Despite the large number of cattle and goats trapped in the pits, Ace’s magic isn’t strong enough to trap them all. So while many of the cattle have been stopped, the much more numerous goats find it easy enough to avoid, bound over, and escape. A problem and a half when they are the most numerous monster on the floor.

Sammy, Jack, Bill, and Tess all move to the front of the wall and begin to smack them away. Jack more literally than the rest. Though no matter how hard they try, almost a hundred goats coming at them all at once is more than they can safely handle and the aforementioned Jack is the first to suffer.

With his tendency to take wide swings to sweep the enemies away comes equally large openings in his defense. A flaw that the goats are more than capable of taking advantage and so on the back swing a trio of them spring forward, two bashing his chest and the third his right knee. His wooden chest plate cracks apart with the blow but the goat targeting the knee is worse for wear as Jack’s bronze greaves do their job quite well.

Still, this pushes him back off the top of the wall and allows other goats nearby to flow through the gap. Right into a web of fire that Kelly had readied. Then Jeremy and Susan step forward to fill the hole as Doctor smacks a healing spell onto Jack.

Back and forth the sides fight with the founders being barely on the winning side as they manage to keep the high ground even as the cattle finally escape the pits. Though this kind of equilibrium is inherently a weak sort of thing, as all it takes is one mistake to collapse it all down like a house of cards.

That mistake was on the side of the founders and their complete focus on the fight against the animals. Up on the kobold’s town wall the mages and one archer release their attacks. Good thing that low-level magic tends not to be the stealthiest of things and so the Ace and the other casters have a moment to react. Just as an arrow pierces the shoulder of Sammy’s shield arm.

Nevermind that moment isn’t enough to fully dispel the attack spells either. Maybe if they had all been of the same element, more could have been covered. Sadly, that isn’t in the cards as 11 spells rain down on them. Splashes of fire, water, earth, and wind randomly go off around them.

It is at this point that Ace lets out a curse and yells at the others, “We’ve been had! I didn’t even realize it but the earlier fights were too easy, dammit. They kept the mages and healers back. In fact, I think they’ve been doing that for days now. Everyone, back to the tunnels!”

With that, they evacuate the wall, though they aren’t done with it. Ace is the last to get off and he does so in style. As goats charge at him, he slaps both hands down and sends a surge of mana into the magic; he had left there. This sudden infusion of mana brings about three effects.

The first two are simple enough. A wall rises up behind Ace, blocking the charging monsters. Along with that, the land beneath him springs upward a foot, sending him flying. Something that Ace was prepared for and so turns it into a graceful dive and ends with him rolling a couple times before popping back onto his feet and right into a sprint to catch up with the others.

Last effect, though, is something he had been pouring much of his mana into during the fight. With a rumbling roar, the wall flips up and over onto the monsters and leaves a deep pit behind it. While this doesn’t outright kill most of the monsters, it does take many of them out of commission until they are able to dig themselves out.

Back on the wall the kobolds cheer and urge their farm animals onward as by this point all of their experience points towards the fact that if the humans start to retreat, they’re done for the day. Today, however, this is not the case. Once back in the tunnel, the 13 delvers turn to face the monsters once more. A confusing moment for the kobolds all the way back on the wall and an important learning experience to boot.

The first lesson of which is the fact that only so many animals can fit into the tunnels at any one time. So what was a respectable stampede turns into a traffic jam. This is made worse by Kellinger who drops any kind of offensive casting to focus entirely on his favorite spell, grease. Because if there is anything that would make the goats less threatening, it is to remove their ability to charge.

Though that isn’t the end of magic really ruining the animal’s day. Ruby and Kelly stand next to each other as they chant a spell by alternating lines with a bead of fire growing between them. Once that bead becomes more of a tennis ball in size, the spell finishes and the ball is flattened into a disk nearly impossible to see straight on.

Said disk flies forward and grows until it reaches both sides of the tunnel. This disc of fire sweeps through all the monsters currently jammed into the entrance and a fair number of the goats lose their heads over it. Of course, the few cows still around fair better, if you can consider a deep chest wound better.

Still, the monsters pushed into the tunnel as their masters weren’t able to tell them otherwise. A tactic that while disorganized still does better than expected against the delvers. While the tunnel does prevent the monsters from flanking the group, more goats are able to fit side by side than fully equipped adventurers.

