The day of battle and the first chance to pay Gale back for her treachery months ago or for her attack on their settlement less than a week ago, finally came. Months of preparations had come to fruition and the forces were ready. Daniel Hale was similarly ready, Mark had placed a few scouts among his army to monitor his progress, as he had done with them.
The focus of Daniels force was 20 massive earth dragons, although notably his unique titled ‘first primordial’ earth dragon one was not among them. On their backs were full wicker palanquin like baskets filled with lesser primates. However the earth dragons were not the only things slogging through the muk. Daniel had 10 massive 4 armed girallons decked in heavy metal plating that had to weigh hundreds of pounds, yet they moved on hardly impeded.
Towed behind the massive earth dragons or girallons were a good 40 barges with the majority of the rest of the force. From the looks of it they were all evolved beasts with primate riders. In total the force was not overly large but since the earth dragons all had a power rating of well over 9, and the girallons were too far behind. It was a force of elites.
Mark and Amelia’s army was far different. It was made of beasts, low tiered goblins, and frogmen. The only elites were the 48 tier spiders. Half were the plant beast combo knotted spore spiders, and half were the only slightly more powerful black funnel web spider. By their sides were 20 flowering tier 4 flowering stage sunflower breeders. They would be one of the main focal points of Mark’s attack plan. In total they had cost over 137,000 MP
The other half of Mark's plan revolved around 50 red hobgoblin witch doctors that he had spent 45,000 MP on. Then there were just under 2,000 goblins, 3 midnight lotuses, and 30 blood roses in support. Most of them were packed like sardines on small boats or barges to enable quick movement through the marsh. Hundreds of barges and boats had been moved to the loading point yesterday. Then in the wee hours of the morning the fleet had loaded up and set sail. The boats were urged on through goblin swearing and wooden oars in tandem with the 450 frogman’s directions. They weaved back and forth through the water channel as they made their way to the center of the swamp.
In the middle of the procession were 9 barges. That had relatively few units on board, but still sat fairly low in the water. Five carried the makeshift catapults, and the other four smaller barges carried a pair of ballista each.
But that was only a portion of the force. The other 50 frogmen and 500 goblins had set out yesterday and hunkered down in the middle of the swamp. They were moving north in near parallel with the main force. Mark had not really told Daniel about this part of the plan, but it was equally crucial. Gale would undoubtedly notice their slow moving fleet well before the attack began. Which meant she would inevitably send her force of ships and units at the riverhead settlement in support. If they made it, the assault might very well fail.
Gale and her lizardmen had made their home in the swampland, but the frogmen were just as if not more comfortable here. Mark had long had them scout out every aspect of the swamp. Unsurprisingly moving her big ships through was quite difficult. She would have to deal with extremely shallow water, mud banks, and mini islands. It was all to say that this seemingly open swamp was quite difficult to navigate with only a few lanes where her ships could pass without adding on hours into the journey of pushing them through the mud which would also add more time.
Mark’s second force made for a single point of failure between Gale’s swamp fortress and her riverhead settlement. Unless she wanted to go up or down and around for hours, she had to pass through here. Fortunately the goblins made it there first. However Gale had not been far behind. The ships were already at the edge of sight, giving the goblins only about 30 minutes to set up. The battle for the swamp fortress would begin here, since It would still be a good hour before the main army reached Gale’s territory. It would be twice that before Daniel’s forces would make it by Mark’s estimate.
Gale’s forces were basically going single file, but when they saw the awaiting goblins they started fanning out. Unsurprisingly, Gale’s forces got to attack first with their long ranged sling shots flinging their deadly projectiles. Gale seemed to have a million of the damn things. Yet the goblins weathered the volley without a single casualty. The barges had been split in half and were now pushed up forming a defensive wall on the banks on both sides of a 70 foot wide channel. A rough net had been set across the channel, but it would only keep Gale’s forces from sailing right through.. Orbs smashed against hastily constructed bulwarks and splashed into the water all around the impromptu defenses, but the goblins hunkered down inching away as frozen tendrils moved along the ground toward their feet.
As the ships closed in, the goblins quickly scrambled to set up rockets, Then a half dozen flame juggler reds lit all their fuses at once.. They only had about 80 of them due to their relative newness to the dungeon’s arsenol. Several got frozen by a exploding orb before the fuse was done, another got knocked over, but then they all went off nearly at once. The two stuck in ice exploded right there sending earth and ice shrapnel into the nearby goblins killing or maiming them. The rocket that fell over shot straight into the water. All the rest shot forward, before they started corkscrewing and scattering.
Fireworks exploded overhead as all of the other rockets found a target. Most exploded harmlessly into the air or in the water, but with 80 how could all of them miss. A good 20 of them exploded in the right vicinity. Shrapnel and bodies were sent flying. Half of the masts became useless torn rags. One ship took a direct hit. The wooden railing splintered sending shrapnel sweeping across the deck.
