By the time that Henry hit the undead dungeon guardian room, the undead army had been fighting in their own dungeon guardian room for a good 15 minutes. The spirit branch units were coursing through the tunnels while the undead wights and skeletal knights started filtering through the cracks.
It took less than a minute for the lich in charge to start a concerted effort to get units up out of the cracks on the floor's main surface. It did not take much effort. The undead formed a ladder climbing over one another. The first scouting units made it and got their first visual of the dungeon guardian a few hundred feet away. The hulking arachnid was the last thing they saw as the tarantula slammed its front legs down. Earth spears shot up and streaked out across the chamber slamming into them like a bowling ball into pins. All three that had successfully gotten to the top were knocked back down into the crack.
If Mark could have it his way he would have had the giant tarantula right up against the floor’s entrance squishing the much smaller units as they entered, but there was a stipulation in place that would not allow the dungeon boss or defenders to ever go within a few hundred feet of the dungeon entrance, giving the assaulting army a foothold to work with. Daniel Hale’s hydra had been able to push the boundary to some extent because of the hydra’s really long necks reaching into the area. That along with the stone tarantula’s range capabilities being limited meant that the undead foothold was readily established. Instead, Mark would have the tarantula basically play whack a mole for any undead that tried to surface out of the cracks.
The carnivorous centipede symbiotes were using their blood rose vines to rip to shreds the spirit branch units moving into tunnels. The stone tarantula spawn who were all stationed in the cracks were already engaged with the undead trying to stream forward out of the containment. The room had eleven breeder units. One lotus flower had itself secured to the floor guardians' back. The rest were located further back into the tunnels. The result was that instead of the normal 50 defenders allowed in the dungeon guardian room, there were 150, and units could and would be replaced as long as the breeder units had the mana and one of the centipede symbiotes could make it back to them. At most Mark expected to get another 100 bred over the course of the battle.
The lich leader had chose ‘the wipe out the other defenders' strategy before even challenging the dungeon guardian, cycling more and more undead into the tunnels to combat the carnivorous centipede symbiotes. It was something Mark had not anticipated when building the floor. In a matter of minutes every single one of the undead would be down in the tunnels. Once they wiped out the other defenders, it would be them that had free reign of the map, untouchable by the floor guardian. Mark continued to manipulate the defenders using hit and run tactics to keep them from getting overwhelmed but they were getting pushed steadily back.
Amelia was the one who found it while shifting her personal interface screen through the floor. The undead had claimed a chamber underground and were quickly setting up formation markers forming a six edged star. A half dozen necromancers in tandem with six dominion undead took position at each point. It took a few minutes to see what they were doing, but then six forms pulled themselves from the earth. They were tier 3 rippers with power ratings in the low 8’s. A half minute later six more rippers pulled themselves from the earth. The necromancers and dominion undead switched out with others and continued to summon more tier 3 undead.
Nick’s forces were basically built around the fact that he could continually raise new undead. That part was not a surprise, but normally the spawned undead were at most strong tier 2. More often they were only tier 1’s. If a necromancer spawned stronger undead, there would always be fewer of them. Even Numerous the unique titled unit had not summoned tier 3’s as far as Mark was aware. However with this formation, it looked like Nick could perpetually summon more as long as his units had mana to use. Since there were still hundreds of necromancers and dominion users along with several pallets of supplies, Mark doubted they would run out any time soon.
To think he had been starting to wonder whether the undead would even be able to take down the stone tarantula with their dwindling number of tier 3s. Now it was a near foregone conclusion. The stone tarantula like the skeletal dragon should be nearly impervious to weaker units, or at the very least take tens of thousands of hits to slowly chip down, but a hundred plus tier 3 rippers might kill the stone tarantula far quicker than Mark could possibly have imagined.
Likely the summoning ritual had some limitations, Perhaps the summoned undead could only move a certain radius or had a time limit. Regardless, the stone tarantula had no way to put a stop to it.
