Mark still needed time to calm his nerves. The battle had basically been similar to a final shot at the buzzer in a basketball game. The overwhelming relief at having pulled through was being stifled by the fact that they were still in a precarious situation. All their forces… Wow nevermind 3 of the goblins had pulled through including good ole Nasal. Scratch that, they had exactly 3 units left of their forces.

Now Mark faced the prospect of rebuilding, and rebuilding quickly. The shade henchmen were already on their way back to work. Mark was fairly sure that they were in the clear… for now. First step was to get more MP because getting 2,730 MP after losing more than 10,000 MP worth in units was far from sufficient for them to recover.

Mark had thought they were doing very well. They had more than 200 goblins just outside the dungeon. Sure they were weak, but it was only the second week. They should not be dealing with an army like that this soon. Was the enemy dungeon even developing itself at all?

Mark proceeded with the only thing he could think to do, which was to go through the rest of the notifications. There were two. Mark waved Amelia back over.

[Temporary Dungeon feature: build orc spawner (spawner cost 2,000 MP: summons one imp, orc, or brute orc with a warrior or scout class of 1 or 2, a day until spawner limit is reached. For every DP contributed over the next 5 days, the max units spawn limit will be increased by 1. *At least 1 DP is required. Countdown: 23:53 Dungeon spawner limit 0/1]

A quick check of the encyclopedia showed that the number of spawners of a dungeon would not usually be greater than the number of floors in a dungeon. The max spawner limit did not count toward a floor’s defenders, so if they paid their next 10 DP then they could effectively increase their first floor defender defender limit from 25 to 35. The spawner would only make one a day, but their dungeon would not be being attacked everyday so the units could build to a maximum of 10.

The ratio of the three units that could be summoned could be anything depending on the spawner, but worse case they would consistently get the imps which were just as strong as the hobgoblins, so it was not a bad deal. It would prevent them from taking another spawner for this floor, but Mark did not feel that holding out would net them anything better. As far as DP went the next Dungeon floor cost 25 DP, but they might not have 13 days worth of time to make their dungeon stronger.

Mark dismissed it for now. They had 23 hours to buy the spawner before it was lost. The second notification was certainly welcome. The interface had accepted his name change request he had made days prior.

[Mark Fields has changed the name of reanimated goblin corpse to Stein. Accepted, Justification: Unit was the last remaining unit in a dungeon attack. Unit finished off 12 units more powerful than it and finished off the enemy leader and colonel of the force with a power rating 4 times greater.]

Mark checked Stein's new status. It was quite an improvement. His power rating had jumped 50% up to 1.5, but then Mark guessed it was not every day you killed a colonel… He would come back to that. Steins main stats had jumped, and he even got another agility point so he would be slightly faster.the biggest change however was a new passive skill, Oppressive Aurora:

[Oppressive Aurora: Enemy units fighting within this unit's vicinity have their effective power level reduced by 10%.]

A quick check on the word vicinity stated that it would be up to a 100 feet but would be less with other units or obstructions in the way. It was not much, but it was a welcome addition.

Now what was this with the colonel? Another dungeon with ranks? It came from a Tier 2 research option, so how did this guy have it? Mark posed the question to Amelia.

“I do remember there being a military specialization with it.” She started. Mark gave her a look as if to say then why did we not pick that one. “If I remember correctly the specialization had drawbacks such as not being able to research, but had to steal technologies from opponents it defeated. It did give a 10% unit boost and something else…”

Mark breathed deeply. That would have been nice to know. There was an enemy who could not research but had to conquer his opponents. Mark was getting the feeling that he knew who had taken down the past 2 dungeons. He was going to have to tell her to write down any other specializations that she could remember. He chided himself for not doing it earlier, but she had been a bit skittish those first few days.

“What are we going to do? We are likely one of the dungeons next to him, and if he took that specialization then he will be back. He could show up with another army tomorrow even…” Amelia slumped down in her chair.

