[h3]Ardur, Asteria, Asura, Danny, Jason, Momma Slime[/h3]
In attempting to push Jason, Asura hadn't moved quite far enough. One of the Lizards' spit struck him, but though he felt the burn no poison notice ever triggered--for now the damaging status effect hadn't triggered. The longer he stayed in this position, however, the worse it might soon get for him. Then again, Ardur had arrived...

Jason tried to use Asura's momentum to aid his own attack, and as he hurled his mass at the rodent it seemed the two would clash in mid-air. However, long ago the Demon King had told the group that Dire Rats, as Beast-type monsters, had superior physical abilities--with this agility, the rat twisted in the air, and Jason collided with it. He felt something crunch under his blow. He had certainly inflicted heavy damage. But he also felt a sharp pain in his side as the rat sank its fangs into him, gouging out the green gooey flesh.

When they landed the rat let go and gave a short-lived squeal as Jason's weight bore down upon it. What had cracked before now broke, and the Dire Rat was left lifeless. Jason's HP, however, had been whittled down that much more.

[quote=System:Jason]
You are experiencing HP Drain. You must rest to recover stamina.
[/quote]

What was more, his telepathic order to the lizards did not succeed, giving him only a crackle of mental static. Despite his connection to the dungeon core, he had never touched these particular lizards and used his Telepathy on them. So he could not use Telepathy II to contact them at range in order to give them non-verbal orders.

The lizards spat two more poisonous blobs at Asura, once again trying to pincer him from both sides...

With Asteria, Ardur, Momma Slime, and Danny all present now, this situation wasn't looking good for Jason even if some of them would rather remain neutral. Momma Slime, upon seeing Jason, compressed herself with a low gurgle almost like a growl. A hint of red became visible within her membrane, and as Asteria begged for an end to the fighting the blue blob started to edge closer to the earthen mounds...
[hr]
[h3]Ed, Mother Rat[/h3]
When Ed, overcome by either fear or a desire to finally be free of this wretched cave, headed for the entrance Mother Rat squeaked in distress. She looked back towards the direction where Asteria had gone, then towards Ed's rapidly moving figure. Turning a small circle, she then squatted down and left a rather strong scent for Asteria to follow. Then, shaking off her hindquarters, she struck out after Ed.

Ed, realizing the goblins weren't looking their way at all, bolted for the other end of the clearing. Mother Rat followed him, and as his momentum carried him partially up the side of a tree she soon did the same. At one point Ed's speed wasn't enough to overcome gravity, and after "running in place" vertically for a second or two he started to slide back down--only for Mother Rat to halt her own momentum by accidentally slamming into him from behind. The jolt back upward allowed his paws to get a hold of the bark. Mother Rat landed with a whuffling sound, shook her head back and forth, then once again followed the younger dire rodent. In this comical fashion the two rats made their way up the tree, nestling in a hollowed crook where one large branch extended from the main trunk, then split into two more branches.

When Ed suddenly passed out, he started to slip towards the side of the branch. With an uttered meep, Mother Rat grabbed him by the scruff of the neck with her jaws and hauled him back into the hollow space. Squriming around for a few moments, she finally sat on him decisively much as she once had her pups.

This pack...was rather strange. Why had one of her offspring not gone on to hunt alone? How had her offspring matured so quickly? It should have taken at least another few weeks. And why was this male so unaggressive towards them? She did not mind in the grand scheme of things. Packs were convenient when there were enough resources--numbers aided survival. And this male and her offspring were unusually courageous for rats, having protected and aided her in the past. This pack worked well.

Underneath her, Ed's skeleton gave a series of pops.

Ed could see EVERYTHING.

Not in crystal clarity, of course. But he drifted upwards, out of his body, rising high enough that he could look out across the forest. He could see the mountains stretching far into the distance both north and south, forming a wall between two lands. He could see the forest stretching on for miles to the east, broken by a series of square clearings where a large house of stone and wood and thatch, with various smaller buildings around it, sat calmly puffing smoke. To the south, a vast grassland stretched for what seemed like eternity, but it seemed that even looking that far cause the sun to grow brighter and hotter... 

