Overlord: Darker Legends.
Chapter 12: Foundry Attack.
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With things in his kingdom now progressing smoothly, it was time to get back to the upcoming war. Time was running short, but the Overlord had come up with a plan to turn this whole thing on its head. He would attack the elves and frame the dwarves for it, and he would attack the dwarves and frame the elves for it. Given the inherent mistrust between the two, it should work and lead to their alliance falling apart and war breaking out between them. The only problem was that he was still working out all the details. Luckily Gnarl figured a few of them out.
"My lord, your plan is brilliant. And I think I know how to do it. The minions will need some disguises. The dwarves traditionally have special diplomatic envoy outfits they use when visiting others. A bit fancier and less stains than the normal wear. We can probably find them in the Dwarf Foundry. That should get us into the elvin lands, where there should be some elf outfits."
"Kinda risky. If they get a good look at the minions, they might realize they're fakes in disguise. If they don't see them at all, it won't help us. And even if a couple of them just get a distant glance, those in charge might dismiss it due to it being unreliable. Wait... If we take some dead bodies of dwarves and elves with us and leave them behind during the attacks, they'll think those ones were taken down by their own men, and use the bodies as solid evidence against each other."
"That sounds disgusting."
"I've been through worse. And I mean that literally," Valgaav said, referring to the witch's house and the chest deep pools of blood. "I now have a mission for my new men: To go capture and kill a team of elves. No wait, for this first one we should go with something less obvious. I know, the elves' plant monsters. I'll need at least six of them. And a bunch of elf weapons. We should already have a bunch left over that the minions collected. You'll need to prepare the weapons and the bodies of those monsters. They'll need to be cut into pieces to make it seem like there were more of them, and in ways that make it look like they died in battle against the dwarves. And it has to be done within the next two hours. Time is on no-one's side, and we'll lose if we don't act fast."
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The order was given and soon Overlord Valgaav was on his way, along with a full horde of minions. They took the road out of Meadowsweet, and began making their trek to the Dwarven Foundry. The path had dwarven guards and things blocking it, but those were barely even enough to slow him down slightly. They were swept aside as they marched forth.
But then they encountered a trap. The path ahead was rigged with machines that would try spearing, cutting, and smashing anything that tried getting past them.
Trying to power right through it was doable, but foolish. He'd lose minions for sure, and probably take some damage himself. So he chose to look around first.
If he got to the sides of those machines, he could safely disable them. But there was no path to them. His solution was he'd just have to make one himself.
The Overlord and minions began tearing their way through the sides of the path. The natural barriers were tough, but against that many attackers at once, they were failing quickly. Once they'd created an opening, he sent his minions in to destroy the machines. Once the path was safe, he recalled them so they could continue.
Then they came to the Foundry's entrance. In front of it, there was a dwarf in a robotic contraption. It had a barrel shaped body, four wheels, two arms, one with a drill for a fist, the other with a large axe, and an engine on its back that powered it. And it looked like he was just testing it out.
"I don't get what they were complaining about. Everything about this is working just fine. I just wish I had some real opponents so I could prove how well this thing really works in battle," the dwarf said to himself.
"Your wish, has been granted!"
The dwarf turned, saw the army he was up against, and instantly regretted his words. The minions swarmed in to overwhelm him, as he struggled to fend them off. He punched with the drill and swung his axe wildly. Every hit proved to mean a gruesome and bloody death to the minions, and extremely messy in the case of the drill, and it's metal armour was tough enough to take a pounding, but it was open on top and the engine on the back was completely exposed. Both made easy targets for the Reds and the Greens. The Greens easily jumped over its attacks, landed on it, and began stabbing the dwarf and tearing apart the engine. Within seconds the dwarf was dead and the machine started sparking, sputtering, and going crazy. The Overlord called them back just before part of it blew up, sending the whole thing crashing into the foundry's doors, where it blew up with enough force to blast open the doors. Then the Overlord just walked right in.
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The building was well made, comprised mostly of cut stone placed smoothly together, and the walls were decorated with oversized hammers. After turning a couple corners, they ran into some dwarven warriors who must've heard the explosion.
"Careful sire. Dwarves love to fight. Almost as much as they love to drink, vomit, and fall over."
"Wait, did you just say they love to drink vomit on each other?"
"No, I said they love to drink, vomit, and fall over."
There was some chuckling in the background, and even Valgaav a bit of a laugh at it.
