Along the river the ratfolk cohort advanced. I watched helplessly as their long bills carved into the dusky cocoon of the forming Giant Cave Spider; spilling a mana rich creamy soup. The rats jumped back from it, careful to avoid getting it on themselves. It fizzed and hissed where it touched the stone, the raw stuff of magical evolution doing strange things to microbes and bacteria in the soil. I saw a mushroom grow, its stalk branching to eight chitinous branches covered in fine hairs before it collapsed under its own weight and died. Eyes and hairs erupted, tiny and barely noticed by the warrior rodents. They raised their weapons again, hauling the half formed creature to the ground and butchering it. It was too ill formed to resist but not to scream.
The grisly deed done, they moved on. It was a systematic process, a third of the phalanx advancing past the evolving creature and drawing up. The rats in the center butchered my creation before the unit reformed and moved on. Their witch remained at the back, smugness radiating from him like heat from a flame. My remaining spiders were attempting to flee but the wounded couldn't keep pace. Ratmen marksmen shot them down with strange pikes. I had taken them for spears at first, a long wooden stave inlaid with metal wires and tubing. They held the staffs to their shoulder, a chunk of mana rich blue crystal nestled against their chin. When they pulled a long lever on the bottom, the crystal touched a copper plate, forming a connection. It streamed through the wires and tubing to a iron aperture, erupting as a crackling lance that blew chitin apart and scorched flesh.
The fiend had constructed a simple, reproducible mechanism that allowed his henchmen to use magic. No more complicated to use than pointing at a target and pulling the clicker. The jealousy I felt in that moment was an ugly thing, a twisted resentful anger. The sheer unfairness of it. I had been breached twice, the first by an invisible magic eating nightmare and second by a well disciplined force led by a mage that had already defeated one of my kin; using tactics specifically tailored to fight dungeons and on top of it all their most mundane henchmen could blast apart my minions with arcane lightning. I tried to use my own magic against them to no avail, the warp and weft of the bound core twisting my mana out of focus before my workings could complete.
I tried every method I could think of, I attempted to recreate the ram I had thrown back the Crawler with but I could not chew through the ceiling before the rats passed by. I tried to grow stalactites horizontally from the wall to knock them into the ravine but my mana simply turned to powder and blew away, failing to bind. I tried to litter their way with traps, oil, debris but they either stopped to burn away the oil or simply contemptiously brushed aside the rubble with their tails and shields. I was running out of space and mana with which to attempt anything. My mana was low, steadily depleting as I maintained the remaining evolutions. I still had 212.4 to use but I was losing 7.8 a second with no indication for how much longer the evolutions would take.
Kelter and his companions stood nervously fingering hilts at the top of the well, in a round chamber less than a dozen metres away from the first soldiers. Argent -
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Metal rang, the Granite Mob's spears lacked the versatility of the ratfolk's bills but in the tight confines it was almost all either side could to simply to jab and thrust. More lightly armoured and with narrow shields, my goblins could fight reasonably well side by side. The rats were hindered by their posture and size of their armament in the cramped confines, unable to present as small a target. That mass was a double edged sword - they were less manoeuvrable but their shields covered them almost entirely and there was ten of the vermin. The five goblins did their best but the stone was too firm to dig their sarouters into, the combined strength of the ratmen pushing them back, step by grinding step. They fell back neatly, holding till the last second when one would shout and all five took a sliding step behind them. The Attunement of Collaboration seemed to pulse within me at the sight, allowing my warriors to avoid missteps and accidents that would collapse their tiny phalanx. Scree and shrapnel made the ground treacherous, rats falling to their knees more than once that I saw but my warriors were unable to capitalise on their clumsiness. Behind their enormous shields the single points of the dwarven spears couldn't curve or swipe to find flesh, their second ranks lacked the reach to truly support in the push and pull.
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Fortunately here my mana found more purpose. It was slow, not as precise as I was used to. The presence of invaders was nothing compared to the tumult of my bound kin but hostile sapients had a magic of their own, a disturbance that saw my will slide from around them like oil from water. There was an interface that was hard to breach. Trying to bring down the tunnel on their heads would take time and exertion I could ill afford. Adapting my minions weapons however was well within my purview. From the base of the back rank's spears I formed steel directly between the molecules already in place. Further from the enemy my will was more concrete, it pushed the weapon forwards. It alarmed them at first, their weapon moving in their hands but the Attunement of Collaboration beat within us all and they loosened their grips to allow the lengthening shaft to reach forward. Soon their spears had lengthened near to pikes, requiring them to rest the heavy weapon atop their shields for balance. I cut twin notches into the rim, either side of the raised merlon. With that fulcrum they could adjust the angle of their thrust and apply leverage - twin spearpoints hit the same corner of the lead rat's shield, high and right away from his body. It was a small opening but enough, the shorter spear of the vanguard darting across his unarmoured wrist in a crimson streak. Red blood spurted bright and clear, seeming to chase the retreating weapon.
One down.
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"Oh mighty Dungeon," Kelter hissed; "Gonna need a rope or something pretty soon."
That had been the plan. I would create a rope or ladder for Kelter and his escort to climb down if they'd been forced back this way. The well shaft was wet, slick with trickling water, conjured algae and laced with sharp edges, false holds and spider holes. Literally, holes full of cave spiders - their poison was weak but it caused enough pain it would be a rare victim that wouldn't recoil instinctively. Once down, I could simply consume the rope once more.
But the ratman that held my kin rent my work asunder by its simple presence. I could not manifest anything so close to it. I would have to find another solution. For that I needed time. Time I lacked. The cohort held position while they slaughtered one of the Vermillion Scincid Spiders in its metamorphosis but would soon resume their advance.
"Impossible." I admitted, my words quiet and distorted in the tumult of mana. "They have another core bound in the wizard's staff. I need time."
"Time..." He muttered glancing at his allies, knives tightly clenched. "Oookay. We can do time."
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Argent's fingernails crept up her nailbeds, a disturbing sensation. It was the last of her wounds to heal, her arm restored, her cuts knitted together, her eyes deperforated. She stood, grinning lopsidedly. Hair hung in thin strands down her scalp, pain and exhaustion hung her posture. Limping up the tunnel, her steps began to crunch stone beneath her soles. A thin paste of her own blood mixed with the dust, her feet following the trail back to where she had been rescued. She stumbled further, resting a hand on the back of the rearmost goblin. Three rats had fallen but they had adapted, fighting more defensively but still pushing forward.
Argent breathed in deeply, steadying herself and raising her recently restored hand with her fingers poised like a claw.
Her nails sunk into stone with a vicious snarl. "Again."
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Kelter pulled his nose to the side, flat against his cheek and peeked out the archway.
Hoisted the hose, held high above his head, ready to pounce. From below I ate at the rock, attempting to collapse the well into a slope they could scramble down. "Eh, close enough." He muttered, painting a huge grin across his face that failed to reach the eyes and turning into the opening.
The hose came down, glass links jangling. There was a frozen moment of time while the ratfolk processed what they were seeing. Kelter shrugged, almost apologetic. "This is going to be gross." He shouted, turning his head and pulling the lever.