He could see the sunlight reflecting off of something, south of the forest but east of the plains, yet before her eyes could adjust she was rising higher. Now he saw a river further north, spilling out of the mountains and heading into the distance. He rose higher, drifting through clouds that stretched over the cave and further beyond, over curling smoke trails and unnaturally shaped structures of wood and stone that could only be civilization. Somewhere to the east, a large body of water sat glimmering with the bright morning rays of the sun.

He rose higher. To the south beyond the grassland, deserts and canyons, windstorms sweeping over the dunes. Further to the east, a bright light cutting a path to safety for those in need of guidance. Over the mountains, to the southwest, a grand city stretching for miles. Still in the west, but far further north, a tower like a mighty tree reaching up to the heavens with roots stretching deep, deep into the earth. So far to the east that it became west again, a lonely, cold, desolate island where red lightning split the sky. Further beyond that, marshlands and mountains and untamed, wild lands.

He rose higher. A world, a planet, rotated thousands of miles an hour, yet from this distance appeared as no more than a soap bubble, as if it would pop if he but brushed a fingertip against it. The city lured him, cried out for him. The island's red skies held him in sway.

Then he began to plummet, and somehow he felt as if a great pair of doors leading to unknown wonder were opening up to receive him...

Mother Rat looked down when she felt Ed shift underneath her belly. With a jerk his limbs suddenly shot out rigid. Again his body gave a series of cracks and pops. Every muscle drew tight. His tail lashed reflexively, and Mother Rat ducked her head to one side as the powerfully muscled limb thumped against the side of the tree. Beginning to worry, she used one paw to pat Ed's head, but he did not wake up. His body now curled up, as if he were on all fours, but his arms and legs were...twisting and creaking.

Mother Rat peered over the edge of the branches and through the foilage. The goblins were still not paying attention to them. Asteria had still not returned. She looked back at Ed, who now seemed to have grown larger. She reared up onto her hind legs, rubbing her cheeks and ears in worry. When Ed's mouth opened, not of his own volition, as his snout changed size and the orientation of his head on his neck snapped into a different configuration, she began to squeak in fast, high pitched tones. The only thing she knew to do with pups was to protect them, feed them, and keep them warm. Using her entire body weight--as Ed had now outgrown her just as Asteria had--she managed to push him back against the hollow again, and tried to perch on top of him.

Ed opened his eyes. He felt like he had been hit by a truck after running a 5k with heavy resistance bands tied around every one of his limbs--and there was still a weight up on his head, which kept squeaking into his ear.

[quote=System:Ed]
TRANSFORMATION COMPLETE!
Dire Rat > (Immature) Rat-Man!
You have Transformed!
Your base power-stats have increased!
You have not reached your full Potential. Use Light Equipment skill is reduced.
You possess the skill Stronger! You are developing the skill Dextrous! The Use Light Equipment skill is boosted! Current total is (0.8).
You have not reached your full Potential. The Increase to Beast Sense is reduced to (0.5). New total is (2.4).

Skill Rank Up: Beast Sense I > Beast Sense II!
Passive sensory range increased. By actively focusing on one (1) sense, you can further increase that sense's sharpness.
[/quote]

Ed's new body had a hunched, but still bipedal figure. His feet were plantigrade, meaning he walked on the soles, but shorter calf and thigh muscles meant his legs were still somewhat bent. His arms, on the other hand, were lanky much like a chimpanzee's and while the muscles weren't large, they were long rooted--again like a chimpanzee, this would grant him much more raw strength than one would think from his size. His head was still rat like for the most part, but with more developed jaws, and its new position on his neck gave him a wider range of motion. His paws had lengthened and broadened into real hands, complete with opposable thumbs! His tail was still almost again the length of his body, but it had thickened up considerably near the base somewhat like that of a kangaroo. If he stood upright it would help him balance, not that there was room for that up in the tree.

As a matter of fact the tree was quite cramped.

((You should remove the lizard satchel from your inventory by the way, Jason took the last of the crystals out of it and it was so torn up it's probably fallen apart by now.))