Mark considered trying to wipe out the location with the other defenders, but in the end he decided against it. Even a concentrated attack was unlikely to succeed. The tunnels were optimal for the centipedes, but they were also optimal for such things as the fire bomb the undead forces were ready to use. Mark could see that each group of undead guarding the chamber carried several of them, not to mention they likely had more in the pallets of supplies that they had brought in.
In the end Mark settled to use the defenders to continue to stall and draw out the fight for as long as possible. It was at this point that their own forces entered the final floor.
A squad of gnarled wood goblins entered carrying void shields. Spells cast from without the defender free zone immediately started slamming into them, but the goblins pushed forward as more of the army poured through the door after them.
The final floor was likely still a large cavernous room with finite boundaries, but Nick had sprang for an outdoor environment, with an overcast sky and a faint fog that slowly enshrouded the view. Mark guessed their units would be able to see around 1,000 feet with the farthest stuff obscured in shadow. As far as the room's decor, it was a cemetery complete with gravestones, mausoleums, and statues. Although the later two were far more sparsely populated with a good 10 grave sites or so in between. In general there would be plenty of cover for units to fight from behind, that was once units got a couple hundred feet into the room away from the entrance. The buffer zone was completely open.
Other than providing cover it was unclear whether the room provided any advantages or was purely for aesthetic purposes. Mark could immediately immagine zombies pulling themselves out of the thousands of graves from some powerful dungeon guardian spell, but the thought quickly fell to the wayside as utter chaos reigned at the floor entrance.
The goblin army faced spells slung from cover from all directions from defenders hiding behind cover. The goblins were surging out like ants out of an ant hill, choosing to flow to the right side along the rectangular floor’s wall. The void shield squad took up guarding positions as a lead patrol of bugbears rushed toward the enemies on their right.
Mark continued to size up the opposing forces as he still auto piloted the defenders in their own dungeon. There were several types of units arrayed against them, but Mark guessed that most of the actual defenders were tier 2 ghast necromancers summoning the weaker units and a handful of spirit units. There was nearly two hundred lesser undead including a handful of tier 2’s ready to engage in melee.
Unfortunately, the floor had two major powers for the southern army to deal with. The hero was readily identifiable even though it blended with the environment quite well. It was a massive bone naga with a power rating of 25.3. It was the longest unit in the game with a length around 150 feet, but it was smaller than other heros since it was about the size of a mini cooper down most of its length, other than where the tail tapered off. There was not much to most of its body, just links of vertebrae linked to one another up to it’s snake skull, but near the head was the creature's cobra like hood. In this case the hood looked like just a bunch of rib bones stuck in the creatures neck. The creature was curled around one of the taller mausoleums, leaving its head to rest on the buildings roof, with its skeletal hood sticking off to the sides. The skeletal bones forming the hood looked to be almost like jaws ready to chomp down on the building underneath.
The floor guardian was already attacking, spitting bone shards unceasingly at the stream of goblins pouring into the room. It was targeting the void shield bearers. It’s aim seemingly was not very good, but it was walking its aim onto its target like a machine gunner might with tracer rounds. The void shields were not immediately pierced through but each hit left a bowling ball dent in the shield that started to buckle in on itself. If the shield bearers could even withstand a the hits. It only took a few before a shard got past their guard or the shield was turned to scrap.
The second undead leader was a familiar unique titled ‘Shadow.’ The same unit that had snagged the mummy tyrant’s red scepter a couple of hours ago. The red flashes flaring out were not quite as powerful as they had been in the mummy tyrant’s hands but they were still lancing out at the goblin forces at a rate of about 1 burst every other second. Each carried enough power to kill if it struck true.
Despite the defenses, things were not quite as bleak as they seemed. Already dozens of rock golems were forming hundreds of feet out from the floor entrance forming a ring at the edge of the containment area. The first thing many of the goblins did after exiting the door was to launch their golem ball as far out into the room as they could before they followed the flow to the right. The golems would not be a threat to the bone naga but they could help deal or delay the other defenders. Likewise several hundred golems were being formed by the rear guard to intercept the undead army that would likely soon be hot on their heels.
