The reason why the giants and trolls waited for the lizardmen became immediately apparent. Giants had carried ladders and various other equipment dropping them off in piles, which the lizardmen immediately began picking through. Dozens emerged with cords and satchels filled with light blue shot put sized orbs. They were basically miniature versions of the dungeon cores, except they were sky blue instead of the royal blue of the cores. Two lizardmen each took one of the cord handles and moved away from each other, while a third grabbed an orb and moved to the center. They had giant slingshots. The earth version of them would be used to launch water balloons, but these would be used to launch the glowing blue orbs, that would do who knows what.
“Nasal fire now,” Mark ordered. Before it was beneficial to wait as more goblins trickled from the mine to set up a second line of defense, but Mark was not about to let them have the first shot.
A volley of arrows streaked into the air from the double pagoda archer tower. Smaller volleys joined from each of the smaller towers that stood just beyond the wall. Arrows duplicated in the air before screaming down. However, Mark watched with dismay as many landed short. Others clinked off the armor of the giant humanoids.
A couple of the weaker units were killed, but not a single giant fell from the volley. All of the arrow heads would have necrotic damage from having their tips being quenched in undead guardian eyecore, but that would not be the case for the duplicates. The volley had done very little.
The giants weathered through the cloud of arrows, not twitching in the slightest. However, as soon as the arrows had passed one of the cloud giants blew a horn, and all two hundred giant humanoids started forward. The lesser trolls and lizardmen, that numbered about 800, held back to allow the giants to crush all the defenses.
Seconds later, the lizardmen launched their first slingshot volley. Blue orbs streaked through the air. The hill was not overly steep, but the walls and towers were still at a higher elevation. Mark expected the orbs to fall well short, but could only watch in surprise as every single one covered the distance, with many going well above the walls. The weakest shots crashed into the wall. The orbs exploded and ice exploded across the wall in all directions and left about a 10 foot radius of ice accumulation on the wall.
Most of the orbs sailed harmlessly over the wall, failing to hit anything exploding harmlessly, creating ice patches in the midst of the defenses. Not surprising since it was mostly open ground. A few crashed against the double pagoda tower energy shield that flared in light. Seemingly the orbs disintegrated on impact, with the normally translucent shield fading quickly from view after each hit.
Still Mark grimmaced when one sunflower was struck right in the face. The impact froze the head and petals. The stem whipped back from the impact before righting itself, however it did not stand for more than the moment. The head of the sunflower lay broken into pieces on the earth. The unit nearly instantly. Quite a few others hit all around the goblin forming up below the tower.
Mark shifted his attention back to the field. Normally he was the type to play his trump card near the end of things cinching the victory. However, he would have to play it immediately to catch the really dangerous units of Gale’s army. Who knows, if things went well enough, Gale might even break off her attack, cutting her losses. The effectiveness of this move would determine whether they would stand a chance today. Failure would mean a sure defeat.
Hopefully, Ezekiel knew what he was doing. When Ezekiel had found out about the idea, he had wanted to be a part of it. A good thing since he had also improved it substantially since he had arranged for several hundred enchantments to all go off at the same time. The goblin army had just used their newest Earth shaper enchantments to build a makeshift wall, quite effectively. Now Mark was going to use the enchantment for something else entirely.
Unfortunately, this would be a one time move. He would never be able to play this card again. He would only be able to use this move at this location once, since it would be too much effort to clear away a literal mountain of rubble, so they would have to make it count. He smiled. Gale had no idea what she was marching into.
“Get ready Ezekiel…” Mark shouted. He watched as the advancing giants and trolls hit the inconspicuous points marked on the surface. “Do it! Do it…”
“Muhahahah,” Mark only heard maniacal laughter before it was abruptly cut off. For a split second he thought Ezekiel had screwed him since nothing happened. Then the whole hillside beneath the giants and trolls fell out from under them. Hundreds of earth shaper enchantments went off at once in the caverns and tunnels below. Each moved a small section of rock and earth. One enchantment by itself would not have done much, but hundreds going off all at once according to Ezekiel's design took away all structural support of the rock above allowing it to collapse in on itself.