"You startin' somethin'?"
They clashed. The dwarves were the most well armed and armoured foes he'd faced. They were perfectly equipped for battle, and he expected nothing less from dwarven warriors. Too bad for the dwarves they weren't monsters. He'd already fought and crushed creatures that were far tougher and deadlier than them, and it wasn't like their armour made them invincible. Not only that, his minions had these dwarves heavily outnumbered. It was no contest. Dwarven blood stained the floor as they were reduced to meat.
"I'm done for."
"Too easy."
After another corner, they saw a huge locked set of doors. They needed to turn two wheels to unlock them, but first they'd have to move a couple blocks to form bridges. But there were dwarves guarding it all. There was a dwarven crossbowman by each of the wheels, ready to start shooting at anything that moves from their high vantage points, and there was a squad of dwarven warriors ready to get in formation at the first sign of intruders.
He could've attacked head-on, he decided he'd best take out their crossbowmen first. So he had his minions sneak in and move the blocks unnoticed, so he could catch them by complete surprise.
It didn't work. The minions were spotted, a dwarf yelled, their cover was blown, and the dwarves immediately took action. And were getting a few words in.
"My granny's tougher than you lot!"
"C'mon ya wee blighters!"
"Wanna taste of me?"
"I can't go on."
The lower ones got into formation, and the higher ones started shooting arrows. But due to their numbers and fast actions, the minions still managed to get the blocks in place. The Overlord then sent them to take out the crossbowmen. Blood squirted out as they quickly fell. Then he had the minions rush in and take the rest out. The dwarves put up a half decent fight, but they were completely overwhelmed and slaughtered.
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After that came the much simpler task of unlocking and opening the doors. Past the doors was a hallway and a couple rooms, storage rooms from the looks of it, there to hold whatever they brought in. And it seemed that those rooms had some loot in them.
Just past there was a large room where some minion gates and a waypoint gate opened. Which made it easy to loot the storage rooms. Once that was done, he took a better look at the place. Below the raised portion they were on was a huge floor covered by a grate, save for the stone path in the middle, and underneath it he could see moving machinery. Whatever was down there caused a wall of flames to shoot up through the grate as it moved towards him. Had anyone been standing on it, they would've been roasted alive.
He was sure that was just a side effect of what they were actually using it for, but he liked it. He paused to imagine it as part of his castle's defences. It could've burned through the soldiers of the orc army that attacked. It could've burned through the halflings that attacked. It could burn through future attackers. It could even burn his family alive while they screamed.
That last one was extremely appealing.
The room also had four doors, including one he just came through, a huge one opposite him that clearly required turning two wheels to unlock it, neither one he could get to, and one on each side that had pressure switches. There were also some large dwarf statues, dwarves guarding each door, more dwarves in the middle of the room, and holes in each corner, plus another in the raised part he was on.
"Wait, I heard about those things. Those are connected to tunnels that lead to dwarven mines and hangouts. I'll need to collapse them to stop them from coming through."
Then a dwarf came out of the nearest mine entrance, noticed them, and attacked. His head was quickly split in half, but that caused the other dwarves to take notice. The element of surprise was lost, so the Overlord used a guard marker to position the minions on the stairs, while he got to work on tearing down the mine entrance. It didn't take long, and he wasted no time rejoining his forces.
The dwarves were in a proper formation, and had reinforcements joining them. The Overlord knew he was going to push through and win, but it seemed like it was going to take a while.
"I'll send ya ta hell!"
"My granny's tougher than you lot!"
"Come on ya great lumps!"
"I died in battle."
"A warrior's death."
Then the wall of flames came through and set the dwarves ablaze. That gave the minions the opening they needed to finish them off. But there were more dwarves coming out of the mine entrances. Acting fast, he had the minions engage them on the stone path, where the flames were less of a threat.
But rather than waiting for the intruder to pick them all off, the dwarves guarding the doors decided to leave their posts and attack them from behind. The Overlord and his minions were momentarily surrounded, but his chain lightning spell, followed by a few skull shattering strikes from his halberd, was enough to completely disrupt that.
With the minions handling the dwarves, the Overlord ran over to tear down the nearest mine entrances. Once they were down he rushed back to help his minions. Only to stop and turn back to get out of the way of the flames. Once they passed he tried again. This time he successfully returned to them and then diagonally cleaved one dwarf's head in half, then began fighting through the rest. More dwarves came and tried to turn the tables by surrounding them. A tactic that might have worked if not for the flames coming through.