Near the end of the flow of goblins came Henry. He confidently came through, moving straight out into the room along with a handful of the true elites complete with level 6 classes and every skill available. The bone naga immediately honed its bone shards in on the group, but Henry caught each with his hammer as it came. Like a major league batter he smashed them. Some were sent right back out into the room, others immediately became powder. The shadows' red flashes were far less easy to manage. Henry had to resort to using the energy shield to stop them.
It was a showy entrance by design. The other elites to the far right were fighting and killing the defenders off to the rooms right. While the stone golems in all other sectors continued to form, with some already advancing and engaging the defenders. All of the goblin grenadiers, some archers, and the handful of wolf spiders carrying the final pallet of supplies made it through unmolested. There were a couple gnarled goblin elites with void shields and Ezekiel in his armor suit ready to protect the equipment, but they ended up not being needed. The final entrants into the chamber quickly made their way off to the right to the foothold being established there.
On the other screen their own defenders had all been pushed topside up and out of the cracks. The tier 3 undead continued to spawn from the summoning chamber and the undead were setting up to engage the surface from all corners of the room. Soon they would start popping out of the cracks from every direction. The Stone tarantula moved off to one side of the room while Mark stationed its spawn and the other remaining defenders to the other side, but there would be far too many undead for them to keep the surface clear.
Once the last of the goblins were safely out of the open area around the entrance, Henry and his squad broke off to the right as well, cutting through the graveyard using the larger obstructions to hide from the ranged attacks. The bone naga did not hesitate to follow, moving in parallel never ceasing its deadly projectiles. Finally one of the squad went down a bone shard taking a gnarled wood goblin’s head clear off. Another was winged by a red flash and had fallen behind. The goblin was already fighting multiple lesser undead alongside a handful of earthen golems.
But the goblin foothold had successfully been established. Already the goblins were fanning out to cover more of the room. The pallet was set up on the other side of a large pedestal bearing a humanoid statue. Goblin grenadiers were already carrying out and setting up rockets all of which were pointed right to where the bone naga would soon be. These were the highest quality sulfur essence enriched rockets that had been made up to this point. Their quality was only good quality, but they fired fairly ture which made them twice as useful as the hundreds that had been set off hours earlier into the pass.
Several pyromancers lit them all at once. Henry had lost a few more members from his squad before the 40 rockets streaked past just overhead. The bone naga had continued its unceasing fire even as it moved closer as it moved to intercept them. Shadow had fallen behind them so it could shoot straight at their backs. The elite squad was in serious danger from just these two entities.
The majority of the rockets missed the massive target, but a few successfully made contact. Several slammed into the naga’s bone hood. While a third slammed midway down the creature’s length. The one that connected with the body cracked and chipped the massive vertebrae, but overall it seemingly had no effect. The smaller bones on the hood on the other hand splintered off as the serpent head rocked back from the force. The result was that one side of the hood had 4 or 5 of the rib-like appendages blown clear off creating a gap between those above and below. Whereas on the other side it looked like some massive creature had bitten three of them in half leaving just some nubs. Mark did not know how much the hits equated in taking down the creature's health, but it would have some effect even if it was only keeping the guardian from healing other things as quickly as before.
Seconds later the idea was proved right as the naga resumed spitting bone shards, but now they were coming with at least half the frequency as they had been. Henry and his squad had already shifted course to head straight for the giant snake. The other goblins were fanning out to aid. The archers were already making protection arrows rain towards Shadow, which had caused the elite spectral undead to take cover behind a mausoleum. Other mages started charging up either the lightning or the magic lance spells. The grenadiers were already setting up for the second and last volley of rockets. After this they would move in with their personal ordinance.
