The woods echoed with goblin drums. Mark could only imagine how intimidating it would be for Nehemiah’s forces. Nehemiah himself could take a god’s eye view, but for his forces they would just hear the ominous drums as their enemies slowly emerged from the forest. Mark shrugged the thought aside. The psychological aspect seemed to only be in play as a part of the morale feature. Unless they were heavily outnumbered or had no hope of winning the morale did not seem to be affected overly much.
The goblin footmen and frogmen would lead the charge. The goblins had all reached the fanatical state with the aide of the war drums. They looked more ready for battle than Mark had ever seen. Even a quick check of the frogman’s morale showed that their morale had risen. Whether it was an effect of the drums or that morale was contagious Mark did not know. Regardless, the army was ready.
The drums reached a crescendo before stopping abruptly all at once. The goblins roared and charged forward. The drums began again with a slightly quicker tempo, as if to match the running goblins. The drummers fell in behind jogging after as they beat their drums, and slowly fell further and further behind matching pace with the slower frogmen, but the goblin intensity did not drop. The mounted units gave them a bit before starting their own charge. They would come out from behind and slam into the defenses on both sides of the infantry.
Nehemiah had two earthen walls, the smaller one containing the dungeon entrance and other buildings in the center, with the outer wall concentric around it. Both were made up of mud and wood. It seemed Nehemiah had used wood to create the framework, so that the wall would hold up better. Mark could see wooden knobs sticking out periodically. It was not a bad idea, better than the packed earth they were using.
Rickety wooden towers were scattered along the whole perimeter of both walls, although only the towers facing the attacking army were actually manned. Nehemiah had seemingly gone for quantity and not quality. Each tower held a handful of kobold archers and mages. Mark felt that if he were to zoom in, it was likely they would sway as the occupants shifted their weight. It would not diminish the threat they would pose, but they would go down easily.
Unfortunately, their troops would be running through mud the whole way. It was a clear day, but it had rained most of the last month. It should not cause too many problems for their army since the goblins were barefoot they should be fairly sure footed unless they hit a bad patch or tried pivoting in a different direction. The mounts would likely be perfectly fine. It was all flat land, save for the hundreds of tree stumps, which meant there would be no cover and the defenders in the towers would get to send plenty of volleys their way.
All the goblin corporals and above had shields, leaving only the green goblins to their luck. The first volleys started at around 600 feet away. Most of the arrows fell short, but a few went down. The numbers only increased as the goblins closed on the wall. With a couple of volleys every hundred feet or so the green goblin counter started ticking down.
Still the numbers were not terrible till the last few volleys. Knowing what to look for, now Mark noted the faint aurora of the arrows as the archers released. A wave of enchanted arrows flew straight down at the goblins. Each impact resulted in a chorus of small explosions around the point of impact, like little firecrackers popping off all around their targets. The target and those around them were all affected. The shields did not help too much against the enchantments. Instead wooden splinters were sent into those around the shield bearer along with the exploding pockets that erupted directly on one of the goblins' flesh.
It likely would not have been too effective against extremely strong units, but against the low vitality goblins it was brutal. Whole swaths of them were maimed. With two volleys of these firecracker arrows only two thirds of the goblin infantry ended up reaching the wall. The rest lie dead, dying, or wounded in the mud, but the goblins were not the first to reach the wall.
The roach cavalry that was cutting in from both sides had far outpaced the other mounted units. A couple hundred feet out from the wall they all leapt mid run into the air. Their wings buzzed as they sailed toward and quickly over the crude earthen wall, overtaking the infantry. Not a single roach fell to arrows outside the wall including the few firecracker arrows that redirected their way, hitting almost point blank, although several had legs and large chucks blown off. A good dozen green goblin riders got caught in the blasts and ended up either blown off entirely or had their dead bodies stuck on the saddle flopping back and forth as the cockroaches moved..
The roach cavalry immediately engaged the horde of defenders inside of the walls. Clicking mandibles soon were attacking kobold and lizardmen flesh. The green goblins struck out with their spears at enemies that approached from the flanks. Neither the roaches or the goblins were particularly deadly, but they were a good distraction since there were 180 of them. The roaches were difficult to kill. Even after receiving a seemingly critical blow they would fight on. On top of the green goblins adding a measure of support the roach cavalry would easily be able to hold out and lock down a good portion of the defenders.
