“Here, Rico, help me with these. Get the toe poppers set up around the entrance to the room. We’ll see how well these invaders can fight with half their foot blown off. Be careful, pressure sets them off. Place them somewhere in the path but bury them under some dirt so they can’t spot them easily,” Fitzfazzle said, taking charge of the situation. I ordered the ghoul to help me, pointing out spots near the entry to the second-floor champions room where the enemy were likely to step.

The toe poppers were odd, an amber glass globe the size of my fist that hummed with power. There was mana inside, but the colored glass had something imbedded in it to block me seeing the mana directly. It was probably a way to keep a foe from just looking for the item’s mana signature to find where they had been placed.

Fitzfazzle worked on setting up his other surprises, with a bit of help from Hoen and the elf defenders. The ground in the corrupted forest was loosely packed soil, so I had no trouble digging a few inches down to hide most of the globe, then covering it up with some twigs and leaves. Anyone looking closely would spot that something had disturbed the soil, but they were hidden from casual observation. It was about the best I could do with the time constraints we had.

“Do you want those crossbow’s this close to the entrance? Would it be better to have them back here where the other defenders are?” Hoen asked as Fitzfazzle setup the three automated crossbows just behind the line of toe poppers that I placed. The automated weapons looked like a crossbow mounted on a tripod with several gears that used magical energy to turn and aim. Each weapon had a small hopper attached with a half-dozen extra bolts. They would automatically reload and fire until they were out of ammo.

“The targeting systems aren’t working like they should, these babies will just fire at anything in range, whether it’s a friend or enemy. It’s best if I leave them here, or our defenders will suffer as much as the enemy. Now, when I give the signal, everyone needs to run at least fifty feet away from these things. Once I activate them, they’ll start hunting for targets within a few seconds,” Fitzfazzle said. Time was short and the only way to camouflage the crossbows was to toss a branch or two in front to partially conceal the weapons.

With that done we fell back to the clearing. Glenda had placed all her heavy hitters there, the two elf champions riding bears, Verdigrim, and all the third-floor defenders. My summoned creatures were in the forest to the right of the glade, along with all the first-floor defenders. On the left side of the glade were the remaining second-floor defenders. The plan was for the enemy to attack the visible and powerful threats in front of them, allowing the weaker combatants a chance to flank the enemy and hopefully get a shot at the less durable healers.

“Rico, so, you’re sure I really can’t die while doing this?” Fitzfazzle asked with a look of concern on his face.

“No, you’re fine. When you’re killed here, you’ll just pop back to your world, right where you were summoned from,” I advised. This was just a normal type of summoning and there was nothing attacking us here that could truly threaten our lives, unlike the lich.

“Good, I didn’t want to wear the vestments of departure if there was a problem,” Fitzfazzle said, pulling on a thick, leather cloak over his other armor, it looked bulky and uncomfortable, but he didn’t seem to mind.

“Oh, one thing I should warn you of, when you get back home, you may or may not be naked. Sorry about that, I hope it doesn’t cause you any problems,” I added.

“Weird, but I was inside my home when I was summoned, so I won’t shock the village with my perfect gnomish body. As far as the fight, I think I’ll make my stand there in the glade, near where my cart is parked. Oh, take these,” Fitzfazzle said, handing me a small bag with four brightly colored glass globes inside. They were similar in size to the toe poppers we’d just planted.

“What are these?” I asked.

“Blast chuckers, can’t you tell?” Fitzfazzle replied, looking at me like I was ignorant.

“No, how could I tell that these were blast chuckers, I’ve never heard or seen one before, what does it do?” I asked.

“You throw it at the bad guys, and, well, it’ll do something. I got to go, those invaders will be here any minute and I need to activate the automatons and setup the samophlange,” Fitzfazzle said before trotting into the glade.

“Wait, what kinds of things are the blast chuckers going to do? And what the hell is a samophlange?” I shouted, but Fitzfazzle just waved me off, muttering something about experimental and unexpected results.

Annoyed and amused at my friend at the same time, I took the bag of blast chuckers and figured I’d use them as grenades or something. Better yet, given their untested nature, I’d have my minions use them. There was no need for me to risk my summoning on an experimental gnomish device that even Fitzfazzle couldn’t explain.

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I handed a pair of blast chuckers to each of the plant creatures from the first floor, after having them throw a few rocks for me to make sure they were capable of hitting at least close to the target. I’d keep them by my side and send them out to attack when I saw an opening. With Fitzfazzle and his toys, I figured I could save the consumable summoning figurines unless they were really needed, so for my side of the forest, I’d just have my normal summons, and the few first floor defenders to fight alongside me.

Hoen had positioned himself over with the second-floor defenders on the other side of the glade. That way we had someone on each flank to order the defenders around. Glenda would be focusing her attention on the forces in the glade itself. With three champions, the third-floor defenders, and Fitzfazzle with the rest of his devices, they were our best chance to stop the attack.

