You are Summoned

Chapter 269. The Forgotten Ones.

I readied my pilum as I ran, lamenting the fact that most of my figurines were back at home. Sure, that was the best place for the most powerful ones, but I could sure use some help here. Taking stock, I had only a summoning figurine for a sea horse and some bear traps in inventory. There was one more in my inventory. Fitzfazzle’s figurine was off cooldown, and I could call him to help.

His figurine’s cooldown was a long one, though, and I really wanted to summon him to Earth where he could see our tech and give some of our scientists and researchers insight into what tech would work and what was going to fizzle out when the integration occurred. No, I wasn’t going to call him now. I’d risk a poor showing on the challenge to help make my world safer and give my friend Fitzfazzle a good look at what mana-free technology could do.

I had several scrolls but wanted to keep the Scroll of Eternal Suffering I got from Gary for a more powerful foe. I did have the AOE buff scroll and the acid arrow one that Tzes’zod had created for me. I readied the acid arrow scroll in one hand, and my pilum in the other as I closed in on the market.

A half-dozen creatures were overrunning the market, and a similar number were still pouring in from the trade route area. Activating its magic, I heaved the pilum at the nearest monster, one that was about to tear apart the last gnome trader. Flying unerringly due to its enchantment, the pilum slammed into my target, unleashing a burst of electricity that cooked the monster from the inside out.

“Run, it’s the forgotten ones!” the gnome shouted as he fled deeper into the cavern. With the flashing light of the electrical attack, the other monsters turned and rushed toward me. I got a better look at them as I began to cast the Acidic Arrow Barrage scroll.

These things were like something from a Lovecraft novel. They were ugly enough with their misshapen limbs and tentacles, but up close, I could see they had distorted faces. Not only were their faces distorted versions of a human’s face, but they had also more than one! Some had extra faces on their chests and other random parts of their body. Each of the faces focused on me as they attacked.

Some of the faces cried, some shouted in rage, and others looked terrified. The ones that freaked me out the most were the ones that just smiled. No matter what else they were doing, each face was also babbling out an incoherent chant. If they hadn’t been system generated creatures, I could see someone going mad as their babbling resonated in your mind and almost, but not quite, made sense.

With the scroll greedily sucking out fifteen of my mana, the spell activated. A half dozen green arrows shot forth one slamming into each of the closest monsters. The arrows dug deep into the gray, knotty flesh of the monsters, and then the acid began to do its work. An unholy howl sounded from the injured creatures, who went berserk in rage, attacking anything near them as the acid sizzled deeper into their bodies.

Their blind, pain-filled rage gave me a chance to pull my bear trap summoning figurine. Melvin sent me confident vibes, reminding me that he was there and ready to help. For a few moments, the monsters fought amongst themselves, giving me time to deploy the figurine.

Four oversized bear traps appeared on the ground in front of me. They were colored to match the cave floor but were a bit obvious to anyone who bothered to look. The monsters weren’t paying attention and two charged toward me while the others were still in melee with each other.

With a surprisingly loud snap, the traps closed over the misshapen legs of the monsters who blindly ran forward. More squeals of pain sounded as the pair fell, one landing perfectly onto another trap that snapped shut and tore the monster’s chest out, killing it. The other one, unable to walk, slowly began to pull itself toward me.

Leaping forward, I finished off the creature with my sword. I gagged as the first blow landed, and I felt only minimal resistance as the blade slid through and an odd milky liquid that served as blood for the creatures oozed out. It gave off a foul stench that smelled of death and rotting eggs.

My second thrust hit the monster in its back, right where one of the disgusting faces was positioned. It screamed at me, hurling strange curses that made my mind hurt before it finally went still, the damage too much for even its unnatural form to survive. Whatever these system generated beings were based on, I hoped that I’d never have to run into the real ones.

Expecting to find the other monsters charging toward me, I was surprised to find that they were all dead, mostly due to the acid arrows, but others had torn apart by their own kin. With the immediate threat to my cavern dealt with, I hurried back to the headquarters to get an eye on the other attacks.

On the trail between my cavern and the gnomish home, my trade caravan had been wiped out deep inside the gnomish side of the trail. The bodies of my kobold merchants were torn to shreds, and the cart they had been hauling was left untouched on the trail. Maybe when they respawned, my kobold traders could recover it.

Of course, the gnome trading party in my cavern had met almost the same fate, with only one lone survivor. I had a narrow view of the entire trade route, including where it entered the gnomish cavern. A battle was going on there, as gnome warriors manning a defensive wall held back a similar number of attackers that I had just dealt with.

Only able to slowly climb the defensive wall the gnomes had built; the monsters were speared to death before they could make it into grappling range. We had both lost a trading caravan, though there was a rock gnome trader still alive somewhere in my cavern. He showed up as a yellow dot on my headquarters map, the poor guy was over by the main entrance, making his way out of my cavern to travel overland back to his home.

I couldn’t blame him as there were probably more of those things inside the mountain. The patrol of kobold warriors and the gnomish patrol were both untouched, the monsters must have somehow decided to only attack the most vulnerable targets. How it knew my cavern was undefended at the time was a bit worrisome, but the new eggs in the housing complex should start hatching soon, and some of them would find their way to the barracks be trained as new warriors and help defend this place.

The attack also caused me to activate the second defensive structure upgrade from my trade with the gnomes. I added it over the entrance to the trading route, protecting us from another attack coming from the bowels of the mountain. Maybe there were worse things out there than those monsters the rock gnome trader had called the forgotten ones.

A stone wall, almost identical to the one the gnome had just used to successfully defend their home began to build itself. With a wide gate in the center, the wall should be perfect for what we needed. I’d have to assign a squad of defenders here if I wanted someone to open and close the gate for trading caravans. Right now, the wall on the other side of my cavern where it exited to outside, was also unguarded, and the gate there was just left open.

At my housing complexes and farms, the free upgrades were completed. The mushroom farms now had denser clusters of fungus, and more of the raised planting boxes for the exotic mushrooms. The housing complex added a second story to most of the structures, giving us a population boom as all the nests, including several new ones from the upgrade, were full of eggs, many of them already starting to hatch.

New kobolds hatched and went immediately to work. I was happy to see that several headed right to the barracks where the sounds of training began to ring out. Even replacing the losses I’d taken earlier against the giant birds, there should be enough recruits to add two new squads to my forces. A system prompt appeared as I watched new workers head to the market.

You’ve failed to protect a trading partner’s trade caravan, your relationships with that faction has worsened to Untrustworthy.

Your allied faction has failed to protect one of your trade caravans.

Due to both factions failing in the same task of protecting their respective areas of responsibility, your reputation with the Gurtzam Rock Gnomes has been restored to Friendly.

Well, it was a wash at least. I was worried there were still more of those forgotten ones running around inside the mountain, but maybe the warriors patrolling that area would be able to handle them, especially now that we had defenses over that entrance.

The system had mentioned a threat arising in each zone, were these forgotten ones the threat I was facing? It could be they were just some random creatures that crawled out from the caves beneath the mountain, but I was leaning toward them being part of the overall threat I was going to have to deal with as the challenge reached its conclusion.

It was sounding more and more like I would have to deal with a battle at the end of this challenge. I’d gone the route of trade for the most part, but I was going to need more combat power if I wanted to place high in the rankings.