Over the next few hours, the three of us discussed previous attacks. The first night the dungeon attacked with giant toads that snatched pixies out of the sky with their tongues. The night after that, carnivorous flying squirrels rained down from the treetops while the toads attacked from below. Finally, last night added earth-touched monkeys. These monsters almost defeated the pixies with their near-impenetrable skin and keen stone throwing abilities. For a few seconds at a time, a monkey could even cover their skin in rock armor for even more protection. Fortunately, there’d been only four earth monkeys. However, by now the pixie forces largely lay in sickbeds, injured, or exhausted. If not for my alliance, they would have fled, but to where? Finding a patch of forest safe from another dungeon or powerful monsters was rare.
Tonight, some greater creature would challenge us along with the previous waves. Currently, we planned to use my ants and ubees in swarm tactics. My ants should easily overwhelm the toads, while my ubees took on squirrels. This left the earth monkeys and whatever new threat appeared. Defeating the earth monkeys would require immobilization and focusing weak spots such as the eyes and mouth. That left the pixies and Avir’s ariel squad to handle the new threat.
In order to immobilize the monkeys, I needed to prep the battlefield. First, I collected strong sap from the inside the trees and coated as many trunks and vines as I could. Second, I built thirty horrible, disturbing constructs. Spiders. I forced myself to tweak their molds to make them larger and produce stronger webs. After setting them to their task, I quickly shifted my focus back to Finn. Away from creepy eight legged creatures.
I noticed Finn speaking to a squad of perhaps a hundred pixies. Many of them wore bloody bandages and struggled to keep flying. Their movements sluggish and lethargic. The majority wore standard brown bark vests, armguards, and leg guards with a thorn sword at their side. Only the dozen who helped me defeat the mongager wore black dyed armor and blade. They were the elite soldiers, capable of using magic. Looking at the equipment, I wasn’t impressed. Once I had the time, I planned on crafting improvements. But now, the sun crept below the horizon.
“Finn, how long until the attack?”
He squinted at the disappearing light. “Not long, the enemy will approach shortly after dark. How much energy do you have left?”
“Only enough to make the traps you suggested, not any more constructs after that,” I apologetically reported. Unfortunately, the spiders required more energy than I’d expected.
“Understood. Then make the spike traps in a line as far as you can with one opening to bottleneck them.”
“Will do.”
I turned quickly to my task. Gathered mounds of dirt and began moving them, a bit at a time, until I'd cleared a four-click trench around the perimeter. The hardest deposits were compacted into stone spikes at the base of it. Encouraging the roots of a nearby tree to conceal the opening, I waited until they'd done their job before turning them brittle. A false floor of leaves finished the job.
Returning to Finn, I informed him of my progress. “I am as ready as I can be. During the battle, I will try to coordinate my constructs, but I cannot take direct action.”
“Understood.”
With all the preparations complete, we waited in silence for a few spins. The sun dipped below the horizon and a faint din could be heard in the distance. Not making a sound, two pixie scouts appeared in our sight. Dirt clung to their clothes and sheen of sweat covered them. Immediately they rushed to give a report to Commander Jarh.
“Sir, one scout down. Same enemy forces as before with the addition of new creatures. Unfortunately, we were unable to see more than a silhouette of the new monsters before they spotted us and forced us to flee.” His task complete, he collapsed, panting, on a tree branch to recover for the battle.
Jarh did not pause, immediately giving orders. “Attention soldiers. Today we fight again for our home, our loved ones, and our lives! Riva has already bolstered our defenses tremendously. With tonight’s victory, we do more than survive. Tonight...tonight we triumph!”
Ending his speech with a roar, the soldiers responded in turn, lifting their swords. Almost in answer, we heard a rumble of different sounds just ahead. Croaks, shrieks, and grumbling warbles.
First, we saw the ground itself appear to jump up and down. A swarm of toads. Shortly behind them, the leaves in the trees rustled and I glimpsed the giant squirrels leaping from tree to tree. So far no monkeys or other monsters appeared though.