The goblin infantry were quickly scrambling up the walls next. Powerful lizardmen had concentrated at this point in the wall, and easily repelled them. However it did not take long for the goblin archers and mages to get set up. Piercing arrows duplicated in the air wiping out whole swaths of defenders manning the wall, or sailed further into the fort, hopefully finding another target. Once ten seconds passed fireballs lanced out at the offending archer towers. One after another they lit up like beacons. The kobolds on top either jumped or were blown off the tower. The resistance against the attacking force quickly buckled and goblin and the now arriving frogman started to make their way up and over the mud wall.
Around the same time the ants and spiders poured in from the sides. The outer wall had fallen in just under a minute. Still half the goblin infantry would never cross the wall. Several more volleys of those firecracker arrows had devastated their ranks, but they were the only force that had suffered serious losses. Less than a dozen of the roaches had gone down in the opening minute, not including their riders who were dying at a far greater rate, and the ant and spider forces had not been touched. The frogman had only suffered dozens of casualties from archers who had shifted aim to them before their towers went up.
The melee inside the wall was fierce.. Less than a hundred kobolds and lizardmen had perished despite losing the outer wall. The cavalry units were keeping 80% of the defenders occupied, but the remaining 20% were able to hold off the trickle of goblins and frogmen coming up and over the walls. Not all of the defending mages and archers had been in the towers, and some of those that had recovered after falling off their tower were able to rejoin the fight.
Still Mark was certain their side would come out on top. He could already see the momentum shifting in their favor. Goblin archers had made it over the wall. Enchanted arrows were now streaking across the battlefield. The goblin archers were aiming for clumps of defenders, but were not overly concerned if some of their attacks resulted in a bit of friendly fire. The battle would not last long at this rate, but their casualties would definitely be pretty high.
After the majority of the defenders in the area were taken care of, attackers free from opponents started to shift their focus to the second wall. There simply were not enough enemies to keep them all occupied. A group of a dozen roaches were the first to strike out toward the dungeon’s center. “Crap,” Mark muttered, noticing the contraptions on a platform facing the approaching roaches. Kobolds were working levers to get the trajectory right.
Mark could not recall what they were called, but knew what they could do. Seconds later hundreds of black bolts streaked out from the two contractions creating a wall of metal darts. The roaches could survive a lot, but even they were torn to pieces by the darts that hit like sledgehammers punching in and all the way through their bodies. Only two on the outer edge survived the barrage, and they each had several holes leaking a greenish amber liquid. The kobolds immediately got to work to reload the contraption.
“How did they get their hands on that,” Amelia protested. “The unique reward?”
Mark shook his head. He had no idea. One thing he did know was that he wanted to claim them once the battle was over, and they were not the only thing he had his eyes on. Surely there were a couple of those unfired firecracker arrows somewhere out there. Perhaps he could reverse engineer how to do the inscription.
Another wave of uncontested attackers started making their way toward the center wall. This wave consisted of all three types of the creepy crawlies, and there were more than two dozen of them. More than half even had their riders. The dart launchers fired again into the attackers, instantly killing half the roaches, all of the ants, and every single one of the riders. Two of the three spiders, however, were able to continue on. One had lost several of its legs and they both had quite a few new holes in their body spewing black blood.
The two spiders continued forward along with eight roaches. There were about a hundred defenders inside the second wall, but they were unable to stop the insects that skittered right over as soon as they reached the wall. Fireballs lanced out the two large arachnids, along with a dozen firecracker arrows. One spider immediately went down its legs closing together as the body slammed to the earth. The second spider lost two more legs to a fireball, and had dozens of gashes open up across its body.
Still the spider continued on. Mark was loving the spiders. They were basically walking tanks. They could take a lot of damage, and like the roaches they were difficult to kill. Still this spider would not be long for this world. It was heavily wounded and more attacks were sure to follow, but the spider seemed determined to make its contribution. The spider lashed out at the two dart launching contraptions much to Marks’ annoyance. It was too wounded to move and go after anything else, and had identified these two boxes as something to be dealt with. There were no defenders to stop it. The kobolds had jumped off the platform when the waves of heat from the fireballs swept over them, and the other defenders turned their attention to the eight roaches that were already in their midst.
