Standing in the sinister darkness of the Glomdoring, the trill clutched close to
his staff for light. The night skies overhead were moonless and heavy, the
forest silent all around him. Lillilio Stuffyquill turned sharply as soft
footsteps announced the arrival of a grim-looking druid. "So, Lillilio
Stuffyquill. You have finally come."

"Yes, I have come," the trill said. "Why has the Glomdoring requested my
presence?"

The druid smiled humorlessly as he approached, looking up at the tall trill.
"There was an incident earlier this month. Something appeared at the Master
Ravenwood, and began attacking it. It turned out to be a rockeater."

"Oh, how strange," Lillilio said. "But what does this have to do with me?" He
looked down as the druid tossed a necklace to him.

"It dropped this necklace when we killed it. It bears your mark, you'll notice,"
the druid said.

"Oh, how strange." Lillilio shrugged. "But rockeaters get everywhere. I lost a
lot of my jewelry lately. Perhaps they just stole all of it."

"No, I don't think they did," the druid said firmly, and Lillilio frowned.

"Are you suggesting that I helped a rockeater attack the Glomdoring?" the trill
asked calmly.

"No. Of course not." The druid leaned closer, and gave a little growl. "I'm
suggesting that you ARE a rockeater."

Lillilio Stuffyquill blinked slowly. Then he scowled. Then he made a noise like
ten geese caught in an earthquake, and blew a blast of superheated steam into
the druid's face, turned and ran. The druid staggered back, face scalded as the
beast's disguise faded, but the rockeater would not get far.

Thorns lanced up from the ground, spearing the rockeater through the wrists and
ankles. The beast writhed in the air, honking and spitting, but could do nothing
but hang in the air between the trees as it was pulled limb from limb. Howling
in pain, it writhed on the forest floor helplessly, fountains of blood pouring
from its jagged stumps as an army of tiny scarabs swarmed from the dirt to feast
upon its flesh. It screamed as the bugs poured into its body, retaining just
enough awareness to look up in fear as the druid approached and pointed a ring
at it.

The rockeater's bony eye sockets were burnt bare as its world burst into flames.

--+--

Copper Crown Publishing presents:

ROCKEATER HOLOCAUST

coming soon to a stage near you

--+--

The Shadow Council was shadowy. Shadows hung over each seat, shadowing each
member's face and body in shadow. The edges were shadowy, and the ceiling was
shadowy too. The only part of the room that wasn't shadowy was the center, where
a little bit of light shone down to make the surrounding shadows even shadowier.

"What has been discovered about these rockeater attacks?" hissed the dark voice
of the Dark Regent from the shadows.

"Prince of Shadows, give your report," the Queen of the Night whispered darkly.

A shadowy figure in the shadows shuffled some papers and cleared his throat. "We
raided Lillilio Stuffyquill's manse. We found his body stuffed into a wardrobe,
steam-seared to death, by the look of it."

"Gaudiguch?" the Dark Regent murmured.

"Perhaps. More likely another rockeater assassin. There were no other
indications of who might have killed him in the manse."

"Unacceptable," the Eye of Crow said harshly. "I hope you have some better
news."

"I have," the Prince of Shadows said quickly. "We re-examined the necklace from
the first rockeater attack, along with the one on Stuffyquill's double. Some of
the markings are in old Merian, and make reference to a Project Civility."

"So, the Celestians work against us, then?" The Eye of Crow bristled in the
darkness.

"No. We successfully infiltrated their library, and determined that, like other
Projects before it, something went horribly wrong, and the research site was
lost before the Celestine Empire fell. Someone appears to have rediscovered it,"
the Prince of Darkness said.

"What is this... Project Civility?" the Merciless Chieftain asked with grim
curiosity.

"It was a plan by the Celestine Empire to infiltrate their enemies. Using
trained duplicates, they could replace people who might otherwise move against
their empire, place spies and assassins, and make the whole world fear to cross
them." The Prince of Darkness chuckled darkly in the dark. "And what better
infiltrator than a rockeater? They're inherently disposable. They can go
anywhere."

"How insidious," the Dark Regent murmured.

"Yes," said the Prince of Darkness. "It was among the most sinister and
dangerous Projects that Celest ever lost, alongside Project Happiness, Project
Cuddles, and Project Milk and Cookies."

"And now it has been activated against us!" the Song of the Wyrd snarled behind
a veil of shadow. "We shall not let this stand."

"No, we shall not," the Dark Regent said grimly. "We shall respond to this with
all the brutality this deserves. We shall respond to this without mercy. Call
forth our Bloodkillers."

