Overlord: Darker Legends.
Chapter 7: Golden Hills & Farm Attack.
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Overlord Valgaav and his minion horde entered Hammerstone Gorge by breaking down the massive gate that had been closed for years. Secretly known to the Gromgards as the Golden Hills, this place was the biggest secret in all of Greenvale, as it was a place that many would stop at nothing to get their hands on, and was guarantied to start wars. As far as the world knew, the land of Greenvale, at best only had the same things they had, along with a lot of stuff they didn't want, and simply wasn't worth the effort to invade. Even the people of Meadowsweet were unaware of it, knowing only that the place was off limits and impossible to get to thanks to the gate. Only the Gromgard family and a select few others knew the truth, right up until the dwarves put in a fortress and expanded it to go through the mountainside and gained easy access to it. If that wasn't enough to tip them off, then odds were Gerda would have informed them, but it seemed that despite all that, the greedy dwarves were currently struggling to come up with the funds they needed to go to war.
The path was surrounded by high walls, and it was easy to spot numerous veins of gold in those walls. A couple of which were almost as thick as arms. And yet what was most surprising, was what he wasn't seeing.
"Uh, what's going on? I thought there was supposed to be guards and miners all over the place. It looks like they've never even been through here."
"Maybe you were right and they just never found out about the gold. Either that or there's something here that's keeping the dwarves from mining. And I suddenly got a feeling that it's the later."
He reached a T junction where the path split into two, and a waypoint gate appeared. He took the path to the right, but soon saw that it was blocked off by an electrified fence that he couldn't get past. Rather than just turning around, he paused to think about that.
"Hey, have any of you ever heard of the dwarves, or literally anybody else, using anything like this?"
The group watching from back at the castle all answered no.
"Neither have I. This is new and far beyond what we have in this day and age. That means there really is somebody else out there who's designing all these things. A genius, or maybe even a team of geniuses, whose technological skills are centuries ahead of their time. And since the dwarves have this fence, I have no doubt they have that genius. Either he's working for them willingly, or they're holding him prisoner and forcing him to make this stuff. Either way, it's bad news for us and he needs to be eliminated."
"Well said sire, but where could they be keeping him?"
"Some place very secure. But we'll figure that later. Right now we'd best stay focused on retaking the Golden Hills."
Going back and trying the other path, the Overlord soon found a giant slug. The crazy thing was that it was big enough to ride. It might have been bigger than a wolf. It charged towards them at a snail's pace, and Valgaav sent his minions in to kill it. It was tough, but it still went down. And it was disgustingly messy.
"That thing was a lot bigger than I was expecting. What was up with that?"
"Slugs. They flock to the beer residue the dwarves leave behind. Strange, they shouldn't get that big unless the dwarves are completely ignoring them."
"That still doesn't excuse my father giving this place up. And it certainly doesn't explain any absent dwarves."
Soon he reached an open area where a wide dock functioned as a bridge over a deep body of water that had a small river flowing into it, and another flowing out of it. It was there that they got their answers. Not only were there a bunch more huge slugs there, there was also one that was the size of a house. It was a monster that made the other slugs look like something you could step on in comparison. Even the bravest and greediest would have been deterred by its presence. There was no way any miners would dare go near this place until those mountainous monsters were wiped out.
"Holy shit!"
"What the hell is that?!"
"Looks like the slug problem was bigger than expected, and too much for the dwarves to handle."
"A giant queen slug. The mother to the smaller ones. With that thing around, all the other slugs will get stronger and they'll keep replenishing their numbers from underground. But if you kill it, the rest will retreat, and this area will be all yours."
"How?! That disgusting monster will eat him!"
"Watch and learn. I've already come up with a plan. Step one: Wipe out their forces on this side."
The first thing he did was seal off the nearest hole that the slugs could come out of by having his minions push something over it. Then they fought the nearby slugs. The slugs attacked by spitting rocks covered in burning acidic slime, slamming their bodies down on their foes, and trying to eat them, but the Overlord was undeterred, and he slaughtered them.