“So much for that idea,” Mark sighed as the spider fangs and remaining front legs worked to dismantle and crush the two devices. Amelia patted him on the back, likely understanding what he had been hoping for. Other than the darts the boxes appeared to be entirely made of wood, and what looked like bamboo for the hundreds of dart tubes, and it appeared to be pneumatic, but since Mark doubted that compressed gasses were in use, he could only guess they were fired using manna. No way he would be able to reverse engineer that, if the interface even let him. Perhaps they could build equipment like that if they unlocked the intricate design or siege weapons tech.
The roaches and spider were soon dealt with, but more attackers were already flowing their way. They would lose a lot more units, but the defenders would be overrun soon, all in a matter of about 20 minutes. Not too bad, enchanted weapons and fantically charged units made for a quick battle.
Once the fight was over, Mark ordered for the units to ensure that all surviving enemies were dealt with. It was quite easy for the creepy crawlies to locate and finish the job. Mark sent the goblins to scavenge the enemy buildings or gear that could be of use, especially the enchanted arrows. If they could steal inscription pamphlets, it would be even better than the arrows themselves. He had the frogmen deal with collecting and treating their wounded. The goblins did not care much for one another so the frogmen were the right choice for the job.
This book's true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience.
There was no reason to hurry. Mark would rather get it all now, than chance what would occur once the dungeon was conquered. It was possible that bodies and equipment would disappear quite quickly. After all the conquered dungeon sites he had seen had not shown a scrap of what had been there previously. Regardless of the dungeon assaults outcome, Mark would ensure that he got at least one prize out of this whole ordeal. The enchanted arrows could be sent back with the spiritualists who had no reason to go into the dungeon since they needed time to fuse with their spirits. Hopefully it was a mute point and their armies were victorious. Then they could all head back together.
Hundreds of goblins and frogmen had survived the battle. Well over a hundred of the creepy crawlies had survived the fight including 18 spiders. The ants had fared the worst, being reduced to a ten, a fifth of their original number. The ant's defenses were not as strong as the other two types. Perhaps they were not the best open field cavalry units. However, were extremely strong for their size. Perhaps if they were armored or were protected better… Regardless, Mark could not imagine his force would not be enough to take down Nehemiah’s dungeon.
Unfortunately, looting the enemy dungeon’s buildings turned out to be hopeless. Mark guessed that would easily break the game balance since contenders would not even have to finish off a dungeon to raid their research building if they were able to get finished research, but hope was not entirely lost. The goblins were able to find quite a few of the unfired firecracker arrows among the bodies. In total they took nearly two hours to secure things before the forces began organizing to enter the dungeon. It would actually be their first time to enter an opponent’s dungeon, so Mark was a little interested to see what other contenders were up to with their designs.
They had located several alternate entrances thanks to the harpies' help, but Mark had decided to forego assaulting them for now. They just did not have the elite units required to successfully adventure. Attacking a dungeon before he was sure they could potentially wipe it out would only allow the dungeon to get a spawner, and would be a waste of resources. However this assault would be different. Hundreds of their units would enter and force their way through.
The roaches would lead the way. Several dozen of the critters swept into the ethereal door and out the other side. What greeted them was a hail of arrows. The first floor defenders were making their stand in the very first room. They stood on top of a cliff hundred feet in the air, hundreds of feet away. One stone ramp led diagonally from the bottom left all the way up to the top on the right. The ramp was the only surface of the wall that was not sheer face. It was the only path up, unless they could fly. The roaches instantly honed in on the ramps entrance, since at best they could get a little over ten feet in the air with the little glide thing they did.
Only one roach fell during the volleys of arrows before they made it to the ramp. The rest started up. The archers had changed tactics. Soon heavy stones were hurtling down to crash on the ramp below. Plenty of the roaches were hit. Several were either killed or seriously disabled. However the majority of the rocks only caused glancing blows, which the roaches shrugged off as they continued forward. Mark even saw one take a roach's leg clean off, but the roach hardly missed a step.
Amelia gasped when she saw them preparing their next move. A group of kobolds were rolling a large boulder up to the top of the ramp. Mark glanced at the ramp. The edge was tapered to keep the boulder from easily tumbling over the side. It was a seemingly inescapable death trap. Far better than the rolling pin they used on their own first floor, and there were a dozen more large boulders for the defenders to keep it going. In theory it would keep attackers from reaching the top until the defenders ran out of boulders, which Mark was sure the interface kept them from having too many.