The dwarves screamed as they were burned alive. Hair was burned off, flesh was scorched, and they were in so much pain that slaughtering them suddenly became an act of mercy. And the same went for a bunch of the minions, as the stone path was too narrow for them all to fight on.
"I died on fire."
"Ya also died lighting a fart."
With that plan backfiring, Overlord Valgaav and his minions were able to overpower the remaining dwarves. They cut them down one after another, and dwarven blood spilled through the gaps in the floor. Once nearly all the opposition was dead or burning alive, the Overlord ran through to tear down the remaining mine openings. By the time he finished, the last of the dwarves were dead and the minions were standing victorious.
"Okay, now what?"
They may have cleared the room, but the doors that led further in were still locked.
"Hey, maybe if you move those statues over to those pads they'll open the doors."
"Out of the question. There's no way the dwarves would use these statues to open those doors. These things look to be solid stone, and that means they must weigh in at two or three tonnes each. So unless they're actually made of hollow tin and painted up to look like stone, then they're far too heavy for us to lug around, let alone the dwarves that actually need to use them. Look, even with my strength I won't be able to make it budge an inch."
He tried demonstrating his point by pushing on the statue...
... and then it tilted up off the ground, as if it was nearly weightless.
"And it's made of hollow tin and painted up to look like stone."
They all started laughing over that. The hollow tin statue was only a couple hundred pounds. Heavy enough to avoid being moved by accident, but not heavy enough to stop a group of dwarves or anyone else from moving them around. Then he stepped back and dropped it. It landed on the foot of one of the minions, crushing it with enough force to cause him to scream. There was more laughter as the Overlord lifted it up again to free the minion. Then he slapped that minion in the back of the head for being an idiot.
"Okay, enough of that. Get those over there." he commanded.
The minions picked the statues up and carried them to the pressure pads. The result was opened doors. Two new paths were opened one after the other. And from the looks of the wheels, he'd probably have to go through both to open the big door. He started with the one on the left.
They went down another hallway, and soon found a new room. This room had several mine entrances, a statue, a grate with flames coming through, a mana pit, a few chests of gold, and a bunch of dwarves standing guard.
They moved forward without hesitation. Then something fell from above and exploded, killing several minions and almost taking out the Overlord as well. Valgaav looked up and saw a dwarf dropping bombs. He was a dwarf bomber. A type of dwarf that specialized in tossing heavy bombs from an elevated position. And he was positioned right by the room's entrance, and there was a second one by the stairs. But while bombs may have been powerful weapons, the bombers had a bad reputation for being far too ineffective for real combat. The bombs were heavy, so they could only get them to their targets when they were above them, so the bombers were only good for guarding passageways and stuff like that. Unfortunately for the Overlord, he and his minions were among the select few that were quite vulnerable to them.
"Nay more trouble from you."
"C'mon ya wee blighters!"
With dwarves rushing over to attack as bombs were being thrown down, the Overlord had to act fast and struggle to avoid losing minions or limbs. One of those explosions hit him, blasted him several feet, and caused heavy damage. He coughed up blood, and as he struggled to get to his feet, he noticed he was already in position to turn it around.
Valgaav used his lightning strike spell on the bomber. The result was the bombs getting set off, blowing up the bomber, which sent bits and pieces of him everywhere. But then another bomber came through the mine opening behind him. Wanting to end this as quickly as possible, Valgaav hammered the opening with lightning until it collapsed. Then he struck the bomber and blew him up.
But then two dwarf warriors took advantage of the distraction and attacked him from behind. He was knocked down and they started wailing on him with their axes. Even his armour couldn't hold out against such an assault. His minions rushed to his aid, giving him the opening to roll out of the way and get up. He then began fighting back. He placed his minions on a guard marker and backed off a bit while they fought the dwarf warriors. The dwarves were cut down one after another, and once their numbers went down, they were able to press forward.
"My granny's tougher than you lot!"
"I died in battle."
"Have some axe!"
"Drink to my death."
The Overlord positioned his minions just ahead of him, ready to strike down everything that dared get close. Then he turned his attention to the other bomber. Then he noticed that two more had shown up there. Valgaav and the minions were just out of their throwing range, but that didn't stop them from trying. Valgaav then took aim and fired his his lightning strike spell. It hit the mine entrance behind them. A few more strikes and it collapsed, cutting off the bombers' reinforcements. Then he fired his chain lightning spell at them, which not only arced and caused damage to all off them, but also set off their explosives.
