It took a good 10 minutes for the constructs to reach the amphitheater, where the defenders were all gathered. The constructs poured out of the three fork tunnels into the bottom of the amphitheater. Soon dozens of constructs were rushing up the incline straight at the defenders gathered into a shield wall. Unfortunately, for them they could not see the enormous studded rolling pin hidden behind the shields.
Mark waited till the enemies made it past the halfway point before giving the defenders a mental command. The trap would need some distance to gain momentum. The hobgoblins forming the shield wall darted to the right. The constructs in the front had paused as their attention swiveled with the defenders. If any of them noticed the insidious trap they did not react.
The trap was released as soon as the last hobgoblin was clear, and the pin started down the center incline with the rock studs lining its length clacking on the stone as it turned. It moved towards the forces like a toothy steamroller only taking a couple of seconds for the pin to reach the front ranks of the golems, which mostly consisted of block golems and a couple of flesh golems. They were quickly rolled over as easy as a baking pin rolling over gingerbread men. The block golems were turned to splinters, the flesh golems were pulped into a black ooze paste.
The rolling pin bounced with each enemy it overtook, but did not stop its downward momentum as it continued down to claim even more victims. In total around 3 dozen constructs were instantly killed including half of the remaining flesh golems. Only a few constructs on the edge of the amphitheater's center face were able to scramble out of the way to the left or the right.
“Eww,” Amelia remarked, eyeing the flesh golem remains. “Almost reminds me of what's left of bugs when they hit the windscreen.”
“You have cars?” Mark asked.
“What no, airships,” Amelia said, turning back to watch the screen.
Mark's eyes widened. Not from the advanced technology Amelia’s world had. He had always pictured shows that were supposedly based hundreds of years into the Earth’s future when picturing her world, but how big of bugs did they have and how high were they flying to be able to run into an airship. He shook his head. Not the time.
The goblin archers were relatively useless in the battle so they were relegated to resetting the trap. There were two cranks on both sides of the trap's base that resembled an old wooden ship wheel. The five goblin archers worked together on one side to turn the wheel. Two imps manned the other wheel.
The spawner had spawned a second orc regular for day 20. Which was a good thing, since Mark needed the extra muscle. Both orc regulars joined the rest of the goblins on the right side. The goblins were hurrying to form a shield wall to stop the advance on this side. The orc regulars would have to deal the actual damage with the two tomahawks they wielded. The 3 orc imps not manning the trap cranks would join Stein and Winnie the reanimated corpses on the left side.
The constructs might be mindless machines, but whatever drove them forward was not foolish enough to continue to send them up the center to face the deathtrap. The trap was not near being reset, but there was nothing saying that they could not drop it from where it was at any time.
Instead the constructs flowed up the left and right faces of the amphitheater. On the right the golems soon slammed into the hobgoblin shield wall. The wall shook but effectively held. The orc regulars were soon hacking from overhead. Their tomahawks quickly opened large gashes in the wooden bodies. Unlike the majority of the golems the orcs had the strength to hack the units to pieces. They would make quick work of one and move on to the next.
The constructs on the left side were less fortunate. A several ton bear easily turned block golems to splinters by rearing up and then smashing down with its paws. Block golems were turned to splinters as soon as they reached the undead bear. A flesh golem soon made it to the bear. The tall golem smashed its mace into the bear’s front shoulder with a sickening crunch. The bear was definitely wounded, but that attack was all the slower flesh golem got to make. The bear pushed off its back legs and slammed the golem down. The golem tried to use its arms to hold the bear at bay, but was not strong enough to resist the bear's weight. The bear's teeth made short work of the flesh golems head. The golems arms fell to its sides and the bear turned its attention to other block golems prodding at it with their spears.
The bear quickly moved on to the next targets, tearing up block golems and even a second flesh golem. The bear appeared to be unstoppable, but its rampage was short lived. Soon a staggered and consistent stream of green balls of acid splashed into it. The four creepers had set themselves up at the bottom of the right side of the amphitheater. The acid was the perfect counter to the bear. The acid would melt its dead flesh and muscle as well as it did for any living being. It would take more time and more acid due to bear’s size and high vitality, but after only a few hits, it was very evident the bear would not hold out for long. The bear continued to tear enemies apart, but its time was limited.
But the creeper scarecrows had miscalculated if they had thought that they were safe tucked away in the bottom right corner of the room. It had taken a minute, but the trap was reset. Mark had wanted to have grooves around the top so that his trap could be rolled to the different faces, but he did not have the DP. Luckily he had another method to change the trajectory of the rolling pin. It was a one time thing, and would render the trap unusable for the remainder of the battle, but the creepers had to be dealt with.
