You are Summoned

Chapter 238. Mostly Dead.

We’d hurt them, but Avius wasn’t about to give up. A gust of wind dissipated the blight, clearing the path for the remaining enemy forces. As they charged forward, I prepared my final surprise at the barricade.

“Go!” I shouted to my goblin minions hidden behind the false wall. Just behind the charging enemy, my minions broke through the wall and attacked while the ones behind the barricade clambered over to hit the enemy from both sides.

To support my minions, I pulled another summoning figurine from my belt. Pushing a point of mana into the figurine, I targeted it to appear behind the barricade defenders. In the air behind my minions, a four-foot-long serpent with wings appeared. It was a tier one, rank five creature and it wasted no time in using its unique attack method.

After a few seconds of hissing and flapping, the serpent snapped his head forward and shot a stream of glowing green venom toward the enemy. The venom hit one of the militiamen who began screaming as the stream coated the exposed skin on his face. It might not do anything if its venom hit armor, but at least the summoned creature would give the enemy one more thing to worry about.

Avius seemed confused, firing off another of his spells that turned wind into blades. The spell carved up poor Blieek, and Glurk responded with an arrow that skittered off some invisible field that protected Avius. Glem and Glamb charged into the fray, both trading blows with the greatsword wielding squires.

The melee dungeon goblins climbed over the barricade to attack, leaving Khurr and the pair of archers to fire into the enemy whenever they got a clear shot. Khurr didn’t seem to be doing too bad with his accuracy, but one of the dungeon goblins was taken down by friendly fire from a poorly aimed arrow from the goblin archers.

The enemy divided up, the surviving militia, and the two squires with shortswords ran across the board covering the pit, all of them shouting a battle cry as they charged. Avius, and the two greatsword wielding squires faced off against the goblin trio attacking from the other direction.

From my belt, I pulled another scroll, my last one. It was a spell called Freezing Ray, and Avius was just inside its range. The spell required ten mana to cast and given its cost, I had high hopes for its effectiveness. A beam of blue-white light shot from my hand, hitting Avius in the back as he faced toward my goblin trio.

Just like with my minions’ arrow strikes, the spell hit a shield protecting Avius. Unlike with the arrow strike, the shield didn’t hold up under my magical onslaught. With the sound of shattering glass, the shield was destroyed, but as it shattered, the mana creating it pulsed, and my Freezing Ray reflected off it and headed right back toward me. I tried to duck down, but the spell was locked on and hit me right in the head.

I felt a burst of cold before a system prompt appeared.

You have been killed by a Freezing Ray. Elixir of Life has activated.

My vision returned and I was disoriented as my connection to the dungeon was abruptly severed, then reconnected in an instant. In the distance, Avius was looking toward me and casting another spell. I shouted for my minions to shoot him, as I fumbled at my belt from a potion. My movements seemed sluggish as I shook off the aftereffects of the Freezing Ray.

Quaffing the potion, three identical versions of me stood there, each moving slightly different than the others. The Potion of Mirror Image lived up to its name, and with the trio of images keeping Avius’ attention, I dropped to the floor, breaking line of sight with the mage.

A flurry of wind strikes landed where my images stood. As the razor-sharp gusts of wind hit, my duplicates winked out of existence. Standing back up and trading spells with Avius was going to end in a quick trip back to my personal space, and a much worse rating for this dungeon delve. Instead of a mage’s duel, I remained on the ground and watched the action through my link with the dungeon.

My minions, along with the dungeon defenders were doing a good job at holding back the enemy and inflicting more casualties on our foes. All the melee goblins were down, but only one militiaman and the pair of squires with shortswords were alive to charge the barricade. At the other end of the fight, Glem was gone, and Glamb had bested his greatsword wielding foe.

