An invasion of holy warriors!

You rush into the mage tower to find Ari working on strengthening her new weapon enchantments while Tlax coils lazily around her feet. She looks confused when you enter, but recognition quickly dawns upon her face. "Lord! You look... mmm. Want to try out your new form?"

Unfortunately there's no time for that. You fill her in on the situation and, grabbing her best-enchanted set of gear, the three of you rush as quickly as possible to the smithy. You pick up some basic leather armour for yourself, the best you can do on such short notice, and head to the entrance of your dungeon. The sounds of battle grow steadily as you approach, and by the time you round the last few bends you can smell the stench of burning flesh and hear the shouts of adventurers, the hiss of acid, and the roar of fire.

You peek around the corner to see a large group of adventurers, maybe ten or fifteen, surrounded in some sort of bubble of light channelled by a tall priestess in the centre of the group. The group is mostly made up of low-level characters, apparently mostly clerics and paladins of Enileve, but a few other classes are there as well. The denizens of this room surround them, with the shepherd demons bombarding the shield with flames and the suicidal demons creeping through the muck. A small group of fallen ones led by Rishukan launches volleys of arrows at the shield as you take in the situation. The defenders turn their shields towards the attack, and some of the arrows vanish when striking the sphere while the remainder lodge in the shield wall. However, you hear the hiss of acid and a roar of pain from the group as a slimugon takes the opportunity to charge in behind them and explode, showering the adventurers in the rear with acid.

Despite their predicament, the adventurers slowly make ground towards the other end of the room, and by your estimation they've already eliminated half of your minions in the area. A paladin from the group throws some sort of glowing hammer at your archers, smiting down one of the fallen ones in a single blow, and you use the opportunity to launch a fireball at the group. Beside you, Ari shrouds your group in darkness and peppers the invaders with several arrows wreathed in a dull red glow. The first two vanish against the protective yellow orb, but the third one strikes true into the channeller's arm, causing her to give a yelp in pain; the sphere flickers a few times and then vanishes.

Seeing their protection has fallen, the paladins defending the front of the group give a roar and charge. A volley from your fallen ones takes out a wizard near the edge of the group, but then the paladins crash into the defenders' line and the fallen ones are **** to draw weapons and engage them in melee. Meanwhile, bolts of light from the clerics clean up the last few shappazus. You conjure a wall of fire down the corridor and signal a retreat, falling back with your naga and elven companions to organize a defence at the new crypt.

The crypt is a relatively recent addition to your defences, stocked by whatever undead creations the sorceress has provided you since starting to learn the arts of necromancy. For now, a handful of skeletons lie in inert piles of bone around the room, while a few pit traps are filled with zombies. You've scarcely managed to arrange the next group of fallen ones before Rishukan comes running down the corridor with two survivors. She leaps over the pit trap tiles—visible thanks to a pale blue tint—with one of the minions, while the other keels over dead thanks to another hammer strike in the back. The group of adventurers which follows looks slightly singed from your parting gift, but you still count eight remaining.

You rally your defenders with another fireball, which fills the hallway with a roar and the smell of singed hair, and Ari fires another unholy arrow into the maelstrom. You hear a yelp and feel the rush of experience as another adventurer falls, but the barrage of arrows that follows from your minions is greeted with the wooden thudding of arrowheads lodging themselves in shields. When the smoke clears, the front line adventurers have once again formed a shield wall, and a barrage of glowing arrows and orbs of light eliminates a number of your archers.

With your archers fallen, the adventurers charge forth once again into the empty room. One of the priestesses—the one who channelled the shield earlier—calls for them to wait, but by the time they slow down the crashing of rocks announces several paladins vanishing as the floor collapses from under them. The rest of the group finds themselves surrounded by piles of bones that suddenly start to levitate and form into skeletons holding crude clubs and axes, and you grin as the last few melee fighters are slowly surrounded. More warlock arrows and fireballs pick off the last few clerics, and you take a breather as you examine the damage. Several pit traps will need to be repaired, and over half of your minions were lost: not ideal, but a fairly good test of your defences given the strength of the attackers.

Suddenly, another "boooooooooooooooooss" announces that things might not be as over as you thought. Baelzann streaks down the hallway almost faster than your eyes can follow him, stopping to hover, panting, in front of you. "Boss, many goblins, come through gate. Defend back!"

Goblins? You set off back towards the heart of your dungeon, and moments later, you hear the clap of thunder and the tunnel behind you erupts into a brilliant blue light. Whatever made that doesn't sound like something you can fight. You signal Tlax to head with Baelzann and grip Ari's shoulder.

"Wait. This is as good a time as any to try a new trick." You conceal your demonic features, leaving what appears to be a human mage in light armour. Next, you burn some holes in both your and Ari's armour, and throwing your arm over your shoulder you begin mock-limping towards the exit. Rounding the corner, you see an old man with a flowing beard in plain black robes and with a gnarled staff, apparently the lightning mage from earlier. He appears to be leading a few new clerics. You give a pained wave.

"Adventurers! Why are you retreating? The goddess demands we advance and purge the evil in this foul lair!" A pompous paladin greets you. You aren't quite sure what to say, but luckily Ari speaks up.

"Friends, thank god! I thought we were going to drop all of our gear!" You haven't heard the word gear before: no doubt some sort of secret adventurer code-phrase.

"Did you guys find the angels? I need to go eat dinner soon." The wizard pipes up in a high-pitched voice entirely unsuited to his apparent age. You frown in response and shake your head.

"No, I don't thi—cough—think there are any angels in here. We climbed down—eurgh—an accursed pit, but there was just some stupid mine down there. And imps, lots of imps. The ladder felt like it could break at any moment." You wince for effect. "Then we—ugh—drank our last potions and pushed into what looked like some sort—ouch—of living area, but we got ambushed by more daemons. We were losing, but then goblins attacked the daemons."

"Goblins? Here?"

"Yes, fighting the daemons!" Ari chimes in. "Do you think we got tricked here due to some sort of weird dungeon PvP thing? Or EvE or whatever? Anyways, I'm out, I don't want to die to a bunch of monsters fighting each other when they don't seem to even have any good drops in this place. But it was kinda cool to see! You think it's some kind of sweet new patch content with monster AI or something? Also, don't mind my friend here," she punches you lightly in the shoulder, "he's way too into the RP side of things." EvE? RP? You can only follow about half of what she's talking about.

The paladins and wizard start eyeing each other with disappointed yet relieved looks. The pompous one from earlier pipes up. "No! We must cleanse this place of evil! For Enileve!"

"Jake, my mom says I need to do a bunch of stupid chores tonight after dinner, so I don't want to waste my time on this dumb rumour if there isn't even any cool stuff." The mage's high-pitched voice chimes in and he starts casting a familiar spell to teleport away. The other paladins turn to leave, and the enthusiastic one chases after them, with cries of "wait! Comrades! We must serve the goddess! Your chores can wait, Enileve demands you serve!"

You give Ari's shoulder a quick squeeze as you shift back into your daemonic form. "You know, you make a pretty good adventurer. But what in the nine hells were you all talking about back there?"

"Well, I have had a bit of practice." She smirks and the two of you jog over to the goblins while you learn various bizarre adventurer phrases for everyday things. Apparently "gear" refers to items? Why not just call them items? Perhaps some mysteries will forever elude you.