In total, Mark guessed both sides took about an even number of fatalities from the attack. However, From the looks of it the ship that had taken a direct hit was taking on water and would go down. A successful attack by all accounts since Gale’s units were far more important than any of Mark’s.
However, it was just a brief respite. Gale’s ships started moving forward once again, now under full power of their oars. The slingshots started to become more and more accurate. No goblins were hit directly, but the spreading ice had caught or skewered more than a few as ice stalagmites shot out from their defensive wall. Before the goblins were even in archer range, they had taken over 100 casualties. It sounded like a lot but since it had taken Gale’s ships 15 minutes to close in, the rate of death was not actually too alarming.
Arrows started streaking out. They duplicated into hundreds. Then they burst into flame, all before they fell on Gale’s units and ships. Most of the units were just fine, but hundreds of flaming arrows were lodged into her wooden boats. Unsurprisingly with the environment most failed to catch despite the enchantment keeping them burning for an extended period. However, the remaining sails were all ruined. If nothing else, not being able to supplement their rowing with wind power would cost her time. However, Mark intended for Gale’s fleet to sink here.
More volleys followed with the same effects. The wood was just too damp with the water and the humidity, but the goblins continued unperturbed. Dozens more goblins died as the slingshots continued to pelt their defenses with increasing effectiveness. The frozen wall was not starting to give way and collapse leaving the goblins exposed. The barge and mud wall, now looked to be made entirely of ice. Most of the water or mud around them had similarly started to freeze over. More than one goblin had given up the fight as they tried to pull a foot from what was now a frozen block of ice or tundra.
However they were coming into another range, hundreds of arrows once again embedded themselves into the wooden boats. However, instead of going out many of their flames began to build. Suddenly Gale’s armada found themselves alight in a half a dozen places a piece. The slingshot fire stopped briefly as the lizardmen struggled alarmed with the fire that seemed to spread and dance around despite their efforts. They spread, then closed together to trap units. Lizardmen and lesser trolls began to panic and started seeking escape in the water all around.
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But the flame jugglers' machinations had not gone unnoticed. A half dozen ice blasts lanced out from the cloud giants following close behind the ships. Nearly all the flame jugglers were taken out in one move. However more flaming arrows landed, and the few that remained continued to spread the flames. In less than a minute all efforts at saving the boats had been abandoned. Instead all of the sailors had dived into the water and were swimming for the defenders positions on both sides of the channel. The following melee was hardly a fight as the lizardmen put down the goblin and frogmen where they stood. Mark's last view from the linked force was hill trolls, cave trolls, and cloud giants all wading through the water toward the swamp fortress. The battle had been a success. The ships and hundreds of lizardmen and lesser trolls would never make it to the battle in time.
However the battle was little more than a skirmish compared to the full fortress assault that would start only an hour later. Gale’s forces got to watch for a good hour as the goblins moved in surrounding the fortress from the south and west. Setting up took longer than he would have hoped, however the good news was that they were still out of range for the most part. Gale had both slingshots and ballistas on top of the walls, but Mark was an engineer. How could he not have figured out the max trajectory of the slingshots based on ones recovered from around their dungeon? Several had streaked high arcs before splashing down about 100 feet shy. The ballistas could probably reach, but Gale was holding back for now.
It took another ten minutes to get the siege weapons barges securely anchored, before they were ready to begin. Hundreds of other goblins and frogmen got ready, before all five catapults went off at once. Five white oval projectiles flew in high arcs. The goblin engineers furiously began working to crank the launching arm back down. While another spider approached the breeder sunflowers.
Fortunately, the fog-like cloud that prevented anything beyond the territory from seeing inside, it did not affect things in the slightest once one was fully inside the illusion. It was just like the mirage of her forces that had fooled them for days. Mark of course had already known this having sent a few scouts inside to look around on multiple occasions.
If Gale thought that he was launching standard projectiles or that he was about to assault her fortress, then she had another thing coming. Just like flinging disease ridden corpses over the walls in medieval times, Mark had come up with a far more dastardly method of attack. It would not have been possible without some of their most recent upgrades.
The five white egg sacs flew. As soon as they had formed after the spiders had proliferated cast on them, the egg sacs had quickly been encircled with iron ring bracelets for weight and a parachute that would start to catch and open on the sacs downward trajectory. Four chutes successfully opened, while one egg sac continued hard likely splatting into the ground inside the walls. The four whose chutes did open had the metal rings slip off immediately and they started floating down right over the walls. Mark saw one egg sac burst open and dozens of black spiders fell. The other 3 sailed down out of sight beyond the wall.