Mark had spent a lot of time and effort calculating this one trap. Even utilizing the kobolds to expand caverns and tunnels over the course of several months. He hated to use it here, but their survival was on the line.The collapse occurred all around the wall, a full arc a mere two hundred feet from the outer wall. The amount of tonnage that collapsed had to be in the hundreds of millions, probably even billions. A fog like layer of dust and dirt covered the open field.
A good majority of Gale’s giants and trolls had been caught dead center in the giant trap. Their counters started streaking toward zero. However, Mark was dismayed to see that their were still a decent number of giant silhouettes standing amidst the dust haze. Some had already made it to the other side, even more had lagged behind. Both groups stood at the edge of the brand new v shaped divot in the land. The dust started to clear quite quickly revealing the tallest of the giants who were a mere 200 feet from the walls staring back dumbly at the space, where the rest of their brethren had stood just moments earlier.
Amelia was squealing in delight, clapping her hands. She had known about the trump card, but probably had not understood the exact degree of carnage the move could create. The giants and tier 3 trolls were the biggest threat, and most of them had just been extinguished all at once. However, his joy was not long lived. In the goblins eyes they likely thought they had this fight in the bag, but assuming Gale did not pull out, there was still a battle ahead.
“Nasal have the archers fire,” Mark shouted. The goblins had also stopped and started cheering at the sight, but there was still a battle to go one. A good dozen giants stood on the dungeon side of their new major landscaping endeavor. They might be staring dumbly back for now, but it would not last. A handful of hill trolls stood on the far side. Shorter than the giants, they had quickly fallen behind, saving them from being caught in the perilous trap.
The goblin force quickly reigned themselves in, although their fervor was still quite palpable. Several goblin drummers started hammering away as the archers loosed another volley. The giants and trolls continued to stare dumbly for a while longer. Perhaps Gale herself was struck dumbfounded from the blow to her forces, or perhaps she was just having difficulty getting through to the giants and trolls. The second volley also failed to release them from their stupor. However, the lizardmen were already back to firing their slingshots, once again sending deadly projectiles over the wall. Two more sunflowers and a score of goblins on top of one of the wall archer towers were killed instantly by the ice projectiles. The hundreds of others not shooting the deadly projectiles started marching forward to join the fight. The surface of their dungeon was still very much in contention.
Then Mark saw about a dozen large shapes pulling themselves from the rubble. It was near the far edge of the collapse, but some of the victims that had fallen with the earth had survived. Mark noted that every single one of them was either a cave or hill troll. Rather than crawl out to the far side though they started moving down toward the bottom of the divot. They were once again advancing. Perhaps seeing the trolls once again advancing motivated the giants on the near edge. They all turned around with fire in their eyes.
The collapse had killed every single ogre and hill giant in the army. Only one two headed ettin had managed to survive, and only 3 cave trolls. Two dozen hill trolls started climbing down from the far side. Twelve cloud giants and a half dozen cyclops standing on the wall side of the collapse turned and started lumbering forward.
Sunflower sunbursts all struck out as one. Mark had summoned an additional 50 in the last few days to cap out the unit at 125. Despite having had a few already fall in battle, there were still plenty to wreak havoc on the approaching army. It was the six cyclops standing at the forefront who took the blasts to the face and chest. The sunflowers might not have charged them to full power, but an average of several dozen half charged blasts to one giant was still not something that could be looked down upon. Four of the cyclops were dead before their bodies hit the ground. Another was seriously wounded, potentially beyond the point where he could fight in the battle, since his head had been charred to the bone and one of its arms had been flash fried to non-existence. Another cyclops stumbled forward despite having had its outer skin blasted off. It looked like the cyclops front was covered in open sores and its blood oozed down in goops. Several of the cloud giants all sported some burns from having been caught by a handful of the energy beams that had made it through, but not enough to be of concern for the tier 3 units.