"Step two: Live bait to cause a diversion."
He sent out a single Blue minion. It drew their attention and chased after him onto the bridge. Even the queen went after it. The Overlord had that Blue get onto a rock that was sticking out of the water that was out of the reach of the slugs. The slugs stopped before hitting the water, but they continued to try to get the minion. The queen extended her body over the water and tried hard to get the minion, but he was still just barely out of reach. They were so distracted that they were blind to everything else happening for the moment.
"Step three: Cut the ropes on the bridge."
He then had a couple minions sneak across the bridge and cut the ropes holding it in place from the other side. Then he cut them on his side. With the ropes holding the bridge in place gone, the weight of the slugs caused the bridge to tip over, dumping the queen slug and all the smaller slugs into the water, where they all instantly drowned, and in the process the queen came very close to crushing the Blue. Then the bridge fell back into place, drifted downstream for a second, and was stopped by the rock the blue minion was using. Valgaav had won, and he could still use the bridge.
"That was insane."
"My lord, you are a tactical genius. I've never seen anything like it."
He then crossed the bridge, had his Reds put out a flaming patch of oil that was blocking his path, and continued on his way. What he found was a bit of a surprise. More slugs, and they were coming out of a hole in the ground.
"Gnarl, didn't you just say that these things would take off once I killed the big one?"
"Yes I did. I'm not sure why they haven't retreated. Maybe there's another Queen Slug nearby. If there's even one queen slug in the area, the slugs won't back down. You'll have to find and eliminate the others."
"Fine then. There's nothing I won't hunt into extinction to take back the Golden Hills!"
Overlord Valgaav and his minions carved a path through the slugs and sealed off the hole. Then they entered a clearing where there were four more slug holes, and in the middle of it a giant queen slug was taking a nap.
'I'll have to play this carefully,' thought Valgaav. 'In order to win I'll have to take out all the smaller slugs and catch the giant one by surprise. And that means closing off the slug holes, killing off all the slugs, and not attacking the giant one yet.'
There was one slug hole in each corner, and three slugs around each one. He started with the two closest ones. They attacked and killed the slugs at one, and then sealed the hole off. Then they did the same to the other. The noise from the fight was not enough to wake the queen slug. Next came the tricky part. Getting his minions to the other side without letting them get close enough for them to attempt any attacks, and doing so before the slugs from the other side bumped into it while they were trying to reach them. Luckily he was a lot faster than the slugs, so he pulled it off, and was thus able to deal with the slugs on the other side.
Next came the queen slug herself. There wasn't anything the Overlord could use to his advantage there, so he had to attack it directly, preferably from behind while it slept. And that's what he did. The slug woke up immediately and instantly realized it was under attack. Valgaav and his minions kept on the offensive and stayed behind it as it struggled to shake them off, crush them using its huge body, and eat them. The fight took a while, the Overlord used up most of his mana, and a few minions were lost, but the Overlord came out victorious.
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Once he had recovered from that exhausting fight, Valgaav pressed onward, picking up some health and mana potions along the way. He soon found a barrier, and beyond that was the dwarven fortress. It seemed the barrier was set up to keep the slugs out, but it could be unlocked and opened, so it was more of a reinforced gate. Once past that they found a few rams, a secret path that was likely being used to bypass the slugs, an electrified fence, and a machine that looked to be powering the fences. The fortress itself was all stone and metal, and looked sturdy enough to withstand heavy siege weapons for extended periods of time. Not that anyone could get heavy siege weapons through such a narrow path anyway. Attacking this place from this angle was not an option.
"Hey! Who are ya? Ya aren't supposed to be here," said a dwarf who was working as a lookout. "Only dwarves and dwarven allies are allowed here. Get lost before I kills ya."
The dwarf fired a warning shot that was ultimately ignored. The Overlord killed the rams and sent his minions to smash the machine as the dwarf readied his crossbow. The second shot ricocheted off the Overlord's armour. As the dwarven guard fired his arrows at them, they hammered away at the machine until it had taken so much damage it was beginning to blow up. The minions were called back just before it blew. One Brown was killed by a piece of shrapnel, but he was revived by a Blue.
