MH2 - Chapter 15: A God Among Monsters

Dolli squeezed through and around the cracks in the rocks until she forced her way through the obstruction. She was met with a gaping hole in her tower the revealed waves of fire on the ground.

Kelzoul’s army seemed endless in the deep twilight of her demise.

No. She could still beat him.

She turned away from the opening and used Burst of speed, propelling herself through the maze. She zipped down crumbling passages until she heard the roars of combat in the ground floor. Dolli emerged at the last staircase to a bloody massacre. Brene was at the front, just outside the wide opening. She’d created a semi-circle around the gateway that allowed two dungeonfolk at a time to start scaling the walls.

It wouldn’t be enough. This plan would surely fail.

No! They could still make it.

Dolli charged forward and squeezed through to the front. “Relief is here!”

In a flash, Dolli summoned the second to last full quest sixty heroes. “Guard our retreat!” she ordered the heroes, and they went to work.

Brene called for the dungeonfolk to move back, and they ran. Dolli lead them through the switchback around the blocked tunnels and in a few, ground trembling minutes, they’d reached the top.

Aerial troops clashed overhead in a shower of feathers and blood. Dolli and her monsters ran through the streets to the center of town encountering enemy monsters frequently. When they reached the X, Rufus was there waiting with the other Stagarths and Oakenheart.

Dolli hopped up on Rufu’s shoulder, grabbing hold of his thorny mantle and typed out her message and read aloud to everyone. “The tower is going down,” she paused, her voice threatening to betray her. She started again, stronger, “But we can go down gently. We’ll use Creeping Moss like a blanket to help contain the crumbling, dropping us to the ground while keeping the village safely balanced on top. Every Wispelle find a Wendigo partner to cast Zeal on. Everyone else, keep them safe.”

Her people read the message and ran about chaotically, trying their hardest to self-organize. They were frightened for their lives. Hero attacks had been one thing, but Kelzoul and his army were a different beast.

Kelzoul didn’t specialize in dungeon diving like the heroes. His goal wasn’t to get all the loot and XP. He was there for dungeon annihilation, and he was well versed in the art of his kind of warfare. He’d known what Dolli was going to expect, and he’d completely subverted that expectation.

He’d outplayed her.

The dungeonfolk were paired off, and ready to go.

“What do we do once we’re down?” Someone asked from the crowd.

Dolli sucked in a breath. “He’ll come to me to rub this defeat in my face and then we strike. We’ll hit him hard with a hero summon and he’ll have to take the potion—and that will be the end of him. He’ll be banished to Nevheröld for eternity.”

There was murmuring and quite sobs as the message sunk in. They were fighting for their very lives to the last dungeonfolk.

Dolli looked down at Rufus and whispered. “Do you think this is going to work?”

“I hope so,” he said quietly.

“I’m so sorry if it doesn’t.” Dolli swallowed back the feeling of tears, though she couldn’t cry in her vapor form.

“It’s been a wild time,” Rufus said somberly, then smirked. “We still might beat him, you know.”

Dolli chuckled. “Right. I’ve been doing the math, you see—”

“Don’t tell me the odds,” Brene interrupted. She grinned deviously and said, “It’ll spoil the thrill of battle.”

Resolve coursed through Dolli. She couldn’t condemn them with her mind before the battle had been decided. They still had a chance, and Dolli was going to do everything in her power to make the most of it.

The rumbling underfoot grew, and Dolli knew it was time.

“Creeping Moss and Zeal at the ready!” Brene yelled over the whole dungeon.

“We’re protecting special cargo,” Dolli said, pointing to her cottage.

Rufus knew right away what she meant. Not only was the dungeon core under Dolli’s home, but Nubiri’s last baby was roosting by the augmented chimney. Rufus sprinted on all fours toward the cottage and Brene boomed a countdown.

“Ten, nine, eight,”

The tower rumbled but the roads held together. Dolli was none too surprised at its steadfastness; after all, the town was designed to handle over a hundred wagons an hour!

Rufus skidded to a halt and pressed his palms against the wood of Dolli’s home.

“Three, two, one!”

Dolli buffed Rufus with Zeal and he grew by several feet. Thick green moss spread from his hands across the cottage and around Nubiri’s egg, then down across the road. His moss connected with that of another Wendigo, and the spells interlocked. The green rolled over the village and cascaded down the edges, wrapping their homes in safety.

