Cat Core, Chapter 33.

Chapter 33.

The Home for Unwanted Goblins exited into the laundry room. This time, the Avatar stayed toward the back of their mob and allowed its followers to bear the brunt of the attack. Cultists, emboldened by the cowardly retreat of the goblins, charged into the laundry as Florence’s two little mage kitties popped up from underneath baskets of clothing to launch their spells. It looked like her kitties wouldn’t have time to get a spell off when the first pair of charging cultists hit the clothesline trap that Doug had placed in the room.

“Eww, Doug, that’s just gross, but I guess it worked,” Florence said as the leading pair of cultists had their heads decapitated by the thin and razor-sharp clothesline trap. A berserker followed next, his club raised to strike down on Q, only to be met by a hail of fiery darts that Arya had created. While he was badly burned, the berserker wasn’t taken out, shaking off the damage and continuing his attack, only to suddenly find a goblin thrusting a spear into his belly.

“Where did he come from?” Florence said, confused for a moment.

“Oh, that was Q, she uses summoning magic and at her level, she can create simple defenders like the goblin. Unlike the real thing, these summoned creatures obey her commands completely and won’t turn cowardly in a fight like their kinfolk do,” Doug said.

“That’s good, the little green guy is really going at it,” Florence said as the summoned goblin finished off the berserker and readied himself to meet the charge of several more cultists. Arya fired off a second round of fire bolts, the magical attack might not have been enough to drop a powerful berserker in one cast, but it was more than enough to kill a simple cultist. The goblin accounted for another, only to be cut down by a cultist with a scythe.

The attackers were now too close for her kitties to continue casting and both Arya and Q attacked with claws and teeth, killing off the cultist with the scythe before succumbing to the axe of a berserker. They got a few claw swipes in, but the melee attacks of her kitty mages were pretty weak. The invaders pushed into the laundry and were heading toward the library, it looked like they knew the direct path to her core and were content with bypassing everything along the way.

A commotion back in the goblin room told Florence that the invaders’ plan was being tested by her kitties. The defenders from the sewing room and the bathroom had started their counterattack after being bypassed by the invaders. The three brawlers, Stubbs, Bob, and Charybdis formed a line of teeth and claws while Scylla began to hurl shards of ice into the rear of the invaders. Several of the more powerful invaders were near the rear of the formation, which Florence figured was a smart move. The weaker and expendable cultists would bear the brunt of her defender’s attacks, leaving their most powerful fighters fresh for a final confrontation.

“Good kitties, kill the mean shamans first,” Florence said, happy to see her counterattack had focused on the pair of shamans that had been lingering safely, so they thought, in the rear ranks. Two of the dog handlers released their hounds to counterattack while a trio of berserkers charged to attack the brawler kitties. Charybdis valiantly sacrificed himself to allow the other brawlers through the counterattack, tackling both dogs and tripping up all but one of the berserkers. Stubbs and Bob each chose a shaman to leap on, claws and teeth tearing into their prey.

As the hounds and berserkers finished off Charybdis, Scylla unleashed her frost magic. A fresh swarm of icy shards drove into one of the hounds, eliciting a yelp of pain. The berserkers got to their feet at the same time as the hounds, all of them rushing to the rescue of the beleaguered shamans, who were unable to defend themselves from the remaining brawler kitties. Furious over Scylla’s attack, the wounded hound charged her. Calmly casting another spell, Scylla created a sheet of ice under her and stepped to the side as the hound hit the ice. Howling, the hound tried and failed to keep his feet, powerful jaws snapping closed on empty air is it slid by the mage kitty, who was able to easily traverse the ice she created.

A glance back to the brawl with the shaman’s revealed that her kitties had been finally defeated, but not before taking out their targets and wounding several of the attackers. The hound attacking Scylla finally slid off the end of the ice patch, slamming hard enough into the wall that Doug cringed at the sound. Another round of ice shards finished off the dog, dooming its handler even as a berserker reached Scylla after her ice patch spell expired.

“Not bad, the Avatar only has two more shamans at her disposal. The main horde looks to be avoiding the garage and is pushing into the library and game room. I think we’re well-defended there, and the rooms should wear them down enough for the champions to finish them,” Doug offered. Well populated with both kitties and traps, the library and game rooms were some of her most deadly, and if they all ignored the garage, Spud and his goblin friends might be able to take them by surprise.

Florence took time to try and sort out just how many invaders were left. The Avatar and the two remaining shamans were easy to spot, the Avatar had decided to keep them close at hand. Four hounds and their handlers remained along with nine of the berserkers. The cultists had taken a beating, but there were still over forty of them in the fight. While the numbers were ominous, many of the attackers sported various wounds from the battles with Florence’s kitty defenders. Even while they smashed and hacked down her babies, the cats were usually able to inflict some damaging slashes before they went down.

In the library, Zeus was crackling with electric power as Fluffy and Fluffy Jr. stood ready to defend him. The door opened and a wave of cultists poured into the room. A lightning bolt shot from Zeus, the energy hitting the first three enemies in the room, leaving them twitching on the ground as the attackers following behind stumbled over their bodies. Fluffy and Fluffy Jr. launched their attacks on the prone and easily dispatched cultists as the pair of magic missile traps took out the next invader.

Behind the first wave of cultists, which the pair of brawler kitties had no trouble dispatching, were two of the berserkers. Both her fluffy brawlers backed off, taunting the berserkers to push past the remaining cultists and charge the foe in front of them. They were met with another blast of electrical energy from Zeus, who this time focused the entire blast into one berserker, dropping him dead on the floor. Fluffy and Fluffy Jr. wasted no time in attacking the now lone berserker who wasn’t prepared to face two attackers. Fluffy took a glancing axe blow to the side but continued to help its sibling kill off the berserker and ready themselves for the next wave of cultists who were even now pouring into the room.