With the machine destroyed the power to the electrified fence went out, and the minions were able to tear through them. As they left the dwarf fired off one last shot, and missed his mark. As he realized that disaster happened on his watch, and he didn't even call for help, he also realized that he'd be getting blamed for this.
"I am so fucked..."
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After going around a few more corners, they reached a point where Overlord Valgaav could see and hear into a certain area beside the building. There he saw his sister Gerda talking to a large dwarf with a long beard. Along with a bunch of captured gnomes, and a device that was designed to encase them in cement without killing them, turning them into living gnome statues. Valgaav had no problems with that, but he thought it was weird that they'd go through that much trouble just to give those little nuisances slow, humiliating deaths.
"Well this is just getting worse and worse," groaned Gerda. "We've been preparing for this war for ages and what happens? My worthless little brother takes over the castle the second we leave, he brings Greenvale back from the brink of collapse, amasses forces strong enough to repel an entire orc invasion, the witch Doris gets killed and we lose our main source of gold, the guys who were supposed to back us up are now ready to back out, the things those little freaks have been coming up with are all either useless or impossible to figure out, and now everything's breaking down."
"This is a disaster. My war machines need parts. Too much is held together with string. We'll never be able to use them in that state."
"How long until we can access the Golden Hills?"
"Not until after the big one's finished at least. Those slugs might be even tougher opponents than the guys we're going to war with. Oh, what are we going to do?"
"Calm down Widget. We'll think of something. We have other ways to get gold and we'll use it all to finish that machine. Then we'll take the Golden Hills back from the slugs and have more than enough to finish everything with ease. But for now, step up production of those gnome statues. They're our key to victory."
Widget paused.
"You're right my love. Let's do it!"
They then turned and left.
"Now that sounded mighty informative, sire."
"Indeed. This proves I was right about there being someone behind the machines, there's more than one of them, and the dwarves have them. And they've been preparing to go to war for a while now, but they're having trouble with their war machines. The question is, who are they going to war with?"
"You and Greenvale I think."
"Out of the question. Gerda and Grenville were both first in line for the throne before I took over, and they've been preparing for this war for a while now. If she wanted to take over, all she'd need to do is have an assassin kill our father and stake her rightful claim to the throne. A war against her own home doesn't make a lick of sense. Besides, we all know she couldn't care less about Greenvale. She'd take any other place she could find over... Ah."
"What is it?"
"She's going for one of the neighbouring kingdoms. And if all those preparations are anything to go by, it's not one with a weak military."
"Makes sense. But which one?"
"And what's with the gnome statues?"
"Not sure, we'll have to figure it out later."
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As the Overlord and his minions continued their trek, they encountered a third giant slug queen. The Overlord also noticed a log, a few oil pipes, and some other things.
"That should be the last queen slug. Think you can handle it?"
"Don't think for a second that I'm anything like those cowardly runts. I'll show you how easily I can wipe these things out."
Then he picked up the log and hurled it. But to their shock it wasn't at the slug, it was at the pipes. The log broke them and oil poured out, dousing the queen slug and creating a giant puddle. Then he had the Reds attack. The giant queen slug went up in flames and was burned alive. For longer than he was expecting. Then he had his Reds attack again, but this time their target was the broken oil pipes. Their insides went up in flames, and a series of explosions inside the dwarven base followed. The dwarven base looked to be devastated, if not destroyed. And in the process, a nearby secret treasure vault was blown open.
"With any luck, that should buy us just enough time to fix this mess."
He then proceeded to loot the vault and had the minions carry off the big stuff. Continuing on their way, they soon came full circle back to the Waypoint Gate near the entrance. The loot, including a few large bags of gold, a box of stuff, and a mana relic, were sent back to the castle. They also spotted a minion relic during their trip, but it was behind poisonous gasses, and they needed the Greens to get it.