Another quick blow to Gale’s forces, but it was also not repeatable. At least not for this attack. The sunflowers were not in direct sunlight in the morning, so it would take hours for them to get a usable amount charged back. They would be stuck to basic spells from here on.
The single advancing cyclops smashed the top of the wall with both fists. All of the goblins in the nearby archer tower just behind were already starting to vacate the area, but several died from the stone shrapnel sent spraying in all directions. The top layer of stone crumbled. The wall was fairly thick being a good 4 feet wide, but Mark had yet to give it a defensive enchantment, since the construction was not finished yet. The cyclops would be able to smash through eventually just by hammering away. How long it would take, Mark could only guess. However, it was possible a whole section might separate long before the cyclops had to bash it down layer by layer. They likely had minutes.
All of the cloud giant's hands glowed blue before blue balls of energy streaked out. Several harmlessly blasted against the main archer towers energy shield. Two of the smaller archer towers however fared far worse. The tops were just gone, along with the archers that had been on top of them. The spell resembled a blast of ice that exploded upon impact and froze over the remaining surfaces.
A half dozen of the cloud giants had focused their spells on the section of wall near the cyclops. The cyclops stopped his rampage for a second to observe the iced over section mere feet to his side. He immediately reoriented on the section. Huge chunks quickly started falling. Minutes had become maybe half of a minute.
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All of the while the goblin archers poured arrows at the giant humanoids. However, many failed to hit the cloud giants as energy shields intercepted the projectiles. Nasal had immediately shouted for the archers to switch to regular duplicating regular arrows. Since the duplicate arrow effects occurred at the zenith of the arrows arc, there was nothing magic for the energy shields to catch. However, the base arrows did not do much damage to the giants, even if they had been turned into pincushions. Even the original necrotic arrowheads would take a while to take effect.
However Mark watched the cloud wizards heal themselves as well as the second downed cyclops. A surprising turn since mages and healers were separate classes, but Gale had apparently found a way to sidestep the class archetypes. It was bad news for them since it was clear they would not fall quickly. The necrotic damage would battle against the healing effect, but healing would still occur until the necrosis was able to surpass the healing by an overwhelming amount.
The cyclops at the wall, however, fell backward although his job at tearing a section of the wall down was only half finished. He had become a favorite target of many of the archers since he was not protected by any such enchantment. Several of the cloud giants advanced to pick up where he had left off. They were obviously better spell casters, but they were still 18 foot tall giants, they set into the wall using other large pieces of rock that had already fallen to bash into the frozen section.
Cave and hill trolls started cresting the near edge of the divot and immediately started moving toward the quickly expanding hole in the wall. The cloud giants did not have to destroy the wall all the way to the base, enough rubble had formed on both sides to allow passage despite the footing being a bit precocious. Five of the thirteen cloud giants fell after a second storm of the sunflowers' magic missiles depleted their energy shield allowing high quality arrows to get through. Dozens of exceptional quality arrows duplicated and hit their targets, the high quality piercing enchantments allowed them to punch all the way through, leaving the cloud giants with dozens of holes throughout their bodies. Even they could not survive that. The ones that did immediately took cover behind the wall and started healing themselves.
By this point the one armed cyclops with half of its face still missing down to the skull was able to resume its charge. A quite frightening lead to the enemy forces entering the base’s interior. Right behind the cyclops would be several dozen of the larger trolls. The rest of the army would be only minutes behind depending on how much they were slowed down moving through the rubble. Mark doubted it would take them long.
The cyclops became a pin cushion well before it engaged the blood rose units that were awaiting it on the other side. However he managed to kill a blood roses by grabbing it and using its teeth to help rip it to pieces before finally collapsing on top of another killing it as well. Mark had blood roses from the edges already moving in. It was clear that most of the attackers would funnel through the one opening in the wall.
