Clash and Cleanup

In a world of fog and mist. In the midst of a newborn graveyard one man stood against an army. Defending nothing but a pile of corpses the man stood strong. Why did the man value dead bodies so much ? He did not know.....

Why were the rats so desperate to get their claws on some random dead bodies.....

They did not know either.....

As his brown robes flapped in the non existent wind the man stood at attention, ready to throw himself into the depths of the oncoming swarm. His misty unfocused eyes spinning crazily as a forced smile hid his despair. His only reassurance was the trust grip of his trusty shovel.

Of course although the man stood alone physically, he was being cheered for by his loyal army of candles. Although they couldn't do much they cheered him on all the same.

And of course desperately charging towards the corpse pile that lied behind the man was an army of decomposing skeleton rats. As big as a large dog each rat was ferocious and unforgiving. Their only goal was to drag away what corpses lie behind the man.

And so as both sides neared each other they prepared for a clash of epic proportions, each side ready to fight to the death in an epic battle for glory.

The man let out a valiant battle cry before charging into the swarm smashing the oversized rat skeletons into pieces by the dozen. Bones flew everywhere, shrieks filled the air, and Cleff was soon covered in skeleton rats...

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Pant * Pant * Pant *

Weeeeeezeeeeee....

The battle was long and hard-fought but Cleff stood victorious upon the remains of his enemy. A thick layer of bone and fur completely carped the graveyard. The remains of what was once a brave and mighty rat army.

Although the rats were many Cleff had emerged victorious smashing his way to victory. There were several times when Cleff had almost been submerged by the oncoming rat tide but he held strong. Throughout the battle Cleff had learned one important lesson...

Dont stop smashing....

For three hours straight Cleff did one thing and one thing only.

Smash those damned rats !!!

If he saw a rat he smashed it !!!

and boy did he smash plenty of rats....

Although he had completely decimated most of the rat army, he was just one man. In the end the few survivors that had managed to sneak away had taken with them a good amount of the corpses, and what remained was torn to bits. The once tall and mighty corpse pile was gone, now only a few severed limbs and blurred out faces remained. A tragic sight.

Sighing Cleff looked around and picked his shovel up once more looking around at the terrible mess lied out before him. It would take a few days of hard labor to remove of the mountains of rat bones lying about.

On the bright side although most of the graveyard had been covered in a layer of bones and fur, his shack remained untouched. It was bravely defended by his beloved candles. Throughout the battle they had stood strong warding off any rats that steered to close to his humble abode.

And so Cleff did what he did best. He took his shovel up again and dug a few large pits. Although he had taken up the habit of making sure each grave only held one occupant Cleff believed the rats deserved no such respect. He just filled each hole with as many rat bones as possible before adding dirt.

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On a side note, although Cleff usually felt stronger after he buried a few bodies, as he shoveled piles and piles of rat bones into the earth he had barely felt a change. Even though he could have sworn he had buried a good five thousand rats worth of bones already there wasn't the slightest change in his strength or speed at all.

This obviously made Cleff more upset then he already was. Not only did he have to waste time smacking a bunch of rats and cleaning up the mess they left behind, he got practically nothing out of the ordeal. Other then a few mental scars and tuffs of rat hair by the time he had finished clearing up the grave yard he had gotten nothing.

Well not absolutely nothing. In the piles of fur and bones Cleff had found a few interesting trinkets. An old broken down pocket watch, a rusted chain, and a small plaque that read " Westborough Sewers " . Although all the items looked quite worn down and useless, Cleff was unsure if any of them had any strange effects like his straw sandals. It was too early to tell.

Picking his shovel back up up and taking his "loot" with him Cleff waddled on over to his hut. Cleff had thought the whole ordeal was over and was ready to spend some time sleeping and looking over his "loot", but his plans were quite suddenly put to a halt when he had noticed a strange figure making its way through the mist.