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The Overlord wasted little time putting the minions to work, digging for gold. He also had them reinforce the barriers that the dwarves set up, and cleverly had them make a fake giant queen slug, which they would use to fool the dwarves into thinking the area was still infested with giant slugs, keeping them out of there without conflict. For the next while the majority of the gold would go to cover their expenses, like getting new equipment and supplies for the mining minions, expanding the town, putting in a factory, repairs, and new defences. And the first things he was going to add were a vault to store the gold, and loyal minion guards to ensure none of it got stolen. The rest would have to wait until after they mined a bunch of the gold out.
With that taken care of, he decided it was time to take a break and fill his grumbling stomach. Upon returning to the castle, Rollick prepared him a full spread, with a whole roasted pig as the main course. As he ate it, he reflected on how much things were improving. Before his rise to power, his main food sources were pumpkins, potatoes, turnips, and bread. Peasant food. And sometimes that stuff had gone bad. But now he was eating like royalty should, while surrounded by half naked girls who were all trying to seduce him.
As he finished and was debating on which wench to have his way with, Gnarl called to him.
"Sire! There's a commotion at the farms!"
As much as he enjoyed his women, business came before pleasure. He grabbed his poleaxe and teleported off.
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The Overlord Valgaav arrived at the farms to see it under attack. By a huge horde of mutant plant creatures. Each one stood slightly taller than himself, and had pods for heads with huge gaping mouths, lined with long fang-like thorns, and little eyes on top of short stalks. They had thin bodies that were curved back towards the tops like question marks and protected by thick bark, tentacle-like vines for limbs that were partially covered in thorns and ended in large, curved, claw-like blades. Four long ones for arms, and four short ones for legs. They were attacking the people, farmhouses and livestock by lashing at them with their long, deadly arm vines, biting them with their strong jaws, and most frightening of all, spitting huge globs of acid, which burned through their victims, giving them nightmarishly painful wounds or even killing them slowly as the acid liquefied everything it hit. Screams echoed throughout the farms, which had become a war zone.
"What the hell are those things?!"
"I don't know. I've never seen anything like them."
"They're monsters attacking my territory, that need to be crushed!"
Valgaav summoned his minions and charged in. The closest one was fighting a pair of farmers who were defending their home. One was stabbing it with a pitchfork, the other was using an old axe. They weren't bad fighters, but they were completely outmatched by the plant monster, which cut both of them wide open with a single slash each. Blood flowed from their wounds and they went down. But before they even hit the ground, the Overlord attacked. The Browns and the Overlord hacked off its limbs and cut it down, while the Red minions set it ablaze. And by that point the Reds had been upgraded enough so their fireballs now caused tiny explosions when they hit, turning them into decently good ranged attackers, and the last thing a plant monster would want to deal with. The monster lashed at them and spat its acid, but it only managed to kill a couple minions before it was slain. Minions that were quickly revived by the Blues.
One down, a lot to go.
"You two treat those injuries and find a safe place to hide," Valgaav said to the farmers.
A nearby house had two of them attacking it, trying to rip it apart and melt it down, while some female voices were screaming from inside, crying for help and telling the plant monsters to get away. Seeing that they were distracted and wide open, the Overlord seized the opportunity to sneak up and attack them from behind. They were caught completely by surprise, and by the time they turned around and began to fight back, they were already seriously injured and weren't going to be able to hold out much longer.
Once those two were dead, he moved on to the next one. This one was trying to kill a young man who was proving too fast for it. He wasn't running away, but rather dodging and evading its attacks, probably trying to wear it out and make it use up all its acid. Whether or not it was working was impossible to tell at the moment, as the monster was showing no signs of slowing down yet.
The Overlord attacked with his minions and his lightning. They chopped off its limbs and hacked it down as it struck with its bladed vines and tried to bite and spit at them. But they were too much for it and they killed it.
"Are you okay?"
"I'm fine. Those tree freaks are nasty."
"Think you can keep going?"
"Of course!"
"Good, because I need you to go around saving as many people as you can. I can handle these things, but it'll take time, and over half the town could end up dead before I finish."
