Cat Core 2, Chapter 30.

Chapter 30.

“What did you do to irritate these hooligans enough to make them come back after you?” Doug asked.

“I don’t know, they were creeps, but I couldn’t even talk to them when I was being carried here. That lich guy had some geas on them that prevented them from hurting me during the trip, but that obviously wore off,” Florence replied.

“That might be the reason, the geas wore off and now they are under no restriction. Killing even a low-level core would net them quite the experience reward. There is also a lucrative market for shard fragments since alchemists use them for several high-level elixirs. Of course, killing a core would result in a price on their heads from the adventurer’s guild, which probably led to them killing the investigators. These aren’t the type to leave witnesses to report their actions,” Doug advised.

“They probably thought I was some newbie level one or two core gem. Well, they’re about to find out that our home and its defenders are quite a bit better than that,” Florence said.

“True, they were counting on the invisibility magic to bring them right to your core room without a problem. The good news is that an invisibility spell powerful enough to cover the mob out there likely drained a good chunk of mana from their wizard. I assume he’s the poorly dressed fellow that was hurling spells,” Doug said.

“Yep, his name’s Harmon. The guy with the two swords is Kam and the ugly orc in the heavy armor is Durg. They’re dangerous, but so am I. Okay, our home is now hostile, let’s get our kitties into the fight,” Florence said, trying to get an accurate count of their opponents while the defenders went to work.

Obi and Shadow were already stalking their prey, both had remained hidden in the tall grass during the investigation and hadn’t been spotted by the invisible invaders lurking around the lawn. They knew Mo was there, but he was inside his pen. They must have thought he was stuck in there, since a pair of poorly equipped hooligans approached with little concern, taking their time in loading their crossbows.

Mo leaped over the top of the short fence, his pounce landing on one of the approaching invaders. The man screamed in terror, dropping his crossbow as the defender tore into him with core-enhanced claws and teeth. Seeing their target wasn’t as helpless as they thought, the other guy with the crossbow went into overdrive, trying to arm the weapon as quickly as he could, fumbling to load a bolt as Mo finished off his first victim and turned toward his second course.

“Florence, it looks like there are thirty-three of the common hooligans in addition to the three nefarious adventurers that you’re already acquainted with,” Doug said.

She was focused on Mo’s fight, but on closer inspection, it did appear that most of the other invaders were wearing little to no armor, but they did have decent weapons. It was like the trio of adventurers had hired as many goons as they could on the cheap. That was fine with Florence, better these creeps than a well-equipped army. The three adventurers would be a problem, but her home should be able to strip away the chaff fairly easily.

“Make that thirty-two, Mo got his first kill and is starting in on the other one,” Florence said. Other invaders were rushing to the aid of the pair that had been sent to kill Mo, but it looked like her baby was getting some good licks in on the second fellow with a crossbow. He had loaded his weapon in time shooting the poor kitty, but Mo shrugged it off, ignoring the pain as he tried to defeat at least one more invader before bleeding out.

Arrows sprouted from Mo’s hide as four archers armed with short bows fired from near the gazebo. Her kitty was only level one, and the attack was just too much for him. He did good, though, killing one enemy and wounding another. Obi and Shadow used Mo’s distraction to launch their attacks, each surprising an invader and easily dispatching them with their commando stealth attacks. Once out of stealth, her poor kitties fell prey to the same archers that had done in Mo. The front lawn and welcome center were a wide-open area, with only some tall grass to hide her defenders, perfect for archers. Once inside the home proper, the archers would be much less effective.

That guy Kam seemed to be in charge, and after making sure the defenders were all cleared out, he organized the invaders to breach the front door. One of the invaders wandered too close to the mailbox, activating the trap inside. A crossbow bolt wounded but didn’t kill the invader. Another, this one dressed and armed more like a rogue, ran toward the mailbox, presumably to disarm it, but instead triggered the new pit trap that Doug had placed around her mailbox. The man landed on several spikes, screaming in pain and unable to lever himself off the wooden stakes piercing his back and legs.

“Fools! Watch where you’re stepping. This should have been an easy in and out, but somebody decided to get too close to that pair of adventurers leaving the dungeon. Now we got to fight our way through this whole place, and anyone doing dumb things from here out, can forget about their cut,” Kam said. The man had activated some ability that instantly teleported him to the mailbox, which was just about to finish reloading. A few swipes of his scimitars disabled the trap, another slash ending the cries of the man trapped in the pit.

“Well, I suppose killing your employees is one way to avoid paying them,” Doug said.

“Yeah, these other fellers should do the smart thing and run on out of here while they can,” Florence said.

“I doubt that anyone has ever accused this bunch of being smart. Dangerous, yes, but not smart,” Doug added.

