MH2 - Chapter 14: Blunders of Epic Proportions

The army of hero and monster marched side by side down to the bottom level. Every ramp they took along the outside provided a view of the battle awaiting them. Dolli stopped at the window carved into the stone just big enough to cast through.

Her defectors were there on the front line, trembling and terrified. Her heart broke for them, but she wouldn’t let her home be destroyed by their ignorance. Far behind the front line was a mass of monsters chopping trees, creating spears, and digging trenches. They were preparing for a long, longbattle.

“Whoa, and here’s a view of what’s to come, people,” Katrina said, pulling up behind Dolli. “This is the single most epic world battle I’ve everseen in Hafheim, and y’all are gonna miss it if you don’t move your asses.”

Dolli appreciated Katrina keeping the pressure on, but she was speaking about it as if it was some fun, limited time event. To the heroes, she supposed it was. They didn’t see their world as real, she reminded herself.

“Form up!” Brene called from the front and Dolli snapped back to the present.

She wiggled along through the crowd getting to the front. She had one last thing she wanted to say.

At the bottom of the dungeon, through the last tunnel to the single-entry point at the ground floor, waited her defectors. Brene didn’t leave her side as she stepped through the narrow doorway.

“We can win. Come back to us,” Dolli said, her arms open to the defectors.

A coral-skins pushed his way to the front and addressed Kelzoul’s army. “You will suffer a hundred-thousand times that of these whelps if you run! Kelzoul does not forget treachery!”

Katrina whispered from the doorway. “Look at this tense drama. Heart wrenching.”

“Come home!” Dolli called once more and the defectors shifted in place, uncertainty in their terrified faces.

“For Haven!” a cry rang out from the enemy lines and a sword ripped through the coral-skin’s back, leaving a spray of red on the dirt behind him. The ogre creature stumbled, grasping at the hilt of the blade buried deep in his chest.

The defectors charged in all directions, ripping at the guards that escorted them.

“Help them!” Dolli called to the heroes at her back and they charged forward.

“Coral-skins only!” Brene commanded, charging the enemy.

Dolli cast Zeal on her Battle Commander and she grew by three feet, towering over everything in her path. The Stagarth dropped her head and rammed into the crowd of Kelzoul’s forces. Bodies flew through the air from the force of her impact and Dolli speared them with a quick Spark Lance, ending them before they hit the ground.

The defectors ran toward Monster Haven and a hundred join request notifications sprang into Dolli’s view. A blue “Accept All” option appeared in the corner of her vision and Dolli smashed it without a thought.

All at once, the red names of the defectors swapped to green, and Dolli felt the rage of injustice from those Kelzoul had tormented. She moved forward, casting Solstorm through the dwindling enemy crowd.

Heroes and monster battle side-by-side, coral-skins falling by the dozens.

“Fall back to Haven,” Brene called when the slaughter ended. A semi-transparent map appeared in the upper left corner of Dolli’s vision and a red ping flashed at the door to the maze. Battle Commander abilities were no joke!

Dolli saw why she’d given the command. As the crowd of sword slinging heroes dispersed, the second wave of Kelzoul’s army could be seen charging forward. They would not fall easily as the defectors guards had. No, this would be the start of the real fight.

“Take up positions through the halls. Use the traps and block the tunnel when it’s soon to be overrun. We want to funnel them into the drop zone!” Brene’s voice carried through the group as if she were standing right next to Dolli, yet she was a good thirty feet behind her.

They crammed into the maze and spread through the side passages as ordered, Katrina close at Dolli’s side. Dolli spared a moment to look at the quests. Three more full and two nearly there. This wasn’t the pace of uptake she was hoping for, but they’d make it work.

The war cry of Kelzoul’s army was like deadly music to their marching feet. Shielded monstrosities entered the maze two by two, blocking every physical attack thrown at them. Dolli dropped Gravity Sink at the doorway, slowing everything down that came through and giving the heroes a fighting chance.

Brene bellowed commands and fired arrows from the center of the killing floor. Wispelle fired off heals and Zeals on the heroes while Oakenheart’s buffed their strength. Bronzite and the newly transformed Ironhide blocked all attacks aimed at the casters in the back.