The dwarven warriors were showered with the blood and guts of their brothers, which freaked them out and gave the Overlord and his minions an opening to rush in and slaughter them. One of the dwarves became enraged and recklessly charged at the minions with enough speed and power to go through them like they were bowling pins. But Valgaav sidestepped and tripped him, sending him tumbling head over heals before he crashed upside down into a wall. Then the Overlord brought the blade of his poleaxe down on him. But because he was upside down, it hit his groin instead of his head. The dwarf screamed and even everyone watching from the castle cried out.
"That's going too far!"
The Overlord then finished him off by stabbing his neck. They then moved through the room, slaughtering dwarves and tearing down mine openings. Once the room was cleared, they got the door open using the statue. As they pressed forward, the Overlord got a report.
"Good news. The mission to kill plant monsters has just been completed, and the bodies are already being prepped. The first pieces should be ready and waiting by the time you return to a waypoint gate."
"Excellent. I'll head back there in a moment."
After a few turns they reached the first wheel to the big door. It was on a ledge overlooking the big room. It was too high to just jump down from while clad in armour, so once the wheel was turned they had to go back. As soon as they got there the elf weapons and monster parts started coming through the Waypoint gate.
"We're sending them through now."
"Good work."
They then backtracked to the previous areas and began hiding the stuff all over. The idea was to make it look like the elves attacked and had their monsters rampage through the place, mowing down everything in their paths, with some of the monsters dying and elves losing parts of their weapons in the process, and then the elves retrieved the bodies of their fallen monsters to hide that it was them, but missed a few pieces here and there in easy to overlook spots. Luckily the building had wooden boxes and other stuff that the minions smashed while going through there, and the rubble made the perfect spots to stash the weapons and body parts. They probably wouldn't be found until the dwarves started cleaning up, which would only give credit to the illusion that the Overlord was creating.
"This is like sweeping them under a rug."
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Once that was done they pressed onward. Now back in the big room, they took the door on the right. That led to a long hallway with plenty of stuff in it. All of which got smashed.
At the end of the hallway there was a room, and upon entering they were spotted by a dwarven crossbowman, who wasted no time attacking. His crossbow was already primed, so all he had to do was aim and fire. His arrow hit a minion in the neck and instantly decapitated him, before the Overlord even realized they were in danger.
The Overlord took a quick glance at the room. On each side of the room there was a dwarven crossbowman on an elevated position, well out of melee reach and maybe even just out of the range of the Reds' fireballs, with a mine entrance behind him, and further into the room were six more mine entrances, where dwarf warriors came out. Charging in there meant getting attacked from three sides at once, as the room seemed to be designed to be a death trap to all intruders.
'They should've reserved this set-up for the entrance,' thought Valgaav.
He knew the crossbowmen were a more serious threat, so he got closer and began hitting one with his lightning. Then a bomb came down from above. The Overlord was barely able to react in time. The Overlord escaped damage, but the minions got scattered and a few got killed. There was a bomber above them, out of his line of sight. So they were getting attacked from four sides, not three.
"I'll send ya ta hell!"
"My granny's tougher than you lot!"
"I died in battle."
The dwarves on the ground rushed in to attack, and he almost retreated, but thinking fast he decided to use a guard marker to reposition his minions near the middle of the room. That should help them fend off the dwarves on the ground, while also getting them out of range of the bomber. That made them more vulnerable to the crossbowmen, but he thought if he could handle them quickly enough then it should work out fine. Then the Reds counterattacked with their fireballs, and while most failed to hit their marks, enough landed to disrupt the crossbowmen and deal some damage.
For a moment it looked like they had the upper hand, but unfortunately there were three dwarves that were already past the minions, and he had to take them down before he could attack the crossbowmen. He acted fast and cast Petrify on the crossbowmen and the bomber, buying them some time.
