The second ogre charged forwards, which I felt was unfair; the shock-wave attack from the first had completely flattened the room, so how come the other ogre had been completely unaffected? Did they have a no-friendly-fire cheat? Whether anyone in the room still had intact hearing or not, I had no idea, but there were no signs of coordination this time as those of us still standing prepared to defend.

Not that there was much we could do. Those who were still conscious after the attack were mostly front-line fighters, who had naturally high endurance. Our mage support had been wiped out, and even archers were in short supply.

I fired a bolt of lightning at his face, not even sure I wanted to risk injuring him if it would result in another roar, but knowing that if he got into melee range, we wouldn't survive. As my glove drained, I started picking up whatever sharp weapons I could find that had been dropped by the stunned delvers. With [Far Reach], I shoved them into the second ogre's eyes, unable to pierce his skin even with [Armour Break]. As expected, he reeled backwards and opened his mouth.

The other standing delvers covered their ears. None of them were glaring at me, or otherwise complaining that I'd induced another roar attack, given the alternative. Not that I intended to let him finish; I took up a long sword, layered on [Armour Break], [Mighty Swing], [Swift Strike] and even [Backstab] in case the ogre's eye damage made this count as a surprise attack, and then used my line of sight into his open mouth to activate [Far Reach] and swing with all my strength.

The ogre roared, not as an attack, but in pain, blood pouring from his mouth. I took the opportunity to finish blinding the first ogre, but what now? Despite being blinded, and me having interrupted one attack, I doubted I'd done much damage to their health pools. Frankly, our side had taken far more damage than theirs, on top of which I expected a larger batch of ogres to climb out of the hole any moment now. Our best bet would be to hold them off until reinforcements arrived, but beyond the eyes and insides of the mouths, I failed to see any other soft targets.

One ogre swept his arm blindly across the floor, the clumsy attack being easy to dodge. But if he took a few more steps forward, such an attack would hit the unconscious delvers sprawled against the wall. We couldn't keep retreating. He swung his other arm, and I used [Far Reach] to thrust my borrowed sword towards his palm, hoping that even if my strength was insufficient to penetrate his skin, his own strength would suffice. It worked, and the sword ran right through, the tip emerging from the other side of his hand. Again, I doubted it would do much health damage, but it certainly got his attention, the ogre making a deep, guttural screech and falling back a few paces.

The other delvers were not idle, taking advantage of the ogres' blindness to encircle them, and making opportunistic attacks. Unlike me, the rank two [Warriors] with their stronger artes could actually penetrate their skin, but even they weren't doing much damage. I saw an [Earth Mage] stagger back to his feet, avoid the ogres, and head to the pit where he was doing his best to collapse it, or at least dislodge anything climbing up. [Mana Perception] picked up a couple of stealthed individuals skittering around one ogre's feet, seemingly carrying something. It was non-magical, so was hard to make out, and I wasn't sure why they were stealthed in the first place given the ogre's blindness. Was it rope?

They were trying to trip it! Bringing its head down to ground level would be a great opportunity for everyone, but if I got the timing right, I could do more. I hurriedly found myself another long sword, whose owner was otherwise indisposed, and waited as they tangled up one leg. The ogre noticed, but the scouts popped out of [Stealth] and a couple of fighters immediately joined them in tugging at the rope. I used [Far Reach] to launch a blow at the ogre's other leg, pushing it in the opposite direction, as well as hitting the two fighters with [Strength]. It was enough, and the ogre started to topple. I again layered my artes, then used [Far Reach] to thrust the sword upwards towards the ogre's falling throat. His own weight did what my strength could not, stabbing the blade through his neck.

One of the fighters I'd buffed jumped onto the fallen ogre's back and started hacking away at the back of its neck. The ogre tried to push itself upright, relatively unperturbed by its pierced throat, but as soon as it put weight on the hand that I'd stabbed, the arm gave way beneath it. The delay was enough, and the buffed fighter was able to sever the ogre's spine. [Appraisal] confirmed its death.

ding

There would be time for that later. For now, we still had one ogre to go. An ogre that was obviously preparing to roar, and this time I wasn't holding any swords. I resorted to lightning instead, directing a bolt right into the open mouth. That caused him to shut it pretty quickly, but again did not deal any obvious damage.

I saw the scouts retrieving their rope, presumably hoping to achieve a repeat performance, but the [Earth Mage] was stumbling in his efforts, apparently out of mana, which reminded me I still had a bunch of mana potions from my effort at clearing the Dawnhold dungeon. I used [Far Step] to jump to him, handing him a couple of vials, hoping to goodness that the things didn't have expiry dates, before draining my mana pool on [Strength] and [Dexterity] casts and then drinking one myself. I couldn't get everyone, but it was enough to make a difference. Thankfully, the potion did indeed work.

The small cuts the fighters were making got a little bigger. The scouts' efforts with the thick rope got faster. Someone managed to get the back of the ogre's ankle, severing the tendon. He didn't fall, but did lose mobility. He was making wide, blind swings with his arms, and I saw several delvers take hits, unable to dodge in time. The untargeted attacks were also stopping the scouts from getting close enough. I ripped a sword out of the first corpse, and repeated my hand stab manoeuvre, launching another bolt of lightning into his mouth when he tried to roar in response.