However it was cockroaches they were going against. The rock started down, reaching the first roach in seconds. The roach squished into the corner between the round boulder and the straight cliff wall. The boulder passed right over the roach seemingly doing little to no damage. The roach was only hindered a couple moments before it continued on. Most of the roaches followed suit. Only a few were crushed or were knocked off the edge of the ramp as they tried to avoid.
The defenders were preparing to get a second boulder lined up, but they would never get the chance to send it down. The foremost roaches emerged from behind the cliff face and immediately engaged. The defenders were forced to abandon using their trap, and they drew their stone tomahawks to fight. The battle did not last too long. The floor had been built early in the game, so the defenders were not overly powerful.
“Never thought I’d be so happy to see cockroaches be so difficult to kill,” Amelia remarked.
“Yeah, they make great dungeon scouts. Difficult for traps or archers to kill. Too bad they are too weak to use as adventurers. Although we could probably send a couple waves of them to deal with the lower floors,” Mark said.
There was not much left of the first floor. Nehemiah had used most of the floor on the opening chamber. The second and third floors were far more drawn out. Lots of tunnels filled with traps. Luckily, the roaches were hardly affected by anything besides pitfalls and collapsing ceiling traps. Each of those traps might get one or two roaches, but the rest would just continue on. The defenders were kobold lords. The pinnacle unit for the kobold branch with a power rating of 1.5, but they fell quickly under a relentless wave of roach mandibles. Both floors fell in relatively quick succession.
The roach army continued on. There had been 92 upon entering the dungeon, but that number had been reduced by half over the first three floors. A pretty good trade for conquering three floors in Mark’s opinion, but the smooth sailing was over.
The roaches poured out into the final chamber of the fourth floor to be met with a wave of flames. The last room was styled to be like a castle gate siege. A chasm cut across the center of the room. One long draw bridge spanned the chasm leading through open gates. Above the gates were a dozen kobold mages and archers. Below the gates were the rest of the defenders, lizardmen totting large wooden shields and cudgels. They were not alone. Two groups of spawner creatures were just visible including 25 pygmy skeletons and a dozen orc regulars. It was the first spawner creatures they had seen. Nehemiah had apparently built four floors before being attacked for the first time.
Mark stopped the attack as soon as he could. The roaches would not fare well in a battle like this where the approach was limited and they would have to break past a solid wall of defenders without being able to flank them. It only took Mark a minute to restructure his forces before beginning the assault anew. Goblin and frogman infantry led the charge. Dozens were instantly incinerated or torn apart by the firework arrows, but there were instantly more to take their place as the goblin war drums beat from the room beyond.
The attackers poured across the bridge before slamming into a solid wall of lizardmen shields. Goblins soon clumped up and some on the outer edge lost their balance and went tumbling into the abyss. By their own strength they would never be able to get through the lizardmen, but that was not the point. They were just fodder to keep the enemy busy. The real attack came back from their side of the chasm.
The goblin archers and mages set themselves up. The kobold archers and mages zeroed in on them recognizing them as the true threat, but there were four ranged attackers for every one of them. Piercing arrows and magic bolts streaked out with the former duplicating in the air. Half went towards the kobolds on the wall who promptly ducked. The other half rained onto the tightly grouped lizardmen and spawned creatures on the draw bridge with devastating effect.
The orcs and lizardman along with some of the goblins were cut to pieces by the concentrated volley, many of the arrows pierced right through the wooden shields and into their defenders. A quick second volley finished the job. This time the goblins and frogmen infantry hit the deck to avoid being hit from behind. Almost all of the orcs had been killed and only about 10 lizardmen had made it through, but most were heavily wounded. The infantry sprang back up and slammed into the battered defenders quickly sweeping past the few survivors to the practically untouched pygmies that had been in the back as reserves. Not a single one had fallen to arrows, which made sense, since they were mostly bone.
It was definitely a reminder that their seemingly unstoppable double enchanted arrows would not be the answer in every situation. Mark would need to come up with measures against all types of enemies. The kobolds and pygmies fought on, wiping out the remainder of the goblin infantry since they were faster than the frogman and had been in the front of the attack. Nearly fifty frogmen had survived the battle.
