The Ur-Khemysts rose to their feet. Twenty-seven declaring, "The ratkin is all yours, Sixty-four. Avenge the insult to your pitiful armor while I and Forty-one observe our new creations in action."

  Sixty-four laughed and raised his good hand in Milo's direction, "You cut me, animal. Now learn what happens to misbehaving slaves." Green mists spurted from his arm. Milo threw The Collective away from the area and didn't bother focusing on creating runic arrays. They were only one of his weapons, and he needed something quicker. As the acidic mist reached him, he launched a jagged bone harpoon at his opponent. The distinct sound of a projectile breaking the sound barrier echoed across the cavern, and the small shockwave dispersed much of the mist. What little of it that hit Milo sizzled as it made contact with his bone armor, burning into the surface but not penetrating.

  The harpoon hit Sixty-four's outstretched palm, punching through the metal of his gauntlet and ripping through his arm up to the elbow. He screamed in pain and rage. The pain doubled as a second harpoon hit the heavier armor on his chest, denting it but not penetrating. Motors came to life, pumping healing fluids into him and building pressure in his shoulder-mounted dispensers. Poisonous, black fumes erupted from the nozzles, pouring out a cloud that engulfed Milo.

  He laughed as the ratkin disappeared inside the cloud. "I'm disappointed, Twenty-Seven. My newest concoction of Deathbloom Extract, Choking Black Lavender, and Weaponized Strichnine is so powerful, I don't even hear his pitiful choking. It instantly burned out his lungs."

  Forty-one had just begun to say, "Had you considered the possibility...", when Milo leaped from inside the concealing fumes. His coverall was nothing more than a few stray threads, revealing head-to-toe interlocking bone armor. The superficial damage from the acid was already healing; his armor was an integral part of him and benefited from his high level of regeneration.

  Sixty-four wasn't looking at the armor; his eyes were focused on the sight of a weapon descending toward his face. It was a silly weapon; a slave's spike-stick. But something about it terrified him enough that he managed to almost dodge the blow. Shadowblight came down on his shoulder and not his face. The weapon spirit had grown again after killing Gargantua and was thrilled to be in battle again. The snail had been powerful, but tasted foul. The fear coming off this victim was delicious. Milo's blow cleaved through armor and went deep into the shoulder before the Sundering effect ripped through tissue and mechanical parts. Sixty-four lost one of his hearts and his left arm. Milo loomed over him, preparing to hit him again, but the sound of pumps alerted him to the other two Ur-Khemists bringing their weaponry to bear on him.

  Leaping straight upward, he avoided flames meant to roast him alive and landed inside the lingering poison cloud, hidden from view. Sixty-four wasn't so lucky and began to cook. Khemyst Twenty-seven was frustrated. "How that imbecile got into the 60s is beyond me. His enemy is benefitting from his cursed cloud, and he's not even providing us with good bait!"

  Khemyst Forty-one shrugged; he'd never liked Sixty-four. The fat bastard tended to make fun of his tail. Too many of the mammals were like that. "Look on the bright side, at least his wounds have been cauterized. We can charge him for the cost of saving him. Oh...duck."

  Sniffing the air, Twenty-Seven agreed, "He does smell like roasted duck." The next moment, he was bowled over by the heavy form of a one-armed Enhanced Warform. The Khemyst was knocked to the ground with the one-ton creature on top of him. It ponderously got to its feet, not caring who it stepped on, and started striding back up the hill. Forty-one helped Twenty-seven to his feet and brushed off some of the mulch.

  Khemyst Forty-one had made a quick observation of the fight, surprised that the dwarves hadn't run, and instead had stayed to fight. Worse, they weren't dead yet, and were winning! And laughing! These were unlike any dwarves he'd ever encountered.

  "Load me, Darlin'!"

  "Loaded and clear, dear, let's try an armor buster with a little zing to it." Narwhal slammed the shell into the back of Boom-Boom's gun and got clear.

  "Oooh, I love it when you talk like that!"

  "Light it up, so you can load me. I'm anxious to fire mine off."

  "Boom!" The shell didn't break the sound barrier like Milo's harpoons, but the sound of the explosion was much more impressive. So was the effect of the explosive shell as it caught one of the Enhanced War Forms in the chest, shattering the steel plates and exploding inside of it. Smoke and flames burst from the creature's chest, where it lay on the ground and struggled to move. Five seconds later, as it staggered upward, Narwhal put her shot in the same hole, with impressive results. Fire and smoke came out of cracks in the struggling creature, and it ceased to move, a burning torch on the battlefield.

  Nearby, Sledgemonkey was taunting his opponent, singing at the top of his lungs. The angered Warform advanced on him, swinging its huge, armored slicers, but they were built for power, not speed. The old Engineer was dancing around like he wasn't a day over 200. He ducked under the first swing, then parried the second with a counterstrike of his wrench, knocking the blow upward and throwing the large creature off balance. Whale danced in and spun on one toe, bringing her flaming cutlass through a broad arc that cut completely through the waist and took off an arm at the elbow. Sledgemonkey finished it off with a blow to the head and another to the chest.

  Whale looked over the battlefield, "That's two of them, let's finish off the one with dents in it, and then we can run down the hill where someone inconsiderately tossed the last."