They watched as the survivors reformed into a semblance of a formation. The other wounded defenders weren’t killed and instead, worked to place bandages on their wounds. Though enhanced with magic, the bandages were a poor substitute for healing magic. Any of these creeps that she was able to injure would be much less effective. This Kam guy must have tried to do this on the cheap, hiring poorly equipped thugs and not wanting the expense and trouble of finding a healer to join them.

As the invaders readied themselves to enter the home proper, Florence finally got a good chance to see what faced her. In addition to the three adventurers, there were a dozen of the thugs armed with short swords and bucklers. Looking like rogues, six of the attackers had only long daggers to fight with, and all four archers were still around. Near the front door, five more attackers held halberds. Florence knew they could be very effective weapons to hold a narrow entryway, but cumbersome in close combat. The wounded attackers waited near the rear of the formation, in pain and trying their best to hold onto a weapon. Kam would no doubt end them as soon as their usefulness was at an end.

“Here they come, Doug said as the pikemen burst through the door and charged into the two cats waiting for them. Baxter and Tater stood their ground, but couldn’t get past the reach of the pikes, the weapons tearing and chopping into them. As the pikes pushed into the room, the archers followed firing arrow after arrow into Florence’s poor kitties. This was their first time inside Florence’s home and the fact that they didn’t check the ledge above the door told her that these clowns hadn’t shelled out the few coppers needed to buy a guide from the merchant.

Bhargath lived up to his name, rending the foes as he leaped down upon the archers from the perch above the door. Midnight joined in as well, jumping farther and hitting the back of one of the pikemen. It was too late for poor Tater and Buddy, but the other two were on a roll. Both had dispatched their first opponent and were going to town on the next target. Unfortunately, Durg was following behind the initial attack, the huge orc hewing down Bhargath with his axe and then slamming the spiked shield into Midnight. Her babies had done their job, though, reducing the enemy numbers by four.

The foe decided to assign their wounded to the task of gathering loot. It was a smart choice, they were the least able to try and make a run for it and if they didn’t give up the loot after the battle, they would be easily overpowered. What they didn’t count on was Doug’s fireplace trap. Florence had placed a small reward chest inside, knowing the lure of loot would be too much for these clowns to resist. The guy wounded by the crossbow bolt reached in to grab the chest, only to eat a face full of fire. His body blocked the blast from doing more damage, but it was another kill, and the enemy had a long way to go before they could reach her core room.

The hallway was next, and this time a half-dozen swordsmen led the way, with Durg behind them and the rest of the gaggle waiting in the living room for their turn to move forward. Buddy wasted no time, dashing out from a side panel to slash the back leg of one of the lead swordsman. When the man turned to face the threat, Princess flew out of a higher placed panel, her claws opening up a horrible wound on the back of the man’s neck. The swordsman dropped to the ground moaning in pain as the others looked for the threat in every direction.

“Back out you fools, I’ll take care of this,” Harmon ordered. The mage leaned into the hallway casting a quick pair of spells. Green energy formed on the ground, the glow resolving into a pair of large snakes. The beasts wasted no time, slithering into the nearest panels as they hunted Florence’s babies.

“Hey, that’s not fair,” Florence complained.

“Fair or not, it does seem effective,” Doug said. Her kitties seemed shocked to see the snakes slithering in behind them, the pair of level one kitties were soon overpowered by the snakes, whose levels would match those of their summoner. Wrapping several coils around the kitties, the snakes dragged them out of the panels into the hallway even as they crushed her poor babies to death.

“Loot the kills and get in the back of the formation,” Kam ordered to the fallen swordsman who was fumbling to place bandages over his wounds. The man knew he was dead meat if he didn’t comply and pushed through the pain, reaching out to grab the reward both her babies had left behind. A faint rattling was heard in the panels as he moved forward, the two snakes assumed it was more victims and slithered into the noisy panels to chase after their prey. This time, it wasn’t prey, but instead, it was Doug’s trap. Two spears shot out, piercing through the thin bodies of the snakes and driving deep into the wounded man behind them, killing the man and despawning the summoned snakes.

“Yes, just as I planned. It’s a powerful and devious set of traps, but sadly, it’s only can fire once before it needs to be reset,” Doug said.

“I think you did just fine there Doug, you killed two snakes and finished off that wounded goober to boot,” Florence said, praising her assistant’s good work. A sound distracted them as a pair of gnomes struggled to drag the battle parakeet mech, Skyler, across the floor of their core room.

“Here you go Doug, it’s ready for battle,” a gnome said. The pair waved and ran off toward the Fizz Clan home. The enemy would be there soon, and the clan would need every gnome on deck to defend the place.

