Dungeon of Niflheim

“Seems like the kind of place that’d house a very special item like a dungeon core, hopefully this is the right room. Move ahead but be careful of traps, the narrow straight hallways may be the perfect places for such defences plus I’ve got a feeling you’ll encounter something larger in there. Be careful Findlay.” Frost spoke with dead seriousness, since Gobuske likely didn’t have a second floor he probably spent more on traps and monsters. With the use of poison, he didn’t want to leave anything to chance, Findlay may meet something that could match him or at the least wound him a great deal. Where he focused his strongest monster on offence, Gobuske may have a trump card for defence.

“Understood master, I will.” Findlay ended the communication and arranged his remaining troops into their groups before setting off. There was only one path leading into the underground city.

Gobuske received a report the moment Findlay entered the third room. “My King, troll entered final room, chose right” A hob goblin commander reported.

“Oh well it was a 50/50 shot....you know what to do.” Gobuske had a total of 5 rooms all on the same floor. If Findlay had found the other gateway in the first room, he would have been lead into a similarly designed cave room which then connected to a marshlands like room. The left gateway in the second room would also lead to the marshlands, allowing Gobuske to manoeuvre his monsters around the first four rooms even if they were full of intruders. The underground city was his final room as well as the most expensive.

Though the cave rooms were well designed to suit his goblin’s purposes and made for easy ambushes, this room was multi-purpose serving not only as an easily defensible room but also one that worked well with traps. Gobuske had another D-rank goblin monster that Frost was yet to encounter, a goblin engineer. These goblins had low combat abilities but were highly intelligent and inventive. They could fashion goblin made contraptions that could be used in battle as well as traps. Unfortunately, he hadn’t got the chance to use any of them yet given that no one made it that deep into the underground city before being killed. Whether that be from his monsters or the basic traps that Dark granted him in the beginning, no one had seen the inventions of his engineers. Frost would be the first to be granted such an honour.

“Yes, my King.” The hob goblin commander responded back with a mad smile, fully eager to welcome these intruders. Though Gobuske’s assault team was significantly reduced and would likely not make it to the dungeon core room there was no way he was going to let Frost get to his.

“Well big brother, let’s see how you deal with this.” Gobuske gave orders to a few more of his capable D-rank monsters present in the final room as well another surprise that he had prepared just in case anything did reach this hallowed ground. Taking out Findlay would be extremely difficult and costly especially when he was amongst his soldiers. Gobuske planned to split them up somehow allowing him to really deal some damage to Frost’s regular forces which weren’t nearly as threatening. He had the ‘surprise’ move towards the early stages of the underground city along with some of his more physical strong hob goblins, utilising secrets routes to get there. Although this room didn’t have the small hidden tunnels throughout like the caves there were quite a few hidden pathways within the thick walls, accessed through secret doorways. Ambushing was a very effective strategy and he planned on continuing such methods in the final room.

Findlay led his troops through the hallways and rooms of the underground city keeping his guard up the entire time, his vision darting side to side and his ears perked for any unusual vibrations. They’d been walking through this area for 15 minutes yet hadn’t seen a single enemy as of yet, the feeling was unnerving. Given their past experience with Gobuske’s troops they should have suffered a couple ambushes by now. The atmosphere was incredibly tense, and the soldiers were waiting on edge for a sign of action.

.....

Don don

“What was that?” The sound of a small rock falling down onto the hard floor quickly alerted Findlay as well as some of the frost dwarves. They turned around immediately; their weapons drawn in the direction of the sound. Sweat could be seen dripping down their foreheads showing how high strung they were. “Damn it’s just another falling rock, everyone relax, it was my bad.” Findlay quickly noticed that he had mistaken a fallen rock for the enemy again. This underground city was old and derelict, it frequently crumbled, dropping bits of wall and ceiling on the ground causing no shortage of freak outs among the soldiers.

With his command the many frost dwarves, goblins and even frost wolves relaxed once again, well as best they could. Being so deep in enemy territory with Gobuske’s previous ambush tactics it was hard to not be on edge. What the group didn’t realise was that this was not just shifting of old walls, but purposeful distractions generated by goblins hidden within some of the walls, permanently keeping their targets on edge and tensed until they eventually became less alert, at that point they’d strike.

The group continued to march on, reacting much the same way to minor sounds until eventually they entered a long open hallway. They could see the brown earthen sky above and were trapped between two thick and tall walls. Findlay couldn’t help but get a bad feeling.

Don, Click

Suddenly another minor sound was heard behind them and ahead. They only reacted the sound behind, the majority of the group turned around to instinctually investigate -Findlay included- but not as gung-ho as earlier. Unfortunately, they should have been looking the other way.

That clicking sound was the activation of a trap, one of the goblins stood on the activation switch but didn’t notice. Ahead of the group a small recess of the wall opened up to reveal a sharp metal bolt before suddenly.

Twang! The bolt was fired towards the unsuspecting group, now facing in the opposite direction. Findlay was the first to respond but he was too slow. He turned around just in time to see the iron bolt fly pass him straight into the skull of a frost dwarf, causing its head to explode, covering everyone nearby in blood and bits of brain matter. Thankfully it was only a single bolt without any repeating action, but it still managed to kill a frost dwarf instantly, the force behind that thing was nothing to sneeze at. Findlay quickly moved forward to prepare for any further bolts sent their way but of course there wouldn’t be. The moment the frost dwarf’s head exploded, and all the other monsters were in the process of turning around, in shock at the scene before them. Gobuske’s troops made their move.

Dun Dun Dun

Suddenly parts of the wall opened up like a door, goblins and hob goblins swarmed out with their weapons held high. The perfect ambush, Findlay’s force was caught completely unaware. Failing to react, many of them received blows and slashes to their limbs, with a couple frost goblins outright dying. The hidden pathways in the underground city were very good at masking sound and smell so this large group that lay in wait at this point were completely missed. They only moved at the sound of the trap going off, diving into their unsuspecting victims with fervent aggression.

“Shit! [ice bolt]” Findlay cursed aloud before casting some magic towards the openings skewering a goblin and giving his monsters there a moment of reprieve. It was a well-timed attack and would likely end up in many losses for both sides.

With very little room to move Findlay would struggle to reach close combat distance and quickly end this ambush. “Damn!” His forces clearly outnumbered the ambushers, but they had the advantage, this was going to be a gruelling fight. He was partially restrained and unable to effectively use his forte, his axe but Findlay was never a one trick pony.

“[ice bolt]” he continued to conjure up his magic, sniping opposing goblins from afar, occasionally killing the lower ranks or at least forcing the hob goblins to take a step back. He wouldn’t kill much this way.

“[Invigorating shout]” Findlay activated his active buff skill, sending out a wave of energy to the soldiers nearby, filling them with strength and stamina.

“Rahhhhhhhh!” The receivers of the buff roared with power, gripping their weapons with increased strength, they violently overpowered their opponents, knocking them either against the wall or to the floor. Findlay meanwhile could feel his strength wane, his stamina visibly decrease. This was a fairly taxing skill that would drain more energy the more targets it affected, but now his soldiers would have an advantage.

Meanwhile in the private space, Gobuske was watching this all in real time and was in communication with a hob goblin commander. The moment Findlay released [invigorating shout] and was momentarily drained of strength he gave a single command.

“Now!”