By the gods, it was working!

The ground shook and the tower tilted, finally giving way under the constant assault. Stone crumbled at the gaping holes left by explosions and the village section slammed down into the lower half. Maze rooms collapsed, sending off notifications in Dolli’s view about the critical danger to her dungeon, begging her to take action.

“Hold!” Brene yelled above the grinding roar of boulders smashing into the ground. Dirt plumed up all around the village as they fell seventy feet. The stomach-turning sensation of gravity lessening filled Dolli’s stomach, knotting it a hundred times over with the fear of her people.

They hit another section hard, jostling nearly everyone to their knees. But the Creeping Moss held them together. A cloud of brown dust rushed up and domed over the village and they slowed to a stop.

Dolli waved her hand in front of her face to clear the dust, but it persisted.

“Did we do it,” Rufus asked, then coughed.

“I think so.” Dolli used Burst of Speed to get up on the roof of her cottage, then zipped across the distance to an open window on the X. She floated up the stairs and pushed out onto the roof, above the thickest part of the dust.

Rocks tumbled and slipped down the edges of the hill of rubble, now spread out several hundred feet in all directions but only thirty or so feet high compared to its once ninety. Queasy desolation bloomed in Dolli’s gut as she looked on the ruins of their home, and what lie beyond them.

Orange even brighter than the sun lit up the sky as thousands of Kelzoul’s soldiers returned to him for respawn. The glowing light didn’t go far, collapsing in on a single point just a few hundred feet from Dolli. A sea of coral-skinned creatures swarmed around the rubble but parted at his coming.

It was time to gloat.

Dolli jumped down onto Rufus’ shoulder. “He’s coming.”

She opened up her quest menu and looked at the full roster quest. It was the last one left.

“Witch in her castle, now ghoul to ruins!” Kelzoul roared. He was still a good hundred feet from the city’s edge, but loud as can be. It shook the hearts of her people to know death was so close, and that rattle battered her fading hope.

No, this was still part of the plan. They had a chance.

Dolli sighed. “Let’s go crush this bastard.”

Rufus puffed up his chest and stalked to the center of town. He stopped next to Brene and the other dungeonfolk, bringing and air of confidence with him that lifted their spirits. An icon appeared in the corner of Dolli’s vision and she spared a glance at the buff.

[Lieutenant’s Final Stand]

At the brink of ruin, the Lieutenant will bring you a final hope in the form of strength to defeat your enemies and defend your home.

Effects:

· +10 Strength

· +20 Constitution

· +5 Agility

· +10 Magical Affinity

· +15 Mental Prowess

· +15% Spark Regeneration while in combat

Duration: 15 minutes.

-----

Dolli whispered to Rufus. “Holding out on us this whole time?”

“I figured now’s sort of the last chance. Three-day cooldown,” he said.

Through the settling dust Dolli could see the orange glowing Overlord. He’d grown nearly a foot since she’d last seen him, and his muscles bulged beyond reason. The fleeting jovial moment faded, replaced with determination. No matter how big he got, Dolli and her dungeonfolk would not give up, and they wouldn’t fail.

The orange light swirled and pulled around Kelzoul, as if it were trying to escape him. He sucked down a deep breath and the light fell into him like shooting stars. His muscles rippled and he grew another half-foot in size. His “guard” was now only half his height, looking like children next to Kelzoul.

“You thought you knew every, little, thing… didn’t you?” Kelzoul asked, stopping just twenty feet from where Dolli sat on Rufus’ shoulder.

Dolli opened the quest menu in half her vision, multitasking while her thoughts hovered over the “Summon All” button. “I could say the same thing about you.”

Kelzoul laughed. “You’re defeated! What’s more to know?”

Dolli hopped down, nodding for the others to retreat a ways.

“Now you want to challenge me to a duel?” Kelzoul asked, an amused glint in his wild, orange glowing eyes.

His body looked as if the light would rip a hole through his skin at any second. His muscles twitched and flexed in seemingly uncontrolled ways, giving Kelzoul fear-inducing tremors. He was itching to fight—no, to slaughter.

“I think there’s a great many things you didn’t account for,” Dolli taunted.

Kelzoul lifted his hand and Dolli tensed, but waited. He produced something from his inventory with a glimmering flourish: a potion.