The two blood roses on either side of the dead cyclops started swelling as buds began to form. Apparently, it had counted them as having taken part in the kill despite them only having caused topical damage. Mark watched in interest. He still had not seen one of the units enter a so-called ‘blood frenzy,’ but they would likely see an example of it soon. The trolls however destroyed the chance for those two units because they were in the path of dozens of trolls who ripped their way through. It was seemingly quite easy for the trolls to rip the vines apart once they had them in their grasp. However the trolls started getting separated naturally as they moved away from the bottleneck toward their next target.
The cave and hill trolls would easily win a one on one with the bramble units, however once they were each surrounded by multiple bloodroses they had difficulty proceeding. Their club weapons were not very effective against the brambles, so many were using their bare hands to tear the vines apart. Plenty of close contact to allow the lotuses to start blooming pods from the absorbed blood. Damage to the bloodroses was minimized by the lotuses' blessed aura and spot heals. With the constant rain of arrows, progress started to stall.
The numbers were nearly equal on the front line after losses on both sides, but the defensive bloodroses were now clearly holding the advantage. One by one the blood roses started to swell in size and apparently strength. Mark could tell that they would now each be able to contend one on one with the giant trolls, and the longer the trolls remained entangled the further the buds across the blood rose bloomed. However, the recovered cloud giants started firing spells from cover from behind the walls, and the rest of the army was fast coming to their aid.
Two of the cloud giants swept their arms horizontally from over the wall, sending blue mist out in a wide arc. Two swaths of blood roses were frozen stiff. The targeted bloodroses survived the spell, but the now brittle vines forming their body were easily crushed by the giant trolls. The lowland and regular trolls started pouring into the interior over the rubble. The blood rose line would not hold for long. However, enemies were falling from arrows and magic attacks at a decent rate.
A minute later the army was through. The bulk started advancing forward toward the double pagoda archer tower. About 800 goblin miners had picked up their weapons and were waiting for them in front of the base. Earth shape enchantments had raised a v shaped wall in front of the towers base. Former researchers and craftsmen mages stood behind them ready to do their part. Dungeon research, enchanting, crafting would all take a hit after this, but first they had to survive. Before them was still a force that could sweep right through all nine dungeon levels.
A smaller portion of the force swept to both sides to clear out the sunflowers. The sunflowers could fight in melee to some small extent with the tendril leaves that surrounded their stem, but it was far from sufficient to fight off units at even this caliber. Their unguarded bases would fall quite easily to the attackers. They could only inflict as much of a toll on their enemies as they could before they were cut down.
Mark's attention was on the main army. All of the trolls and lizardmen wore piece male plated armor. Likely, each unit had a half dozen enchantments further supplementing their strength. Many carried shields. They were far from fodder, if it was not for the numerous powerful enchantments slamming against their ranks, it would likely be difficult to bring them down in sufficient numbers to make a difference. The archer tower would whittle them down, but they would need the time to continue to pour arrows down on them. The converted miners and auxiliary goblins would have to hold them off for as long as possible.
Cockroaches, spiders, whatever else Mark had on hand swept in from the side into the flank. Mark watched with interest as the evolved cock roaches fought, although they did not make it far since their power rating was only 2.0. The evolved spiders on the other hand each killed a few units before they went down. They were far more powerful, but open area combat was not their specialty.
Fifteen minutes later, the battle for the surface was over. The goblin miners were not able to put up much of a fight. However delaying the army allowed the mages behind them and the archers above to make a devastating toll on the attacking army. However, within minutes the lizardmen and trolls had finished off the goblins below. The archers in the tower on the other hand proved far more difficult.
Bags of black powder with lit fuses were dropped when too many lizardmen and trolls had congregated below the tower. The first utilization of black powder killed several dozen all at once. More were thrown out at clumps of enemies with less effect. Then the cloud giants made their move. A few black powder bags made a direct hit on the giants, the explosion destroyed the hide robes the giant wore and singed the skin, but not much else.
Several cloud giants physically climbed the tower. They then used their arms to sweep across the deck, knocking the majority off the tower and crushing others. One cloud giant took a powerful arrow into the eye and went down, but it was the last of the enemy casualties. In the end Gale was left with a couple hundred of the lesser trolls and lizardmen and 3 cloud giants. Not a bad result, considering the formidable army that had marched ready to challenge their dungeon not more than 30 minutes ago. Only 3 of the more than hundred tier 3’s had survived, and the tier 2’s had been cut in half.
