters automatically came up with such innovation when they were without the bits of Terran Marine armor and weapon floating inside their belly. The Infesters would regularly swallow such pieces as well as consuming human DNA to form the Infested Terran Marines, or actually carry a few dormant Infested Marines, but this was something new. I was very impressed.