“You mean this?” He asked, holding Dolli’s poison to the sky.

Dolli’s wide-eyed gaze betrayed her, making Kelzoul grin like a vulture. He uncorked the bottle and turned its contents out, splattering them to the ground.

Hopelessness washed over Dolli, turning her icy cold.

“Of all your failures, I will cherish this most,” Kelzoul charged forward and Dolli’s mind flickered to the button.

In a blinding flash, sixty heroes materialized between her and the maniacal overlord.

“Kill that monster!” Brene commanded, and everyone snapped into action.

Magic bolts flashed and swords clashed, pushing Kelzoul back. He struggled to gain his footing, losing sight of Dolli in the crowd. He smashed through the first hero tank, then used their body like a club to beat the others back. Starfires roared and Bronzite fists crashed as the battle resumed all around them.

Nubiri swooped from the sky like a demon, the goblin on her right shoulder belching fire from the nozzle of a massive turret while the goblin on her left unloaded wicked crossbow bolts into Kelzoul’s guards. The enemy line fell back, leaving Kelzoul stranded with his three generals in a ring of heroes.

But it was all for naught if Dolli couldn’t get some of that potion in him. Or, what if she could get it on him? Perhaps not the same effect of consuming it, but she was willing to try any option they had left.

“Knock him into the air!” Dolli yelled, the perfect plan hatching in her mind.

The heroes swarmed around Kelzoul, all trying to get a piece of him. This wouldn’t work if she couldn’t get a clear shot at throwing just him. She couldn’t cast her second portal if any living creature bisected it.

“Nubiri! Grab and toss!” Brene bellowed the command.

The wyvern banked, coming around to snatch the overlord. They would only get one real shot at this.

Dolli locked eyes with the dragon-beast, and prepared the first portal over the puddle of potion next to her. Nubiri’s clawed feet dipped down into the crowd and locked on Kelzoul’s oversized shoulders. The wyvern flapped her wings hard and turned up, throwing the overlord with all her weight.

Nubiri went down hard, the force of throwing the massive overlord too much for her to keep to the sky. She skidded across the road and slammed into the X, losing the goblin saddle from her shoulders and spewing fire into the building.

But Dolli couldn’t watch the destruction of her friend’s inn. She tracked Kelzoul’s path, placing the second portal right where it needed to be. He fell through the invisible opening in the air and dropped directly into the pool of poison he’d so carelessly dumped.

Dolli’s heart stopped as the liquid smeared across his arms and face. The overlord rolled over with a roar and climbed to his feet. She held her breath, begging all the gods for help. Let this be his end, she whispered in her mind.

“You think magic tricks will stop me?” he whirled until he found Dolli. He leered, his bloodlust intensified. But then, an orange rip pulled across his bicep like a zipper, spilling orange ooze down his arm. Kelzoul winced, then poked the liquid with a curious swipe of his finger.

Another tear burst across his chest, orange goop spraying across his armor.

Yes!

Dolli’s heart restarted and she felt hope.

Kelzoul roared in anger, charging toward Dolli. She turned tail with Burst of Speed, zipping around the legs of charging heroes.

“You won’t escape!” Kelzoul bellowed with an unnatural growl. Dolli looked over her shoulder to see the overlord gaining on her, and gaining in size. The orange oozing down his arms and legs twisted and pulled his body out of proportion until Kelzoul was nearly fifteen feet tall.

The mad overlord screamed in pain, dropping to the ground with a thud. Dolli stopped and stood her ground. The madman looked up, his eyes bloodshot and swollen.

“You’ve miscalculated again,” he said through gritted teeth. “And now you’ll all pay the price.”

The orange leaking from Kelzoul’s body slurped back into him, and he flexed out in all directions. “Now you all will pay!”

Kelzoul’s officers crumpled to their knees, orange light ripping out through their eyes, nose, and mouth. The glowing respawn essence flashed through the air and smashed into Kelzoul, making him grow an inch in every direction. Another orange beam fired through the air and hit the Overlord, bulking him.

“What’s happening to him?” a dungeonfolk cried.

“He’s entering his final form!” a hero yelled with glee.

Dolli pulled a Spark potion from her inventory and downed it, then wiped her mouth with her wispy arm. “Get ready for the boss battle of your lives, noobs!”