  Narwhal scowled at her mother, "That's the new shell with extra knockback! It was a test shot, and I like how it broke up the group. How the hell is that inconsiderate?"

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  Whale pointed, "Because now it's close to the rat, and he's too damned efficient, needs to learn how to share!

  Twenty-seven and Forty-one were finding that out for themselves. Two ominously glowing skulls landed at their feet, exploding and peppering them with shrapnel. Their Explosion Resistance kept them from taking much damage, but both had bone chips stuck in tender parts of their anatomy. Twenty-seven was taking the fight much more seriously now.

  "Broad angled spray, all nozzles. Acid, Incendiaries, and liquid explosives. Skip poison, he's obviously shielded or resistant to Sixty-four's best. On my mark, one, two..

  "Three." Milo finished his sentence for him. The thinning black smoke was dispersed as he unleashed a triple runic array from both hands and his tail, creating a wide-angle force blast that caught the oncoming caustic substances and reversed their trajectories. The firestorm of effects caught up both Ur-Khemysts and the nearby Warform. The Khemysts were armored against the effects of their own weapons and resistant to some degree, but Forty-One was going to need a new tail, and Twenty-seven was wishing he'd spent his last chunk of Enhancement points more wisely, as every gap in his armor created by the exploding skulls became an intolerable burning itch as his flesh began to dissolve. How to spend Enhancement points was a popular discussion, and the current meta called for ranks in Forceful Negotiation, Intimidation, Business Math, and Old Wealth. The last was exceedingly popular among the creatures with larger hoards, guaranteeing a bonus 10% income each year. Sadly, none of those skills was useful in the current combat. And worse, the ratkin had ignored both his Forceful Negotiation and his Intimidation. He was a formidable foe, and one he needed to dispose of, and quickly. He tried to find the annoying ratkin, but the worst effect of being engulfed in fire and smoke was the lack of visibility.

  Milo had fully expected that anyone who worked with caustic chemicals and used them as weapons would be able to survive the attack. His analysis of their reactions and stance confirmed that they had expected an easier fight where their role was artillery, not hand-to-claw. Before they knew it, Milo was running between them, a set of razor-sharp claws cutting into their sides. His targets were the bundle of cables coming from their tanks; sliced ribcages were a bonus. He spun behind them and did a second double-claw attack, again targeting the supply lines of their weaponry and doing collateral damage to their bodies. As they spun around to get at him, he leaped in the air, spinning and lashing across their faces with a hard tail-slap, disorienting them. The nearby Warform had taken too much damage and was burning merrily as it twitched and vainly tried to aid its masters.

  Forty-one was on the ground, trying to clear his head. The lack of a proper tail had thrown off his balance. He was already dreading the cost of regeneration potions. In fact, the cost of this 'business trip' was increasing by the second. He was dangerously close to running out of healing tonics and had only one conduit left to channel them into his heart. His entire arsenal was pouring out onto the ground, mixing with the leakage from Twenty-seven. Moving from this spot was probably wise, but he was having trouble getting air into his lungs.

  Twenty-seven was much tougher, as one would suspect of such a low number. His steel armor was backed by a thin lattice of Battle Snail Shell. He shifted his fluid flows to auxiliary conduits and triggered his Second Wind ability and his small reservoir of Instantaneous Healing Fluid. He spun to find his foe, ready to unleash Hell upon him (or at least Heck, Hell being very expensive, and he was watching his budget while he saved for his yearly guild fees.)

  To his astonishment, his foe was fifteen feet away from him, arcane energies swirling around one hand and his tail. Twenty-seven had never considered that a prehensile tail could be used to control runic arrays. To be honest, he didn't know how to cast one with both hands, and these looked extremely potent, using runes he couldn't remember ever having seen before. The ratkin was staring at him through a pair of goggles, not hampered at all by the caustic fumes filling the air.

  "Talk, or Fight. Your choice, and I'm ready to end this in my favor either way." The voice was low and laced with deadly intent. Forty-one decided it was a good time to roll away and practice looking meek.

  Twenty-seven drew himself up to his full height and tried to remove the slight quaver from his voice. "You have no understanding of what you are dealing with! I am among the top 1% of Ur-Khemysts in Blothbezmadan, the mightiest city of the Wheel of Eight!"

  His foe wasn't impressed by his small speech. "You're down to 13% of your chemical reserves, and your magi-tech systems are lighting up with warning messages. 34% of your chemicals have mixed with 52% of your ally's fluids to produce a highly explosive pool that you're standing in the middle of. You had five Enhanced Warforms at the start of the battle that a group of vacationing dwarves cut to pieces or blew to smithereens. Poor design work, I imagine. I'll publish a paper on it and give you full credit for the failure. To even survive this fight, you'll need to avoid my Force Blasts, dodge rocket launchers, and survive the impending explosion you're standing in. I calculate your odds of doing that as quite low, but to make sure, I've charged these arrays to near catastrophic levels of damage. I don't take chances with people like you."

  He paused for just a second, then said, "And as for Bloth being the mightiest city of the Wheel of Eight, I've been to Gadobhra. Your little soldiers don't hold a candle to the murder-machines in that city. So it's up to you, talk or fight. I don't care at all, and the dwarves have itchy trigger fingers."