In a repeat of the earlier attack, Zeus lit up the cultists with electrical energy, causing some to stumble and allowing the brawlers some easy prey. The doorway was a good bottleneck and as long as Zeus had magical energy remaining, Florence felt good about them doing even more damage. Strangely, it seemed that Zeus was much more powerful than the other mage kitties, even though it was technically the same.

“Hey Doug, why does Zeus seem so much better at zapping foes than our other mages?” Florence asked.

“That would be the benefit of the Named Defender option you chose. Zeus was our first mage and has fought several waves of adventurers, granting him a bit more power than a freshly summoned defender,” Doug advised.

“See, I told you naming our kitties was the way to go,” Florence said, finally vindicated in her decision.

“Uh, you know we could have had double the number of defenders if you hadn’t chosen to name them all,” Doug retorted.

“Yeah, but you have as much fun as I do with naming them, and they do fight better if they know who they are, hey, look at old Spud go!” Florence shouted as Spud launched his counterattack after the invaders passed the garage by. The Avatar had pulled back around ten cultists to cover the rear of the formation, but they went down like bowling pins as the oversized minor champion kitty rushed past the other invaders to attack the Avatar.

Gabsug clung tightly to Spud’s fur with one hand while holding a spear that seemed too big for him in the other. Due more to luck than any skill, Gabsug’s spear hit one of the Avatar’s dog-shaped heads, driving deep as the powerful cat propelled them forward. The creepy human head in the center yelled in anger and pain before it launched forward to bit off the hapless goblin’s head. Losing his passenger enraged Spud who released a cloud of yellowish-green fog that caused the Avatar to gag and choke as the big kitty attacked with its claws. Hounds leaped past their handlers to come to the aid of the Avatar, only to stop in their tracks as they entered Spud’s cloud of noxious vapors.

“Becoming a minor champion has really improved our troublesome defender,” Doug said, stating the obvious.

The goblins following behind Spud had finished off the cultists that had been knocked down in the charge and launched an attack on the struggling hounds. For some reason, the cloud of stench didn’t affect the goblins in any way, despite them from outside the dungeon. While not normally a match for a hound, the goblins had no trouble fending off the dog’s lackluster attempts to snap at them and focused all three of their spears on one of the struggling hounds. Their blows weren’t particularly powerful, but the damage added up and the stricken hound collapsed and wheezed its last breath. Seeing the cloud was dissipating and the fight starting to go against Spud, the trio of goblins flung their spears at the Avatar and fled back to the garage.

Two of the spears lodged into the side of the Avatar and one poorly aimed weapon stabbed into the backside of Spud, who hissed louder as he redoubled his efforts to take out the Avatar. Despite being the largest of her defenders other than Chubbs, Spud was dwarfed by the towering Avatar. He never gave up though, her problem child continued to slash and bite, his enhanced strength opening up bloody wounds in the three-headed monster hound. The two undamaged heads of the Avatar finally recovered as the noxious cloud dissipated allowing them to stop coughing long enough to attack Spud. Her minor champion was powerful, but the Avatar was in a whole other league. Spud might have survived one bite from the monster, but both heads latched onto either end of Florence’s kitty and pulled. With a sickening pop, her minor champion was torn in half, but he had done a good job at weakening the Avatar.

The Avatar moved slowly, its wounds leaking at a steady pace as the two functional heads occasionally coughed up bloody foam, telling Florence that Spud’s cloud of stink had done some serious damage to the monster. As Florence expected, the Avatar pushed one of the remaining shaman’s down, holding it with its paw as the mana and lifeforce were drained from it. The body shriveled up quickly and by the time the shaman had expired, the Avatar was still far from completely healed. While the scratches and bites that Spud had inflicted were still there, the spear that had impaled the Avatar’s third head was pushed out, and the damage it had done was healed. The beast also stopped coughing, the lifeforce of the shaman repairing whatever the cloud of fumes had injured inside it.

“And there goes the last shaman,” Doug said as the final shaman, seeing the Avatar turn his way, decided to try and flee the dungeon.

“No, I don’t want any part of this, leave me alone,” the man shouted as he backed away. A trio of berserkers ran after the man only to be met by the same spell a shaman had used in the hallway. Green tendrils of energy burst from the ground snaring one of the berserkers and slowly crushing him to death. The other two were unaffected and after catching up to the reluctant sacrifice, whacked him on the head till he was unconscious.

“Hold, do not damage him further,” the Avatar ordered. The final shaman was dragged over the Avatar and drained of his remaining mana and life.

“It looks like it wasn’t enough, she still has some minor injuries on her. Any damage our defenders to do the Avatar now, can’t be healed,” Doug said. Indeed, Florence could see a few of the scratches that Spud had made on the monster were shrunk down and not bleeding, but they were also not healed up all the way. Also, the spears the goblins had managed to land on the Avatar were still sticking out of her. She motioned one of the berserkers over to pull them free, one of the dogs heads inadvertently snapping off the head of the berserker as it pulled the last spear loose.

“Guess it doesn’t pay to be on her team, does it?” Florence said.

“No, the monster is somewhat driven by its wild instincts despite the human mind assisting it. An injured dog will lash out at the pain and it was our luck that the berserker was within easy reach of it,” Doug said.

While the battle between Spud and the Avatar was taking place, the other cultist had continued their assault on the library. Florence’s defenders had taken a huge toll on the attackers, but they had been overcome as Zeus’ mana ran dry and the injuries on the brawler kitties added up. The shamans were gone and only three hounds remained along with five berserkers. Losses among the cultists had been even worse with only nineteen still in the fight. The game room was next, and Florence hoped it would be the last room that the invaders ever saw.