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Zigny reached
the top and pulled his crossbow to hit the firing dark elves, but found
they had been blinded by a flash of bright light. Instead, Zigny
watched and waited for the remaining gnomes to reach the alcove.
Below, the skirmishers and Reke were defending themselves
from the frontline of drow, the archers were successfully wounding the
inverts, and Zigny watched as they, one by one, flipped over, putting
their exposed underbelly toward the ground. When the gnomes had all
reached the alcove, the ranged attackers fired one concentrated burst
into the frontline, which was followed by a forward push by the
skirmishers in unison.
The ranged attackers filed out of the hidden passage and
dove into the breaches. The skirmishers turned as one and raced for the
same openings, attacking the soft underbellies of the inverts as they
passed.
Reke and his men made it into the breaches and away from
the drow before they could consolidate a response. The inverts had
nearly been totally destroyed, their handlers lay dead or dying near
the frontline and the force of drow attacking the Cavern had been
greatly reduced. However, they were still more numerous than the gnomes
and could call for reinforcement from the other fronts easily. They had
been weakened, but were still a dangerous force of destruction.
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Zigny, knowing
his men were safe, hurried to the far wall of the alcove. Created long
ago to deal with another threat to the gnomish population, it would
serve to deliver them from another evil. It's origin lay back in the
beginnings of the settlement. The Cavern had always been a breeding
ground for the immense purple worms, they returned year after year to
breed. One year the only worms to arrive were female. Several races of
the deeps had a sudden interest in the organs of male purple worms and
had slain all those who came to the Cavern as they spent the rest of
the year roaming the Deepndark.
The gnomes of Sparkside had been forced to find a solution
to the rages of the female worms who were unable to mate, due to a lack
of partners. Their rages were tearing at the wall of the Cavern and
threatening to bring the entire complex down. A powerful wizard had
been sent from the Royal Court of the Svirf nation to handle this issue.
He had created a huge Horn made of bones from the purple
worms. By blowing the Horn, he was able to call several male purple
worms to mate with the enraged females. The sound of the Horn had
brought them straight to the waiting females in a matter of minutes.
Zigny, and C'Mander Derviskopal hoped the males would come and fall
into a rage themselves to find no female with which to mate, but they
needed to stall the drow. If the city fell before the worms came, then
they were lost.
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