The dwarves charged at him, trying to get up close. The Overlord struck with his poleaxe, getting in a couple hits on one, then he blocked a strike from another. He then deflected a strike from two of them, which knocked them both off balance, and one kick sent them both tumbling. He then focused his wrath on the remaining one, and they just hammered away at each other. They blocked each other's strikes when they could, but were more focused on ending their foe. The Overlord was at a clear advantage, but just before he landed a final blow, the other two joined in again. Even with all three attacking him at once, he was still able to fend them off and land a killing blow on the one he'd been fighting. With only two dwarves left, he was turning the fight against them. Then one slipped on the blood, lost his footing, and was kicked away. On his own that dwarf couldn't stand up to the Overlord's might, and was felled by his blade. By then the Petrify spell had worn off, and the bomber and crossbowmen were on the attack again. The crossbowmen took out a couple minions, and the bomber threw a bomb at the Overlord, just as the third dwarf attacked him. He deflected the dwarf's attack, and knocked him onto the bomb. The bomb exploded and the dwarf was blown up, with blood, guts, and bits & pieces of him flying everywhere.
The Overlord then switched to his lightning spell as he turned his attention to the guys who seemed to think they were above him. A couple more crossbowmen had shown up, making things worse for the minions, who were already having a really hard time. He hammered away at them with his magic, and didn't stop until they were dead and their mine entrances were collapsed.
With the threats from higher up taken care of, he pressed forward. He rejoined the minions and together they fought through the dwarven warriors.
"Bring it on laddie!"
"A warrior's death."
"My granny's tougher than you lot!"
"Let's be havin' ya."
One after another fell before them, and the Overlord managed to break through their ranks and attack the mine entrances, cutting off their reinforcements. It was only after that was done that they were able to finish the rest off.
As they took a moment to catch their breath, Gnarl spoke up.
"Impressive victory lord. You were completely outflanked and you still annihilated them."
"Are you okay?"
"Hang on a sec. We took a few hits there."
"Are you gonna be alright?"
"I'll be fine. I might need a beer after all this is done though."
There were giant forges blocking the path forward, a wheel engulfed in flames, a pressure pad, and a statue near the entrance. Once they'd moved the statue and turned the wheel, the machinery started moving and got out of their way, opening up two paths. The path on the right led up some stairs and through a hallway with a bunch of turns. It ended back in the big room, right at the second wheel. They turned it and unlocked the big door.
On the way back they went into the path on the left, which led to a room with gold and loot. They took it all. On the way out they also grabbed a few dwarf bodies. Everything was taken to the waypoint gate. And while they were there, the Overlord healed up, replenished his horde, and they got some more broken elf weapons and monster parts and spread them around.
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With the big door unlocked, it was easy to push it open. The path through that door soon came to a split. One path was blocked off by some wall sticking up from below, and the other led downstairs. They pressed onward.
There were a few guards at the bottom of the stairs, but once they were past those, it seemed like that was it for combatants. Everybody past that point was working on forging, building, cooking, cleaning, and stuff like that. Most of them were women, (but because they were dwarven women, they all looked like they were little girls, maybe around 8-11 years old on average,) and they realized that if these intruders made it past the men upstairs, then they had no change against them. So rather than trying to fight, they instead resorted to running and hiding.
The Overlord and his minions took them all down. The Minion Frenzy spell proved quite useful there. But rather than killing them, they just knocked them all out. These girls would become prisoners of war, and would be far more valuable alive, so just killing them off would be a senseless waste.
They explored the place, took whatever they could find, and knocked out whoever they could find. Then they found a room with small green creatures in cages. They looked like some new breed of minion, but they were much smaller, completely crazy, and were laughing, despite being hooked up to torture devices. Then he noticed the blueprints lying around all over. It seemed that these creatures were the ones that created the blueprints for all the stuff he'd been seeing so far. He spotted a hiding dwarf girl and asked her.
"What are these things?"
"I don't know! They just brought them in one day. They're stupid and they're crazy, but somehow they know more about machines than we do."
"Gnarl! Any ideas?"
"Hmm... They do look familiar. I'm trying to remember... Ah-ha! Got it! They're those useless rejected minions from the Black Baron's days. They loved tampering with machines, and it seemed like they could figure them out better than anyone, but they were out-of-control, insane, useless, and completely detrimental. They never followed orders, trashed the Black Barron's castle, caused all kinds of problems, never once did anything useful, and somehow they multiplied when wet and died in sunlight. I thought they were all wiped out long ago."
"Looks like they figured out how to torture them into making new machines."
"Weird. The Black Barron tried that and it didn't work."
"He probably gave up too fast. It must take a lot of torturing to get them to do anything, let alone this much, and back then the Baron had so much going on all the time that he must have thought that focusing on them was a waste of his time."
