I wasn’t happy about how the fight in the dungeon was going. While it wasn’t as bad as I feared, it could have been the goblins were much smarter than the ones I had fought before. The magic that they were using also seemed to be a couple steps above the stuff that I had.

Case in point was the shield which didn’t seem to take any damage when I shot it with my bow. Now I didn’t know that for sure, but it looked that way. Also, unlike mine shield, it was flat, which could be nice. But the spell that I was truly worried about was the null fog.

I had hit the shaman that was putting it out, but I hadn’t killed him. The green fog that he could use would fill the hallway and suck out the mana from magic. It completely stopped the orc shaman’s fire jet. With the shield guy and the fog guy working together, I was worried that they could just push me back.

I turned my head back. “Let’s try that lightning at the shield. See if you can overpower it!”

The lightning shaman stepped up and started to power up his spell. When he stepped forward, the shielding goblin stepped back around the bend, and the fog one came around. His spell was much faster than the lightning and so was already filling the air before the lightning made it down.

I cursed as I saw the lightning just petter out when it hit the fog. The null magic was one that was far more powerful than anything we had. I started to blind-shoot arrows, but I wasn’t truly expecting to hit anything. I hadn’t last time, and when I did, it was just a wooden shield.

This time I heard the sound of the arrow hitting metal. I fired a few more times and saw that the goblins coming out of the fog were covered in poorly made iron plate mail. It was some of the ugliest work I had seen, but it seemed to mostly do the job. My arrows were just bouncing off as they trudged forward.

I pointed back, and we ran back again. The heavily armored goblins just couldn’t keep up with our speed. We were once again able to safely disengage and retreat.

When we got back to the next choke point, I pointed to the lighting orc again. “You’re up. When they get to mostly here, just blast them with lightning.”

The orc nodded and stepped forward. We waited for what seemed like forever. It was closer to two minutes before the armored goblins came into view again. Once the first five got through the narrow doorway, the green fog came. It was keeping pace with the goblins. I pointed back, and the two orc shaman fell back again.

I wasn’t liking the options that I had. The goblins were keeping us pushed back with their magic, and we didn’t have anything that would fix that. Well, we kind of did. So we had me, or I could send the two shamans back down to the 5th floor and reclaim them for points and get some other orcs.

I ran back to where my two orcs were and dropped my pack, bow, and standard. I drew my sword and checked my throwing spikes again. This was going to be ugly. I wasn’t really built to take them head-on like this, but I needed to kill the green fog guy. If I didn’t, we wouldn’t have a way to fight them now.

I moved forward to just my side of the doorway. It would squeeze them tight for a moment and then widen up. The halls were just tight enough in this area that I would have problems fighting. Which was one of the main reasons that I didn’t get an orc warrior.

When the first goblin came around the corner, I stepped forward. I didn’t know if the skill would work in such tight confines, but I activated Goblin Death Dance. The tip of my sword went forward and used the poorly constructed breastplate to angle under its helm. As I pulled back, deep red blood sprayed out its neck. The goblin staggered forward and then down.

I placed my foot on its back and stepped up and forward as the next came into view. I planted a fire strike front kick to its face. The armored goblin slammed its back into the wall behind it and slid down.

I turned sideways and went back through the choke point. When I showed myself, the lead goblin activated a skill and slammed into me. I felt myself fall out of my dance as my left ankle broke. I went down on top of the charging goblin.

As I crumpled up, I saw the green fog shaman laughing. He was three goblins back, giving me the evil eye. I pulled myself up by grabbing the helmet of the goblin that knocked me over. As I stood, my weighted skirt kicked in, healing the break. When my foot healed, I drove my knee empowered with a fire strike up into the exposed face of the armor goblin.

Then I fired my stone sphere at the shaman. My first sphere hit the one in front of him. The second one he dodged, and the shield shaman took the bowling ball to the face. His whole head caved in and splattered onto the one behind him.

My third sphere caught the green fog shaman as he was standing. The bowling ball-sized chuck of rock had been aimed where his center of mass was. However, since he had just ducked the one before, it was low and smashed into his pelvis. He screamed and fell to the ground. I fired a fourth, and it slammed into his head.

I had been too gun-ho with the green fog shaman, and the armored goblin who broke my ankle hit me again. This time it was a skill-powered swing that knocked me to the ground. My new sword belt had activated in time to stop the strike.

I lashed out with my sword and went under his chest piece into his potbelly. Between that and the fire strike, his Hp bottomed up. When I looked past him, I saw a long line of goblins moving forward at a steady beat. Most of them were armored.

I scrambled to my feet and ran. When I got to my orcs, I fired up the standard and put my equipment back on. I checked my interface and saw that the goblins were fighting now on both sides. The skeleton warriors I had sent were cutting into the backs of the goblins on the second floor. It looked like most of the third was still on the way.

The goblins’ numbers had been cut from 300 or so down to around two hundred. If there weren’t any more surprises, then we should be able to hold here for a while. Which I shouldn’t think. I knew I shouldn’t have, but I did anyway.

The goblins, however, didn’t know what my mind had done. So since I never voiced that thought that it would all work out, it did. The goblins, even with their magic, didn’t push us back again. They couldn’t get overwhelming numbers because of the width of the tunnels. The orc shamans were able to keep going by swapping back and forth. Once the armored goblins were gone, I was able to start shooting again.

It took three hours for us to finish out of goblins. Then another hour for me to move through the mess to find my totem. I thought about grabbing some of the staves and wands, but after finding several broken, I gave up.

I reset the fourth floor to being a normally generated floor and sent the shamans back. I had the fifth floor adsorb one of them and then populate the floor. As I looked around, I felt good about the fight. Finally, I had won and gotten a chance to try out some new equipment. The only problem was I was late.

I had planned on being back a few hours ago so that I could get Kasidy out of the tree house without knowing that it was a dungeon too. I sighed and shook my head. That ship had likely sailed, which meant that I needed something else to tell her.

I pulled up the dungeon interface and then opened up transportation. The doorway appeared, and I stepped into my newest dungeon. I stepped into the tree house and saw that Kasidy and lizard girl Blink were sitting by the fire.

Blink turned toward me as I came in. “Daddys back!”

She jumped off and ran to me, and gave me a hug. I picked her up and spun. Then when I set her down, she sniffed. Then reached up and wiped some blood off my armor. Then, she stamped her little foot and put both hands on her hips.

Blink stared right at me. “Listens Daddy! Listens! You hunted goblins without me!”

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