It was not too much of a loss. They still had about four dozen archers and a half a dozen mages along with a good 70 of the different cavalry units. Unfortunately, the floor guardian room exit led to another floor and not to the core room. Mark and Amelia both started to feel antsy. They had hoped the fourth floor was the final hurdle. Regardless, it was doubtful that Nehemiah could have a sixth floor this early in the battle.
The fifth floor proved to be newly built. The roaches leading the way did not run into a single trap. However what met them at the end was a truly intimidating force. Around thirty defenders were arrayed to confront them. Only a small portion of the defenders looked native to the dungeon, five kobold mages and eight lizardmen. The rest looked to be a sponsorship reward and five skeletal knights likely from a spawner like the one they had on their own third floor..
There were two groups of six sponsorship units. One was a group of rock golems with a 3.7 power rating. The second group was group of red fiends with a power rating of 3.6. It was quite high for sponsorship rewards, even for what they had seen from Nicholas Holt who only had units up to the mid 3’s. It was like all of the defenders had their power ratings arbitrarily raised. The skeletal knights were the only ones seemingly unaffected with power ratings of 2.8.
Mark did not get much of a chance to size up the enemy forces. The enemy actually charged down the inclined slope. Likely they did not want the goblin archers to be able to set up. A hodgepodge of attackers rose up from the room’s entrance to meet the defenders, but they were swept away as the defenders quickly surrounded the tunnel entrance, leaving only a small breach into the room that was more like a kill zone.
The attackers got bunched up in the tunnel unable to allow more than a trickle of a few units at a time.. The defenders were leagues above any of the attackers, and they had the tunnel exit boxed in. it would be difficult for the far weaker attackers to be able to do anything. If this continued they would only be killed one by one as they exited.
Mark quickly shouted some orders through the link. Instead of pulling back their forces, Mark had the spider cavalry pass right overhead as the units before them ducked and tried not to get crushed underneath. The ants and what was left of the roaches filled in behind them. Mark watched as the last frogmen were ineffectually put down.
There was only a moment pause as the flow from the tunnel stopped. Then seconds later spiders began pouring through the opening. One immediately curled up on itself as it took several fire bolts to the face. The rest slammed into the semicircle of defenders, and despite the power rating disparity they opened some space. Roaches and ants immediately filled in the gaps between the bigger creatures. The few still with riders worked furiously to protect their mounts.
Mark watched the spider counter start ticking down quite quickly. In half a minute only half of the 18 spiders were left. By the time that minute finished, they had been reduced to three. Similarly there were very few roaches and fire ants left, but they had done their job, pulling all the enemies' attack and widening the space. The cavalry had created the space and the goblin archers and mages would do the rest.
Piercing arrows punched right through everything but the skeletal knights and the rock golems. The end of the battle consisted of the lone defenders trying to fight off a dozen enemies a piece. They lasted longer and killed more attackers than Mark had expected or liked, but they fell in the end. The last holdouts were the rock golems. Each took a barrage of concentrated arrow fire among dozens of hits from the other various units to bring down. They were highly survivable, but were too slow to be able to whittle down the attackers and make a difference.
Still At this point they hardly even had an army left, perhaps about 50 units in total, and most of them were archers or mages. If Nehemiah had a sixth floor, then the entire battle would likely end in failure, but what greeted their units was a dome like room with a shining blue sphere atop a pedestal. It was the core room.
A lone figure stood on the opposite side of the room. Mark would have thought he was Greek or Italian, if they were back on earth. Curly hair and tanned skin with a prominently bridged nose. Mark only saw him for a bit before his forces moved in and destroyed the dungeon core. Nehemiah did not move, watching resolutely until the core exploded into hundreds of pieces and his body collapsed to the floor.
Only a moment later their tactical screen flashed. The dungeon had disappeared along with everything belonging to the dungeon. It was all gone. The attackers had been deposited unceremoniously on the surface on top of the swath of mud that indicated where the dungeon had once existed. Only 4 mounds of coal were left. It was a good thing they had looted before entering the dungeon. Not even a body remained.
[Notice: Contender, Nehemiah Rourk, has been eliminated by another contender. Contender has been given a unique reward. Contenders remaining 19/35]