Mark could not entirely dismiss that possibility. He did not think that opponent would be back so soon, but he had been wrong about that several times this game. Forces that could wipe them out kept showing up, and their MP was far from sufficient to keep up. Even if they devoted everything to survival, where would they be later in the game. It was clear that they would need to take some risks.

He blamed himself. He had known their specialization, yet had not made much use of it. He was using his standard style of maximizing production to be more powerful later in the game. His mistake had likely started on day 1 when he had spent 30,000 MP unlocking technologies instead of getting the dungeon where it would need to be to take advantage of their specialization. The gnomes had basically been a fluke. Mark glanced up at Amelia who had been waiting for him to respond.

“I don’t think we need to worry about tomorrow,” Mark finally responded. “At least not for Crassius. I have a couple of reasons. First is that he lost a full division of troops that likely cost quite a bit more than our goblin army. He probably does have more troops, but they are likely guarding his base or off scouting.”

“How could you know that?” Amelia asked suspiciously.

“Well for one he sent a division against us, with the minimum amount required. That suggests that he did not have the units to spare.”

“He could have just thought it would be enough. He could have a whole nother division out there,” Amelia retorted, narrowing her eyes.

The author's tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

“I don’t think so. Despite how it might seem, Crassius is facing the same constraints as we are. From the spawner we know he has unlocked warrior and the scout class to level 2. Then we know he had to unlock the several types of orcs that he had among other things. The army we killed likely cost well over the 10,000 MP that ours had cost. He probably does have more troops but they are likely scouting or defending his dungeon. I don’t think he will be back until he has a force that is at least comparable to the one that he just lost. He should know that our dungeon monsters respawn, so he should know that he needs a force at least that strong. He wouldn’t want to waste resources on another unsuccessful attack.”

“But the bear won’t respawn for 3 days. Without it our dungeon would fall pretty easily. You saying that the next time he comes he will be sure that he will be successful does not make me feel better,” Amelia said, folding her arms.

“Yes, but like I said. He should not know how long it will take our bear to respawn. The fact that dungeon defenders respawn could be found pretty easily, but not how long. For once the way the interface keeps things from us will work in our favor.”

“So, what do we do? Build the orc spawner and build an even bigger army of goblins?” Amelia suggested.

“No, I don’t think that will work,” Mark stated. Amelia pouted at him. “We must assume that he watched that battle and is analyzing what resulted in his defeat. Next time he comes he will also have countermeasures for them. What do you think is the biggest reason that we won that battle,” Marks asked.

“The bear obviously, but it's not like we could get another one. And don’t tell me that he wouldn’t know that. Except for increasing the amount of goblins, I don’t know what else we can do,” She said finally.

“Well the bear was a big part of it, but I think it was our archers that even gave us a chance. They killed over half of his forces outside the dungeon, and wounded others. Not to mention the ones they killed in the fork.”

“So we build more archers?”

“No, I don’t think they will be as effective next time. He could equip his troops with shields or take some other measure. I would not expect our archers to be as effective next time he comes.”

“Well unless we unlock one of the stronger goblin types, I don’t think our troops could stand toe to toe with his troops, so what can we do?”

“You're right the only thing I can think of is to unlock one of the stronger goblin types, or to unlock the mage class. Both are expensive, so until we are a little more secure I think we need to shift our RP to unlocking stuff like that. The point for today is not locked into foraging, so in 4 more days we could unlock mage and then we can shift it to our next unit type. More expensive goblin types will also cost more MP to build, so I think starting with mage is a better idea. I apologize, we should have done this earlier.”

Amelia nodded. There was little point to researching foraging when their dungeon was on the verge of being wiped out.

“But first I would like to unlock the scout class and build a few scouting teams. The first team we will send to see if they can follow the tracks of the army that just attacked us back to their source. Other units we can send around trying to find barbarian forces that could give us some benefit. It will likely cost us about 3,000 MP, but we could see what Crassius has is cooking up. Plus the scouts might find something else that would be beneficial to us. Our dungeon defenses might be a little weak for a few days, but at this point we will have to accept some risk.”

