Gale

  In reality the true assault started with the arrival of Daniel’s forces. The giant earth dragons did not even pause as they moved in on her walls. The North wall became heavily defended over the course of a few minutes as Gale prepared her defenses to receive them. This attack was not going at all how she thought it would. She had hundreds of units at her settlements at the river's edge, the central island, the garden sanctuary, and her other outposts. A good thousand plus units that would never make it.. Half of them would not make it thanks to her fleet sinking an hour ago. Only a dozen giant humanoids trudged on but even they would likely only reach the dungeon right after the conclusion.

  Then came the infuriating attack by the goblins. To say it was far from standard would be an understatement. Over the last hour a good thousand spiders had been launched over her walls. The goblin witch doctors curses passed right through the magical barrier around her walls. True the spiders had likely only killed around 20 units or so. They were far too weak to be more than a nuisance to even the weakest of her troops. It was the same with the witch doctors, she had maybe lost 80 in total, that had left the safety of her walls. In contrast she had lost well just shy of 300 hundred units to the siege weapons. The first exploding sacks alone had killed 150. She had lost nearly 50 tier 2 Salamanders and dominators. Then she had lost 18 of the various giant types. She had killed twice that number, but the goblin force alone had outnumbered her, and now a much stronger beast force was headed her way.

  The losses were terrible, but there was also the fact that the inside of her fortress had become a mess. Stockpiles of extra enchanted projectiles had been destroyed. The warehouse had been destroyed, so she would not be able to get more. Then there was the fact that she had hundreds of units that required healing due to the bombs and the damn spore spiders. Her cloud giants and other mages were draining themselves just to get her other unit back up to standard. They were already burning through potions to replenish manna, meaning her staying power in actual combat was decreasing.

  Gale had contemplated about bringing the fight to the goblin forces while they were on their way or during the last hour, but that would mean leaving the advantage of her defenses. Even if she succeeded her slow moving assaults would likely take heavy casualties. Not something she could chance with a much more powerful beast army coming in from the North. Although now with hindsight perhaps she should have.

  Gale almost relished fighting the real army of beasts approaching her northern wall. Finally powerfully enchanted ballista bolts could kill something more worthwhile than a lowly goblin. Lizardmen dominators and hill giants could fight against true elites instead of thousands of weak goblins that would just scramble away. However she still had to be ready to defend the western and southern walls that the goblins threatened. A thousand goblins and large spiders could still threaten her if she did not keep them adequately in check.

  The northern ballistas started firing as the earth dragons closed. Exceptional quality piercing and swiftness enchantments ensured they moved fast and went deep. They should even go through the heavy armor plate the earth dragons were decked in. Four earth dragons were wounded, the bolts piercing deep only partially sticking out. The subsequent volleys were even more devastating as the range of the shots decreased. Earth dragons started collapsing to the water, but the assault did not falter.

  Then they were too close to the wall to be targeted, so the ballistas sought out the smaller beasts that had fallen behind. Seven of the twenty earth dragons had fallen. Half of the rest supported various grades of wounds, and now they were in close range for her archers and mages.

  Arrows and ice orbs poured on, but despite their enchantments they had little effect. All of the primates had shields, so were generally fine. Which meant their mounts were usually fine as well. Not really that surprising, but Gale was taken at back when dozens of spells fizzled out before their intended targets. Did Daniels mages have some sort of counter spell.

  Daniel’s forces did not attack, they only did their best to close and defend. Things changed as the earth dragons reached the wall. Like impromptu ramps the earth dragons could reach two thirds of the way up the wall. The smaller units could do the rest. Girallons were the first to hop right up, grab the walls top and instantly pull themselves up in a fluid motion. All done while wearing heavy plate, shields, and weapons.

  The oversized gorillas and their four arms could even defend themselves as they mounted her walls, meaning only one of a dozen were rebuffed in the process. However the girallons found themselves instantly facing something on the same level. Gale’s walls were overly wide. It helped support the girallons, but it also allowed her smaller giants and trolls to fight freely. Certain areas could even support her larger giants and cave trolls. Ogres, hill giants and hill trolls found themselves on the losing end of the exchange, but the girallons also became easy targets for waiting archers behind the walls.

  Then 4 unique named units leapt up onto the battlements. Three large cats and a white wolf. They started weaving in and out killing the weaker defenders. Then the wolf shot a white beam obliterating a swath of her archers at the base of the wall. A cloud giant targeted the wolf with an ice blast but it leapt out of the way. More and more evolved beast beasts started making their way onto the walls. Many leapt straight down to deal with the archers.