Henry only closed half the distance between himself and the naga before the second wave of rockets streaked over his head. Henry and his squad jumped behind the closest available cover. This time there were two hits. One on the neck just under where the smallest bones came out to start the hood. A second scored right in the serpent’s eye socket. The creature once again rocked back from the explosions. Mark and Amelia both got to their feet cheering for the strike, like the grenadiers had just scored a gameday touchdown.
But it only took seconds for the guardian to right itself. The only thing visible from this far out was that one of its eye sockets was now smoking. Henry and his squad resumed their charge along with a dozen other elites that had caught up from behind. Each carried a war hammer and each was determined to wreck the massive creature ahead.
To the left of the room half the floor's defenders still contended with a good two hundred plus earthen golems along with one hobbling gnarled wood goblin. The golems were clearly on the losing side, but they would hold for now.
Outside the entrance hundreds of undead slammed into the waiting stone golems in the final hallway before the final room. It was the final choke point, and only a couple hundred golems and a handful of goblins stood before Numerous and hundreds of undead coming to their dungeon guardian’s aid. It was a bit of a waste, but most of the final vitality bombs were left behind here. The few remaining goblins would sporadically toss them in when it looked like the undead might break through. They all just needed to hold out while Henry and several hundred goblins purely focused on the task of dealing with the giant floor guardian.
On the other interface screen a different battle was taking place. Undead were springing out of the large cracks like daisies. Already several hundred were topside with more coming up with every moment. The stone tarantula was doing what it could, but it was clear the undead were targeting the other defenders first. They wanted to get the floor guardian all alone. Already they were nearly there. Only a few centipede symbiotes were left, but then a large stone egg smashed down from the tarantula’s backside. A minute from now the guardian would have another half dozen tier 3 strength defenders to ease its burden. Once they were dealt with the lotus would breed another batch, and then another assuming the guardian was able to last that long.
Mark seriously doubted they had nearly that much time. Once the other defenders were down the undead would swarm onto the tarantula like a bunch of ants. The tarantula was probably the most durable unit in the battle, but was was on the slower side. Its giant form lumbered across the battlefield. The bone naga was also durable, so it would be a race in which force could whittle down the opposing hero first.
Already the naga had swapped to fighting the goblin elites in a melee. Several elites had been snapped in half by the guardian’s jaws. Three more had been crushed as the giant swept its tail in from the side. Mark was now on the edge of his seat as was Amelia. One way or another everything would likely be decided in another 10 minutes.
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Henry was crackling with electricity as he jumped around like a flea, first off the ground, then the side of a mausoleum, but he was not on the attack. The bone naga was coiling around the area, and the bugbear commander was doing everything he could to escape. Magic lances and lighting slammed into the large naga at a steady cadence, but they did little more than chip small flakes off or create new cracks. Each hit brought them one step closer to bringing the guardian down, but each was also each only a drop in the bucket of what was required. The tens or hundreds of hammer strikes along the naga’s body by elite had likely done several times the amount of damage despite there only being a handful elite left to carry on the fight.
The goblin archers were fanning out to keep Shadow at bay. Their protection arrows were extremely effective if they hit, but Shadow was doing a good job of keeping cover between itself and the archers. Far more often a red flash of light left a goblin archer’s corpse steaming. At this rate Shadow might deal with the archers before they were able to bring him down. The golems fighting off the rest of the defenders were getting whittled down as were the golems defending the hallway on the previous floor.
Meanwhile true to expectations the undead were swarming the stone tarantula. Hundreds of stone spikes jutted out of the ground in all directions, some still with undead corpses still pierced through and hanging from them. The most recent fourth batch of tarantula spawn had already been dealt with. It had only taken the undead a minute to deal with them. Already the lotus was working on the fifth spawn batch, but there would be a good minute before the egg sac was fully formed. Then it would be another minute before the spawn hatched.
