Chapter 229. Dwarven Disaster.

With the mana slayer drone in the lead, we began to follow the tracks toward the bridge where my minions had disappeared. The regularly placed lanterns gave us enough light to see by, but our little group was far from silent. Despite the noise we were generating, louder sounds reached us from beyond the next bend in the tunnel.

Voices shouted orders and I could hear the clanking of gear and the thump of things being loaded into mining carts. The voices were too far away to make out what they were saying, and while the voices were booming and deep, they didn’t sound monstrous in nature. Waving the team forward, I gave orders for Glurk to run and warn the dwarves if something were to attack us that we couldn’t handle.

Rounding the sweeping curve in the tunnel, I was greeted with the sight of a score of dwarves in chainmail armor that held axes and shields. As I crouched down and watched, I spotted more dwarves hauling themselves up onto the bridge from below. I didn’t know how far down the chasm was, but I sure wouldn’t want to make that climb in heavy armor.

Ordering the mana slayer drone to go invisible, I had the others form up out of view. The two goblins, Glem and Glamb, would hold the line while Glurk with his bow, and Elida with her magic would stand behind them. I stepped forward to address the dwarves.

“Hello there, I don’t suppose you spotted a goblin and a gnoll pushing a mining cart in this direction,” I shouted. As one, the group of dwarves turned to face me, and I realized these weren’t the ordinary dwarves I was expecting. Their skin was a sickly dark grey color, and their eyes glowed with a reddish light. Everyone’s hair and beards were a bright white color.

“Look brothers, the weak surface kin have also enslaved humans to work for them,” One of the dwarves, the one with the longest beard who held himself like a leader, said.

“Shall I kill him like I did the others, master?” one of the dwarves behind their leader said. Despite his white hair, the dwarf looked far younger than the others. If these dwarves had been humans, I’d say the one approaching me was in his late teens.

“Cut him down, we have work to do, and I won’t waste time bantering with a lowly human,” the leader said. The young dwarf chuckled as he placed a full helm on his head and drew his axe from his belt. His thick chainmail armor and metal-rimmed, wooden shield seemed like more than adequate protection, but I was willing to be the hidden drone would make short work of him.

“Stand down, I have no desire to kill any dwarves today,” I warned, drawing my blade and shield. While I wasn’t a melee-focused class by any means, I was more than competent with my weapons.

“You may not want to kill any dwarves, if you even could, but this dwarf wants to kill you,” the young dwarf said, breaking into a trot as if he expected me to turn and run.

“I warned you, drone, kill him,” I ordered. The drone waited for the dwarf to pass where he was standing before reaching out with his clawed hands. Blades cut through the chainmail protecting the dwarves’ back and the smaller hands hammered a pair of mining picks into the foolhardy dwarf, dropping him to the ground where his armored but broken body clanged against the metal tracks.

“He’s drawn the blood of the people, kill him!” the leader shouted, causing a dozen of the nearest dwarves to charge forward, chanting a war cry as they ran.

Ordering my remaining minions forward, I realized that I needed to slow down the dwarves who were only fifty yards away. Pulling from my mana pool, I cast Entangle in front of the dwarves. It worked as I’d hoped, and grasping roots burst from the hard-packed dirt floor of the tunnel, reaching, and grabbing onto the dwarves.

While the spell didn’t stop them in their tracks, it did slow their pace down to a crawl as the dwarves needed to rip their way through the roots. My spell had accomplished its goal of slowing them down and I used that time to reach into Rodney’s Bag of Beasts to pull out a random animal to help us. This was the first time I’d used the bag, and I wasn’t quite sure what to expect.

My hand grasped onto damp, rubbery skin and I threw it forward. Materializing from the bag was a huge animal that took me a moment to recognize. I wasn’t sure what I had been expecting, maybe a tiger or a wolf or something. A huge walrus wasn’t what I’d pictured when I activated the bag, but it sure seemed perfect for the moment.

Help support creative writers by finding and reading their stories on the original site.

“Attack,” I ordered the huge beast, sending it flopping its way toward the entangled dwarves on oversized flippers. The ground shook as it passed and if I had to guess, the walrus must have weighed close to a ton. Just before it crashed into the dwarves, I hit it with a duplicate spell. Now, two tons of blubbery walrus crashed into the hapless dwarves, easily crushing the stout, but short enemies.

Shrieks of pain sounded out as the walrus team began to flop onto any dwarf still alive after the initial impact. They also began to stab at the wounded dwarves with their oversized tusks. My mana slayer drone had already been approaching the entangled dwarves, but wisely stepped back from the rampaging bags of blubber.