We all waited for their charge. Almost…“Eva, now!” I ordered.
As the first toads fell into my spike traps, Eva and the other ubees swooped down from the sky behind them. The toads tried to stop, leaving them bunched together and unable to move. Some tried to leap past the trap and failed. The rest fought the swarm around them. But with hundreds of ubees, they stood no chance. This was a battle of attrition they could not win.
Meanwhile, the squirrels discovered my ants in the trees. Already the furry creatures turned into a mass of biting ants. The screams they released almost made me feel bad for them.
The monkeys and some new monsters broke through the brush. They was a hunched humanoid frog monster with a giant mouth of sharp teeth, bulging eyes, and fleshy spikes coming out of their backs. The odd blue and yellow creatures stood a click tall and each held a net and spear. Fortunately, only two dozen monkeys and six of these creatures appeared.
“Riva, those are colrums! Our swords won’t be able to do any damage to their thick skin. They’re vicious warriors and their signature battle cry strikes fear into even the most elite adventurers!” Finn his voice shaking in worry.
“Can your mages blow them up like you did the mongagers?”
“We can manage two spells, but they need to be immobilized. The spell is too easy to dodge otherwise.”
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Jarh piped in at this point, “Riva, use your ubees to distract the colrums. Buy time for us pixies and Avir’s squad of hawks to defeat the monkeys before dealing with the colrums.”
I diverted Eva’s swarm as suggested. The colrums swung their spears ineffectively but they received no damage either. Unfortunately, this alleviated the pressure from the toads, allowing them to recover. The monkeys needed to be dealt with swiftly.
Pixies charged directly at the monkeys. Stones pelted a few out of the sky, but they did not stop their assault. The first pixies reached their targets, aiming for eyes, when the hawk squad swooped from above. Avir took point, the rest following him in a ‘V’. Thanks to the pixie’s diversion, powerful talons raked tender flesh.
On his own, Avir managed to shred one throat, arterial spray coating his feathers. The other hawks followed with varying degrees of success. As the surprise wore off, the earth monkeys’ swiftly retaliated. Two hawk constructs died, another fell to the ground, wing bones poking out.
A full on brawl broke out. Strategy broke down. Toads killed ubees who still desperately blinded the colrums. Ants overran squirrels. Spiders wrapped the few monsters unfortunate to stumble into a web. Pixies and hawks chaotically fought the monkeys. Unfortunately, birds of prey thrive as ambush predators, not drawn out battle.
Two shrill shrieks caught my attention. A monkey had hit two pixies with one stone and now scrambled over to where they lay. He raised his fists to crush the immobilized pixies. A blur of feathers struck his face, knocking the monkey back. Immediately the monkey activated his stone skin ability. That did not stop Avir. He bit the monkey’s nose and scratched at the throat. But his talons barely scratched the magically hardened skin.
To my horror, the monkey reached up and grabbed Avir around the neck. Beak broke through nose. But the bloody monkey did not stop. In a flash, his incisors bit down and severed Avir’s head.
“Avir, no!” I sobbed.
Seconds too late, two hawks rushed the monkey who killed my friend. The battle seemed far away, I couldn’t hear a thing as I reeled. An eternity later, but simultaneously no time at all, the monkey ran out energy for stoneskin. With normal flesh again, he died easily.
The surge of energy shocked me out of my stupor. Later, I will mourn. For now I felt painfully full. Plenty of creatures still lived, I needed to expel this energy before it killed me.
“Finn, I must leave for a while. If I don’t, I am going to break.”
Immediately I gave the orders to Eva, then raced away, not taking the time to listen to what Finn shouted. As fast as I could, I flew to the opposite edge of my domain. I can’t think about Avir right now, or who else might be dying this second. I must focus. Here, the auras of the monsters did not reach and I could manipulate my energy again. Another, much larger surge, hit me then.
