Chapter 237. Blight.
Once again, I was on the run, checking on the fight inside the previous room as I hustled to our next line of defense. My mana slayer drone was gone, and the dungeon goblins had blown their cover early, lessening the impact of their surprise attack. Half of the goblins were down, but I could see that they had at least done some work, as there was a fallen militiaman next to a pair of goblins.
Avius cast another spell, and more blades made from air cut down the last of the goblins. The rest of the militia began to search the room under the guidance of their sergeant. The dungeon minions appearing out of cover seemed to have bumped up their caution a bit.
“Avius, we need a healing spell!” one of Sir Medford’s greatsword wielders shouted as he ran to the side of their fallen leader.
“I don’t have infinite mana, and I’ll not waste it on the dead. We can recover his body on the way out, for now, you’ll follow my orders and continue our push to the dungeon core,” Avius snapped back.
“We are commanded by Sir Medford, not you, wizard. The swordsman snapped back.
“I’ll grant you some leniency since you’re mourning the loss of your knight, but keep an eye on your tone, squire. It’s foolish to insult a wizard,” Avius warned, mana glowing on his hands as he spoke.
While it may be foolish for a squire to insult a wizard, I also thought it was foolish to waste mana on a simple display of power like Avius was doing now. I was more than happy to have him burn mana to threaten the squire, it might mean one less spell aimed at me later. The standoff between the two was tense, but the swordsman gently lay the headless Sir Medford down and stood.
“I’ll keep whatever tone I wish, Avius, I’m not one of your minions and you hold no authority over my order. Despite my distaste of you, we have been given charge to assist you inside this dungeon. Don’t mistake my attention to duty as an opportunity for you to give me or the others direct orders,” the squire warned as his men began to assist in searching the room.
While they wasted time searching, I made it to the second, and final, barricade that I’d had the dungeon erect. It was like the first one, a simple wooden palisade across the passageway, complete with another pit trap. It wasn’t meant to stop the enemy, just delay them so the next part of the plan could take effect.
Right where the enemy would mass to cross the pit trap, a short section of wall that had been hollowed out and the goblin trio, along with Blieek, now stood ready to break out of the wall and ambush the enemy from behind while they were busy overcoming the barricade and traps.
To defend the barricade itself, I had another trio of dungeon goblin melee warriors, along with two more archers. I gave the archers orders to target the wizard first if he showed himself. To help reinforce this group, I had Khurr with his hand crossbow join them. Even though he was only sitting at tier zero, rank six, I bet Khurr and his dagger would do better in melee than the dungeon goblins standing next to him.
My final minion, Elida, I kept back in the goblin village. Her task would be to stay out of sight behind the giant goblin Ebbiq. She was going to be his dedicated healer, helping to keep our most powerful dungeon defender on his feet. Capria had mentioned that Ebbiq was a veteran minion and as such, the dungeon core could upgrade his equipment to meet the coming threat.
So far, the core was focusing on pumping out more goblins with the mana infusion it was getting from the enemies we defeated. Checking back on the village, I could see that the core must have paused goblin production for a bit, as Ebbiq was now sporting a breastplate crafted from several shields that had been lashed together. He also held a long, steel-tipped spear in his hands.
With the weapon matching the enormous twelve-foot-tall giant goblin’s size, Ebbiq would have quite the reach advantage over the enemy. That was to be our last stand, however, and for our last stand to succeed, I needed to thin out the enemy numbers a bit more. As an experiment, I had tried to target my minions inside the hidden compartment with spells while using only the dungeon vision. It seemed to work just fine and complied with any system requirements for line of sight.
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There still seemed to be a maximum range, and I couldn’t, for example, cast Duplicate on a minion at the entrance while I was back at the far end of the dungeon in the goblin village. At least the range was long enough that I could keep further back from the fighting. The last thing I needed was to be taken out by a perfectly timed spell from Avius.
