Hello, hello, hello, what's happenin' readers?

This is the re-uploaded version of chapter 10, with mistakes corrected and some small changes made. I hope you enjoy this chapter!

Disclaimer: I do not own Jagex, RuneScape, or any of the RuneScape characters. All I own is the plot of this fanfiction and some of the characters in the story. I am not making a financial profit from this story.

Chapter 10: The Army of Rats

"Oh great, Vannaka has just fainted in my holy church. He is blabbering about some army of rats coming towards Tutorial Island!" Brother Brace exclaimed, looking extremely annoyed. I looked with uncertainty at the limp form of Vannaka. I had only just met him, but I knew enough about him to guess he wouldn't faint just because he had lost control of his rats. In fact, he would probably easily slaughter all of them. I sighed, and paced the church.

Something strange was happening. First James trying to rob the bank, then Master Samuel trying to take over the church, now Vannaka barging in, blabbering about crazy rats! It was definitely odd.

I reluctantly decided to set off to learn about magic, but then another person came running into the church through the exit I was about to set foot through. This man wore a large blue wizard's hat, and blue wizard robes. He wore a long blue cape, with a familiar rucksack on his back. All of his clothes were exactly the same shade of blue.

"Terrera, my friend, what are you doing in this church? Why are you not in your house where you teach magic?" Brother Brace grumbled, clearly unhappy that he was getting so many unexpected visitors in one day.

"My friend, this is urgent!" Terrera yelled. "I was looking out my window at the mainland, and what did I see? Millions of rats, small and giant, were scuttling across the water! I am not jesting! The water had turned purple where they had been walking, and their eyes were glowing red, I saw this though my telescope!" Brother Brace just gawped at him disbelievingly. He stepped towards the altar, and muttered the "sight" prayer. His eyes then turned entirely blue, and a look of growing shock spread across his face. He then murmured another prayer, and I felt highly peculiar. I felt like someone was spilling water on my eyes, which were turning blue, and then I saw the sea.

I was flying far above Tutorial Island, and I could see everything. All of the places on the island were visible, from the church, to Brianna's survival grounds. Millions of big and small rats were scuttling towards Tutorial Island on the water, leaving purple footprints on the water, footprints which faded several seconds after they had appeared. I looked up closer, and saw that their eyes were indeed glowing red. It was a terrible red. They had their teeth bared, and they were making unpleasant hissing noises. I tried to scream, but no noise came out of my throat. Then, I was falling through nothingness. Before I hit the ground, I was back in the church, shivering.

"How are we going to stop these creatures? It seems like an impossible task! Another question which strikes me is what are they doing away from the mainland in the first place? What evil spirit is helping them over? Their strength must have increased dramatically if they can overpower Vannaka!" Brother Brace practically screamed, very obviously frightened.

"We will have to do what we do best!" Terrera answered. "I will use magic to fight back. You will use prayer. Vannaka can use combat, to fight back, when he wakes up." Brother Brace went to recharge his prayer points.

"We can help," Osrie1 and I said at exactly the same time. Brother Brace chuckled. Terrera the magician just smiled politely at us.

"You two are just beginners. You should keep safe in this church while we do all the fighting. We don't want you to get injured, do we? Respawning here would be a terrible inconvenience, and I'm not even sure if you'll be able to respawn. Apparently, some people who are dying nowadays stay dead and don't respawn," Terrera sighed, looking tired. Osrie1 sighed, and flopped on a stool, but I was persistent.

"But I want to fight, to test out everything that I have learnt!" I shouted. "Why are you stopping us?" Terrera gave this a bit of thought.

"OK then, but please, for the sake of Saradomin, don't die on us! That is the last thing we need!" Terrera finally replied, looking defeated. I whooped, and jumped for joy. I could practice my newly-learnt prayer, and my ranged and close-up combat skills! Osrie1 sat up, and we followed Brother Brace and Terrera out the main entrance, stepping over the fainted Vannaka in the process.