“Doug, it don’t feel right to risk them gnomes like we did with the goblins. Those little green creeps could replace their losses easy enough, but the gnomes are more like, well, people,” Florence said.

“Do what you feel is right Florence. The room can be sealed off, but it’s no guarantee that their wizard won’t find it. Just remember we may need these gnomes in the end. So far, we’ve been bleeding the enemy dry, but eventually, we’ll have to face the trio of adventurers and then we’ll be happy to have every blade at our disposal,” Doug offered.

“That may be the key, Doug. Good idea,” Florence said, pushing her voice into the Fizz Clan home.

“Hey Fizz, there’s a whole slew of bad guys heading your way, I’ve sealed off your room, but that may not fool them. You need to head back to my core room before it’s too late,” Florence said.

“Huh, that’s what all the racket was? Okay, we’ll just grab the important stuff and head over to you,” Fizz said.

“Wait, they’re almost to your home, use the escape tunnels,” Doug advised.

Florence had almost forgotten that there were small crawl spaces that led from the former goblin home into the garage, which would buy them some time. The invaders had stopped to argue for a bit, Harmon wanted to push straight to her core, while Kam wanted to clear out everything to make sure they didn’t have anything attack them from behind. Kam won the argument, and they were now clearing both the bath and the sewing room at the same time.

The gnomes were a blur of activity, instead of running, they were gathering bundles of gear and tools, pushing them through the escape tunnel. Inside the garage, a pair of gnomes loaded themselves down with so much gear, that Florence thought they were going to be crushed. They were surprisingly able to stagger their way forward. It would take them time, but they should make it to the core room ahead of the enemy. That was two down, and twelve more gnomes to go.

“Hey, get a move on Fizz. They’re heading your way and it’s only the laundry room standing between them and the garage,” Florence said, worried they would get caught in the middle of lugging their junk.

“Ok, but we can’t leave all this behind,” Fizz argued.

“It doesn’t matter, you can make more stuff after the fight is over,” Florence argued.

“Fine, move it, boys, just what you’ve got in hand,” Fizz relented. The group each gathered a pair of bags and started crawling toward the garage.

“Here, there is a hidden door, open it,” Harmon said, doing exactly what Florence was worried about, finding the hidden door that would normally protect the Fizz Clan from discovery. The mage’s level must have been higher than Florence’s core level of seven for him to find it. That meant these adventurers might be more powerful than she had thought.

The bathroom and the sewing room defenders had helped to thin the enemy numbers, at least. A rogue and three swordsmen were down, and another rogue was sporting a bloody bandage on his arm. The three surviving halberdiers and the archers formed up in front of the Fizz Clan home, the door becoming visible as Harmon cast something that dispelled Florence’s attempts at concealment.

“Get moving boys, I’ll hold them off. It’s battle bird time, and my parakeet has upgrades!” Fizz said walking toward the battle parakeet named Andy. The gnome pulled a lever and the bird mech opened to reveal a rather comfortable-looking cockpit. Fizz jumped in and the contraption started to walk around, emitting a horrible and very fake sounding bird-like screech sounding every few seconds.

“Egad, that isn’t the sound a parakeet makes, it sounds like the fake hawk noise they use in all those cheesy movies. I hope my mech doesn’t do that,” Doug complained.

They watched as the door was opened and the trio of halberdiers charged without hesitation at the man-sized bird contraption in front of them. Fizz wasted no time getting into the fight, charging forward even as a red metallic hat of command extended from a panel on the back and was secured on the bird mech’s head. The hat glowed and the volume of that horrible bird noise increased to what must have been painful levels. The halberdiers faltered in their advance, dropping their polearms to hold their hands over their ears.

Harmon seemed unaffected by the horrible noise, calmly casting a spell that created a large blob of acid that flew directly into the hat, melting it off the bird’s head. Fizz wasn’t no one trick pony though, and he brought the wings forward, sharp edges cleaving into the lead halberdiers. Even as more acid landed on his mech, eating away at the armored suit. Sparks started to erupt from the damaged areas of the parakeet battle mech, and Fizz was having a hard time keeping it on course. He laid into the second set of halberdiers who had recovered enough to grab their weapons and stab deep into the parakeet. With an eruption of sparks, the mech crashed to the ground, flames licking at it from several points even as the metallic feathers flew out to shred the remaining halberdiers.

“Oh my, I hope that Fizz is still alive in there,” Doug said.

“I can sense life in there, but it doesn’t look good,” Florence replied. Thankfully, the rest of the invaders seemed to think the mech was a trap of some sort and steered clear of the sparking and burning contraption.

“There’s nothing here but some useless tools, keep moving, we don’t have all day. Eventually, another group of adventurers is going to show up and I don’t want them running out to spread the alarm,” Kam ordered.