The stone tarantula was using multiple legs to strike out in all directions at any given moment in time. The lotus was using half of its vine appendages to try to deal with the undead that were already climbing up on the tarantulas back, but it was not doing a very good job despite its aura weakening everything that got close to either of them. The lotus was not a strong fighter, at best a handful of the vines could only hold off a high tier 1 enemy. The lotus was simply overwhelmed dealing with enemies from nearly all directions. The tarantula was seemingly doing just fine, despite hundreds of cuts along its surface streaming bluish black blood. But things would only get worse once the lotus died, since the flower unit was continuously healing the guardian. The only thing keeping the stone tarantula alive was its mobility and the wide cracks in the floor that were more difficult for many of the undead to easily navigate.
The fight would not last too long once the tarantula lost its mobility, which might not be too far off. Already one of the legs had been blown off with a fire bomb. The nub was still smoldering from the flames that clung to it like napalm. It had only been ten minutes since the undead started assaulting the giant arachnid and it was already struggling. Although perhaps it should not be all that surprising since the tier 3 undead had been spawning for over 20 minutes by this point. On top of the magical equipment and spells used by hundreds of tier 2’s they were quickly working to whittle down the guardian. With cap limits, Nick never should have been able to bring such a force to bear, but the spectral ark and the summoning chamber star had apparently allowed the other contender to ignore the limits.
A fresh wave of explosions rocked along the naga’s surface as the goblin grenadiers got into range with their hand thrown ordinance. Cracks formed all along the creature's surface, but the naga was not phased. It did however change its target, choosing to slither quickly toward the goblin grenadiers who all instantly started running for cover. Several golden bombs exploded in the creature's face as it neared. Several goblin mages had just expended the last vitality bombs that had been brought into the dungeon. Perhaps it was not the best use of them, but it had kept the grendiers from being immediately wiped out. Important since the grenadiers had just done more damage than nearly anything else thrown at the dungeon guardian. The naga instantly jerked back away from the golden expanding smoke, right toward a lightning crackling hammer that slammed into the back of its head.
The force of Henry’s blow knocked the naga back into the golden smoke. The goblin grenadiers had already readied and launched a second round of ordinance at the giant as spells continued to rain in. Henry landed on the earth and dived for cover behind a small gravestone as the whole area shook from a new wave of explosions. More of the elites that had moved in to harass the tail as the guardian moved away got caught up in the explosions with several being rocketed back with grievous wounds.
However, when the smoke cleared the naga had once again raised its head twenty feet off the deck. It continued its pursuit of the goblin grenadiers. The damage along its body was visible by this point. Cracks criss crossed many of the bone links and even the eye socket, where the rocket had scored earlier in the battle, was now collapsed. But despite a third of its face being gone the naga continued its rampage. It started to kill the grenadiers and the surrounding mages quite easily.
This time it was Ezekiel that stopped the onslaught, moving in with his ten foot shoddy wooden robot construction he sent two power balls of lightning toward the beast. They hit the creature's throat just under the head. The guardian was knocked back completely, its head whipped back even collapsing to the ground from the attack, but the respite did not last. A few seconds later it raised its head back up. Its only needed to move a hundred feet before it coiled its body into a spring. It was preparing itself to launch right at Ezekiel.
Henry came in fast from the side to intercept the naga, but one of the long rib-like bones that formed the creature's hood departed like a boomerang aimed right for the bugbear commander. Airborne, Henry could do little but to hold his hammer in between himself in defense. The bone appendage slammed into him. Henry kept the blow from being lethal, but he was still sent backward as the bone ricocheted off him toward the ceiling. Henry was deflected back down toward the earth where he slammed down and tumbled several times, finally stopping as his body slammed into a gravestone which broke from the impact.