We finished just in time, as even now, the first scout peeked into the room. He spotted the forces waiting in the center of the glade and ducked back to report to his leader. They must have realized that we could see and hear everything in the dungeon, as they used hand signals and whispered commands to direct their forces. I watched as the shield wall formed, with the scouts taking position on the flanks before the entire force moved forward at a slow jog.

As soon as they were inside the huge champion’s room, the scouts broke off, half moving into each side of the forest while the shield wall and other attackers moved up the middle, straight toward the waiting champions. I hadn’t seen the third-floor champion in action yet and was a bit surprised when the elves mounted atop the bears drew their bows and fired.

The arrows glowed with power as they flew toward the shield wall, covering a distance that should have been impossible for that type of weapon. Both arrows shattered, causing a minor explosion of mana as they hit an invisible shield a few yards in front of the attackers. Their leader, the man in green robes, flinched a bit with the impact. He must have been powering a shield that protected the group from any ranged attacks, and I could imagine his mana was draining from the impact.

As the elves drew back on their bows for a second shot, the attackers broke into a charge, desperate to close into melee range. Two of the attackers from the shield wall stumbled and shouted in pain as they stepped on our makeshift minefield. The toe poppers lived up their name and I could see parts of the victims’ boots, along with a good-sized chunk of their feet, had been blown off with the blast.

After the toe poppers triggered, the automated crossbows went into action, firing the first volley of bolts that also impacted against the shield, doing no damage. I knew that despite not hitting a live foe, each hit was draining a bit of mana from the enemy leader, a good enough trade for an automated, and still experimental, weapon that Fitzfazzle had brought along. The second volley of arrows from the elves hit, and the man in green robes waved the uninjured troops forward, leaving the wounded to be dealt with by a pair of the healers that stayed behind.

“That’s our target, the healers, and the wounded defenders, but we need to push past the scouts to get at them. You plant guys, throw those blast chuckers at the enemy scouts once we run into them,” I ordered. The bunnies were in the lead, I was using them as a tripwire to tell me where the three scouts on this side of the glade were hiding. As I suspected, the scouts fired at the rabbits as soon as they were in range. My ghoul was right on their heels, grabbing the scouts’ attention as the plant creatures shuffled into throwing range.

Rupert and the dog also charged forward, adding more targets for the scouts to worry about. I took aim at the nearest, firing off a magic missile from my wand as soon as I was close enough. All three of the rabbits went down from the scout’s second volley, and the ghoul was also turned into a pincushion with the following shots before the plant creatures made it into throwing range.

The four blast chucker globes sailed toward the closest pair of scouts. One pair of the weapons impacted, splashing a green, acidic liquid all over the hapless scout. The second globe hit him directly on the chest, and instead of acid, it released a fist-sized scorpion that immediately began to sting as it scurried up toward the man’s face. I added to his troubles with a magic missile that crunched into his cheek, knocking the man down. Between the acid, the scorpion, and my magic missile shots, this one was out of action.

The other pair of blast chuckers were somewhat less effective. One burst into a respectable ball of flame, causing some serious burns to the target, but the second globe burst open into a cloud of harmless confetti. I cursed the crazy gnomes as I shifted my magic missile fire toward the injured scout, ordering all my surviving creatures to attack the final, still uninjured man.

My magic missile was followed up by a Psionic Jolt as the man ignored his burns drew his bow and targeted me. The magic missile and my spell landed before he could fire, his actions were hampered by the painful burns he’d suffered. I closed the distance as I waited for my wand to recharge for another shot. The man stumbled to his knees, his bow dropping to the ground next to him as the Psionic Jolt caused confusion and the magic missile crushed some of his ribs.

He staggered to his feet pulling out a shortsword as I made it into melee range. I swung the hammer, which was knocked aside by a block from the short sword. A follow up blow landed on the scout’s chest, dropping him to the ground for good. Thankfully, he was already heavily injured, and my mediocre skill with melee weapons proved more than sufficient to deal with him.

A quick check on the final scout showed that he was also down, along with almost all of my minions and the dungeon defenders. My hound was the sole survivor of the fight. We’d cleared our side of the forest, but the rest of our army was having troubles of their own. The shield wall and the main force of invaders were closing in on the center of the glade, and I could see many of our defenders there were already down. Fitzfazzle was holding his own, firing an oversized crossbow at the approaching enemies while taking cover behind his cart.

“Come on pup, let’s do what we can to help,” I said, targeting the pair of healers and the two spearmen who had been left behind by the main force. We were outnumbered and probably under-tiered for the foe, but I had few figurines I could use, and I wasn’t going to let these clowns kill Glenda and Hoen.