Dungeon Master (Karma System)

The beetle colossus emerged from the western field at thirty-five hours and nine minutes.

It was taller than the remaining barricades. A black shell covered its body, scarred by old impacts and reinforced with metal plates. The horn rising from its head split into two hooked points capable of lifting a wagon.

Goblins followed in its wake.

Golden Axe had prepared for the creature after seeing signs of it during an earlier wave. Preparation did not make the thing smaller.

Matthew sent no order to kill it.

The guild could spend every advanced skill and enchanted bolt breaking through the shell. Even if it succeeded, thousands of goblins remained in the scenario. Their objective was not to defeat the strongest creature Hizon possessed.

It was to keep six merchants alive until the clock reached forty-eight hours.

The northern merchant pair moved east through a covered lane. The southern pair remained behind the earth bank. The central pair climbed into their damaged wagons and waited for the team assigned to pull them.

Golden Axe opened the western path.

The beetle charged through the abandoned position. Goblins expected the creature to crush a wall. Instead, it entered an empty stretch between two angled earthworks. Archers struck the riders following behind it while the mobile team dragged a rope across the lane.

The rope could not stop the colossus.

One point of the horn caught the line. The other struck an earth bank and tore a trench through it. The beetle continued north instead of reaching the nearest wagons.

Golden Axe paid for the change with three adventurers.

The guild paid again when the creature turned.

The beetle did not mind broken ground. It crossed the northern position, crushed a shelter, and forced the merchant pair back toward the center. Matthew’s assistant commander ordered an early retreat. Half his team remained behind to draw the creature toward a pile of timber soaked in lamp oil.

The fire did not penetrate the shell.

Smoke covered the riders and separated them from the goblins on foot. Golden Axe destroyed the smaller force while the colossus struggled through burning debris.

When it emerged, one front leg dragged.

The guild had spent weeks discussing whether it needed to kill the beetle. One plan said yes. Another said no. A third suggested trapping it for the remaining hours.

The battlefield made the decision.

Its damaged leg prevented another full charge, but the merchant positions had become too small to avoid it forever. Golden Axe concentrated every heavy attack on the injured joint. The defenders gave up ground, lost another adventurer, and allowed goblins to tear through supplies they could not carry.

The leg finally collapsed beneath the beetle.

It remained alive. It could turn, strike with its horn, and crush anyone who approached the shell. It could not reach the merchants before the guild moved them again.

Golden Axe left it in the western ruins.

Hizon watched the blue lights withdraw.

”They did not finish it.” His assistant said.

”They are not being paid to finish it.” The hobgoblin sounded annoyed. He was not disappointed though.

The scenario had punished every group that treated it like an arena. Golden Axe had finally stopped measuring success by the largest enemy it killed.

At thirty-eight hours, seventeen adventurers remained.

All six merchants lived.

Night returned.

The guild no longer had enough people to maintain four positions and a mobile reserve. Matthew combined the survivors into three teams. One moved with each merchant pair. Nobody defended empty ground.

Hizon used the darkness to attack their communication.

Goblin horns sounded from every direction. False flares rose beyond the field in the same colors Golden Axe used for its commands. Small creatures dragged chains through abandoned trenches to imitate the movement of larger forces.

The guild stopped signaling across the battlefield.

Each team followed its local commander and the plan agreed upon before the challenge. If separated, they would move clockwise around the central firebreak. If a merchant pair could not move, the other teams would circle toward it. If two attacks occurred at once, nobody abandoned their assigned merchants without direct confirmation from another commander.

They surrendered coordination in order to protect themselves from false orders.

Hizon changed the merchant sale window.

It opened at forty hours while goblin archers continued firing from the dark. The three merchant pairs refused to leave cover. Their inventories would remain available for five minutes and no longer.

Golden Axe’s assigned buyer was dead.

A wounded archer took the coin bags. She crossed the central lane with one guardian beside her while the remaining teams covered them. The merchant complained that arrows were striking his wagon and attempted to close the inventory twice.

The archer bought healing mixtures, food, lamp oil, and a small bundle of metal spikes.

She used the final coins on six wooden shields.

They were not good shields. They were light enough for the merchants to carry.

One refused. The archer (injured, tired, hungry and not putting up with anybody’s shit) tied it across his back.

At forty-one hours, Hizon sent no wave.

Golden Axe waited.

The pause lasted longer than any rest period in the attempt. The guild treated it as another attack. They moved the merchants, concealed tracks, rebuilt nothing, and slept in shifts of less than twenty minutes.

Matthew expected the next horn until the silence itself became exhausting.

The horn sounded at forty-three hours.

Torches appeared along the ridges. Hobgoblins formed at the front of the force, their armor fitted instead of scavenged. Bullet ant riders spread to both sides. Goblin casters occupied platforms carried above the infantry.

At the center rode the Goblin King.

He stood on a reinforced platform behind the forward ranks wearing a crown shaped for battle instead of ceremony. Magic spread from him in a green haze. Every goblin within it moved faster. Hobgoblin shields locked more tightly. Wounded attackers continued forward when earlier waves would have broken.

Golden Axe had never reached him during a prior attempt.

A system notice identified the final command wave.

It did not say they needed to kill its commander.

Matthew repeated that to every team.

The Golden Axe Guild could see the Goblin King. Archers believed they could reach him if they moved to higher ground. Weapon masters wanted to break through the nearest line. Destroying the source of the strengthening magic might weaken thousands of attackers.