It wasn’t much, but each egg sac should hold a good 50 spider young. All of them would be about the size of a medium sized dog, and all of them would have a power rating of about 1 or 1.2. They may be weak but 200 tier 1’s could not be entirely overlooked, and the catapults were already getting working to get another round loaded. Mark gave the order for the goblins and frogmen to move forward as a second volley of spider egg sacs were launched.
Unsurprisingly, the fortress sounded to be in a bit of chaos, but Mark witnessed two egg sacs get blown from the air, before the other 3 sailed down and out of sight. It was not too surprising that they were adapting fast, however Mark could do this for quite a while. Mark had more than enough breeder sunflowers and spiders to continue the barrage, and he had thousands of iron rings and parachutes ready to go.
Eventually the battle settled as Gale got accustomed to his unstandard tactic, and the defenders started paying attention to the advancing goblins, but how could Mark let things go so easily? Mark gave the order for the catapults to take an extra two cranks to deliver the special packages. Mark could just picture things inside. Gale probably had a lot of mages either blowing the egg sacs out of the air or hitting them with a fireball as soon as they got close. That is what he would have done, and hopefully great minds think alike.
Moments later, five white bags flew into the air. They also had parachutes, but no iron rings to make them heavier. They were heavy enough on their own. Mark only had a few of these shots available so he hoped to make them count. If Gale had watched closely she would have noticed that the black powder bags were descending at twice the rate of the normal egg sacs. None of these were shot from the air. Moments later the whole fortress shook as a successive wave of explosions shook the ground and deafened any nearby units. The enriched black powder made quite a boom.
However undoubtedly, Gale would work to counter future such attacks. Hopefully they had done enough damage to her secondary lines to allow a few waves of spiders to build up. Mark smiled as four of the next five floated down. One had still been blasted from the air by a cloud giant on the wall. Mark had an answer for them as well, and it looked like the goblins and frogmen were about in position.
Around five hundred feet from the walls or half the distance between both sides the goblins started setting up. A pair of goblins with shields stood front guarding each one of the 50 witch doctor reds, whose hands started to build black balls of power. Orbs and arrows sailed their way, but the guards' shields were enchanted and embued, catching the blue orbs with their energy shields. Soon black shots of energy were lobbed in high arcing paths toward the wall.
Ten seconds passed, but just before Mark could wonder if they had all missed several forms started sliding down the wall. It looked like a good 9 figures had been hit by the curses, and now they would do anything to end the building pain. Fortunately 6 of the figures were large humanoids including two cloud giants and an ettin. The others were all hill trolls and some small lizardmen. The goblin ballistas started firing as soon as the giant humanoids had righted themselves after crashing down into the muk. Eight ballistas and yet they only had one hit. It was a solid hit bringing down the cloud giant with one stroke.
The other giants moved forward each after a different witch doctor. The cursed each knew which witch doctor was responsible for their plight and where to find them. The smaller lizardmen would likely never make it in time. The witch doctors who had snagged big game started to flee from the giantoids running after them. However, few had needed to. Hundreds of goblin archers were stationed a little further out from the wall. Any giant who started closing in got dozens of high quality enchanted arrows shot their way. Exposed as they were, they went down far too easily
Like that the battle continued. The curses were insidious; they would go right through armor, shields, and even structures that were not too thick seeking out a target. With the spiders running amok, it was not as if Gale’s forces could all just take cover either. More than a few spiders also became unwritten targets of the curses along with the defenders, although it quickly became apparent that the giant humanoids had been tucked away from the chaos, because most of the defenders who departed the walls from then on were lizardmen, lesser trolls, or spiders. Usually it was only a few per every volley of curses. Most missed or were successfully dodged.
Anytime it looked like things inside were getting too comfortable inside, Mark had them send another round of black powder bombs inside. When they ran out of them after 2 more volleys, Mark started sending a loose net of rocks that would split apart in the air. Then he would occasionally have the goblin archers move forward like they were going to start trying to breach the walls. Gale of course had to bring more units onto the walls to counter a possible attack. A lot of goblins died with each feint, but more and more defenders were pulled from the walls as they sought to bring down the one that cursed them. In the end, Gale needed her units more than Mark needed his, so Mark was willing to make the trades despite how little results he actually saw.
It was hard to tell how effective everything was, but they sure were causing a panic. Gale probably had plans for a lot of contingencies in place, but how could she have prepared for this. She likely had the walls manned with energy shields, but they did not work against curses, physical egg sacs, rocks, or black powder bombs. Mark could not see beyond the walls, but hopefully they had killed hundreds.
After an hour only 1,300 of the 2,000 goblins remained, and at least a hundred frogmen had fallen despite only playing an auxiliary role. There were quite high casualties despite their job to only spread out Gale’s defenses and be a nuisance. It was Daniel’s job to actually take the fortress, but Mark expected that they had still killed hundreds. Hopefully it was more than enough to help the main assault to be successful.