It was a move the naga likely would not be able to repeat more than a few more times thanks to most of its hood being destroyed by this point, but then again it might not need to. The number of credible threats to the giant bone snake were not that high to begin with. Ezekiel was once again charging both arms for another discharge, but he had not had near enough time to build blasts that were as powerful. Ezekiel was forced to perform the attack early as the creature launched forward moving hundreds of feet in a fraction of a second. The jaws closed about his suit of armor even as he blasted the creature right in the face. More bone blew off from the creature’s face, but there was little to be excited about since the suit was also falling away in two pieces.
The naga lifted his head high back into the air to reorient and find new enemies. All of the grenadiers and mages had scrambled to all sides, and were already baraging the hero from all sides now. Nearly half the naga’s face was now gone. The jaw hung lop sided, but the naga was not finished. It quickly decided on new targets and began to move to crush them with its body. The handful of remaining elites were moving in from all sides and started delivering their own consistent damage along the body.
In their own dungeon the tarantula was now hobbling with only half of its original legs left to it. The hero had well over ten fire bombs at this point. Most of its antenna-like hairs were burnt clear off and the hard shell was scored. The only good news was that the undead had ran out of the fire bombs.
Eight new spiders had finally spawned and were acting like the giant spider's honor guard as they all moved toward the most open section of the floor. The lotus still clung to the floor guardian, but the charred remains hung lifelessly and would likely slip off at any moment. The spawn were helping to keep the guardian alive for now, but they clearly did not have much longer. The undead were swarming like a zombie apocalypse.
In contrast, it was a bit unclear how much more damage the bone naga could take before the hero expired. Like most of the skeleton undead the hero did not have any vital components like a heart or brain, although it would likely die if it lost its head. However if they inflicted enough damage it should hit a point where it just broke apart.
The stone and earth golems holding both the hallway and the other defenders were starting to buckle. Already several defenders were streaking past to come to the nagas' aid. Most of the archers were down. Henry was back on his feet, but now he had been forced to square off against Shadow who was also trying to come to the bone naga’s aid. Henry’s body had been twisted unnaturally after having been sent slamming down to the earth, so he had likely been forced to use up most if not all of his reversal skill to rewind his body to a time before the damage. However, he had multiple wounds still streaming blood, which indicated that his soak skill had also run dry. He still had crackling electricity, but likely had already used up most everything else. Now he had to deal with another unique titled unit before he could even think about going back after the floor guardian.
Henry decided to charge since not doing so would only stall the battle's completion, and since Shadow would only continue to shoot out red flashes unrelentingly. The shadow chose to fade back and fire at the approaching bugbear, and was maintaining the distance since the bugbear was forced to weave back and forth to avoid the red flashes. When Henry was able to get close black tentacle-like appendages, the Shadows' actual ability, helped to keep him at bay. It was a terrible match up for the already spent Henry. Luckily he was not alone.
There were only three goblin archers remaining and they were paralleling the two elites while firing protection arrows at Shadow. It forced Shadow to be weary from threats from multiple directions. Shadow first realized this when it was hit by at least half of the duplicates from one shot. That alone had almost been the units undoing. Now the five units were locked in a high stakes game. Henry and the archers sought to end things quickly, while Shadow only sought to pull them away from the naga and delay as long as possible. It was clear the unit was likely being controlled.
The stone tarantula was truly on its last legs, literally. There were only three left. It was all the hero could do but to keep itself alone and occasionally move slightly to the side and body slam any undead who were not quick enough. The spawn were all down and undead covered the hero’s back hacking away. The only thing that kept the hope alive was the tarantula's hard exoskeleton. Even if it lost the remainder of its legs it might take a bit for the undead without the fire bombs to crack that nut.
Likewise, the undead led by Numerous were starting to break through. Already there was a steady trickle of undead entering onto the final floor. The earthen golems fighting the defenders were also starting to let defenders and there spawn through. They had maybe another minute before they completely broke through the defenders at the end of the tunnel allowing Numerous and a literally horde of undead to come to the naga’s aid.