Brianna was among the nearby trees, cutting down the trees, so we could see the approaching rats in the water. Lev and the financial instructor were talking gravely. Deezick the mining instructor and the quest master were leading a troop of new people, who were looking nervous, and were wielding wooden shields and swords. Brianna sat up from her work and waved at me. I went up to the quest master.

"Where is the RuneScape guide?" I asked him.

"Well, he thought he had better stay in his house, so the newest people don't go on, into danger," he whispered back. I nodded, and went up to Brianna, to help her. Lev poked me in the back.

"I don't think you have had food yet, so I went to the trouble to bake some meat pies for everyone, just in case we get injured, so we can recover," he told me. He handed me two wonderful looking pies from his bag. "One for you, one for Osrie1 over there," he explained. I nodded, thanked him, and handed Osrie1 a pie. I bit into it. It tasted nice and meaty, but nothing compared to a meat sandwich. Osrie1, on the other hand, was positively delighted at it.

"This is the most heavenly thing I have ever tasted! It tastes so succulent, so juicy, meat sandwiches are nothing compared to this!" he announced, unnerving me a bit. I guessed meat pies were going to be his favourite dish for now on. Meat pies VS meat sandwiches. Who would win? I finished my pie, and went over to join Brianna.

"Well hello there Mainiac97! It is nice to see you!" she said enthusiastically. I waved, and then I took out my own bronze axe, and started helping her. After about six hits, the tree fell down. Instead of picking up the logs, I left them. After hitting down seven more trees, I saw small fireworks pop up around me, and I saw that I was woodcutting level three. After Brianna and I had cut down the rest of the trees, we saw the sea.

The rats were approaching fast. We could hear their gruesome hissing from here. Just then, Vannaka woke up. Groaning and moaning, he stepped outside, but stood up the moment he saw the rats. He swore loudly, making Osrie1 flinch. After five minutes, the rats arrived at the shore, crunching up the rocks underneath their feet.

"Everybody attack!" Vannaka roared, charging at the approaching rats. I got my bow at the ready, and sent an arrow flying towards a giant rat. It hit the rat, and sunk deep into its gut, but it just squealed, and carried on running at us. I heard the sound of trees collapsing, as the other rats arrived, and rushed into them. Osrie1 ran up to a giant rat, and slaughtered it with difficulty. The rats had been hardened for battle by whoever was taking over them (obviously, rats wouldn't normally do this). Burying the bones quickly, and ignoring the meat, he ran towards another rat. The quest master got out an adamant long sword from his bag, and began attacking the rats. Brianna got her woodcutting axe, and joined the bloodshed. Some of the new people stayed put and shot arrows (like me) while others ran into the middle of the action with their swords.

Vannaka was doing an easy job of killing rats, swinging his scimitar around, slaughtering them mercilessly. He made it look easy. However, despite Vannaka's attempt to ward off the growing number of strong rats attacking him, they still continued piling on him. Sooner or later, he was overpowered, and rats jumped on him from all directions. He was forced to drop his sword, and his shield, and his screams pierced the day. We saw them use their sharp teeth to rip his flesh apart. I picked up his scimitar, but I felt an electric shock fly through my body, and I had to drop it. My olive-green book flew out of my bag, and into my hand. It flipped open to the back page, where it said 'you must be level 40 attack or more to wield this sword!' I watched helplessly as the rats attacked Vannaka.

All hope was almost lost. Brother Brace sent a blast of light at the rats, and it successfully killed several of them, but more came. Terrera tried to use some kind of blue, wet-looking thunder bolt at them, and that killed a lot of them, but it was no use. I tried to kill them, with some arrows, then with my sword, but that was also no use. More rats came. In the end, Vannaka screamed, before falling into silence. The rats must have realised he was as good as dead, because they were scuttling towards us, hissing, continuing their attack.

The war raged on, and Terrera burned several of them to crisps with some gigantic waves of flames. I shot another arrow at a rat, which went through its neck, killing it. Fireworks went up around me, and my ranging level raised up to three. After stabbing a rat three times in the face, it died, and my attack level raised up to three. Then, what felt like several explosions went up around me, nearly blowing me off my feet, then I found out I was now combat level four.