“This is so feckin’ cool!” a hero called as they plunged their dagger into one of the shield-towering ogre’s eye. The monster dropped to his knees with a groan and disappeared in a puff of orange sparkles, returning to Kelzoul.

The bodies piled up at the entrance, then faded away in orange light. The obstructions, no matter how momentary, were welcome. The bright glow of the respawning enemies blinded the incoming forces, and the bodies tripped the running combatants, making them easy prey. Kelzoul’s forces could barely get through before they were shot down by bolts of magic and sharp arrows.

“Climb!” bellowed a voice in the distance so loud and powerful it could’ve only been Kelzoul using his Battle Commander ability.

Dolli opened her chat menu and delivered a dungeon-wide message: The battle has begun. Be on the lookout for Brene’s commands!

Not a second later, another message came through from Brene: Fliers to the tower walls, enemies climbing. Tanks, take a party of six to every window and provide support. Don’t let a single bastard in.

Dolli followed a group of four to the next level, Katrina not far behind. From her vantage through the window, it looked like ants swarming a picnic. Wave after wave of battle-hardened monsters washed over the fields of wheat, trampling them into dust. Dolli watched in horror as the creatures leapt onto the base of her dungeon and scaled it easily with their claw-tipped hands and feet.

Crawfen sailed through the air, razor talons ripping monsters from the walls and tossing them back to the ground. Some hit the ground with bone-crunching snaps, then dissolved into orange, but others laid there and wail. Incoming monsters grabbed the critically injured by the head and ran sharp blades across their throats to end the screams.

Dolli recoiled at the ruthlessness. Monsters dying on the battlefield wasted time and resources, he knew this. Killing them and going to respawn was faster than dragging them back and repairing them. How cruel, and efficient.

“Mom, I can’t pause. It’s an online game!” Katrina yelled behind Dolli.

She turned to see the young mage staring vacantly toward the wall.

“This is serious! Please, another thirty minutes!” the mage whined.

A Crawfen screamed and dropped through the air, three monsters hacking at its sides and legs with little blades. Dolli threw a Solstorm out the window, the golden light bouncing between her monster and the enemies in rapid succession. The enemies howled and convulsed, losing their grip on the avian assassin, and falling to their death. The Crawfen took back to the sky, its health bar below fifty percent but stable from Dolli’s heal.

“Yes, I can stay!” Katrina said and rushed up to Dolli’s side. “You guys, look at this insane battle. I keep telling you, you don’t want to miss out on all this epicness. It’s like LotR or something down here!”

A ping lit up Dolli’s view, a message from Brene: Need more heroes for the ground floor.

She panned over to the quest menu and selected another of the full ones. She summoned all the heroes and with her loudest voice, commanded them downstairs to Brene. The heroes, giddy for murder, ran down to receive their assignments.

A ribbiting chorus of fire-belching eyeball monsters drew Dolli’s attention back to the fight. Balls of flame arched across the distance from Kelzoul’s back-lines, only to land a few feet short in his own advancing troops.

Another war cry split the sky, this one loaded with fury. “Move up!”

The flying spheres of fire burps flapped their leathery bat wings and moved closer. Could that fire do serious structural damage to the tower? Dolli hadn’t accounted for an assault on the dungeon itself. Dolli didn’t want to wait around to find out.

She wrote a quick message to the Officer’s chat: Those fiery bastards need culling. Who’s on it?

Brene: I’ll deploy Crawfen.

A moment later, a flock of midnight black was sailing toward the enemy lines. In the fading light, Dolli saw orange flickering to life along the ground below the fire-belchers. It was a row of archers.

Dolli didn’t have time to send a message to Brene first, this had to go to everyone in the dungeon: Pull back to the tower!

She leaned out the window to scream, “Come back! It’s a trap!”

A black mass on the outside wall of the tower caught her eye. It was an iron tube, corked with a fuse. Dolli’s mind raced when she noticed another stick just five feet below it, and another one ten feet to the left.

She wrote another message to the Officers in a flurry: They planted bombs on the tower. They’re going to bring it down on top of us!

Brene’s voice boomed over the battlefield. “Remove all foreign objects from the tower exterior! Bronzite, push through. Osorath, Crawfen, and Destratos, go get those bombs off Haven!”