Soon the orc imps manning one of the wheel cranks were scrambling down the center slope toting a massive wooden wedge. Around halfway down the goblins set the wedge down to form a ramp slope on the left side of the pins trajectory. Their efforts went practically unnoticed since most of the forces were focused on other targets.
Without delay the goblins released the trap, dropping the pin. The imps scrambled and leapt out of the way at the last second. The pin struck the impromptu ramp on one side causing the side to shoot up and the other side to dip down and catch the ground and act as a pivot point. The other side slammed back down as the pin angled into the bottom half of the right side. The majority of the scarecrows had formed up in the area resulting in the majority of the scarecrows being crushed. The pin struck the wall and came to an uneasy stop. It was not pretty but it had worked.
However the battle was not over. Winnie had collapsed, and Stein had also apparently been taken out during the acid barrage. Not that he had been all that helpful in today’s battle. The golems he had reached just did not have life for the reanimated corpse to leach.
The enemy forces still had a numerical advantage, although it was now only a slight one since Winnie had taken down a good 30 golems. But the trap was out of service since it would take serious muscle power to crank it up as it was, and the enemy still had two elite units. One flesh golem and one creeper scarecrow that had not been caught by the trap.
The five goblin archers ran to join the imps at the halfway point. The shield wall was finally cut in half due to the efforts of the last flesh golem. Well cut was not exactly right, the two goblins in the maces downward strike path had darted to their respective sides. The mace crashed into the stone, but ripped a shield away from one of the goblins as it retracted its weapon. Several spears skewered the flesh golems midsection, but it did not stop the creature. Who retaliated against the hobgoblin’s who had not scrambled away from it, but the flesh golem was soon beset by the two orc regulars, who moved in to hack at it. The hobgoblins scattered away from the clash pulling the attention of the majority of the other golems. At this point, only a dozen other golems remained, with the bulk of the force being the various lesser scarecrows.
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The goblin archers and imps on the left side rushed in to close into melee with the scarecrows. Few had their bows ready to fire during their approach since many of them had dived aside to avoid the rolling pin, but still a couple arrows thunked into one of the imps and brought down a good portion of the hobgoblin archers. The fight turned fairly one sided with the imps hacking the scarecrows apart with a couple swings each.
Green acid lanced at one of the imps, but the imp had of course been keeping an eye out for what it regarded as the most dangerous opponent and had dived out of the way. However it was rushed by several straw scarecrows and was mortally wounded, despite taking them down.
Meanwhile the orc regulars were dismantling the flesh golem. It was just too slow to hit them, and the orcs were backing away leading the golem away from its allies. Out in free space, and without aid from its allies, the flesh golem just could not match the two. The shield goblins were not making much progress, but as long as they kept the other golems engaged the battle would hopefully go in their favor as long as the orcs won their prospective battles.
One of the hobgoblin archers went down to a ball of acid and the last fell to a scarecrow knife. The three remaining imps finished with the scarecrows in their area and refocused on the creeper and the handful of lesser scarecrows that were left. The two sides eyed each other for a moment before a ball of green acid lanced out toward the imp with several arrows protruding from its body. There was still 20 feet in between the two groups, so the imp had enough time to react. However, it was not enough. The acid did catch the imp’s deltoid muscle. Soon corrosive acid was eating away at the shoulder. The imp squealed in pain, but did not falter in rushing toward the enemy.
The imps met the lesser scarecrows, and immediately set into hacking them to pieces. Another acid ball aimed at one of the uninjured imps, but it was able to dodge. The creeper shifted its attention to the severely wounded imp sending the next ball of acid its way. The imp’s reactions had slowed significantly and was unable to get out of the way, taking the acid ball in the chest. The imp collapsed as the center of its chest started to collapse in on itself.
One of the remaining imps went down to an accumulation of wounds from the lesser scarecrows, leaving one remaining. The final imp charged down each arm expertly striking the necks of the final two lesser scarecrows. The imp reversed both tomahawks to strike the creeper, but the creeper's staff flipped up with inhuman speed and stabbed through the imp’s chest. The imp attempted to take the creeper with it, but the creeper moved faster knocking the dying imp aside.
The creeper face shifted back to the battlefield only to find 2 orc regulars bearing down on it. The flesh golem had been hacked apart, while the creeper's attention had been on the imps. The creeper only had time to send one acid ball their way, which was bashed away by one of the orcs tomahawks. Drops of acid sizzled all over both orcs bodies, however there was not a high enough concentration to cause a grievous wound on either except for the hand that held the tomahawk being ruined.