The Shadow Court laughed in the darkness, darkly.

--+--

The scorpion-masked illithoid swung his claw in a wide arc, slicing cleanly
through the furrikin's throat. As the farmer made a bubbling noise with his
neck, the illithoid carved his chest to the bone with two skin-flaying strikes.
The furrikin's face was a mask of voiceless terror and pain as he tried to
stumble away, but before he could get away, the illithoid lashed out with a
vicious kick to his back. Bone, blood and organs erupted violently into the face
of a terrified milkmaid, as Iquatmil Bloodclaw put his foot straight through the
furrikin's chest.

Nearby, a screaming child sprinted from cover, only to meet a flying foot to the
face from above. A beautiful and curvy faeling fluttered overhead, smirking down
at him with pouty red lips over her huge, leather-wrapped rack. The child looked
up to see a leather-wrapped lute pointed at his face, and scrambled backwards,
but too late. Disharmonic notes shot through his head, bouncing from one side of
his skull to the other. He felt his face warping, bone and flesh stretching
painfully as the notes lingered in his head. One eye popped as one side of his
head condensed to the size of an apple, the other side bulging alarmingly. The
child had time for one last strangled sob before his head burst, painting the
side of a nearby building with his brains. Smiling grimly to herself, Marona
Bloodlust wiped off a single drop of blood from her body-hugging outfit, and
moaned softly to herself as she slowly sucked her finger clean.

The milkmaid sobbed in terror, clapping both hands over her mouth to keep silent
as Marona turned her way. She turned and ran, making it only a few steps before
smacking headlong into an iron wall. Her scream escaped her then, and for good
reason. Hovering in the air, with skull-marked wings and barbed armor was the
muscliest, manliest, angriest faeling she had ever seen. Growling down at her,
he raised a sword twice as big as he was over his head. She could only scream as
the sword came down at her over and over, bludgeoning her to a pulp... he was
using the flat side of the blade on her. It was only after the milkmaid had been
beaten into sludge that the faeling stopped, raising his massive, masculine
sword high and roaring furiously, his neck muscles bulging in fury. A milkmaid
was no match for Glomdoring's finest warrior, Spitspin Bloodblood.

"That is the last of them," said Iquatmil, yanking his foot free of the
treacherous furrikin who had brought his suffering upon himself. "That will
teach them to betray the Glomdoring."

"Shut up," said Spitspin Bloodblood. "You talk too much."

"You killed them beautifully," Marona said, fluttering up beside Spitspin and
reaching out to stroke his massive, manly shoulder.

"Don't touch me, whore," said Spitspin, thrusting Marona aside and stomping off.

"Be careful," Iquatmil said to Marona. "Spitspin Bloodblood is still grieving
the loss of the one woman he ever loved."

"How tragic," Marona said, a tear running down her pale cheek and between her
supple breasts.

"He is so manly and stoic," Iquatmil said.

"He is so masculine and sexy," Marona said.

They stood in silence for a moment, before Iquatmil straightened. "The Shadow
Council is calling. We have new orders. We shall go to the Razines, the last
known site of Project Civility."

--+--

The Bloodkillers finally found their way into a cave system high in the Razines,
the corridors cold and dripping and dark. "It shouldn't be long now," said
Iquatmil Bloodclaw quietly. "We should be almost there."

"Shut up," said Spitspin Bloodblood. "They might hear us."

Iquatmil nodded and crept forward. They came upon a light in the tunnel, and
heard voices up ahead. The illithoid snuck ahead, before returning. "It looks
like a research team. Mugwumps."

"What're they doing here?" Marona Bloodlust asked, before squinting as a light
shone on her ample breasts, and also the rest of her.

"Hello? Who is that?" an old mugwump asked, squinting at the three of them. "Oh
my. Hello. Who might you be?"

Iquatmil straightened. "I am Iquatmil Bloodclaw, deadly stealth assassin. This
is the beautiful bardic vixen, Marona Bloodlust. And the manly, brooding warrior
in the back is Glomdoring's finest warrior, Spitspin Bloodblood. We are the
Bloodkillers."

"Oh, how lovely," the old mugwump said. "Are you here to help with the
excavation?"

"What are you excavating?" Marona asked.

"Well, you see, there used to be an old Project here, long ago. It is said that
the Celestine Empire had difficulties with their neighbors outside the Basin.
While nobody challenged the Empire from within, the Emperor wanted to spread his
influence, his peace, over the entire world. But the people outside wouldn't bow
to his will, and organized against him. So he had to find ways to break the
organization. So Project Civility was born."

