As Mar retreated deep into themselves to study the nature of their very existence, one of the three avatars of the swarm left to pursue her own agendas. The Antmite General prepared to sack the country side around the first true city that the Sovereign Swarm had encountered so far, a forgotten experiment-turned familiar watched as his bored Princess Mistress started to learn to wield Sovereign Swarm magic, a demon unlike any in this world made his presence known in the land he had landed in.
And Nasi, the first of the avatars led his entire contingent of Subjects and Units into the corrupted Dungeon to make a final push into the depths. A tearmaker prepared his spawn as his pixie continued to molest the soul of the Dungeon and battle soon would take place.
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Mariam rolled out of the way as a blast of tar and fire exploded from hollow tentacles extending from the walls. The burning liquid flew over a squad of Soldiers in a cascade and despite their increased fire resistance the tar began to quickly melt through their carapaces.
The small squad had been sent into a barn room to clear it out so that the main force could advance without any danger of being ambushed. Corrupted tar-slimes were what Mariam and her cadre of dungeon delvers encountered in there, along with hayballs disguising tentacle-like wings with metallic feathers.
Mariam was not the lone subject in the team, she could sense the manic child fluttering through the shadows, attacking the monsters from behind with their sling and clubs. The Dungeon had entered the endgame as Nasi had ordered the entire camp to enter the Dungeon at the same time which meant that in essence the Adventurer-Collective was with them fully. Overwhelming might versus the horror of this corrupted dungeon.
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Fred wept, it was not a large thing or even particularly quiet. He had wept ever since the horrific creature made out of wings and protoplasmic ooze had enveloped and partially penetrated his core gem. A broken soul was literally stuck inside of his own and he could feel it rummaging around in there, like worms in the earth.
He could not see his interface anymore...nor could he access any of his dungeon abilities, save one. Fred could still see, and what he saw...terrified him. The "dungeon fairy" actively oversaw great pools of tar, feathers, and plasma where things spawned. That was...when she weren't licking his tears and rubbing against his gem in ways that made his entire being quail.
Sight was a torment in and of itself as he could see how the corruption in his heart warped the entire dungeon over time. It had gone from being a facsimile of a rural county fair to becoming a desolate landscape filled with glistening feathers, mad wailing, and the sounds of his tears leaking out into the world.
The invading forces had at first been decimated by the warped dungeon beasts that Fred's captors had spawned, but things seemed to have changed after that gigantic spider thing cleared the first floor by itself. Now, the invaders seemed to go back to the approach they had attempted the first time, overwhelming force.
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But this time it was not just large numbers of those creepy bug-like creatures and the zombies that were sent in. No they were flanked by humans in armor and a core of what looked to be mages forming the center of the invading army. In the front, the massive spider led the invaders into battle against the horrors of the Dungeon. But Fred shivered the most at the woman walking in the back, he could distantly feel plantlife grow more robust as her bare feet touched the soil.
And these new additions to the invaders unleashed hell upon the defenders.
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Ysandra lifted her hands and casually brushed aside a swarm of mutated fowl with wave of mud. The hellish dungeon was dangerous, but she had battled worse and felt her very being warp and change. What could simple eldritch dungeon creatures bring to the table to compete with that.
Her power was the very forests and the land itself, she could move the earth like roots of her tree. While she was not a true elemental of the earth, her magic still gave her influence over their domain. And she was unmatched with plant magic, so while the ten mages at the center unleashed pure devastation in the form of fire, heat, and magma being unleashed upon the attackers. Ysandra cleaned up the threats that could wade through such destruction.
Magic. Magic and sheer overwhelming might were thrown at the Dungeon...and it might not have been enough if it weren't for two factors besides those. First was Nasi and the Adventurer Collective, with the entire camp marching through the Dungeon they were no longer without the support of a greater mind. The steadying presences of an Avatar and a Collective were enough to keep even the most underdeveloped of Fungal Zombies calm, and the defacto "sub-swarm" could act with far more precision than previously. Traps were found and triggered or disarmed as the Adventurer-Collective pooled all of her collected experiences to find the way.
And Nasi could just smash through any attack from the traps if they were not safely deactivated. The second factor came in front of one of the original veterans of the Dungeon. The Lucky Goat, where it walked its aura provided fortune to all beneath its aegis. Ysandra knew of such things and while the creature was still too simple to be tutored in how to enhance the gift it had been given, there were other ways to enhance it. She had no power like that of her own yet, as such magic was tied to other concepts and entities, but the Mages who had venerated a magma elemental? They could be shown the way.
So, at the core of the formation of ten stood the Lucky Goat, streams of fire and heat forming a shifting ritual construct around it that fluctuated shone as power passed through it. The potency of the aura was heightened and so was the range so the power of pure fortune radiated out over the invading army. It showed itself in little ways, crossbow traps misfiring, giant monsters tripping up mid-charge, a slight change in the wind that allowed the Units to smell a hidden foe, and more were giving the army that extra edge it needed when walking through the corrupted Dungeon.
The dryad smiled as she saw yet another batch of enemies fall as the army marched deeper into the dungeon and as she stepped past the carcasses of friend and foe alike, she could feel their blood leaking out and flowing behind her. Sucked up into greedily waiting roots that followed beneath the soil and behind her as she made up the backtroop. Dryads of old knew that there were power to be found in such things, and she had the perfect book to help her unlock the gifts of such things.
An archmage's tome which had shown her ways to twist nature beyond her wildest dreams.
"I call the wild, I call the green, feast on red, and be redeemed. From soil and earth you shall rise, and give me violence and delights. The groves of old called you kin, and in my name let's go for a spin."
Ysandra kept mumbling the ritual chant as she felt blood feed into the conjured roots and her grin started to widen. If anything disrupted the army, then at least she would have a backup.