Amelia nodded again. “Okay, I will trust your judgment. Now I’m going to see what we can do about Nasal and the other two survivors.”

Mark watched her leave. A glance at this tactical screen showed that the shade henchmen were hard back at work, and the gnomes had returned and were nervously surveying the damage. He sighed. He would need to get them back to work. The research lab was maybe close to halfway done. An extra RP a day would be really beneficial. Maybe he could negotiate with the gnomes again. If he could get some more gnomes even temporarily. Not that they had the MP to spare. These 10 were already costing him 600 MP a day.

----------------------------------------

Crassius could not believe it. He stormed around his hut more than a little angry. He had lost an entire division, and the colonel had been killed by that thing. He would have won if he even had another scouting team or two as a part of the attack. That bear had killed over 2 dozen just by itself, and the other… Crassius had not believed that the colonel was capable of falling. A 1.0 power rating unit had killed something at 4.1. The bear he could understand, it had been able to fight the Colonel to a standstill.

There was no way this contender could have unlocked another tree, so how did they get the undead? Crassius shook his head. It did not matter. The fact was that they had. In time perhaps they would have even more, and they were not the only thing. Archers had decimated his forces. Then there were the shield units in the dungeon that had been able to halt his advance. Crassius finally sat back down on his throne. He had learned a lot during this battle.

Primitive warfare was not something he was well versed in. These types of weapons had not been used for tens of thousands of years. Most of the succession battle had used far more advanced technology. The few more primitive battles he had seen were just beasts, without humanoids being apart.

Crassius tapped his throne. He would like to send another force against the dungeon immediately, but all he had were the units in the military academy, 50 units guarding his dungeon and a handful of scouting parties. It would be risky to leave himself undefended. Crassius was fine with taking some risks, but the bigger question is would it be enough? He had enough MP to at least send a couple brutes. They were only recruits and with ranks he could get them to the mid 2’s no issue. He had a dozen regular orcs, but the rest would be imps. All of them were at a lower experience level. He did not even have a regular, and many were even conscripts.

Crassius dismissed the idea. The other dungeon would get MP for winning and could rebuild some of their forces and the dungeon defenders would even respawn. Could 2 brutes in the mid 2’s beat it. It seemed unlikely to him. The two orc regulars who were around 2.0 power rating had fought it were not quick or strong enough. If the bear was not focusing on the colonel they would have been killed pretty quickly. Crassius would have to have superior numbers on the beast, or a powerful unit or two. It was undead, so could take a lot of punishment

A second attack was unfeasible with what he could send right now. Losing the division had been a big blow, but losing another was not acceptable. Crassius did not like the idea of viewers in the realm seeing him fail twice after all. It would be better to make better preparations for his next attack. The other dungeon would get stronger, but Crassius was sure that he would get more powerful faster.

His first countermeasure would be mages. They would be effective against the undead or against shield walls, or just in general. Then he would give shields to his troops to protect against arrows. He had known about the threat archers could pose, but had grossly underestimated it. He had thought that his orcs would quickly close the distance, so had focused on brute force. However a bunch of cheap units like the goblin sending dozens of arrows his way was very cost effective. Crassius wondered just how cheap those base goblin units were, perhaps only 30 or 40 MP. Their power rating had only been a pathetic 0.3 after all. Yet them being archers had made them far more deadly to his troops that cost several times more expensive.

Archers… He could add some, but they would not be as effective against troops behind walls. Crassius grimaced, tallying up all the things he would have to do. It would take some time, but he would definitely win next time. The main question was how long he needed to take. He had a good 12 days till the first class of his military academy finished. Perhaps he should wait till they are complete. By then his army would be truly unstoppable, but perhaps, he could hit the last unsuspecting neighbor first. His scouts had found the fourth and final dungeon that was next to his.

In two weeks he could have a division at full strength or maybe even two full divisions. He sighed he would hit his unit cap well before then. His imps had already been getting up near the cap before the battle. He would need to unlock another tree or another branch soon or his army size would be limited. It would take a good portion of a week to get to that point, but he would have to do it sooner or later.