Familiar faces and new enemies

You rush down the hallways making up your rudimentary dungeon to the sound of explosions and crackling flames. Finally reaching the last turn with Tlax hot on your heels, you peek around the corner to find a disaster area. Several statues lining the corridor have been smashed, and the bodies of several dead imps and a fallen one litter the passage. Three of your new underlings have formed a rudimentary spear line, with two more fallen ones and five imps volleying arrows and firebolts over their heads. The projectiles fly over their dead comrades only to deflect harmlessly off of a curved golden barrier, each leaving a small ripple as it goes. Behind the protective wall, a level 4 invoker (some sort of new class which uses gems to cast magic) is chanting and holding up a shining topaz with a look of pained concentration in her face, while a young third level cleric heals the rest of the group. One of them is a new face: a fourth level bard dressed in a fancy green suit entirely unsuited to adventuring and carrying a lute. The others are recent acquaintances: the archer and barbarian from the monastery, now both apparently level 6.

After a few more volleys from your underlings strike the barrier the invoker's topaz explodes and the barrier shatters, falling into thick, jagged panes as if someone threw a table through a glass window. With a roar of fury, the now-healed barbarian charges through her group waving around her absurdly large weapon and smashes into the spear line as your fireball soars over her shoulder. Tlax darts forward to reinforce the line and the barbarian freezes in place and then collapses limply as you cast another spell, this time Hold Person. Unfortunately the damage is already done: two of the fallen ones in melee were annihilated in her charge. As if things couldn't get worse, several darts of lighting erupt from the archer's bow, each one vaporizing an imp. The remaining spearman, joined by Tlax, begins to stab her in an attempt to take her down before the spell ends, but she suddenly is enveloped in a beam of light as the invoker holds up an amethyst. She quickly stands up to the sound of a fast-paced song, the beat almost oppressive to your ears.

You order a retreat and hear a roar as the barbarian charges after Tlax's rapidly fleeing form. She's undeterred by the firebolts you shoot her way, but luckily she seems to snap out of it at a call from the invoker: "hey, Amara, slow down! You can kill monsters all day, but remember, we came here for loot!" You sling one last firebolt as a parting gift and retreat to regroup as they loot the bodies of your slain comrades.

You survey the damage. All in all, their initial attack wiped out three fallen ones and four imps. If you keep taking losses like that you aren't going to last long. These adventurers are already acting much more coordinated than the utter chaos you faced in the monastery: after all, you're now fighting on their terms. You almost wish you had abandoned this hallway plan, since while it gives you more room to work with it also forces them to stick together and prevents you from overwhelming them with your minions' superior numbers.

You quickly review the layout of this area in your memory. You have roughly half a kilometre of straight, twisting hallways to work with, then the square area, and then finally, if absolutely necessary, you can retreat into the core of the dungeon and the tower. However, if you retreat that far back it's probably over, since once the adventurers control the summoning circle you'll be effectively cut off from reinforcements. Remembering that this hallway has one of the few fire traps in the middle of it, you back up to the next turn and hatch a plan. It's crude, but sometimes the simplest solution is the right one. The problem: their support characters can quickly heal any damage spread across the party. The solution: pick them off one at a time, ideally starting with the weakest ones. You order everyone with a ranged attack to ready themselves and blast whichever support gets hit by the trap.

The adventurers round the corner casually, chatting about something or other just out of earshot. They seem to be clapping the shy-looking cleric on the back and he mutters something in response while staring at the floor. The huge barbarian laughs and hooks her arm around his shoulder, then they step slightly ahead of the group while talking quietly.

"—don't let that other group get to you, Sam, you're doing gr—"

Boom

The ground under their feet erupts into flame, and right on cue your fireball leads a barrage of firebolts and flaming arrows directly at the unfortunate cleric. You feel a rush of experience as he simply collapses into a pile of ashes, but there's no time to celebrate: a scorched and furious mountain of a woman is now barrelling down on you while screaming incoherently. You try to disable her again, but this time a shimmer of pale blue light briefly flickers around her and the spell doesn't take effect.

Crap. This time you won't have the chance to regroup: adventurers aren't infallible, but they rarely make the same mistake twice in a row and you've met more than a few of your sticky ends by underestimating their tenacity. You make a break for it, with a particularly brave fallen one charging at the frenzied berserker in an attempt to buy time. Instead, you hear a quick splat and the pounding footsteps behind you don't even pause. As you barrel down the passageway, fire traps occasionally go off behind you but the barbarian continues her pursuit completely unhindered.

Your group retreats straight to the square hallway, losing another two fallen on the way, although you're pleased to see more reinforcements waiting for you. Hopefully you can use the new terrain to your advantage. You order Tlax to keep the barbarian busy as you duck into the central room, hiding behind a statue of an angel with wings and arms outstretched. You hear her barrel past, followed by the urgent beat of a song that makes you think of a chase and the hiss of acid. Finally, you hear a "wait, Amara, guys, hold up!" from the invoker. This is your chance!

Doing your best and using your magic to fake a human man's yell of pain, you duck back behind the statue to watch the invoker walk in the room. She looks around confused while you take a glance at her. She's not quite as luscious as your favourite repressed blonde purity priestess, but her generous D-cup bosom and curly black hair are nothing to complain about. You decide to take the risk of revealing your position and snap your fingers, and to your luck she crumples to the ground. You slowly advance, imagining what you might do to her, until a hiss of pain and an explosion snap you out of your thoughts and remind you that this is still very much a war zone. With a sigh, you walk up to her and slit her throat with your claws before rushing back into the fray. She's a formidable opponent when given access to her gems, but disabled like this at level 4 she's totally defenceless.