None of it had escaped Henry’s attention. He planted a foot sliding in the earth and reversed course and immediately shifted in the opposite direction. A red flash scored against his upper back, but the bugbear commander did not falter as he continued to build speed. His back smouldered as he moved unnaturally quick. He had not used up his dash skill after all. Shadow continued to fire after Henry, but it opened the spirit unit up to a full dose of several protection arrows. Shadow flickered but somehow maintained its existence although it was forced to duck behind cover.
A lot of work had been done against the naga since Henry had been pulled off by Shadow. The entire tail or last 20 to 30 feet had separated thanks to a lot of effort of the other elites smashing the same area over and over. The naga was clearly slower with the loss of some of its length and now was being forced to retreat to keep from being surrounded. It was nearing the gray walls forming the back corner.
It meant when the golem lines did buckle they would have quite a ways to go to cross the room. Twenty seconds later when Numerous came through the portal amidst a flood of other undead. Henry was already a thousand plus feet away sprinting in the opposite direction. Numerous took one look before he raised his arms. Six blue skinned tall lanky figures pulled themselves from the ground.
Ghouls… Mark had seen a handful amidst the undead ranks, but it was clear the zombie units were not one of Nick’s go to’s. They were weaker tier 2 than the wights and clearly were the weaker units between the two. However, it was clear why Numerous had chosen to raise the unit type. The ghouls took off at a dead sprint. They were so fast they made the other undead seem like they were going at half speed.
They were to far behind to be of any concern to Henry who was laser focused on the naga. All he had to do was to kill the hero first. The naga reoriented toward the bugbear commander. Nick likely recognized the bugbear as the only unit capable of finishing things off in time. Henry had no choice but to continue forward, once again increasing his speed in the final moments before his leap. Nick was only half right.
A large blue light flared off from the side along with the corresponding, “Muhahahaha…” It was Ezekiel who somehow was not killed when his suit was ripped in half. The only explanation that Mark could come up with was that the unit had pulled his body into one of the halves like when a magician sawed a box in half. However, now the mad scientist held one of his robots arms under his right arm while in his left he held a glass orb, now with only faint traces of the blue energy. The orb was connected to the arm by multiple lines.
Mark had no idea what the bugbear commander's intention had been prior to leaping. Perhaps he intended to smash the head directly, but thanks to the blue blast of energy the head whipped back exposing the base of the neck where Ezekiel had hit with his first blast. Henry slammed the area. Mark and Amelia jumped from the couch as the naga’s head cleanly separated, spinning in the air.
The naga’s spine-like body, the head and Henry all fell to the earth. Mark and Amelia were both screaming at the interface at the top of their lungs. But seconds later, their excitement cut off sharply. Henry had fallen onto and been impaled by multiple posts of a black fence surrounding the large mausoleum in the corner of the room. The naga was dead, but it was clear that Henry would not be able to finish things like had had been for.
The goblins around stood dumbly at the fallen naga and their impaled leader. All the while a horde of undead were sprinting to intercept their path toward the floor’s exit a thousand plus feet away centralized along the back wall.
In their dungeon the stone tarantula was already immobilized. Tier 3 rippers had commandeered some pikes and were now on the back of the arcanid’s head trying to dig in and scramble the guardian’s brains. It was difficult going, but the guardian did not have much longer.
It took Henry a moment to gather himself after the fall and the subsequent impalement, but finally he got out one word, “GO!” He cried at the top of his voice. As one the goblins shifted their attention away from the battle’s aftermath and toward the dungeon exit and hundreds of undead streaming in their direction.
“Muhahaha,” Ezekiel laughed as he took off. “All the lightning essence will be mine.”
The other goblins also frantically took off toward the exit with hoops and hollers. Perhaps the fact that there were hundreds of enemies screaming their direction would have been enough motivation, but Mark had put out to the Southern army long ago the rewards that would be given to the goblin that destroyed the blue orb. The succession battle would be over so the promises would never be kept, but the goblins did not know that. For them, a lifetime of taking it easy with an all one can eat chicken and pork was up for the taking.