"Good point. Do you want to bring them to the castle?"
"I'll pass. I have so much going on right now that dealing with them will just be a waste of my time."
And then he tore the cages open, killed the creatures, and swiped all the blueprints lying around.
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Soon they found where some of the fleeing dwarf girls had been running to. Which turned out to be the boss room. Inside was someone huge and fat, with long white hair, a white beard, armour, and was drinking beer at a table.
"Who's that old guy?"
"I don't know, I've never seen a dwarf that big."
The dwarf looked up.
"So you must be the punks causing trouble."
As the dwarf spoke, stood up, and picked up a huge maul hammer, Valgaav noticed a couple things that surprised him. 1: Despite the beard and huge size, that dwarf was a woman. 2: She stood over a foot taller than he did. Add in the girth and she was over three times his size. (And nobody ever said he was small.) 3: Despite clearly being in her old age, she looked to be a well armed and well armoured tank who could take and deal huge amounts of damage.
"You must be the granny they were bragging about."
"WWHHAAAAAATTT!?"
"Wow, I guess her being tougher wasn't just trash talk."
She downed one last beer, and then with one flick of her arm she sent the heavy wooden table flying across the room. Overlord Valgaav and Granny both readied themselves and went in.
There wasn't much around the room that he could use against her, so the Overlord just had his minions attack her directly. But even full force they could barely even put a scratch on her. Granny was able to tank their attacks, throw them all off, and start smashing them to paste. And if an entire horde of minions wailing on her could barely do anything to her, then his melee attacks wouldn't fair any better. So rather than recklessly charging in, he instead turned to his magic.
He tried hitting her with the Petrify spell, but she just shook it off. He tried hitting her with Lightning Strike, but it barely did anything to her. Before he could try something else, Granny closed the distance between them and attacked. Valgaav deflected her strike, then got in one of his own. But as he predicted, that caused her little damage. She then swung her maul at his side, and seeing no way to deflect it, he instead tried to block it. This proved very ineffective, as the maul hit him almost full force anyway, resulting in him taking some damage as he was knocked through the air.
"Weakling! You're as disappointing as my grandsons!"
Undeterred, the Overlord got back up, and throttled a Red minion at her, which exploded in her face. This stunned her for a second. Then he tried the Life Drain spell. To his surprise this was extremely effective. She could do nothing but scream as it bypassed her defences to drain the life out of her. And at her age she didn't have enough life left in her to spare any.
Realizing she was in trouble, Granny slammed her maul hammer down, cause the floor to shake and forcing him to stop his spell. Then she got outta there.
"Come help your Granny!" she yelled.
Dwarf warriors came out to join the fight, a couple of which were riding machines, much like what the dwarf by the Foundry's entrance was riding, and each one had its own weapons equipped. While they attacked, Granny stayed out of it to catch her breathe and do something to her maul hammer.
"I'll send ya ta hell!"
"C'mon ya wee blighters!"
"Have some axe!"
"Wanna taste of me?"
"I can't go on."
"Drink to my death."
The dwarves in machines proved to be insanely deadly up close, but vulnerable to the Reds and the Greens. Although these ones didn't explode when damaged like the first one did. Instead the machines just shut down and/or caught on fire. And the dwarves on foot had to go through the Browns to get to the Overlord. Or, more accurately, had to deal with the Browns going through them. The numbers of dwarven bodies increased until the last one had his guts ripped out.
Then Granny returned. Now her maul's head held glowing stones. Clearly she had given it magic.
The Overlord tried using Life Drain again, and it worked, but now that it didn't catch her off guard, she was able to handle it better. She slammed her maul down again, but this time it caused the floor to move like water and come at him in a wave. He got out of the way, hit her with Life Drain again, and she responded by creating boulders in the air, and then batting them at him. They exploded when they hit something, and despite staying mobile, one of them hit him. The blast was a painful one, and caused him some damage. As he got back up, she launched herself into the air to close the gap between them and fight up close, where she held the advantage. He got away from her, but not far enough to avoid the magic shockwave that followed. Then her maul shone a light in his eyes, and suddenly the world became dark, twisting, and disorienting.
"An illusion spell? I can't see her!"
"She's in front of you and to the right!"
He aimed in that direction and fired his spell. It hit its mark and the illusion was dispelled as his health recovered.
"Come help your Granny!" she yelled.