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That gave the scouts the opening they needed. The second ogre fell and was dispatched in the same way as the first.

ding

I glanced around the room. There were now only fourteen delvers still standing. A couple who had been struck directly by an ogre were obviously dead, limbs and necks alike bent in unnatural directions. Many more looked like they'd shortly be joining them if they didn't get immediate attention. With our healers knocked out by the first attack, I pulled a dozen healing potions from my stockpile, launching a lightning bolt into the air to attract the attention of the deafened crowd, pointing at the potions and the injured, before leaving most of them on the ground and running to the first of the seriously wounded survivors with the few I'd kept.

The others got the message, grabbing potions from those I'd left on the ground, or using their own supplies, as we ran around saving what lives we could. The poor [Earth Mage] was left to defend the pit on his own, but seemed able to handle it for as long as his mana lasted.

We reached a brief respite, with everyone either dead or stable. A few others had joined the defence of the pit, and from their faces things seemed to be going well. Even if they couldn't kill the climbing ogres, they were able to prevent them reaching the top. We hadn't lost a great number of people, even including those who had fallen when the pit had first opened. Maybe ten. But even one was too many... This shouldn't have happened at all!

"Erryn!" I shouted out loud, my own voice audible but sounding strange and distorted to my ruptured ears. "What the hell are you doing?! Stop!"

I felt a subtle prickling in my head, a feeling I recognised as Erryn's attention. She heard me?! So she was watching this...

"Why...? What's wrong...?"

What's wrong? But rather than incredulity at the question, I was more concerned by the voice. It was slow, and almost sing-song, and the usual background rustling was muted and distorted. She sounded... asleep? Certainly not fully conscious. "Wake up!" I shouted. "Your monsters are attacking your children!"

Some of the other delvers who'd taken healing potions were looking at me strangely, presumably having recovered their hearing and watching me shouting at no-one, but right now I didn't care.

"I... I... Why am I...?"

This was bad... Erryn seemed completely out of it. Action back over at the pit caught my attention, and it seemed that the [Earth Mage] had run out of mana again. I was out of mana potions, and the others simply didn't seem to be having as much success at dislodging the climbing ogres as he had. I rushed over myself, unsure if I could do anything but willing to give it a go. I needn't have bothered; Dru'hazzak rushed back into the room, glanced around, and then jumped in. There were... vibrations, that briefly left me glad I couldn't hear what was happening, and then nothing. Less than a minute later, he jumped back out, a delver's corpse held in each of his four hands.

Around the room, I saw people standing around like zombies, sitting on the ground or just outright falling over as the tension left them. Personally, I felt that was a little premature. I could still hear nothing, but given Erryn's condition, I saw no reason to believe this invasion was over. Or worse, why it wouldn't spread to other dungeons. If this happened world-wide... A significant portion of the world's fourth rank delvers were here. There's no way anywhere else could mount an effective defence.

"I... Help... Help me..."

ding

And now it was time to check my messages.

Skill [Backstab] advanced to level 2

Skill [Armour Break] advanced to level 2

Skill [Armour Break] advanced to level 3

Skill [Mighty Swing] advanced to level 2

Skill [Mighty Swing] advanced to level 3

Skill [Swift Strike] advanced to level 3

Skill [Enlarged Health Pool] advanced to level 2

Skill [Stamina Finesse] advanced to level 2

Skill [Enhanced Mana Recovery] advanced to level 14

Class [Apprentice Fighter] advanced to level 2

Class [Apprentice Fighter] advanced to level 3

Skill [Backstab] advanced to level 3

Skill [Armour Break] advanced to level 4

Skill [Armour Break] advanced to level 5

Skill [Mighty Swing] advanced to level 4

Skill [Accelerated Healing] advanced to level 2

Skill [Stamina Finesse] advanced to level 3

Skill [Extended Mana Pool] advanced to level 11

Skill [Enhanced Stamina Recovery] advanced to level 11

Skill [Extended Stamina Pool] advanced to level 10

Class [Apprentice Fighter] advanced to level 4

New quest added: Destroy the Emerald Caverns' Dungeon Core. Time limit: .

Quest: Destroy the Emerald Caverns' Dungeon Core

Completion requirements:

Time remaining:

Reward for completion:

Penalty for failure:

That was a lot of skill levels, but that quest... This dungeon was fifty floors deep! It took the full teamwork of twenty delvers of my strength to defeat a pair of ogres, and even then there were casualties! It was impossible; I couldn't... At least it implied that this event wasn't being repeated worldwide. A mercy, but given my current position, only a small one...

I noticed that the other delvers were looking around in confusion. Some were staring at nothing, obviously reading System prompts. Wait, did everyone just get that quest? How did that work when no-one else was allowed to know about the existence of dungeon cores? Others were pointing at me, and Dru'hazzak was suddenly standing right in front of my face, having moved so quickly I couldn't even follow him. His mouth was opening and closing, so I assume he was trying to say something.

"I'm still deaf," I said, interrupting him. He scowled and handed me a potion, which I immediately drank.

"Why are you here if you didn't have potions?" He asked. "No, forget that. No doubt you used them on the more seriously injured. Thankfully, Tilyana had a spatially expanded bag full of them, for some reason. Anyway, the others say you were shouting at someone immediately before the quest popped up. Would I be correct to assume that was the earth mother?"

Full marks for insightfulness, but referring to ourselves as 'your children' was probably a giveaway. "Yes," I answered. "From the sound of it, something has gone wrong with the dungeon core that controls this dungeon. The earth mother wants us to destroy it. If it's anything like Dawnhold, it's accessible from the final boss chamber."

I watched his face for any sign of the memory-editing-in-progress expression, but none came. "Right, follow me," he said, his jaw set in determination. "We need to put a team together."