Now they just had to make it before the undead reinforcements cut them off. Ezekiel was in the lead, but lost ground as he was forced to deal with several ghouls. He took two down with a lightning baton, before he was tackled by a third. The other goblins did not falter a step. Ezekiel’s fate hardly mattered to them. The other three ghouls each took out a few goblins before the light footed units outpaced them completely. From the beginning the goblins had been casting down weapons and armor, anything to lighten their load.
There were two dozen goblins left by this point, not counting a good fifty more that would never make it in time since they had fallen too far behind. The leading goblins cut through another group of undead, each choosing to weave to avoid rather than to fight through the last group of other undead before they were in the clear. Less than half made it through.
The eight goblins hooped and hollered as they closed on the door. None of the undead were fast enough to stop them now. However a good 20 dark orbs of energy launched out of the undead horde. Debuffs that could potentially slow them down enough. Most of the goblins saw the black orbs and did what they could to avoid it. Most were successful since the orbs had not really been aimed, but two went down after being hit due to the sheer number of them. However the rest were clear with the closest of enemies several hundred feet behind them.
The six slammed into the door nearly in unison. The door opened slowly allowing them to filter in. Although two ended up on the floor wrestling each other. Now came the downside to Mark’s promise. In the end only one of the goblins could succeed. The two prone by the door fought to disentangle themselves, but they were basically already out of the running. A third yellow hobgoblin went down when one of the other green goblins slammed its fist into the back of the hobgoblins head. It went against goblin hierarchy, but what was hierarchy before the good life that awaited the green goblin. The other two each had one arm on the other as they vied for advantage.
“So help me, if these bastards cause us to…” Amelia yelled before being cut off due to an unexpected sight.
An old butler looking guy stood in front of the pulsating core with a broom. He was intent on defending the core. Nick himself was further off just watching wide eyed. The old guy was Nick’s champion, and apparently the only one of the two with sound enough mind to try and stall the goblins from destroying the core. He would not have to stall for long. The undead were already closing in on the doorway. There was nothing that would keep them from pursuing the goblins within.
The pair of goblins pushing on each other both ducked under a hard swing by Nick's champion. The broom sailed overhead. One goblin successfully split off from the other while forcing the other into the old man. The old man and goblin went down while the other gleefully snatched up the core. The goblin brought the bowling ball sized orb back intending to smash it down into the ground. Amelia squealed as the orb moved down with finality.
But… the third fastest green goblin that had knocked out the hobgoblin dove and caught the orb keeping it from braking.
“Nooooo….” Amelia hollered.
“You’ve got to be kidding me,” Mark buried his face in his hands, but only for a second. His eyes fixed right back on the two goblins. The one who had saved the orb and the one who had intended to smash it, both had the orb in hand and were trying to yank it away from the other. The old butler guy was trying to get untangled from the third goblin, but he was not successful regardless of the fact that the green goblin was not struggling overly much.The two goblins at the entrance were both trampled by the undead as they poured through the door. The yellow hobgoblin continued to lay there unmoving.
Both green goblins fighting over the core saw the incoming horde, but neither was willing to give up on the prize. The undead were closing in and it appeared that neither could eek out an advantage. Just when Mark felt his heart drop to the pit of his stomach, as he realized that the undead were about to stop it a white flash streaked out hitting the core. The core shattered into pieces.
The third goblin finally was able to disentangle itself from the old man. The goblin managed to get to his feet and jump into the air before the feed dropped and the remaining goblin reappeared on the desert surface. The undead in their own dungeon froze. Like the orcs had long ago they were being reprogrammed having lost the contender in control of them.
Mark found himself hugging and jumping with Amelia, but the excitement cut off sharply. Nothing was seemingly happening. Don’t tell me, we have to survive the remaining undead, Mark thought in horror. The horror was only momentarily as the world started to flicker around them.
“See you on the outside,” Amelia said before he felt his consciousness fade away.