"How insidious," Marona said.

"That's what we're here for," Iquatmil said. "You can help us get there?"

"Oh, yes. We can help each other!" the mugwump said in delight. "Together, we
can make this excavation go so much faster."

"Enough of this," said Spitspin, before he sliced the mugwump in two with his
giant, masculine sword. Then he sliced the mugwump in half a different way. Then
he sliced him in half a third way, and stomped on the pieces a couple of times.

A pendant bounced out of the corpse, and as Iquatmil squinted at the bloody
remains of the mugwump, he frowned. "That mugwump looks a lot like a rockeater
now that he's dead."

"Shut up, you idiot, there are more coming," Spitspin growled, as more mugwumps,
or things that looked like mugwumps, came around the corner, honking and hissing
in anger.

The battle was short but deliciously bloody. Iquatmil crushed heads between the
cave wall and his foot in between disemboweling rockeaters. Marona made them
vomit blood all over the floor and then popped their heads while floating and
laughing sexily. Spitspin ran all of his enemies through with his massive,
enormous sword, stabbing two or three at a time while roaring.

Soon, all their enemies were dead. Marona smiled with her pouty lips at
Spitspin. "Oh wow, Spitspin, you saved us, you manly man, you. How did you know
they were rockeaters?"

"I didn't," Spitspin growled, his big manly arms bulging as he pulled his big
manly sword out of the corpses.

"Oh Spitspin, you are so moody and violent," Marona said, floating over and
putting her sexy curvy body against Spitspin. "That turns me on so much."

Spitspin shoved his enormous sword into her, deep and hard. Then, with her curvy
body pressed up against the guard, he lifted her up into the air, and swung his
sword around violently. Blood and guts fountained down over his head as he
viciously disemboweled her. Marona let out a rumbling honk as she died, a
pendant falling out of her corpse as she was revealed to be a rockeater.

The real Marona flew out of the shadows just in time to see all of this. "Oh,
wow, Spitspin, you caught the fake me," she said, smiling at Spitspin. "How did
you know it wasn't really me?"

"I didn't," Spitspin growled, shaking the corpse off his blade hard enough to
make it splatter against the opposite wall.

"Oh Spitspin, you are so moody and violent," Marona said, hugging herself and
purring softly. "That turns me on so much."

"There's a path that goes further down," Iquatmil said grimly. "Let's keep
going."

--+--

The Bloodkillers found themselves in a vast cavern, with only a few torches and
the machine at the far end of the hall for light. The machine glowed with
energy, a strange green, and standing in that light was a furrikin. They got
closer, and Spitspin growled as he recognized the figure.

"It's you!" Spitspin Bloodblood growled. "My arch-nemesis, Pandy Cuddlebutt!"

"Oh no!" cried Iquatmil Bloodclaw. "The dread Serenwilde druid, Pandy
Cuddlebutt? He's alive?"

"Yes, I am alive," cackled the furrikin, turning and grinning at the
Bloodkillers. "And you are too late! Already, Project Civility has been
activated, and the rockeater army marches on Glomdoring!"

"I knew Serenwilde was behind this. It's not too late, though. We can destroy
the Project, Pandy!" called Iquatmil Bloodclaw. "And the three of us can
certainly kill you!"

"Maybe," said Pandy, with a wicked grin. "But can you kill me, and my rockeater
death squad?" He cackled wickedly as a hundred lines dropped from the ceiling,
and a hundred rockeaters descended, standing between him and the Bloodkillers.

"You think a few rockeaters are going to stop us from killing you, Seren?"
Marona Bloodlust gave a sultry laugh, her leather-wrapped bosom bouncing as she
laughed. "We'll just make more of a mess."

"Oh, but these aren't just any rockeaters, my sexy little wench," laughed Pandy
menacingly, as the rockeaters yanked their chains out of the ceiling, and
started spinning them with worrying expertise. "Behold, my Ninjakari
rockeaters!"

"Enough talk!" snarled Spitspin. "Die!" Bravely, he charged headlong into the
mass of rockeaters, stabbing and thrusting and killing violently.

"He is so manly," said Iquatmil, as Spitspin left them both behind. But he
didn't have much time to reflect, as a chain wrapped around his arm, and yanked
him sharply into a mass of rockeaters. "Marona! Kill them all!" he shouted.

"Right!" Marona replied.

Iquatmil fought violently, slashing throats and snapping legs and putting his
foot through the chests of the honking, chain-swinging rockeaters. The mighty
assassin put one of the rockeaters in a chokehold, squeezing hard enough to make
its head bulge and then pop off, rocketing towards the ceiling. But in the end,
all his skill wasn't enough to keep both his legs from getting wrapped in
chains. He slashed around wildly, trying to keep the surrounding creatures from
getting at him.