Grabbing the three mongager corpses I stashed here earlier, I began to envision the monster I wanted to create. Immediately I imagined a massive mongager with powerful shoulders and long, deadly claws. The original mongagers dodged amazingly, but I felt they needed to deal more damage. With my mental mold complete, I placed it over the corpses of the three mongagers. Immediately the familiar void appeared, gluttonously gorging itself on all the energy I offered. More and more energy flowed out of me. Just as I began to run low, the void finished its demands.
Two massive bursts of energy flooded me. The pixies must have defeated two of the larger creatures and I felt half-full again. As an experiment, I prevented the void from closing and shoved more energy into it. At first, there was a slight resistance, but the resistance increased as I added more. By the time my energy ran low again, I could not push energy into the void any further. I let it close.
As I watched, the bodies of the mongagers flowed like clay, merging together, twisting, warping. When they finally settled, the form held still, suspended. Something remained to be done before he could come to life, but I didn’t know what.
Seconds passed. Behind me, in the background, the flakking monkeys screeched in battle. Of course!
Focusing on my mongager again, I tried to push air into him, and to my relief, it worked. The physical air converted to a form of energy, but I couldn’t determine how the transfer occurred. Regardless, I filled my mongager up with air energy and his fur began to flow in a nonexistent breeze. I watched life spark into his eyes as he truly came alive.
“Ggrrsss,” my air-touched mongager growled as he bowed his head.
“I name you Batoor. Unfortunately, I must ask you to go to battle immediately. Work with my other creatures and the pixies to repel the invaders. Focus on the large frogmen,” I ordered.
Batoor darted off, his feet barely touching the ground. Flak, he was fast! Racing to catch up, we reached the battle at the same time. Batoor turned into wind for a second, splitting in half and reforming on the other side of a tree. Now he was in a perfect position and tackled a colrum, his claws easily rending flesh. As he continued to maul the monster, I evaluated the rest of the battlefield.
Only a handful of frogs and squirrels remained. My ubees and ants took heavy losses but remained dominant in their respective fights. Four monkeys lay dead on the ground, one scampered along, heaving rocks at pixies and my birds. As I watched he pelted a pixie, crushing her ribs, causing instant death. In a sneak attack, another hawk attempted to rake his back but the monkey drew a layer of rocks out of his back at the last second. The other two monkeys struggled in my spiders’ webbing, partially caught. The spiders slowly but carefully entangled them in more webs. That only left the four-a wave of energy slammed into me-three colrums left. They threw their nets at the flitting pixies. One pixie screamed out in a net before a colrum speared him.
“Jarh, how are your troops?” I asked.
“We’re taking heavy losses, we can’t hurt them with our swords and the flakkers won’t stay still enough for a spell. They work as a team, too; if one gets caught in a web, the others cut him out,” he reported.
“Tell your casters I’m going to pin them down and to fire when they have a shot,” I commanded. “The blast won’t hurt my mongager.” To Batoor I said, “Corner the colrums between the webs and spike traps, then get ready for a spell to wipe them out.”
My hawks and air-infused mongager slowly herded the three remaining colrums. They tried to throw nets at Batoor, but he turned into wind and they sailed harmlessly through him. Unfortunately, he could not get past their spears to attack them either. With the three remaining monsters in place, I heard Finn shout “Cyfur uln faqer,” right before the pixies released the spell. It shot true, hitting the middle colrum and exploding to the nearby two. Batoor turned to wind and the hawks flew away in time. We all watched as the final three monsters rapidly decayed before us.
Then the energy hit.
“Uughghh!” I screamed out in pain. Why does this always happen? Out of frustration, I searched for the cause of the pain within my core and found the chaotic energy raging in my poorly held together core. While I found plenty of empty space, entire areas were sealed off from each other. In desperation, I broke down the walls to these empty places. The pain lessened with each one. Even after I opened them all, though, I was still in danger. The chaos recoiled around the unorganized structure within me. Now I need to fix that. An unknown amount of time and abundance of pain later, I finished reorganizing my internal structure. Now, the energy flowed smoothly and my capacity rose exponentially. Exhaustion washed over me.
“I’ll be back,” I managed to say to Finn before I passed out.