It might also draw every surviving defender away from the merchants.

Golden Axe held its ground. While they all had ideas, Matthew made sure his people stayed where they were supposed to be.

The first part of the final wave struck the northern pair. Seven adventurers occupied that position. They retreated around the central firebreak before the hobgoblins closed behind them. The goblins gained a merchant wagon but found it empty.

The second part entered from the east and forced the southern team west. Bullet ants crossed the connecting lane. For several minutes, one merchant pair remained isolated with only four defenders.

Matthew did not order the other teams through the insects.

He moved clockwise as planned.

The three groups reunited on the far side of the disabled beetle colossus. Its enormous body blocked arrows from the ridge and narrowed the space available to Hizon’s infantry. Golden Axe had not killed the creature, but its shell became the largest surviving fortification on the field.

Hizon stared at the control display. ”That is my beetle.”

His assistant wisely said nothing.

The last hours did not become one continuous battle. Hizon’s force attacked, withdrew far enough for casters to fire, and attacked again. Golden Axe changed sides of the colossus whenever pressure became too great. The merchants crawled beneath its horn, climbed over broken earthworks, and complained every time the adventurers moved them.

At forty-five hours, fourteen guild members remained.

At forty-six, a goblin caster struck the eastern merchant pair with a wave of force. One wooden shield broke. The merchant wearing it survived with a sliver of health. Two healers spent nearly everything they had keeping him alive.

The guild could no longer move all six merchants quickly.

Matthew abandoned the last wagon.

The surviving adventurers formed separate moving walls around each pair. They used the shell, trenches, burning timber, and bodies of fallen enemies to keep lines of sight closed. Whenever one team slowed, another created noise somewhere else.

They did not defeat the final army.

They made it spend time.

At forty-seven hours, ten adventurers remained.

The Goblin King moved forward.

His strengthening haze covered the entire western side. Hobgoblins drove the defenders away from the beetle. Bullet ants crossed the last usable lane. Golden Axe’s three teams became six small knots, one around each merchant.

Matthew protected the merchant whose shield had broken. His spear had lost its tip, and one side of his armor hung open. He used the remaining shaft to keep goblins beyond arm’s reach while a healer dragged the merchant through a shallow trench.

The timer passed forty-seven hours and thirty minutes.

Hizon committed every remaining reserve.

There would be no reason to save creatures after the scenario ended.

Golden Axe lost another adventurer. Then another.

One merchant panicked and ran from his defenders. He made it five steps before seeing the goblins beyond the smoke. Instead of freezing, the nearest guild member tackled him into a ditch and covered him with one of the purchased shields.

Forty-seven minutes became fifty.

The guild stopped calling the full time. Local commanders shouted only the minutes remaining.

”Eight!”

The Goblin King’s platform entered the center of the ruins.

”Five!”

A merchant lost half his remaining health to an arrow that passed beneath his shield.

”Three!”

The last healer reached him.

Golden light restored enough health for the merchant to survive the next hit. The healer died before she could cast again.

”One!”

The field disappeared beneath green bodies.

Matthew could no longer see the other merchant pairs. His command slate showed six weak golden lights and seven remaining blue ones.

The Goblin King raised one hand.

Forty-eight hours passed.

Every attacker stopped.

The silence reached the field before the completion notice.

[Defense Challenge completed.]

[Protected merchants surviving: 6 of 6.]

[Participants surviving: 7 of 25.]

[First clear achieved.]

[Golden Axe Guild]

The goblin army vanished. The seven survivors and six merchants remained among the broken defenses for several seconds.

One merchant pushed the shield off his back.

”My wagon is destroyed.” He said.

Matthew sat down in the trench. ”File a complaint.”

The completion portal opened.

In Hizon’s control room, the final total appeared beside the DP earned from entry, supplies, deaths, and forty-eight hours of occupation.

His assistant waited for him to object to the clear.

Hizon looked at the record instead.

”Increase the price of the foam.” He said. Then he smiled.

The first weekly defense scenario had finally been defeated.

The seven survivors stepped through the completion portal and found the other eighteen guild members waiting outside the hospital. Those who died earlier had watched the final minutes through the public viewing room. None of them cared that only seven names appeared beneath the surviving-participant record.

All twenty-five had entered.

All twenty-five had prepared.

The six merchants had lived because dead guild members bought time before returning to the Sanctuary.

The Hall of Achievements added the first-clear entry beneath the defense display.

{FIRST DEFENSE DUNGEON CLEAR: GOLDEN AXE GUILD}

{DURATION: 48 HOURS}

{PROTECTED MERCHANTS: 6 OF 6}

The first-clear reward divided twenty-five thousand dungeon coins according to the guild’s registered agreement. Matthew had arranged equal shares before the attempt. Death did not reduce anyone’s portion.

Max met the guild outside the Hall with Anna and Quin. He did not give them advice for a challenge they had already solved or explain how Hizon had chosen the waves. The clear belonged to Golden Axe.

”Congratulations.” Max said. ”The first defense record is yours.”

Matthew straightened despite the exhaustion the Sanctuary had not completely removed.

”Thank you, Dungeon Master.”

Behind him, someone began cheering. The rest of the guild joined until the sound filled the square.

Matthew looked back at the new display only once. Then he took out a page of notes. ”We can do better next time.”