23-B: What's Left Tomorrow (Act I)

Key Plot Developments
Tremble stays in the room with the drow statues--the apparent source of the corruption plaguing the Rockblight and preventing the earth elementals from following the gnomes' orders--and announces his intent to whittle their numbers down. Bogtooth and Pix rush back to inner Blingdenstone to prepare them for the imminent ooze invasion. Pix reflects on Tremble's increasingly honed fighting spirit and killing power.

Pix speaks to Tappy in the Foaming Mug and Kazook in the trader's grotto, rallying support and increasing morale in the town. She tries to get the chief and quartermaster to consider a tactical retreat, but they are unmoved; their people lost most of their city to the drow generations ago, and will not give up their hard-won gains now.

Bogtooth speaks to the wererats. Chipgrin is initially unmoved by his pleas, but Bogtooth's prior generosity towards the struggling wererats and impassioned oratory about his shared feelings of being an unwanted outsider help him connect with his audience. In the middle of his closing argument, the oozes attack. They horrifically squeeze through rubble to take wererat guards by surprise, engulfing and killing them. The wererats are stunned by the onslaught as dozens are devoured. Bogtooth encourages Chipgrin to lead the wererats through inner Blingdenstone (away from the oozes).

Nomi tries to get her earth elementals to dig trenches, but they are uncooperative; Pix theorizes that the Rockblight's corruption is lashing out in violent retribution for Tremble's continued assault at its core.

Bogtooth escapes the oozes alongside the surviving wererats. They meet Pix, Dorbo, and Senni in inner Blingdenstone. As the oozes slowly move towards the city, the group resolves to temporarily put aside their differences in the name of shared survival.

Pix, Bogtooth, and the formerly-estranged leaders of two different gnomish groups stare down the advancing hordes of oozes.

Memorable Quotations

 * Bogtooth: Chief...at the moment, there is no f*cking safe passage. The oozes are here.
 * Chipgrin: So what? We've been the dirt under their fingernails, and now you're saying we're supposed to go and fight for them?
 * Bogtooth: Yes. The happiest I've ever been was the day I decided to stay and help fight for these people. You'll have to fight those things either way. Not unless each and every one of us is willing to fight as one can any of us survive at all. Listen! These slime demons are ugly. They're gross. And they're dangerous. They'll wipe out every man, woman, and child. But together, we're going to show Blingdenstone what they've been missing out on: the wererats. The forgotten ones. The missing pieces of the puzzles!

Dorbo: Today will be the end of the Blingdenstone we knew, one or way another. We'll see what's left tomorrow.

Chipgrin: It's a fist to the face, not a dagger to the kidney. Get it right!