Trash Mountain Dungeon

Presumably, the big fucker that my canid killed before dying was their leader seeing as the remaining invaders began to infight like cannibalistic chickens, first arguing in some hoarse throaty language before quickly devolving into slaughtering each other, the only thing that would have made it better is if my monsters were the one killing them. But as most good things do, their wanton violence ended as quickly as it had started, another large, if noticeably smaller than the previous one, creature managed to suppress the others, taking a crown-like head ornament from the now-dead leader and taking command, pointing a gnarled finger down the stairs to the second level.

With the skittering and scampering of their hands and feet, they made their way down, recoiling from the intense heat of the first mine, which was a weakness of theirs going by the almost immediate deaths of some of the weaker members, their bodies already shriveled became more so before catching fire. Honestly, I would be more surprised about the mine being able to kill anything. Still, I was enjoying seeing these things falling over each other to get out of the intense heat, handling the cold far better than the heat they made their way through the room without a second thought, leaving a sizeable force to attack the remaining assembly room. In contrast, the rest of the attack force continued forward.

Stepping into the first of the ratkin rooms, my rats had already begun to show their worth as the first wave of attackers were met with a volley of scrap balls, painfully cutting their faces and spreading sharp debris all over the floor. Those that followed were then forced to move slower to avoid cutting themselves, but only for a short moment as the new leader quickly lost patience with them and had a new wave push them forward, cutting up and piercing their exposed feet. Crying in pain and fury they began charging, meeting a line of simple spears made from brass tubing and jagged scrap.

The first ratkin room did not last long, unfortunately, their available space and smaller numbers prevented them from making a huge impact despite an amazing beginning. But when they reached the second room things were very different, the room was much bigger, and the buildings were sturdy and close enough to give the option of "urban" combat, at least as urban as a couple of wood and stone huts surrounding a large barn could be. Similar to the previous room, the ratkin of this one had prepared some makeshift weapons, but rather than the scrap metal makeshifts they had before, the ones here had made some simple weapons and armor using the doors and stone bricks of their homes, fashioning crude but usable tools. But that wasn't even the best part, at some point after I had gone to the first floor the ranchers had managed to line up their ogre bulls. As soon as the attackers squeezed through the doorframe, the ratkin painfully smacked their butts, sending four angry and massive bovines through the ranks of the enemy, the pain of their grubby claws only spurring them to greater levels of anger, causing more to be trampled or gored.

That by itself seemed to stop their momentum, the creatures too concerned with the massive bulls trampling them that they overlooked the hate-filled screeches of the ratkin throwing rocks with slings, they weren't very good with them, but if the target was big enough, I doubt accuracy is all that important. Sadly, the bulls went down with a fight, not before fulfilling their duty though as the horde was finally beginning to thin, not by much mind you as a quick look showed that there was still a large force outside of my dungeon, but since the number of invaders was going down instead of up, it meant I had my window to claim victory. Overwhelmed was, unfortunately, the fate of the ranchers, their final gift being the reduction of the horde.

Crossing into the barracks, they learned their lesson about being careful, separating a smaller force to investigate while the main group stayed in the ranch, soaking themselves and gobbling the more mana-heavy moisture from the walls, disgusting creatures. Feeling my anger and disgust though, the ratkin grappled the scouting party inside of the courtyard, out of sight of the leader who was straining its pudgy eyes to see anything it could. Quickly, the ratkin brutally beat and stabbed the scouting party, using their relatively superior strength to wretch the heads off and throw them toward the entry doorway, both a warning of what was to come and a challenge for those that remained.

The leader was sadly smart enough not to fall for the trick, its minions were not. Scrambling into the barracks, they swarmed the entrance of the barracks proper, only to be met with one of my actually good, if coincidental, plans. Breaking open its head with a sickening crack, the creatures had found my chokepoint, where if they didn't want to break their heads open like an egg, they were forced to deal with the shield-bearing ratkin who were protected by a trifecta of things. With the walls of the barracks covering their sides and the pit trap between them, it forced the invaders to funnel into the shield rats who would either stab them from behind their shields or push them into the pit, they also had the aid of their ranged and spear-wielding brothers and sisters, the spears were able to reach the horde over the pit, while the archers were able to take their clumsy potshots at the horde.

This, admittedly rather poorly coordinated, method seemed to be the trick with these things, the inciting challenge put forth by the rats combined with their dwindling reinforcements and present forces was forcing them to throw themselves against the walls in poorly thought-out desperation. Trying their best to find or make some kind of opening, the attackers were essentially Kipling themselves on the ratkin.

What happened next, however, was a lesson in catharsis. As his forces died on my soldiers, the leader turned tail and ran for the exit, wailing its arms about, crying out for something in its irritating language. I was elated that their only voice of reason was gone, but that soon turned to anger, if it was gone, I wouldn’t get the pleasure of it dying. But that feeling only lasted for a moment as it turned the corner into the cold mine, it felt a long and sharp piece of metal cut into its body, cutting open its stomach and letting its disgusting organs dirty my floors. Looking up it was afraid and had a hatred in its eyes, eyes that were quickly crushed by the powerful claw of one of the clock workers from the assembly room.

With the abandonment and death of their leader, the remaining creatures left the attack and fled back up onto the floor, doing their best to find places to hide in my first few rooms. This, of course, created two issues, with them still in my dungeon I was unable to rebuild and repair my forces, but with no one else taking the leadership position it seemed unlikely that they’d continue the attack. I tried to get my rats to go up a level, but it seemed as though different floors can’t cross like that, only within a floor can monsters move. What I needed then was a way to goad them into an attack so I could reset the dungeon and see if I could make any quick changes before a new wave could come in. But as I came up with ideas and threw some away, I could, well I wouldn’t call it smell, but I could ‘sense’ a strange rotten egg smell from outside.

And on the platform entrance, beaten and battered, was the demon guy and one of his goons. The creatures' makeshift camp was still facing them with maws twisted into snarls and malformed limbs stretched out, ready to strike. Just what was happening, and how the hell did it happen so quickly?