(YBA) Sharlea in Wichts Lair IV

[Wicht]

Sharlea puts on a burst of speed and escapes for the moment from the rats. But as she scurries up the narrow tunnel she is aware that she is being followed.

Sharlea comes to a fork in the tunnels. One heads off in what Sharlea thinks is a westerly direction. There is a foul smell coming from that way. The other continues upwards.

Sharlea must decide quickly if she wishes to stay ahead of the rats she is running from.

 

[Phoenix8008]

Sharlea will continue quickly upwards...

 

[Wicht]

Sharlea rapidly crawls up through the curving tunnel, and then as the tunnel levels off she comes to one more intersection. She can make a sharp turn to her right, or she can continue on more or less straight.

She still hears the undead rats pursuing behind her. Fortunately for her, zombie rats move a little slower than their living. counterparts.

 

[Phoenix8008]

Sharlea will turn to the right and continue...

 

[Wicht]

As Sharlea crawls swiftly through the tunnel, she becomes aware that the smell in the tunnel is getting swiftly worse.

And then the tunnel comes to an end. It opens out onto a narrow ledge, some two feet wide overlooking a deep and circular pit. Looking across, Sharlea sees the other side of the pit about eighty feet away and notices that the ledge she is on spirals around the wall of the pit, to her right going up in elevation, to her left going down.

There is light coming from below, fires burning along the walls of the pit over a hundred feet down. The smell eminating from below indicates that somewhere down there, there is a huge pile of garbage. As she further observes, she notices two other things. There are other places along the ledge, here and there, where there are tunnel openings. She also notices that below here are a number of large zombified rats and that they have noticed her and are even now starting to scramble around the sides of the pit along the ledge to get to her.

 

[Phoenix8008]

Are the other zombie rats still following her from behind?

 

[Wicht]

Yes.

Sharlea estimates that only two rats can attack her from a side at one time on the ledge.

 

[Phoenix8008]

Sharlea will follow the ledge upward to the next tunnel opening. There, she will make her stand against the rats so that she will have slightly more room to manuever while keeping the rats confined to the ledge so that they are hindered in their attacks.

 

[Wicht]

The next tunnel opening is found quite a bit further up the ledge, almost near the roof of the great pit. It is much larger that the other tunnels, almost four feet tall and and three feet wide. And the smell coming from it is much different. Even over the stench of the garbage coming up from the great pit, Sharlea can smell death in the tunnel now behind her. Nevertheless as she reaches it, she sees that the rats are starting to close in on her.

As she starts counting them, she sees that besides the four that were chasing her through the tunnels, there are another eight that were further down the walls of the pit.

The rats are almost close enough to attack her now. But if she wants, she still has time to flee down the tunnel behind her.

 

[Phoenix8008]

Sharlea will stand her ground at the corner between the ledge and the tunnel. Hopefully there she can hold the giant rats at bay so that fewer of them can attack her at the same time.