Dungeon of Niflheim

Findlay called for his forces to rest for a few minutes while he contacted Frost to determine their chosen route. Splitting up while in the same room was one thing but half their current forces with little chance of joining back up in the short term was way too risky. However, Findlay was able to surmise that there must be another path to take from the first room. The aerial corps and left over scouting party should have been more than enough to survive alone in the first room while hunting any stragglers. The fact that they didn’t means that other monsters entered and took care of them. As long as an intruder of any kind was within a section of dungeon the dungeon core could not alter that section, that included teleporting monsters there from elsewhere in the dungeon.

“Findlay what’s the problem?” Frost asked while responding to Findlay’s communication. There was anxiety in his tone, afraid that his commander had run into another situation so soon after the poison ambush. Though the defence on his side was holding strong he couldn’t tell how well Gobuske’s was doing.

“The path splits into two rooms, one to the left and one straight ahead. Not sure what path to take since splitting up would be too risky. Any suggestions master?” Findlay reported the situation and asked for his master’s input.

“....” Frost was silent on the other side, cupping his chin in thought as he tried to access his younger brother’s mindset as well as how much DP he raked in over the past month. He himself was ranked fourth and could only barely finish outfitting 6 rooms, over two floors. Gobuske seems to have not added a second floor yet, going for multiple rooms on the first floor instead. It saves a bit of DP that way and would probably not attract too much attention given that’d it be just a single floor monster lair. The issue being whether or not Gobuske moved his core room.

The dungeon cores had the ability to move their core room to anywhere in their dungeon. Frost had thought about moving his core room to right outside the ‘what’s behind door number 2 trap’ as it was hard to access that place without falling through the bottomless pitfall, but he decided against it, at least for now. The dungeon core was still housed in the deepest area of his dungeon. Gobuske however had proven to be a worthy adversary, full of intelligence. He may very well have pulled some tricks, hiding the core room somewhere else. Just the fact that Findlay came across this problem already started gears turning in Frost’s head as to whether he should walk down such a route in future.

“.....” Frost continued to think over and over which path to send Findlay down. If he chose the wrong one it could waste a fair amount of time and possibly even devastate his remaining forces. Though around half or so were still alive and battle capable they were quite exhausted.

‘Should I just flip a coin or something?’ Getting nowhere he thought of leaving it up to chance, relying upon his natural luck but before that...

Frost tried to request communication with Gobuske, but he wasn’t picking up, frowning he tried to call again but still there was nothing. A moment before he was about to give up and try his luck with a coin toss, the call connected but something was wrong, he was muted or something. He could hear the other side, but they couldn’t hear him, and it seemed as though Gobuske wasn’t the one to pick up.

.....

Dark worked his magic a little, forcibly connecting Frost to Gobuske’s private space, allowing him to not only hear what was happening but even see, though he made it one way. Something was happening in Gobuske’s private space, and he wanted Frost to be aware of it.

“Hahahah pathetic, did you think that you could win with goblins?” A loud arrogant voice could be heard, and Frost could see Gobuske with a despondent look on his face as he tried to make himself look small. This sight instantly filled Frost with rage, that was his younger brother that was being insulted.

“Bastard!” He shouted into the communication, but the arrogant voice clearly didn’t hear him as it continued to insult and mock Gobuske. Frost’s sudden burst of anger and swearing spooked Nanna and Loki who were beside him, they reeled back on instinct, afraid.

Maya opened her eyes at this time from her relaxing position, craning her neck upwards towards Frost she said one word as a warning to her young master.

“Language,” she didn’t speak loudly but her tone was overbearing and sent a jolt down Frost’s spine, alerting him of his wrongdoings.

“Oops” he covered his mouth in attempt to unsay his words, before lightly apologising to the kids. He really shouldn’t have been using such foul language in front of them, but he was really pissed off at the moment. He did his best to clench his teeth to avoid further outbursts as he listened in on Gobuske.

“Are you really sad for goblins are you kidding me, the bottom of the rung cannon fodder. So, what if they died, the world’s better off without such wastrels.” Bala hmphed as he mocked Gobuske. His charge was depressed about losing his monsters, goblins no less.

Gobuske shivered as anger coursed through his veins, once again finding the strength to argue back against Bala.

“Shut up! just shut up! I don’t give a rat’s ass what you think! They’re my monsters, my creations not losers!” Gobuske swivelled round and glared at Bala, fury in his eyes. He was already incredibly depressed at the large loss of his monsters, his subjects and then he was rejected by his father to stop the war so as to not lose any more of them. Now Bala just had speak up and rub salt in his wounds, mocking his monsters, no way he was going to stand for that. His goblins worked hard and followed his orders to the letter, performing way beyond their inherent rank and he was damn proud of them.

Twice now Gobuske had spoken to him in such a manner, Bala grew incensed and clenched his fists as his aura and killing intent silently spread out. Seeing a goblin act so high and mighty towards him an iron dragon felt wrong on so many levels. He was about to quash Gobuske but instinctively trembled, his head turned around towards the image of Dark as he felt a sudden pressure envelop him. He receded his killing intent almost instantly afraid of being punished once again. That pain was quite substantial.

Gobuske didn’t let up however, holding his fury filled gaze the entire time, ignoring the pressure Bala released in response. He had enough of hiding and cowering.

“Asshole!” Gobuske cursed Bala before spitting out in disgust and turning back towards the dungeon menu. He was still in the middle of a war, his monsters needed direction.

“Hob goblin commander one and two, become aggressive in your tactics, move like a rampaging horde, cleave apart any that stands in your way. Ignore the bunkers wherever possible, use shields to protect against ranged attacks. As long as you escape their range of fire, they’ll be forced to either retreat or leave the bunker. Focus primarily on dealing with the boars. Hob goblin commanders you deal with them personally, you have the strength to endure their charge and once they’re momentum is gone, they’ll be far easier to deal with. Don’t try to map every part of the second room, just move on forward. If the entrance to the next room in ahead then we’ll be able to pressure Frost that much more....if not well at least he’ll know the strength of goblins!” Gobuske, shed his depression, he wasn’t out of this fight just yet. His dungeon core was still unfound, and he had ample forces in defence. If Frost was going to win this battle, he wasn’t going to make it easy.

“Rahhhhhhhhhhhh!” with their king’s rousing speech, the morale of his invading force was renewed, and their strength returned and not a moment too soon. A herd of winter boars suddenly appeared from their flanks aiming to once again trample their forces. Whereas before they looked towards these boars with dread and panic, now they welcomed the charge. The perfect opportunity to show their king how powerful goblins were.

With tactic agreement both hob goblin commanders suddenly rushed towards the charging boars, wielding their large axes they braced themselves in the snow, working in tandem. They were the commanders and so far, hadn’t taken much part in the actual battles in case something went wrong. But now there was no point in holding back. Gobuske’s strongest monsters roared as they tensed up their bodies, enlarging somewhat as they withstood the boar’s charge.

Bannnggggggg!

A massive explosion of sound could be heard as the leading three boars smashed into the two hob goblin commander. Where their charges would usually sent their targets reeling backwards at the very least occasionally even killing them outright if a low ranked goblin. This time however the winter boars were stopped dead and their opponents the hob goblin commanders didn’t even take a single step back. Smiles adorned their faces as they glared at the winter boars in their arms before they suddenly exuded immense strength, flipping the boars upward onto their backs.

“killllllll!” the two of them roared in unison before bringing down their large axes onto the defenceless belly of the nearest winter boar.