He snarled as one of the rockeaters dove onto his back, pinning his thin
illithoid body beneath its hot, stinking weight. It let out a triumphant honk as
it raised sharp diamond claws in the air. Iquatmil struggled, but couldn't do
more than scream as the rockeater burrowed into his back like he was a patch of
gem-rich earth. It found only flesh and bits of spine and a couple of lungs.

Marona flew over the mass of honking, steam-spitting rockeaters, bursting heads
with blasts of shadowy music and dodging the chains that swung up to snare her.
At the far end of the cavern, she could see Spitspin battling a manly battle
with Pandy Cuddlebutt, and sighed with well-deserved lust. Unfortunately, she
was too distracted to see the hooked chain coming her way, which lodged into her
right wing and yanked it clean off. She spiraled to the ground, landing in a
pile of tight leather and supple flesh in the middle of a pack of hissing
rockeaters.

The curvy young faeling rose quickly and struck a haughty pose with her leather
lute, pouting at all the rockeaters around her. They held back, not wanting to
get close. Finally, one of the rockeaters hissed and opened its mouth wide,
revealing jagged diamond teeth and a glowing throat. Marona cried out and held
out her hands to shield herself from the sudden gout of steam and flame, but it
was no good. The other rockeaters joined in, looking to scorch her to death. All
Marona could do was to moan and shield her most sensitive areas with her arms as
fire erupted over her, torching her remaining wing and setting her hair ablaze
and turning her tight leather clothing to ash.

"Oh, Spitspin!" she cried, before her whole body erupted in flame.

Spitspin howled in rage, bringing his sword down to meet Pandy's thick cudgel.
"You bastard!" he screamed, manly neck bulging in fury. "You killed my best
friend, and the only woman I ever loved! Again!"

"You foolish fool," Pandy laughed. "You and your forest are doomed. Your friends
are dead. You are all alone, and I have an army. There is nothing you can do!
Nothing can stop me now! I am invincible!"

"Shut up!" shouted Spitspin, grabbing Pandy by the muzzle and slamming him back
against the wall. "Shut up! Shut up! Shut up!" The manly faeling kept slamming
Pandy against the wall, harder and harder. Bloodstains formed on the rock, and
then cracks formed. Pandy tried to scream, but couldn't. Soon his head was
completely caved in at the back and his brains were sliding down the wall to the
floor, but Spitspin kept slamming the dead body into the wall. Finally, when the
furrikin's entire back half had been pulped against the wall and all he had left
of Pandy's head was his mouth, Spitspin punched into the damaged wall one last
time.

Lava exploded from the hole in the wall, sweeping out over the floor and washing
over the rockeater Ninjakari. Honks of terror and pain echoed through the
chamber as molten death flowed over the army, reducing their monstrous bodies to
charred skeletons desperately clawing for the surface. Lava flowed over the
great machine, melting it to so much slag, until with a great explosion of magma
and rockeater parts, Project Civility died.

--+--

It was a peaceful day in the Serenwilde Forest, but Seneschal Churtsey Greenhart
was unhappy. "Report."

"Seneschal," the elfen said, kneeling, "I am sorry to report that Pandy
Cuddlebutt is dead, and Project Civility along with him. The rockeater army did
not reach Glomdoring, and they know of our involvement."

"And the Bloodkillers?"

"All dead, along with the Project."

"So some good came of this, at least," the Seneschal said, grimly. "No matter.
They are short their most brutal warriors, now. And with Project Civility
destroyed, there is nothing Glomdoring can do to retaliate on this scale. They
will not recover from this soon."

The kneeling elfen smiled for a moment, before the earth shook suddenly. He
looked around, mystified, before his eyes took on a glazed look, and he rose,
starting towards a glowing light in the trees.

"No!" the Seneschal cried, trying to pull the elfen back, but it was too late.
"You fool!"

Giant claws snatched the elfen off of the ground, and roughly yanked off his
legs, flinging the bloody stumps off into the bushes. The elfen managed a scream
as he was thrown to the ground, and then crushed repeatedly under one mighty
claw. The Seneschal watched in horror as the source of the violence emerged into
the clearing: mounted on the back of a giant cave-fisher, Spitspin Bloodblood
scowled down at him.

"Project Cuddles," the Seneschal moaned in terror, as all around the Serenwilde,
the war cries of the cave-fisher army screeched into the skies.