Glurk was also down for the count. He had been taken out by Avius’ spells. Glurk had gone down fighting though, and I could see an arrow sticking deep into the side of Avius. The mage was drinking down a vial, likely a healing potion, as he tried to stay out of harm’s way. With the mage distracted, I took the opportunity to flee down the passageway toward the goblin village. Before I was out of range, I hit Glem with my Ring of Final Sacrifice.

I didn’t have time to cast Duplicate before a swing of the greatsword turned my minion into mana vapor. A powerful blast immediately shook the passageway as the ring unleashed its power. Thankfully, the dungeon created walls and ceiling held together under the magical force, and I didn’t have to worry about a cave in. Having made it around the corner from the fight, the blast didn’t affect me, but I paused to watch its effects on the other combatants.

The greatsword wielder was down, he had been closest to the blast and had been torn to shreds by its force. A bit further back from the blast, Avius had been knocked off his feet and struggling to stand. His robes were torn and a few wounds, none of them all that serious, leaked blood.

Some other protective magic must have saved the mage from destruction, but I had a feeling that he was out of defensive tricks for the moment. The blast had also blown the board spanning the pit trap aside and knocked the attackers at the barricade off balance. My summoned flying venom spitter was gone, pushed into the wall by the blast with enough force to destroy the rather fragile creature.

Partially protected by the barricade, our ranged attackers quickly recovered and began to fire point blank into the militiaman and the pair of squires. Even goblin accuracy was decent when the target was only five feet in front of you. In the span of seconds, the attackers that had made it over the pit trap were dead, and Khurr with the pair of goblin archers then began firing on Avius.

“Capria, I think we’ve won this. I just need a final push to overpower the mage. Send me all the goblins, as fast as they can get here. Also, have the dungeon cover the pit trap here, we’ll need to counterattack over it,” I said through the dungeon link to Capria.

“It shall be done, the goblins are on their way,” Capria answered. I could see the goblins inside the village respond, shouting their shrill war cries as they charged into the passageway. I counted eleven of them, four archers and the rest melee fighters. If I could keep Avius from escaping, we would have a chance to end this now. The dungeon wasted no time, and in seconds, the pit trap was filled in like it had never been there.

Avius had cast another shield spell and was using the brief respite from the barrage of poorly aimed arrows to drink down a second healing potion. Diminishing returns was a thing with potions, but I could see the arrow lodged in his side drop to the ground as the wound healed further. The mage then began to cast a spell, holding his hands over the still-bleeding wound.

He must have some healing magic, and if I let him heal up, Avius might escape and return with an even stronger force. Changing direction, I charged back into the fight, pulling a summoning figurine as I ran. I had no idea what the figurine would do, it was the tier one, rank five scarecrow. The scarecrow appeared in the passageway between Avius and his only escape route.

When it appeared, the summoned creature seemed like a normal scarecrow that you’d find on a farm, but this one gave off waves of magic energy. For a moment, Avius looked terrified of the thing, backing slowly away. He seemed to master his fear and stood shakily to his feet. I hadn’t needed the scarecrow to stop Avius, just delay him.

My scarecrow wasn’t moving or attacking, but I figured the waves of magical energy it was giving off were some kind of fear magic. With a high Mind stat, the mage was able to shake off the effects easily enough. My mana was running low, and I had to pause to drink a mana potion down if I wanted to have enough juice to do what I planned to.

Briefly noting that this particular enhanced minor mana potion tasted pleasantly minty, I could feel my magic reserves recover a bit. I cast Switch, targeting the scarecrow. One moment I was running down the passageway toward the barricade, and the next I was standing in front of Avius, pulling the chain from around my neck.

The Chains of Bal’sharuk pulled mana from my dwindling pool as it activated. I hurled the chains at Avius, who was already starting to cast a spell in my direction. The chains hit, and began to snake their way around his body, holding the man tightly in its grasp and causing him to drop to the ground once more.

The mage was all alone, his supporting troops destroyed. He was nearly out of mana, and finally out of tricks. It was time to save this dungeon core and make sure Avius never threatened it again.