Elida and Glurk arrived as the dwarves remained focused on the carnage wrought by the walrus team. I had them stand to either side of me, while the Glem and Glamb formed up in front. On my right, Glurk began to nock and fire arrows one after another, arcing them above and around the walruses to hit the dwarves still by the bridge.

“Bring the beasts down, and kill the caster,” the dwarf leader bellowed, his command sounding out over the horrible cacophony of walrus bellows and crunching dwarves. I could see the dwarves were forming a shield wall across the tunnel, with several of the dwarves holding long spears instead of axes. Behind them, a pair of dwarves with crossbows began to fire on the walrus team.

Protected by thick hide and blubber, the crossbows bolts didn’t penetrate far enough to hit anything vital on the walruses, but I knew that I couldn’t let the wounds accumulate without doing anything. I cast Health Bloom over the beasts, but they quickly exited the spells area of effect as they charged toward the dwarves shooting at them. The beasts seemed to ignore the threat of bristling spears held by the dwarves in the shield wall.

“Glurk, try to pick off their crossbowmen,” I ordered. If we could stop their shooting, it would reduce the chance of one of them shifting fire away from the walruses and toward us.

The walrus pair slammed into the dwarven defensive line. Several spears impaled the beasts, and the duplicate disappeared in a puff of mana vapor while the second burst through the line of defenders. Unable to stop its momentum, the final walrus slid over the edge of the canyon, dragging a pair of screaming dwarves with it.

It was down to me and the survivors of my minion team now. I sheathed my sword so I could reach the scrolls on my belt. Unlike the figurines I was reluctant to use up, the scrolls were items that I couldn’t take back home with me. They were to be used in situations just like this, as a way to help boost my rating for each summoning, and just maybe, help some people that deserved it.

For the first time, I pushed mana into a scroll, and found that it was just like using any other consumable. The spell built up in power and I lifted my arm to point at the line of dwarves who were even now reforming and preparing to advance. I had chosen a fireball spell since I had two of the scrolls in my inventory.

A small ball of flame flew from my hand to the point I’d targeted. It didn’t strike directly where I’d aimed, but with fireballs, it turned out you didn’t need to be all that accurate. Impacting on the right of the dwarven line, flames burst from the fireball, accompanied by a blast wave that knocked the entire line off their feet. From behind their lines, more dwarven screams were heard as reinforcement climbing up from below were knocked into the chasm.

Three of the dwarves that had been closest to where the fireball had landed were obviously dead, their skin and armor blackened by the heat. Another two dwarves were lying on the ground moaning in pain. They were still alive but unless the dwarves had a healer with them, or a stock of potions, the wounded were now what Major Finley would call combat ineffective.

All the others, around eight survivors in total, were battered and singed, but still in the fight. Instead of another scroll, I pulled my magic missile wand, firing off a missile at the dwarven leader, while activating my Ring of Final Sacrifice, targeting my mana slayer drone whose stealth field ran out right before he reached the surviving dwarves. Energy poured from the ring, enveloping my minion in roiling mana that waited for my minion to fall.

The dwarves rallied around their leader, who had been hit in the head by my magic missile and also had one of Glurk’s arrows sticking from his shin. Like a whirlwind of death, the mana slayer drone waded into the knot of dwarven defenders. All four arms on the drone, and the occasional bladed foot, lashing out at the nearest target. One dwarf fell almost immediately, his armor pierced through by one of my minions’ blades.

Unfortunately for my drone, one of its hands got stuck inside the dwarven armor, limiting my minion’s attack options as he tried to free himself. A pick held in one of the drone’s smaller hands penetrated the shoulder armor of the dwarf leader, but the others had surrounded my minion, hacking through his armored frame with powerful blows. One of the drone’s legs gave way in a shower of sparks, even has he ripped the throat from another dwarf.

Stumbling, the mana drone continued to lash out, landing a few damaging blows, but he was being easily taken apart by the skilled dwarven warriors. I watched as the drone was destroyed and turned into mana vapor. The power of the Ring of Final Sacrifice took hold, using the expelled mana of the drone’s unsummoning to power the blast it unleashed.

There weren’t any flames like with the fireball, but the ring’s explosion of energy was even more powerful than the fireball’s had been. Limbs were blasted off several dwarves, and at least two of them were catapulted to their doom in the cavern below. None of the surviving dwarves remained on their feet, and their leader was armless and bleeding out on the tracks.

“Finish off the survivors,” I ordered my goblin trio who happily charged toward the remaining dwarves.