"Forward!" Kadrin yelled.
The beautifully armoured and physically impressive line of spearmen stepped forward in unison with a grunt. They were lined up two rows deep, fifty men long… The underground part of the fortress was much more vast and grand than the upstairs.
Where upstairs Twenty five men in a loose formation could cover every floor, downstairs fifty heavily armoured dwarves could stand side by side on one of the roads.
The cave goblins were much much more numerous, it felt like they were in the tens of thousands… clearing the under levels would take a lot longer than he anticipated… but it was easy work. The spear line just needed to take a step and each Dwarf would pierce multiple goblins at a time.
The scene reminded Maro of a Woodchipper, goblins were run ragged into the shield wall, usually filled with spear holes and torn apart. Constantly being pierced and flung off the spears… The armour did wonders… still not even one casualty and the weight of thousands of goblins couldn't even stop the dwarves from their methodical forward march.
Kadrin was front and centre, refusing to switch out his spot in the line, carrying the weight of his Oath.
Too slow Maro thought…
"Fire" he yelled, the gnomes launched a volley… but there was only so much 50 crossbows could do against thousands of Goblins
They had already cleared the industrial brewery on the first sub level, they just needed to clear the rest of the 1st sublevel and set up a new guard post at the next set of stairs down.
His timeline was blown out of the water… 3 days and just now they were almost done with the first floor… he still hadn't enjoyed any alone time with the Elves yet.
[Warcry] the sound was even louder as it reverberated underground.
The Goblins all froze in place for a second in fear… Some ran away… a couple even died of heart attacks. But the safety in numbers allowed them to regain their composure a bit, until the Dwarves lost their shit.
They had practiced it a little bit, but watching it in its warcry fueled Glory was the Art of War.
In unison the front line stabbed their spears forward in an anger fueled adrenaline rush, just as they were going to retract their spears the second line stabbed from behind. They did not let up, there was less than a second between spear thrusts… the Goblins could not even reach the dwarves to hit them.
The marching of the dwarves never stopped. Stab stab… step forward… Stab stab… step forward. Kadrin, using his new found strength, he himself was stabbing two to three goblins with each strike, their metal spears cutting through them like they were warm butter.
Even the firing rate of the gnomes increased, they were on fire at will, firing twice as fast than they would without Warcry.
And with that last shout, it took less than 30 minutes to completely clear the first sublevel… They immediately dumped as much debris and goblin bodies down the stairs and established fortifications.
While the orders were issued, they decided to check out the brewery quickly… it was in perfect shape. Dwarves did not spare any expense with breweries or distilleries, all metal piping, solid metal drums and barrels as tall and thick as Rolf to store everything.
Kadrin had even found various seeds in a chest for Hops, barley and seeds for other herbs to flavour the beer… who knows how long these seeds were stored for, but they looked fresh. Kadrin noticed runes on the chest which roughly translated to Freshness… Dwarf magic. Of course the race that least used magic would use whatever magical talent they had for making alcohol.
Before the guard post at sub level one was established they had camp volunteers who used to be farmers already start planting the seeds they needed. Finally a new effort the non-combatants could put their energy towards.
Now that all that was settled, he couldn't handle it anymore.
He went to the aid station that was set up on the first floor, looked at Valleria and Alleria and just said "now".
He kicked in the door of the closest unoccupied home and was naked before Alleria and Valleria could close it behind them.
After the weeks of fighting Maro looked a little feral, the ladies were just as excited. They cast stamina buffs on Maro as he was undressing them with both hands and his mouth.
He pushed his body to the absolute limit that night, bloodrush was active for a full 8 hours, barely being kept alive with heals and stamina buffs. He also kept using Warcry to keep the high intensity going all night, he suffered more damage that night than the last weeks of fighting.
The ladies had run out of mana half way through the night, a piece of Maro's ear was bitten off by Valeria, Alleria had bit all the way through his bottom lip, he was scratched to shit everywhere. It looked like a vampire orgy or something, but it was a satisfying night all around. It hit the spot.
Turns out all the healing Valleria and Alleria were doing non stop since they met Maro had actually let them level up considerably and in the morning they both found out they unlocked a further speciality of their base class.
Due to their Elven upbringing, they both were assigned the nature based specialisation, Druid. Their healing ability increased and was based in nature magic, while Maro's was holy magic. They had an affinity for nature and plants which could help them develop and grow, which would in turn help with the brewery.
Their main abilities however were to transform into an animal they had a connection to… both of them could turn into large predatory cats… … …
He hated furries, he was not going to do that. Fucking furries. But at the same time, they could control and pause their transformation at any point. They ended up stopping halfway somewhere, they looked like Catbeastmen women people… whatever. He didn't know if furries had a classification scale and he wasn't going to find out.
But Alleria and Valleria insisted on trying as their senses got a lot sharper as Cat Ladies, the fur on their ears and tails turned pink like their original hair.
Maro had to admit they looked exotic and alluring, their perfect bodies were still undressed, the cat eyes were sexy but the most potent thing about them was that they could release pheromones now. Just one whiff and Maro was a drooling meathead, this amused Alleria and Valleria to no end, they practiced manipulating Maro for a while until his one track mind couldn't take the teasing anymore. He instinctually activated bloodrush and warcry at the same time… he was fucked.
Being half beasts, warcry got to them on an instinctual level. Their new claws and teeth absolutely shredded Maro, they clawed his face in ecstasy. By the end of it Maro's tongue was half bit off, one eye was completely gone, he lost a finger or two, and his muscle fibres were visible in all the deep gashes all over his body. It took a while to heal him back up.
New rule, no warcry and beast transformation at the same time. Putting his clothes back on, he wondered what Captain Troll Nuts was up too.