  A dozen two headed ettins and twenty cyclops moved in to keep them from going wild, while the cloud giants started picking them off. Daniel’s forces hit fast and hard, and the chaos quickly started spreading throughout the fortress. All of the beasts had the equivalent of skills which allowed them to do all sorts of things. Gale watched some blink out of existence and attack from the flanks. Others had elemental attacks like the moon wolf. A pack of raptors moved along the walls bulldozing through defenders including her powerful hill trolls. Like a meteor entering the atmosphere the pack had flames burning in a barrier around them. However a cloud giant ice blast made it through the barrier on the side freezing half of their number.

  To think she had thought the goblins had caused chaos. No, they had been just an annoyance compared to this. Daniel’s forces were hitting extremely hard and quickly. The skirmishes continued to spread as the remainder of Daniel’s forces made their way onto the wall. Less than ten minutes had passed before the earth dragons started scrambling over the side, the rest of the beasts already within.

  It was at this point that the goblins started attacking. This time Gale doubted that they would break it off. She had hundreds of lesser trolls ready to receive their assaults, but packs of beasts were also headed along the walls from both directions. Gale started to have a sinking feeling that she would fail to hold the dungeon surface. Still she was devastating Daniel’s forces. The unique titled wolf and one of the black cat were already dead. The smaller spotted cats were still agility moving unencumbered, but they were far less powerful.

  The goblin archers moved forward and started peppering everywhere with enchanted arrows. The multiplication enchantment was especially vexing, especially since they had secondary enchantments that amplified their damage. With the pressure from the sides, Gale quickly realized that even the goblins would be able to take the wall.

  She still had an inner keep, and Gale ordered much of her remaining forces to retreat back inside of her secondary defenses, but Gale did not hold out much hope. At this point by himself Daniel could likely take the surface from her. However he was taking horrifying losses to do so. Half of the remaining earth dragons sacrificed themselves to breach the keep wall only to have it quickly rendered pointless as half a dozen cloud giants used up a large chunk of water essence to form an ethereal tide of water that swept out pushing back bodies and living units alike, killing dozens in the process. A second breach occurred a minute later and received the same treatment after enough enemies had accumulated, but the defensive essence spells had a heavy resource cost. Gale could not manage it again.

  Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

  At this point most of the earth dragons were dead along with most of the girallons. But the majority of the primates had been carefully preserved. Their spells were absorbed by the magic barrier that appeared around the top of the wall. Around 5 dozen beasts also remained although many were still scattered throughout the fortress fighting remnants that had failed to make it back to the keep. Gale still had several holdouts.

  The goblins on the other hand were being very deliberate. A powerful bugbear commander led another 30 bugbear elites to wipe out all resistance as the rest of their forces made their way into the fort. They likely would already all be in, if they had not delegated most of their forces to hauling up crates and crates of supplies. The elite spiders and bugbears might be quite deadly, but having been next door with Amelia’s dungeon for the whole battle Gale knew that those crates might very well be the true threat.

  The remaining hot spots of defenders were soon settled and all of Daniels' remaining 150 units concentrated on the keep. Gale would have been glad that his forces had been reduced with only a small fraction being composed of his stronger units, but her remaining forces were not much better. She had 122 units, sure it included a decent number of her tier 3’s, but what could she do. There was still the whole army of goblins.

  Gale sighed. She had been too complacent, believing in her defenses. She had more than 1,000 units spread through her other settlements and a good fifty that had been holding the sanctuary she had won in battle. Now none of them would make it back in time. She would have been fine dealing with either one of these dungeons by themselves, but two dungeons working together… Could her dungeon levels hold up? She believed they would, but how could she not worry.

  Mark

  The inner keep fell after a good half hour of resistance once their forces joined the assault. A simple thing once the energy barriers ran out of energy. Gale had only a handful of archers and mages to fight back during the period, so few casualties were sustained until the final melee. Mark once again let Daniel take on the brunt of the assault. Surprisingly, Daniel had agreed early on during their planning to be the main assault on the swamp fortress, leaving the dungeon levels to the goblin forces. Perhaps only because he realized that he would be the best candidate to take the surface. It did not matter, Mark and Amelia would happily accept a unique reward for being the ones to finish the job.

  Still Mark was a bit taken aback, when Daniel elected to retreat his remaining 50 some units rather than assist. The units were not overly strong, mainly mage chimps and other primates, but they still did have Vince ‘the wanderer’. Overall, it was a strong enough force to take a middle layer of most dungeons.

