It took 3 weeks to clear the upper portion of the fortress… turns out there were two tribes of Goblins who had taken over the fortress.
Forest goblins, who were less numerous and weaker, had taken over the highest levels of the fortress and cave goblins had taken over the lower levels. To say they were tribes was an understatement, there were thousands of these savage goblins, with one in one thousand having a class unlock.
It was non stop brutal siege warfare the entire time… thankfully they had two class healers who kept casualties non existent.
The cave goblins from the bottom levels were held off by the Dwarf spearmen and Gnome crossbow teams. Kadrin and Gnarlo were on that front leading them… every night, for the last two and a half weeks, those goblins tried pouring through blockaded stairs… Maro's planning had saved them the second night as the Guardpost called for help right away, while holding the initial wave back.
On the other end, Maro and his swordsmen were human tornadoes of slicing and dicing… with no Orcs around even an average human with a sword could mow down the goblins. The mobility of the swordsmen was their advantage in some of these tight corners, dwarf spears would have had trouble.
Maro's anger for the goblins grew to impossible heights, he swore a blood oath, he swore to whoever would listen to him that every single goblin would die in this fortress. Every time he did, he earned the endearment of the Dwarves. These fucking goblins were impeding on his sex and drinking time… Alleria and Valeria were exhausted every day healing casualties and whenever they had a small moment for a quickie there would be another alarm.
In his blue balled rage, Maro stomped on baby Goblin skulls as their mothers would watch. Every night he would take the strongest goblins alive and torture them and then nail their mutilated bodies at the edge of whatever area they cleared. The Dwarves seeing his fury and utter destruction of the forest goblins, only deepened their devotion to him, as ancient enemies their ancestors were, for once, not rolling in their graves.
Over the course of 3 weeks of fighting Maro had leveled up quite a bit, which made him even madder… The fucking deity had locked his specialised warrior class selection and picked for him… was selecting his initial class all an illusion… did she know he would go warrior?
He could have been a Death Knight, a Blood Knight, a Berserker, a Mounted heavy armour specialist, a god damn Gladiator and much more… but this fucking deity trolled him.
She made him a 'White Knight', someone who valued equality and dealt out justice for all wherever he went… operated by a chivalric and holy code… a paragon of virtue… servant to the divine… a fucking Paladin…
He was a Paladin at level 3 now… and he basically had holy magic damage added to his base warrior skills. He got a small healing ability called [Light Heal] and a large area of affect aura that slightly damaged enemies, increased armour and imbued holy damage into the weapons of his allies, called [Consecrated Ground]
What fucking stupid support abilities with 0 applicability for sex, aside from a heal.
[Light Heal] helped keep his men from going back to the first floor to get healed by the elves at the temporary aid station. But consecrated ground was useless, regular humans could easily slice through goblins so the damage aspect was useless and the armour aspect was even more so, the wood and stone weapons of the Forest Goblin didn't do much to pierce their leather armour.
Ha 'A paragon of virtue' my ass Maro thought. As the last goblin men on the top floor of the fortress were dying… he looked at the cowering female goblins and their children. Deprived of alcohol and sex, his war criminal side had taken over, he motioned for his men to slay them all and they gladly did.
Some humans wouldn't have agreed with his actions, but the ones under his command knew the truth that the Council of the Unity Kingdom was hiding. The periphery of the kingdom received nothing in aid and everything was stripped to go back to the local lords, all Order races were second class citizens at best if they weren't actively betraying their own. These men had seen the true nature of the green fucks, rape, eating people raw, theft, torture and being worked to death… all these crimes were just hidden under a superficial veneer the farther out you went.
He anticipated that the order races in the cities were oblivious to the truth or were active race traitors… luckily he didn't give a fuck about the people in the major cities.
Maro hadn't found much value for himself and his swordsmen in the upper floors. Most of it was just extra living space and storage warehouses… however they did find an ancient dwarf armoury… enough to equip hundreds of dwarves in the traditional heavy plate armour, fancy ornate Dwarf shields and Spears made out of solid metal…
To Maro most of that stuff was useless to him and his Swordsmen, it didn't fit and they were his special forces, they needed flexibility to either fight side by side or individually, they needed to be quiet when the situation arose and the vanguard in other situations. Some of the Swordsmen added a one handed dwarf axe to their arsenal, but Maro did not allow any who did not unlock their class to use 2 handed weapons aside from himself for the most part. They weren't strong enough to be nimble with it, they would just ruin his formations.
However, this armour, to the Dwarves was like finding a holy relic. Dwarves worshipped their ancestors and when presented with the opportunity to wear the ancient armour, a lot of them wept. It had been a long time since the Dwarves Glory years… Many of the dwarves swore oaths of vengeance and to restore the Dwarves to their former status.
Kadrin even swore a blood oath to Maro when he saw the armour, claiming it was destiny that he met him to help restore the order races. To Maro it was just extra life after death and he was going to whore, fight and drink his way to his second death, so he accepted Kadrin's oath… But Maro was excited to have a true heavy front line in the finest heavy plate armour and solid steel spears… heavy stuff… but nothing a dwarf couldn't handle.
These Dwarves would be his elite line, they would be the frontline to push the never ending horde of Cave Goblins back in the next stage of Maro's plan.