The battlefield moved all at once, Kelzoul’s monster bearing down on the dungeon exit all at once. They were going to block them in and blow them up. Dolli stared in horror, searching for a solution, anything to save them.

“Fire!” Kelzoul roared.

A horrible ribbit followed and fire streaked across the sky.

“Oh sheet, are they gonna blow us up?” Katrina asked, mortified.

“Seems as such,” Dolli said, a plan forming in her mind.

She cast Gravity Sink as far out as she could in the air. The incoming fireballs moved through the field and slowed, then dropped out of the sky onto the enemy horde at the foot of the tower.

Brene projected again a second later. “Wispelle, Gravity Sink the incoming fireballs!”

Crawfen dived past the fireballs, blasting gusts of magical wind in their wake that pulled the attacks out of the sky. All around the tower, her people got creative, trying everything they could to stop the sparks that would like the fuse on the whole dungeon.

The first attack failed, not a single fireball getting through, but Kelzoul had an army of those regurgitative freaks in his arsenal. Another volley was already trailing toward Monster Haven before the first had even been controlled.

Dolli’s dungeonfolk climbed the outside of the tower, battling enemies as they removed the bombs. But her dungeonfolk were being overrun. It was a hundred to one down there, and Kelzoul’s troops had encircled the tower. Heroes hacked away at the incoming monsters, but the slipped through their lines and scampered around the walls they’d constructed at the base.

A red notification flashed in Dolli’s vision, and she opened the chat, opting to leave it up in the upper right corner of her vision.

Rufus: Monster on the top level. We need heroes here.

Brene: Running thin down here.

Dolli: Sending fresh troops to you Brene and coming up to you Rufus. We need to get these explosives out, now!

Fire blazed through the window next to Dolli and scorched the outside. The fireball smashed into Katrina, knocking her back ten feet and searing her skin. Dolli leaned out the window to see the fuse on the three nearby bombs sparkling.

She couldn’t cast Fold Reality inside the wall, she couldn’t use Solstorm, or Burst of Speed, or Starfire or any of the damn abilities she’d selected up to this point.

“Get down!” Dolli yelled, pulling her people back from the walls.

“No!” Katrina screamed, raising her staff. Blue light burst from the crystal center and blossomed out in a shield around Dolli and the two closest dungeonfolk.

Time slowed to a crawl and a loud boom compressed the air around Dolli. The tower shook and chunks of rock blasted inward, smashing into her people’s unguarded backs. The rocks shredded into sand against the Spark shield around Dolli.

A fist-sized rock smashed into Katrina’s head, and she dropped her staff. The blue bubble around Dolli faded and debris rained down around them. She pushed her people back toward the center compartment, then reached down for Katrina. Dolli’s hand passed around and through Katrina’s arm and she cursed.

Green moss grew across Katrina’s chest, and a Stagarth down the hall yanked the unconscious mage out of the falling rock. Dolli wiggled along after her, barely evading the collapse. A large boulder smashed down against the hall as Dolli made it into the central room.

“Katrina,” Dolli asked the mage with concern. Her health bar was critically low.

“Did I help?” Katrina asked, her eyelid fluttering. Crimson trickled down her hair, matting it with the dirt of the tower.

“You saved me,” Dolli said, removing a health potion from her inventory.

“No,” Katrina said, putting a hand out to stop her. “You’re going to need it.”

“But you need it now. You’re part of this fight!” Dolli urged.

Katrina smiled with bloody teeth. “My mom says I have to go, anyways. It’s more heroic if I die in battle. Farewell, Hafheimers… see you at… respawn.” Katrina’s head dropped and she sighed out a last breath.

Dolli looked up to her frightened people. Their emotion flowed through her like a river carves through a mountain. How could she stop this? How could she save them? How could she save the people trapped below?

Dolli looked down the hall to the dead-ended way down a level, and then Julie flashed through her mind. “Then there’s this hidden switchback,” the memory roared through her mind.

Dolli opened her chat and spoke allowed the same message she sent to the entire dungeon. “Everyone make your way to the top level and remove as many of these explosives on the way as you can. Use the hidden exits at the switchbacks Julie built into every level. All Stagarth and Oakenheart with Creeping Moss, start refilling your Spark now. I have a plan.”