This part of the fight was without a doubt going to be the toughest. Just like before, more dwarf warriors came out to join the fight, with some of them riding those machines. But this time Granny and her magic maul hammer stuck around. She didn't try using the illusion again, but she didn't shy away from the other spells.
In order to win he had to act fast, and combine sending the Reds and Greens to the dwarves in machines, while sending the Browns against the dwarven warriors, while sending the Blues to revive any who had fallen, one after another, all while fighting Granny and any dwarves that avoids the minions and came for him. A tactic that would be extremely tricky to pull off, and could easily result in his side taking heavy losses.
Instead he retreated to what he decided was a better position, put his minions on guard markers, and let them come to him. The defensive formation proved very effective. Everyone who charged in got overwhelmed and slaughtered, and everyone who didn't couldn't do anything to them. The only exception to this was Granny, who could use magic for ranged attacks, or could just plow right through them. The Overlord had to handle countering her himself.
"Come on ya great lumps!"
"Nay more trouble from you."
"Bring it on laddie!"
"I'm done for."
"Wanna taste of me?"
"A warrior's death."
"That doesn't bend that way! That don't bend that way!" 'Snap' "AAAAHH! Now it does!"
Granny began attacking with her magic, and the Overlord and his minions took a few hits. The Overlord countered with Life Drain, and then she launched herself into the air and came down on him. He got away from her, but couldn't escape the magic shockwave that followed. He got back up, but she was already on the attack. He deflected her strikes, and then hit her with Life Drain. He kept at it until she collapsed.
With Granny down, he turned his attention to her backup. The dwarves were doing some damage to the minions, but with his help they managed to vanquish all of them. Then he went back to Granny. He struck her with his blade and took her head off.
And with that, the battle was over.
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After replenishing his health, mana and minions, they looked around, and found a Waypoint gate, treasure stashes, a new forge, the dwarf girls that escaped them, and then the wheel that would open the path upstairs.
"Another Forge for our castle! And all the more weapons and armour for you, Sire."
They sent the treasure and forge to the castle, along with a bunch of dwarf bodies and a few of their machines. Then they went back to collect the dwarven girls and send them there as well. There were enough of them that having the minions carry them all one by one to the Waypoint gate took a while. (Never-the-less, he certainly did enjoy the mass kidnapping.)
"What do we do with these dwarf girls?"
"Lock them all up in the dungeon. And make sure they don't have anything they can use to attempt an escape."
"Does that mean strip them naked first?"
"Yes it does. And keep them that way."
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The Overlord then spread out more elf weapon pieces and plant monster body parts, and opened the path upstairs. He saw the wall get lowered from below, and soon they were on their way again.
The room past the lowered wall was built into a giant cave, and still had stalagmites and stalactites in it, and there was a stream of lava, but they had built in there. There was a floor under his feet, and forges were carried by over the lava via some mechanical contraption.
They were spotted and attacked by a few foolhardy dwarf warriors, and before they were dispatched, the Overlord spotted a couple dwarf girls running off to hide. As he sent the minions to catch them, he got an idea. He cast Dark Manipulation on them, making them both loyal to him. But he wasn't about to stop there. He created a psychic link between the two girls, so they could send the memories of anything they're seen or heard to each other.
"You now belong to me. You will serve as my spy and messenger, report everything you learn to me, and you will blame this incident on the elves."
"Yes, master," they both replied.
"Now tell me. Where are the dwarf envoy outfits?"
"Right over there, master."
Sure enough, nearby were a bunch of trunks containing the outfits. They took them and one of the dwarf girls, and headed to a Waypoint gate to return to the castle. The first dwarf girl would spy on the dwarves, then mentally channel everything she learned to the second, who would report it to the Overlord in the safety of his castle. And with there being no signs of messages being sent out, and evidence of anything else, nobody would ever suspect anything.
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AN: The story's not dead, it's just been bombarded with delays.
Not sure how well the boss for this area fits with this story, but with all the dwarves in the game bragging about how tough their granny was, it was hard to put anyone else as the boss.
My last year's New Years Resolutions included going out more, socializing more, and start enjoying stuff outside my bedroom. That was shut down in seconds by the Covid19 lockdown. Let's hope that my current New Years Resolution, (to finish this story before next year,) fairs a bit better. (Of course if I'm faced with even half as many issues as I was last year, then I doubt I'll pull it off.)