"I'm on it."
Then the guy took off to play the big hero, and the Overlord continued on hunting and destroying the 'tree freaks'. The next one he encountered had just killed off two people. It had melted them down into bloody skeletons with bits and pieces of flesh on them, laying in acidic pools of blood, bile, and mostly liquefied guts and gore, that had been their bodies only minutes earlier. He promptly avenged their deaths.
Then he found another guy who was being subjected to the same fate. He was screaming in pain as his body was being melting by acid. It got part of his leg, a third of his torso, and almost half of his face. It was clearly too late to save him, so Valgaav did the only thing he could do to end his suffering. He killed him quickly with a spear tip straight to his brain. Then he turned his wrath on the tree freak.
The next few tree freaks were already being dealt with. The surviving warriors acted fast to save the farmers and farms. There weren't enough to deal with all of the invading tree freaks, but they were able to handle a few of them. They'd gang up on each one, block the acid with their shields, and hack them to pieces with their axes. When the acid began to melt their shields or armour, they'd discard them before it was too late, and jump right back into the fight without delay. When the Overlord got close, they yelled "Don't worry Lord, we got this one covered!" It seemed their training was paying off.
The next couple tree freaks had gained the upper hand on their opponents. The men had been cut deep, or hit with acid. The Overlord had to cut off a hand, an arm, half a leg, and a big chunk of muscle tissue in order to save them, but with a little luck and some first aid, they'd probably make it. The same could not be said for the monsters.
As he made it to the town gate, he saw a big fight going on in front of it. Multiple tree freaks were fighting the townsfolk. The drawbridge was down and from the sounds of it, they were already in town and on a rampage. Valgaav instantly concluded that instead of raising the bridge to protect the town, they rushed out to stop the monsters and save the farms. There was no doubt in his mind that the war against the orcs not only weeded out most of the weak and cowardly, but greatly toughened up the survivors. Not that he had much time to think about it, as there were monsters to crush.
The men in front of the town were luckier than most of the others. Because of the river in front of the town, they could just jump in whenever they took a hit and let the acid be washed off by the current. They were left with a few wounds, but they didn't die or lose any body parts. Well, at least not by the acid. Three of them were struck by the bladed vines, which cut off limbs and spilled out guts. The Overlord took the monsters down one after another, and then turned his attention to the town. Luckily he already had a number of minions guarding the town, so things should have been a lot better than at the farms.
"There's something strange about those plants lord."
"Ya think Gnarl?"
"Well, besides the obvious I mean. I've never seen such things before, but the vapours they give off seem very familiar."
"They were probably made from a plant you recognize or something. We'll figure that out later."
Despite the number of tree freaks in town being lower than it was at the farms, the panic and chaos was much higher. The civilians and orc slave girls were unprepared for such a situation, and it seemed the only things they could think of doing were panicking, screaming and running in circles. At the very least you'd think they'd try barricading themselves indoors or evacuating the area.
The first tree freak in town was munching on an old hag as a couple of Browns were stabbing it with spears. It had her in its mouth and was chewing on her waist. Judging by all the blood coming out of her midsection and mouth, she was either already dead or close to it. As the Overlord took it down, she was dropped into a puddle of her own blood. If she wasn't dead before, she was now.
"I guess you were too late for that one."
"She was old enough to die anyway."
"Honestly I'm not sad to see her go. She was stupid, annoying, had an irritating voice, and she never shut up."
The next tree freak was struggling to get a youngster off its back while some Browns were trying to hack it down. It was the same boy Valgaav saved from the wolves. He was hanging on for dear life, struggling to avoid the sharp stuff while staying where the acid couldn't get him. The Overlord killed the tree freak, and the boy counted his lucky stars for the save.
"Get inside kid."
He then found another one by the bar, acting strange. Once he got a good look, he realized it tried to get a wench who hid among the kegs of ale, and while tearing its way through them both the monster and the girl consumed the ale and got drunk off their asses. This resulted in it becoming a lot tougher, but also clumsy and imprecise. It was still nothing the Overlord couldn't handle.