Both orcs squealed before smashing into the creeper. The creeper was sent into the wall with a jarring impact. The stuffing inside its body was a lot more dense than the other scarecrow types, and the blunt impact did appear to affect the creeper although not to a great extent. The creeper however was not a slouch when it came to melee. It was able to fend off the orc regulars for quite a while, but in the end its staff was not the best weapon to fight in a melee against two ferocious opponents. Then with seemingly perfect coordination both arms were hacked off nearly at the same time by the orcs. The creeper gave the two an evil glint before one of the orcs beheaded it.
There were only eight block golems left. If it had been only the hobgoblins left to fight them, they would have slowly worn the hobgoblins down and emerged victorious, however with two orc regulars still able to fight the battle was a forgone conclusion as long as the hobgoblins could keep most of them occupied. Which they were. Soon the last of the block golems was hacked into pieces. They had won.
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Mareth Ignall grimaced as her tactical screen shifted back to her own dungeon. She had honestly expected to win. Especially after her scouts had noted a large orc army marching their way yesterday afternoon. She had sent her army in that direction immediately. She had not really been able to make out much of the dungeon’s battle with the orcs since her scout was far away, and it had become too dark midway through. She knew the dungeon had survived, but had not expected them to still be able to hold out against her army less than half a day later.
Mareth did not think her forces had been weak. No, with the flesh golems and creepers she felt her army was very strong at this point in time. She even had found brimstone essence and had even gotten away to use it in battle. She was likely the first to find and be able to successfully use essence. It had been used to devastating effect, but even that had not been enough. The dungeon was entirely too strong to be able to weather two full assaults in the period of a day.
Mareth would have thought the dungeon had spent all its resources on developing an its martial might based on the outcomes, but she knew it was not entirely the case. The dungeon already had unlocked a good five or six techs. based on what she had seen. They had also spent money to build a dungeon floor and buildings. Then there was the fact that the dungeon had access to several branches of units. The dungeon seemed to focus on goblins, but also had gnomes, orcs, beasts, and undead?
Had she missed something. How were they able to have such a variety. The undead was on a completely different tree, which would cost 100,000 MP. Just what sort of luck did Amelia Cromwell have? She knew the dungeon was not superior in production compared to her own since this dungeon only had three coal piles like her own. She knew this was not always the case since she had also found the kobold dungeon to the south. Sure they had built the manna bellows as she had done, but Mareth could not get the math to work in her head.
Mareth, herself, had spent the first few weeks developing her dungeon. She had started with golems since they fit well with her specialization, Epic Laborer. She had started with the buildings and basic minerals techs. Her units built buildings quicker, and the buildings were higher quality and gave extra benefits. Golems were tireless workers so were perfect to get her settlement going quickly.
By the end of the first week she already had a research building. Where she had chosen essence as her main focus since she had started with a brimstone essence in her territory.
The special feature of the research building received due to her specialization gave a major boost for a single project once every 3 months. Which she had immediately used to advance an essence project to near the end stages. Just after the close of the second week she was already able to field units that could use the brimstone essence. It cost extra MP and essence to give the units the ability, but the attack was devastating compared with how little manna it took to cast.
All the while she had saved up 25,000 MP to unlock a second branch on her construct tree. The golems were good at building and could be melee fighters, but did not have the intelligence to be researchers or mages. The scarecrows were the perfect compliment since they were weaker but more intelligent… despite not having a brain. The creepers were all-arounders. She had only sent the ones that were mages, but she also had a couple ones focused on melee that she had held back to protect her dungeon.
Mareth would not dare not to keep a decent sized force back, since she had seen the kobolds in the valley around her dungeon. She had dozens of scouts in her valley. She had them posted in various sedentary spots around the area. Not needing food or water, they could remain there indefinitely hidden like silent sentinels. They would just report back if they saw something. Quite a few times kobold scouts had passed her inactive guardians completely unaware of their presence. She could only guess that they kept her dungeon under constant surveillance based on their consistent movement around her territory.
Mareth sighed again. If she had sent a couple more flesh golems or creepers, perhaps the dungeon would have fallen. Unfortunately, she had missed the chance. The dungeon must have been severely weakened and had survived. She had already developed her own dungeon floor so she knew they would respawn, so sending another force was out of the question. That bear alone was too hard to contend with, for her to consider sending another force anytime soon. She would build and become even stronger before making another such move.