The circuit outside has descended into chaos. A raging barbarian occasionally plows through the scene with a "yaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!", pursuing a terrified Tlax and effortlessly swatting aside any underling brave enough to stand in her way. Hissing acid arrows and crackling lightning bolts swat aside imps and archers at range, and their group is seemingly at peak performance thanks to the urgent music of the bard. The imps at least seem to respawn relatively quickly, which buys you a bit more time, but this fight is still not going well.

You hear the clamour of spears tapping against stone as the last few fallen charge in from the direction of tower, led by Rishukan. She quickly points to the bard and her fresh and coordinated group charges to intercept him. This is finally looking winnable: if you can take him down, you should be able to overwhelm the last too. Unfortunately, the archer quickly spots what they're up to, and a fallen earns his namesake as a smoking hole appears in his head courtesy of an acid arrow. Another soon follows. With a surprisingly formidable battle cry, you recklessly decide that this isn't the time for caution and throw yourself at him, hoping to buy your minions time to corner the bard.

You may not be the mightiest of melee fighters, but a nimble 2ft tall flaming daemon with sharp claws is nothing to be trifled with—especially when that daemon is trying to claw out your eyeballs. However, after a bit of panicked flailing, the dwarf gets his instincts in check and grabs your leg with a muscular hand. You hear the sizzle of burning flesh and a grunt of pain, but soon after you wince as you slam head-first into a nearby wall. Dazed, you look up to see that you achieved your goal: the bard slumps to the ground, several spears lodged in his side.

"Amara! Let's get out of here. We need to regroup!" yells the dwarf, and retreats under a volley of arrows from Rishukan's remaining forces. The barbarian rushes from the other side of the hallway, this time with Tlax nipping at her heels, and the two of them meet up at the tunnel which leads back to the surface. A few lightning bolts scorch Tlax's skin and cause her to recoil with a hiss, and with that, the two surviving adventurers make their way back to the surface. You signal your remaining minions to stand down: those two are dangerous and have clearly learned since your last encounter. The fallen ones haven't started respawning yet, and you aren't willing to risk the rest of your melee forces in a most likely futile attempt to take them down.

After a half hour of peace and quiet, enough of your forces have respawned and regrouped for you to risk advancing in the tunnels again. However, almost to your disappointment, you only find a few first and second-level adventurers waiting for you, clearly in over their heads trying to get "easy" experience from the bonus awarded by killing your minions. After dispatching the first few yields no more real challengers, you order Tlax and your minions to take care of it and set about making some modifications to your dungeon in preparation for day 3.

The way you see it, you made two major mistakes. First, the hallway is too enclosed and linear, almost entirely negating your stealth, range, speed and numbers advantages. Second, you're way too reliant on fire damage, and with the amount of punishment the archer and barbarian took they must have come prepared for that. You won't have enough time to fix some of the biggest design flaws in your dungeon, but for now you set about improving upon its strengths: you order your workers to add a few extra loops to the hallways and add a few simple pit traps to the design. While you can't afford anything more than some jagged rocks at the bottom which are unlikely to do much to any serious threats, they'll at least help you split up groups temporarily, and that was the key to your victory here today.

With that out of the way, you survey the rewards of your efforts today. On top of some miscellaneous drops from the dead heroes, the real prize is on the corpse of the dead invoker.

Loot Bag
Topaz (3)
Sapphire (1)
Amethyst (2)
Ruby (3)
Garnet (2)
Take Some/Take All

On top of being quite nice to look at, the gems seem to be usable as reagents for spellcasting: you aren't sure if this is true of all gems or if these are special, invoker-themed ones. In any case, you don't have any way to use them now, so you stash them in a nook near the top of the ruined tower until your dungeon has more magical manufacturing capabilities.

You and Tlax both gained a level in all of the chaos, but unfortunately don't have much but minor stat increases to show for it. More interestingly, you've now killed more than five adventurers in your lair. Returning to the fountain by the summoning circle, you open up the upgrade menu and confirm your choice. After a brief visit from an abishai, the statue shifts subtly: rather than leaking clear, watery tears, the angel's eyes ooze a thick red liquid which looks almost like blood but is thoroughly more interesting.

Fountain of Healing
The magical waters of this fountain can soothe pain and close wounds when drank or applied directly. The liquid degrades over time when in contact with air and outside of the fountain, but can be preserved in stoppered bottles which can heal minor wounds.
Upgrade: 5 garnets (2 available).

That will certainly be welcome in the coming days. Despite its somewhat off-putting appearance, the water is clean and still seems to make for good drinking and bathing, although you'll need to see about securing another water source so that you can save this one for its more powerful functions. Given the clear blood theme here, you doubt that fulfilling the other condition would've given you the same result: you make a mental note to try infusing your next spring with mana instead.

The brief explosions announcing more incursions finally cease entirely soon before nightfall: no doubt low-level adventurers have no more interest in being caught on the slopes of Imporne at night than you do. You toss yourself into your bed and Tlax curls around its legs, and the next thing you know a trumpet blast announces that it's morning yet again.

World Bounty: Enileve's Wrath (Day 3 of 4)
Living monsters: 29/29
Monsters killed will drop cosmetic items themed after their appearance.
Azazel will drop a unique imp-themed cosmetic outfit when killed.
Bonus (No clears on day 1 & 2): Day 1 & 2 rewards also apply.
(Rewards will change each day)

Oh, crap. It's common knowledge among monsters that hell hath no fury like adventurers in search of exclusive collectibles. You wince in anticipation of the coming day and set out to the underground entrance, this time hoping to at least be ready to organize a defence when adventurers storm your place of residence. The moment you reach the entrance, the crunch of splintering wood and an enthusiastic yell let you know you won't be kept waiting.