Fighting while allied with a dungeon was proving better and better. Our enemies had finished their sweep of the room and were now on their way. In the lead was the militia sergeant with four of his men. Behind them were the last three surviving militia. Avius was next, trusting the two greatsword wielding squires and the two with shortswords to defend him from any surprises.
“Everyone get ready,” I said. It didn’t really need to be said, I was dealing with dungeon minions and my own summoned creatures. They were always ready, and would obey my orders, even if I forced them to sacrifice themselves, which I was about to do.
As they had done before, one of the militia spotted the barricade which was placed in a longer section of the passageway. I was much further from the barricade, just close enough to be in range for the spells I wanted to cast. While crouching down, I shouldn’t be spotted by the enemy, but I would need to stand up and partially expose myself to use something like my wand.
Without Sir Medford threatening them, the militia in the lead halted their advance so Avius could bring out the wooden planks that they had used to cross the pit traps earlier. As I figured, the second pit trap wasn’t going to be a surprise, but it did put another delay on the foe. Every minute they spent getting boards ready was more time for the dungeon to respawn defenders.
With this many live bodies inside, the dungeon was drinking in mana at a rate it probably hadn’t seen in a long time. As a result, the minions already defeated were slowly being repopulated back at the goblin village. There were already a dozen ready to fight, and by the time the enemy pushed passed here, there would be even more for me to work with.
The enemy were finally ready to make their move. As the team of four militia and their sergeant surged forward with the planks, Avius peeked around the corner to spot targets for his magic. I wasn’t going to let my team fight unaided, and pulled my magic missile wand out, standing and firing it at one of the attackers. Unlike the weapons they were using, magic missiles guided themselves unerringly toward the target.
Caught up in his charge, the man I’d targeted didn’t react in time, and the ball of energy slammed into his gut, punching though the padded armor he wore, and leaving the man on the ground, gasping in pain. The attack threw off the aim of Avius, and he abandoned the spell he had been casting to take cover behind the curve of the wall.
The two dungeon goblins, and Khurr began to fire on the approaching militia. Khurr wasn’t a bad shot, but his weapon was just a simple hand crossbow without much punch. Still, the militia didn’t wear heavy armor, so his first hit sunk into the shoulder of a man, causing him to drop his grip on the plank he was carrying.
In a repeat performance, the two goblin archers both missed their target, one arrow sticking into a shield, and the other shattering on the stone of the passageway wall. When my wand came off cooldown, I fired a second magic missile at the sergeant, who tried to dodge at the last minute. His quick maneuver allowed him to avoid the worst of the shot, but the missile still grazed his side, causing the man to wince in pain.
The lead attackers hit the area of the pit trap. They were looking for it and were moving slow enough that they wouldn’t all pile in like before. Feeling the ground under his feet start to give way, the militiaman in the lead stopped and dropped his beam across the floor. I hoped that his aim would be a bit off, but I could see he’d judged it correctly and the beam was spanning the gap.
“The planks are down, move up!” the sergeant shouted. At his announcement, the rest of the invaders charged forward, even as the militiaman carrying the other plank was finally hit by the poorly skilled goblin archers. It wouldn’t be enough to stop them. The enemy would only need one board to push enough troops across to overcome our small band of defenders.
Launching another magic missile to take out a second militiaman, I pulled a scroll from my belt, pushing a whopping fifteen mana into the Blight spell it contained. I targeted the spell right in front of the militia crossing the board, unsure of what to expect, but knowing it was a powerful, area of effect spell. Instantly a dark cloud of smoke filled that section of the passageway and engulfed the militia who began to scream as soon as the spell activated.
Wherever the blight touched, flesh began to rot, and with them breathing in the foulness to shout their cries of pain, the spell worked even quicker. One by one, the lead attackers dropped to the ground, frothing at the mouth as they died. Last to fall was the sergeant, who seemed to have been made of sterner stuff than the militia he led.
Our defense of the passageway had taken out most of the attacking force. The invaders had their numbers whittled down greatly from what they had first entered with. Now, it was time to unleash my next surprise and possibly end the fight right here and now.