  In the end it did not matter. Mark was fairly confident that the remaining 700 goblins and other units could take it on their own. However, the news on the other side of the map had been less favorable. Avery’s army had been obliterated. Nick Holt’s forces suffered a resounding defeat as well. Still Amelia and himself would be far better off if Gale was taken out here. If all four coalition dungeons focused on Leonard's dungeon it would fall quite easily, but Mark doubted that the coalition would stay together after today. At the very least all of them would re-evaluate their best options. However, Mark did not expect to be proven right so soon.

  Avery Kingston

  Avery was seething. “How dare that bastard?” she repeated over and over again. Losing her army to a powerful calvary an hour ago was one thing, but that Daniel bastard betraying her was another. She had kept in comms with Amelia, she knew he had maybe brought around six to seven hundred powerful units for his attack there. Sure they had been elites, but how the hell had he brought an additional 3,000 beasts to her doorstep without her notice. Sure a large majority of them were weaker tier 1’s, but would it matter. Avery only had around 800 defenders right now on the surface, and her auxiliary units that were busy scrambling out of the mine to join her defenses.

  “How did he get past all of our scouts?” Avery screamed.

  “It will be okay, my lady,” Mckayla said trying to comfort her, but her tone was not very confident. Still the aide was making as many preparations as possible, while her master rampaged around the core room.

  Avery breathed heavily as her mind scrambled for answers. A half dozen tree and other scouts were now reported as dead. Only half of them had been dead, but as Avery tried to shift a link to others they came up as dead as well. Daniel had apparently assassinated them before they could release any signal. The interface apparently did not receive the delayed updates faster than Daniel’s army could move.

  Avery knew she should be trying to organize her forces, but what was the point? She knew about Daniel’s capabilities from Amelia updates over the last half hour, and she had very few elite units that she had held back from the expedition. Daniel on the other hand had brought hundreds of elites as well as plenty of fodder.

  Eventually Avery came to a conclusion. Her fungus and tree units were all distinctive, whether by sight or perhaps by smell to the beasts. Even if they were rooted in the ground like normal plant life, all Daniel needed to know was what types she had. Since he also shared the tree branch it should not have been too hard for that one, and the fungus branch units would stand out anywhere. Perhaps the real question was how he had avoided counter detection.

  Daniel Hale

  Daniel felt pretty smug about everything. He had taken more losses than he had hoped in the swamp fortress assault, but then he supposed that was what happens when you try and crack open a turtle. He would allow Amelia’s goblin army to take things from here, not that Daniel was content with giving up the unique reward. He still had one last trick up his sleeve.

  Whether it worked out or not with Gale, would depend on Amelia and a bit of luck, but even if Gale did survive, he would meet his true goal of knocking Avery off the board. Then after that he could reconsider. He felt that none of the other dungeons were really his equal on a one for one basis, but things would be tricky until there were only two dungeons left. Sure Amelia had helped, but Daniel could reduplicate taking Gale’s dungeon later. Perhaps while the two southern dungeons duked it out.

  The battle commenced less than 30 minutes after Gale’s fortress had fallen. The ankylosaurs led the charge smashing into Avery’s treants and other units with their power spiked heads or mace like tails. A group of chimps moved right behind them using fire based attacks. However some fungus unit types shot out a thick cloud of spores that served as a barrier.

  Cherry trees started launching their cherry projectiles which covered whole swaths of land in tiny explosions. Avery had advanced pretty far along the germination path, so the attacks were a bit stronger than Daniel would have thought. Not that it mattered, he had the tree branches playbook, so what if he lost a few more of his tier 1 beasts.

  There were a few more surprises, but eventually Avery’s forces were pushed back to her main building. It looked like a tiered cake made of stone with three layers seemingly held together by tree trunk sized roots. Hundreds of trees and other vegetation were scattered along its surface.

  The inside was even more remarkable. Hidden among all the roots and vines were living versions that could drag off unsuspecting invaders. Walls a foot thick grated open allowing myconid defenders to attack vulnerable mage beasts. It really was a marvel that she had made all of this. Being a model he had not expected her to showcase this level of ingenuity and intelligence. However, it would all be for naught. His forces had already found multiple staircases to the second level. Progress was slow since roots and vines were purged whenever possible, but he had all the time in the world. Nothing could come to her rescue.

  Regardless, this madhouse maze would claim hundreds of his units. Daniel shrugged. It was just the cost of taking a dungeon. Of course he would like to preserve resources when able, but anyone who had lasted this long would not go down without taking their toll, even if he had caught her completely unaware.