A pair of tree freaks came running while carrying some girls who were screaming for help. But with the Overlord in their way, the first one didn't make it too far, and the second was killed before it escaped. But that gave him pause for thought. They weren't trying to kill those girls, they were trying to capture them. Those things were plants, so it couldn't have been for breeding. It could have been for food, but then why not kill them first, or go for those who had more meat on them. The only thing that made sense to him was that this wasn't some random attack by an out-of-control horde of monsters that came out of nowhere, but a preplanned assault, and the monsters were following orders.
Other tree freaks were trying to destroy the town. They were tearing apart houses, smashing stalls, breaking everything they could find, and generally terrorizing the people. The Overlord had an uphill battle dealing with them, and he had to replenish his lost minions a couple times.
At one point some tree freaks came running through carrying large bags of gold. Gold that had come from the town coffers and belonged to the Overlord. There was no way he'd ever let them get away. His minions formed a blockade and cut them off. Then the Overlord had to deal with several of them at once. He used the Slow spell to make things a bit easier, and then proceeded to wail on them along with his minions. The monsters dropped the gold and fought for their lives. They were relentless in their struggle for survival, and caused serious damage to the Overlord and killed off several minions before they fell, but they still fell.
Realizing that they had already lost, the surviving tree freaks retreated, opening up a new path as they fled.
"Don't let them escape or they'll return with reinforcements!" the Overlord roared.
Those who could still fight acted fast and chased down the tree freaks and attacked them from behind. Together they managed to slay them before they escaped into the nearby jungle. And thus the plant monster invasion of Meadowsweet and its farms was brought to an end, with the Overlord, minions and locals standing tall over their vanquished foes.
As the people let out cries of victory, Valgaav had his surviving minions carry the bags of gold to the Waypoint gate, and along the way they picked up some health and mana potions for him.
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Once the injured were cared for, everybody had calmed down, and a barrier was set up to block any further attacks from the route the plant monsters used, the Overlord addressed his people.
"Listen up! What just happened was no random attack. Those monsters had to have been sent here by the elves to wipe this place out. And I have proof. First; several of them tried making off with some of our young women, but only our young women. If it was for food, they would have gone for the larger men, the animals, or our supplies of food, rather than some skinny girls. There is no chance that those plant monsters would view them as breeding material, and any other uses would be beyond their understanding. Second; several others tried stealing gold. Not only would those freaks not have any use for gold, they would not even be able to comprehend any possible uses for gold. This proves that they were following orders. Those orders were to attack and destroy Meadowsweet, slaughter the locals, and steal the young women and the gold. And it's likely the only way they'd follow those orders was if their creators were the ones that issued them. And the only ones who could and would create such monstrosities that I know of, are the elves, who despite claiming to love nature, have had a long history of messing with it."
That made a lot of sense to the townsfolk. Enough sense that every last one agreed, and many openly wanted to go to war with them.
"Don't be foolish. If you lot try attacking the elves as you are now, they'll slaughter you all with ease. First we must fortify our defences and protect the town and farms. Then we must build up our offensive power before trying any attacks. But if anyone has any useful information, I'll be happy to hear it."
"I have information."
He turned to see a girl with white hair, yellow eyes, cat ears, long hair, large breasts, fur covering her forearms and lower legs, a fine ass, paws, a tail, and a revealing robe that was clearly meant for someone much smaller. He instantly recognized her as a nekomata, but was surprised as she was the first he'd ever seen around those parts.
"I know everything. But it doesn't come free."
"Alright. And what do you want?"
"To live a life of luxury without a care in the world," she said with a smile.
He paused for a second.
"If your information proves worthwhile, then it's a deal. Now come with me so we can talk."
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AN: And here's the latest chapter of my most reviewed story. I would have uploaded it a lot sooner, but then I noticed a serious plot hole and had to rewrite the chapter to fix it. Also I hope everyone likes what I replaced the walking flytraps with. And are there any guesses yet on who or what those weapon-making geniuses might be?