Chapter 282. The Forgotten Ones Rise.

As night fell over the zone, my problems began to multiply. Red attack indicators flashed on several of the trade routes, and I received a notice that the elf village was also under attack. Out in the ocean, the wave of attackers was nearing Shoremarch. My forces there seemed strong when I had watched them marching along the road, but when they were spread out over the long wall facing the port, I could see that there were too few to protect that big of an area.

I hated to abandon the city, and the few survivors that refused to leave, but if the attackers swimming toward the city were as numerous as I suspected, my forces would be quickly overwhelmed. My desire to defend the city had to be balanced against my main goal of protecting the cavern, and its crucial headquarters, for as long as possible.

Reluctantly, I ordered the troops in the city to abandon their posts and return to the cavern. If the attack on the elves was proving to be too much, I could shift them to help defend the village. As it stood, there was almost too much going on for me to keep track of.

First, I focused on the elf village. I could see a group of about a dozen cultists, supported by a few of the smaller forgotten ones, were trying to climb the tree homes of the elves. It looked like the defenders there had the fight well in hand and they were picking off enemies with little trouble. The squad of kobold warriors that was added there from the defense pact were able to mop up any attackers that made it through the barrage of arrows.

Out on the roads, it was a different story. A human caravan not far from their village had been overrun by a group similar to those attacking the elf village. One of my caravans, heading toward the elves, was also being destroyed. Guards on the roads were responding to the attacks, but they would be severely outnumbered as more and more attacks appeared along every trade route.

It looked like continued trade with my allies was out of the picture. I ordered the existing, non-engaged squads on the trade routes to retreat to the cavern, or if they were closer to an allied village, to bolster the defenses there. Trade was a major portion of my income, but I still had some resources coming in from the structures inside my cavern. It would be all I had to work with for spawning replacements.

The Gavelox Trading Consortium is evacuating the zone. All existing contracts will be fulfilled, but new orders and ongoing services will end in the next hour. The Gavelox Trading Consortium would like to thank all its loyal customers and wish them luck in surviving the coming hordes of attackers.

Well, the consortium was tapping out of the fight. It was fine with me, I no longer had resources to spend there. A quick check showed the gates of their fort had opened and a dozen overladen wagons pulled by oxen were starting to roll out. Just like the evacuees from Shoremarch, they headed east to where a portal had opened.

The caravan was well guarded, with a few squads of human mercenaries and a half dozen ogres decked out in plate armor and were wielding monstrous sized axes. Atop each wagon, a pair of goblins with bows nervously watched the countryside around them. The teamsters driving the wagons were also armed goblins, which made this caravan a much more difficult nut to crack compared to my kobold trade caravans.

When I tried to inspect the portal to the east, a system prompt appeared.

This is an evacuation point for your zone. As an alternative to fighting to the last, you may choose to evacuate your people. Survivors escaping through the portal will improve your final ranking in the challenge.

The system was giving me an alternative win condition. Sadly, I didn’t think trying to hoof it with all my kobold civilians was going to work. We were already being pressed hard by the attackers coming from inside the mountain, and the continuing attacks on the trade routes were blocking most of the roads out of here.

My troops were powerful, and I could probably punch my way out, but there was a very real chance we’d be easily overrun on the road, ending my challenge earlier than I wanted. Almost at the same time I decided to stay and fight, the gnomes decided they were done.

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The Gurtzam Rock Gnomes have informed you that they are preparing to evacuate. All trade and mutual defense pacts between your peoples have been dissolved, but in the spirit of past cooperation, the gnomes will leave the squad of defenders assigned to your cavern behind.

When they left it would mean more pressure on my defenders at the wall since half of the forgotten ones attacking from inside the mountain were assaulting the gnome cavern. At least I got to keep the squad of gnomes. It was too bad I was going to lose the kobold squad that were helping to defend the gnome village. They had no easy route back to my cavern, so for now, I had them help defend the gnomish wall as the gnomes prepared to make their escape.

The city of Shoremarch has been overrun. You must retake the city if you wish to restore its resource contribution.

I zoomed in on the city, watching as a swarm of forgotten ones of all sizes pull themselves out of the ocean. They had already scaled the defenses in the port and were hunting down the last few survivors cowering in their homes. The number of attackers already was over a thousand, and it didn’t look like the flow of them emerging from the ocean depths was stopping anytime soon.

They didn’t stop at the city gates either. A few of the larger forgotten ones broke through the gates and the horde started to pour down the trade road. The first groups of enemies were blasted to pieces by the minefield my kobold workers had barely finished laying. Explosions were continuous for almost a minute before the last mine had detonated.

That one minefield had destroyed over a hundred attackers, but they didn’t seem to mind, as the wave of twisted creatures continued to push toward my retreating forces. Sadly, the forgotten ones were way too fast for my troops to match, so I had no option other than to order my forces to stand and fight.

It was a short, but brutal fight. I added what I could with my spells, firing all my Flame Bursts at large groups of smaller attackers, and using the Scorching Rays to take down a huge forgotten one that was tearing through the prison fodder. It turned out my kobolds were tougher than I thought after their final upgrades, and along with the mercenaries, they traded with the enemy at better than three to one.

Unfortunately, the enemy outnumbered us by a ratio of at least a hundred to one. The rather substantial force I’d sent to the city of Shoremarch was overrun in minutes, and the horde continued down the trade road where they would eventually hit the human village.

So far, the human village had only suffered a few smaller attacks, mainly by cultists and the weaker forgotten ones. The wall around their village had grown from the short, shoulder-high thing my minions had run right through, into a true wooden palisade made of shout logs. It gave the human defenders an advantage, but even with the wall, there was no way they were going to stop the horde from Shoremarch.

With the chaos going on, I tried to organize my forces, reinforcing each of the walls protecting my cavern with the majority of my troops. As a mobile reserve inside the cavern, I kept the goblin wolf riders, the elf wizard, and two of my kobold squads. My minions were here with me in the fortified headquarters.

For my big boy, the barrier lizard, I worked on different ways I could place the creature. I decided to keep it as a final roadblock the front of both my headquarters, and the barracks. To bolster the garrison inside the headquarters, I added the elite dragonkin squad. Combined with my minions and the garrison troops already here, it was a powerful force, even against the sheer number of attackers coming at us.

The walls covering both entrances were too short to hold all the forces I had arrayed there, so I worked out a rotation system for when things started to really kick off. Once a group was tired and had taken casualties, a fresh squad would rotate in to replace them. In the event of a breakthrough, I had the remaining four squads of prison fodder to throw into the gap while we reorganized our defenses.

Attacks on the wall from inside the mountain were picking up, but the defenders there were still able to easily defeat the forgotten ones assaulting them. Casualties were light and would probably remain so for some time. I always had the trump card of activating the militia which would turn all my worker kobolds, of which there were hundreds, into warriors. That was a last-ditch panic button though, since I’d cripple my resource flow, which would stifle any reinforcements for my better units.

Like someone plugging in the Christmas tree lights, my headquarters map lit up all at once. Every location and every one of my allies were under attack. Even inside my previously secure cavern, the sounds of fighting reached me. A system prompt appeared to explain what was happening.

For a long time, the whispers of the forgotten ones have permeated the minds of the residents of the zone. Many were swayed, becoming the cultists that have led the attack on your forces. Just as many heard the call, but were ordered to wait. Now, their time has come, and the forgotten ones call on all their servants to end life on this world.

A percentage of all populations in the zone have been corrupted and are rising against you. Fight hard and survive for as long as you are able.

Remaining contenders: 1951/2432.