Gale elected to directly enter the dungeon with the 252 that remained. She only left the hatchling lizardmen to collect the remainder of their ice orbs and other gear. They retreated with what Gale had deemed valuable enough to take back to her dungeon. Her army entered the dungeon only minutes behind Leonard’s 2nd adventuring party. The first adventuring party had cleared the first 3 floors before being quickly destroyed on the 4th. It would be Leonard’s last adventuring party since he could not send additional parties until the dungeon was not being challenged by Gale’s army. However the 2nd party could still aid in clearing what they could.
It took a half hour, but once again the battle resumed. The orcs had outpaced Gale’s army and finished clearing out the 4th floor when Gale’s forces made it there and virtually absorbed them in their ranks. Leonard had probably decided to take advantage of the opportunity to observe Gale’s forces.
The 5th floor was the first plant floor. The sunburst abilities claimed more than equal to their number in dead enemies. The sunflower’s spells and blood roses claimed a few more, but the floor fell quicker than Mark would have liked.
The 6th beast floor did remarkably better knocking down the total enemies to less than 200. One of the arachne mages even managed to bring one of the 3 remaining cloud giants down. The cloud giants were worth their weight in gold as far as Mark was concerned. They were lucky that only 3 had made it down into the dungeon. The ones that had, could devastated with powerful attacks. The only detriment was their size. They were relegated to a hunched over shuffle in the halls.
The 7th floor stood its ground exceedingly well. The 50 roughwood myconids and treants held the orcs and Gale’s forces at bay while the bugbear mages blasted them, and the spiritualists spirits wreaked havoc. Putting the spiritualists down here had not been a bad move the cloud giants and a few remaining mages were able to kill the spirits easily enough, but they often could only pick out one while they were fighting amidst their own troops. In the end two thirds of the spirits had to be dissolved through a large number of physical attacks.
Only 54 units made it off the floor. However, their number still included both cloud giants as well as mostly tier 2 lizardmen or trolls. Of course a pair of orcs had also survived giving Leonard a free chance to see their 8th floor. Mark was satisfied that this group would not be able to make it through the dungeon. The danger would be if Leonard sent additional adventuring parties through to finish the job. Although even that would be unlikely to bring success, since units were respawning. He would have to have stronger adventuring parties than what he had shown so far.
This would be the first time the 8th floor had been challenged. The maelstrom units attacked in ones or twos as they moved uphill. Only one regular troll fell from their effort, but they were also making them expend stamina and manna. Which at this point was starting to show. Their movements were significantly slower.
The 4 sunflower sun bursts once again claimed a good 6 or 7 units as they swept their energy beams across the advancing force. The cloud giants stopped to heal several who were badly injured as the rest charged forward. Gnarled wood goblins, wooden spore spiders, and treants from the spawner stepped forward to stall them. All of the melee fighters had power ratings of around 5.0, since even the 5 treants they had gotten from a spawner were similarly boosted by the lotus’s malevolent aura. The sunflowers started raining down spells. The spore spiders released spores that started causing enemy trolls and lizardmen to cough.
The battle became slightly more even when the cloud giants along with a handful of healed units joined back in, but the defenders carried out against the worn down forces. However only a couple of 8th floor units had survived. Few enough that Leonard did indeed send a 3rd adventuring party. However, it was an exact copy of the first two. By the time they made it back to the 8th floor, eight of them were dead from maelstrom or spawner units. A handful of others were fairly wounded.
It did give Leonard a look at their ninth floor, since he was easily able to overcome what remained of the 8th, but his party was annihilated quite quickly on the 9th floor. The giant centipedes had immediately set upon them as soon as they entered to diminish the opportunity. Leonard did not send another adventuring party. The higher level floors would start respawning their defenders making it difficult for an adventuring party at that level to make it through.