Not that Ace hadn’t planned for this. While a few things have caught the group by surprise so far, the number of goats able to fit in the tunnel was not one of them. So their group continues to retreat as they work together to take down one monster after another. This fighting retreat goes so far as to almost enter the portal room.

It doesn’t get that bad though as they manage to cull the number of monsters enough to reverse the momentum. On a dime, the group turns a fighting retreat into a determined advance. Each step was bought with blood, both of the monsters and their own. The only thing allowing them to keep this wasteful fighting up is having Doctor with them to keep things patched up.

They could have kept this advance up all the way back to the center room but well before then the group stops. Sammy, now free of the arrow in her shoulder, is able to bring to bear her shield once more and so steps forward to block the monsters while everyone else focuses on finishing them.

Of course, near a hundred goats and a decent mix of other monsters isn’t going to be finished quickly. While Ruby and Kelly managed to cull the herd by quite a bit with their spell that drained them to the point of only being able to put out fire sparks so there isn’t an easy answer to the seemingly unending herd of monsters.

In the end, though, they manage. As the last animal, an earthen cow that somehow managed to survive till the end, falls, so does most of the party. Though in the case of Ace and his teammates, this has more to do with exhaustion than anything else. Only Doctor and Og remain on their feet, ready in case something else attacks them. Unfortunately for the kobolds, they don’t know about this and so have remained in their town.

Once it is clear that nothing else is coming, the 13 of them manage to drag themselves back into the safe room and Susan passes around a drink. It isn’t quite a potion, but at the same time isn’t just herbal tea. So while not a miracle in a bottle, the stuff does more than any pre-system energy drink ever could. It supports their natural healing ability as well as helps to purge the built up acids in their muscles. Even the magic users are benefited as it soothes their mind.

This might seem like an all rounder herbal medicine and in a way it is. The only problem is the effects are all too small. It isn’t going to close up scratches or allow something to run all day. Still, for something cheap to use in the middle of a dungeon dive, the tea hits just the right balance.

Even with that though, the delvers are basically laid out for a good couple hours as they recover, much to the annoyance of Doyle. He wouldn’t have minded if they were hiding out in the tunnels. At least that way a kobold might find them and interrupt their rest. By being in the safe room, even if the kobolds do find them they can’t do anything about it.

In the end though and despite magic being real now, Doyle doesn’t have the power to set people on fire with his mind so the group completes their rest safely. Something that won’t be the case next time someone as Doyle already has plans on how to prevent this while also not breaking the rules around safe zones.

Turning his attention back to the town it is clear the kobolds have become much too restless. None of them really know what is going on except that the enemy is still out there. That and the fact that things have gone too far for them to abandon the town and try to hunt the trespassers down. The boss knows the only way forward is through the portal she is guarding and so they have to go through them. A cold comfort to the rest of the kobolds as they realize all their animals have died by now.

Then an alarm is raised by the kobold archer. While he doesn’t have a skill for it yet, his constant training of his eyesight and ability to spot things pays off. From a different tunnel than the one they had left through, the delvers had returned.

Without the swarm of animals this time, they are able to approach the walls almost unhindered as a strange, nearly invisible wall of wind seems to be following them and throwing off most of the spells and arrows. Sure, as the delvers get closer more of the attacks make it through, but they are ready for it.

Not only that though, they even return fire. The bow wielding commander treats this seriously and makes heavy use of the wall whenever another shot flies its way. The kobold mages on the other hand are a good deal cockier. They stand on top of the wall like a king surveying his domain.

This, of course, leads to one of them learning why you play catch with your hands and not your throat. The sight of one of their men tumbling backwards off the top of the wall is quite the shock for the ladies below. A healer kobold rushes towards the fallen mage but it is very much too late by that point. A fact the boss knows all too well as she feels his soul fragment return to her, waiting for the floor to be clear so he can respawn.

From there, all it takes is another mage to fall, though this time from a throwing dagger to the shoulder, for the wall to mostly be abandoned. The kobold archer remains up there, though mostly as a look out, barely peeking their head out up over the side. As for the mage with a dagger in their shoulder? Well, what should have been an easy wound to heal from was complicated by the fact that it was a blade from one of the Barrai’s and the healers aren’t quite up to detoxing the poison they used.