With raised strength, I was killing the level three rats easier, while I tried to ignore the level six ones, or the enormous level nine ones. The small, normal level ones were easy to kill, unless they jumped up onto your face, dug their claws into your cheeks, and stayed there. Once, a level nine rat bounded up onto me, and nearly ripped me to shreds, if Brianna hadn't beheaded it with her woodcutting axe. Deezick was causing the small rats a lot of pain with his pickaxe, while he tended to avoid the giant rats.

Lev dragged a dying Vannaka off the battlefield, forcing him to eat the meat pies and to drink the wine, while applying healing tonic to his wounds. I had gone off the battlefield too, to tend to my large scratches and cuts caused by the level nine. I fought from afar, using my arrows. Terrera kindly used telekinetic grab to retrieve the arrows to me, so I could re-use them.

Rats were surrounding the island, while the very new people stayed in the RuneScape guide's house, and the seriously injured stayed in the church, where Brother Brace and Lev worked together to heal them. The war felt like it was never going to end. Nevertheless, I continued fighting. Rats were coming from all directions, and I felt stuck there, fighting for my life.

It was growing into early evening (around 6:15pm) and I was exhausted, but my mind forced my body to carry on fighting. The number of rats was not lowering. I felt like all hope was lost, but then I heard a loud roar from the clouds.

The clouds began to spin in one particular spot. Then, a burst of flame came through the cloud whirlpool. The clouds turned white in that area, and then scattered, leaving a large hole. Another burst of flame appeared, and white light came through the hole. More fire came and something swooped down. A white flash flew past me at an amazing speed, nearly blowing me off my feet. The white roaring object blew more flames into the air, and then circled the island. It then hovered overhead, allowing me to catch a quick glimpse of it.

It was a large, white dragon, with large white shiny scales, and white spikes producing from its legs. It had large, friendly blue eyes, and had a man on its back. I could barely see the man though, because a second later the dragon swooped around the island again. There were a lot of flames in the air, and the dragon began breathing fire on the now doomed rats, giant or not. The rats began to die, I saw their bodies shrivel up and burn. They squeaked their last squeaks, and all that was left of them were bones and burnt rat meat.

The other rats were pouncing up onto the dragon, which was a bad mistake. The dragon either burned them in mid-jump, or ate them, crunching up their bones with great relish. The man on the back of the dragon used an extremely long, silver, sparkly sword to easily kill the rats. I heard the quest master gasp "God Sword" next to me. What the God Sword was, I didn't know. But, it sounded like a mighty sword.

The other rats' eyes were turning from the evil unnatural red back to their original, beady, watery yellow. They squeaked, and since they were back to normal, scampered. A heavily bandaged and bleeding Vannaka was rounding up giant rats with great difficulty to take back to his rat pit. The other rats either escaped the merciless, blurry, speedy dragon's fire, or got destroyed by it. After five minutes, the white dragon flew off into the distance, roaring. I sighed with great relief, and went into the church. It was over. It was all over. The other guides were returning to their usual spots, and all was well.

"Well, the rats have gone, and the other people have returned to where they are meant to be," Brother Brace informed me, smiling. "I think it is time that you set off to learn magic and to go onto the mainland before the day is done, and don't forget what has happened. Goodbye." We waved to Brother Brace, and we walked down the path.

It wasn't too far to walk. I could see the thatched cottage from here. I added Osrie1 to my friends list, and buried all of the bones that I had collected off the giant rats. But then, a hiss came from a nearby bush, and a giant rat jumped out, with red eyes. I managed to kill it successfully with help from Osrie1, but that was just a warning that this was not all over. We arrived just outside Terrera's house, and I knocked on the door.

I hope that was to your liking. Remember the man on the white dragon, because he is important!

Next chapter, it is the end of the beginning, but the beginning of something brand new.

Until next time, toodles!