After lunch, Mark dived headfirst into his new trap options. He had first started to look at adding traps to the actual dungeon, but had quickly dismissed the thought. All of them could only be built using DP. Until day 18, they would not have DP to spend since they were currently all going to the orc spawner.
Mark took a look at the spawner. Currently they had 4 of 8 slots filled, so far they had only gotten imps. Mark expected to at least get a regular or two before the 10 slots were filled. The spawner had a 60% chance to give imps, 30% chance to give orcs, and a 10% chance to get an orc brute. They might not have gotten one of the stronger units yet, but they had gotten 2 level 2 warriors. Mark had been able to turn off the option for the scout class, so he had a 50/50 chance at getting level 2 warriors with the default being at level 1.
Just because dungeon floor traps were off the table did not mean that they could not make use of the tech right now. Before he had been restricted by the interface from building anything that could be considered a trap. Which meant he could not even build a little moat with wooden stakes around the earthen bulwark, among a couple other ideas. Now he had no such restriction.
Unfortunately, his 3 squads of goblins had immediately left once he accepted the bullywog deal, so he did not have a lot of manpower. Mark stood atop the earthen wall outside the dungeon entrance. The gnomes were scurrying back and forth. They had gotten back to work several hours ago now. The research building looked practically finished. The builder hut looked to only need a few holes filled in for its siding. They would probably be finished with both projects in another 2 or 3 hours.
Mark went back to looking for Nasal. He finally found him at the edge of the clearing. The frog warriors were nearby. Mark noticed that they were staying in the shade of the trees. For the amphibians, non watery environments were probably not the best. They certainly would not be able to work out under the sun for long. Whatever, Mark had decided on another task for them.
“Boss, standing by for orders,” the lieutenant said, snapping to his feet as Mark drew close.
“Good,” Mark said as he started through a list of new orders. He was pleased how quickly and willing his lieutenant was to get to the task despite having just returned off a multiday trip. He guessed it was one of the perks of being a named unit. Supposedly, they were more united to the dungeon’s mission, whatever that meant. Any other goblin would have complained upon being given a new task. Maybe not always to his face, but definitely afterwards, and that was despite the fact that they were usually just laying around. Half his day seemed to be spent keeping them on task.
The first order of business was what to do with his new ‘frog’ units. They would stay out of view in the woods. This would hopefully keep them off his enemies radar. It was always good to have a few secrets. For now he would send them to take care of his new fishery building. They could set traps, but for the main part they were supposed to camouflage the shack with foliage along the side and make the few routes to the little lagoon look as inaccessible as possible. Only a few units would occasionally leave the area, so he was not concerned for their comfort during the quick trip.
The second order was to make their dungeon more difficult to assail. The entrance guard would fortify the entrance, but he would need a substantial work force to do everything he wanted, so he summoned 12 new squads. Each had one hobgoblin with a class and 11 unclassed green goblins. The 2 surviving green goblins from the last battle were under the entrance guard. Mainly since it kept their morale up. Mark had held off from getting a bunch of units since their maintenance costs would go up, but he had no choice now. He needed more workers.
The 12 new squads of goblins were to dig a trench at the base of their earthen walls. Then they cover its bottom with wooden spikes. The ditch had to be wide enough where even the athletic orcs would not be able to leap across. They would leave no gaps. His units could use gangplanks to cross from the inside to the outside. The gangplanks would be easy to remove during an attack. The entrance guard would do the same around their bulwarks.
The squads would prioritize the trenches, but they would also pit traps inside of archer range. Once again these pitfalls would have sharpened stakes at the bottom. The traps might kill some but they would do more to break up an attacking force. As traps were sprung they would kill or wound units, but they would also start to naturally funnel enemies into fewer paths of approach. Where his mages and archers could more closely concentrate fire.
Half the clearing would be filled. The other half would not really have anything so that the gnomes could work without much obstruction. His buildings would just be relatively unprotected until he built walls around the whole settlement. They would respawn, so it was not a primary concern. He would lose out on some production during the downtimes, but it would not be much.
Mark forced out a maniacal laugh once his trap layout was finished on his tactical screen. He could basically pencil in his designs and Nasal and other appointed goblins would be able to reference as needed. The whole process had taken several hours, as Mark tried to be as thorough as possible. He had archers and mages shoot their arrows and spells so that he could determine their ranges precisely. His design should be as effective as it could be.
“Umm, I hope you're not going mad,” Amelia said, taking a teasing step back while holding up her hands in surrender.
Great, he had forgotten she was there. She had joined him outside at some point. She had shadowed him some of the time, but had also gotten bored and wandered off to see the gnomes or goblins.
“Cedrick says the research lab is done. He has been oh so patiently standing by waiting to see everything that it can do,” Amelia states. Mark closed his screens without a word and started heading that way. Amelia quickly fell into step beside him. “So now that the research lab is done. What are we going to work on next?”
“Personally I would like the gnomes to start on a barracks, so that we could forever be done with that pesky experience penalty. But… Now, I’m also looking at a crafting house. It depends on the research lab capabilities. I’m hoping to figure out how to make potions and other things from the research lab, but we will need a crafting house to actually produce them. The barracks is massive and will likely take months to complete, but the crafting house is about the same size as the research lab. So maybe we should do it first. Then there's walls and towers and some defensive things that would be nice…”
“Walls would probably take a while, but I’m sure a couple of towers would be pretty helpful,” Amelia posed.
Mark flashed her a grin. Walling off the whole settlement would indeed take a good amount of time. Not only would they need the walls, but they would also need walkways for his units to be able to fight from. Then who could say how long wooden walls would even last. After seeing his mages perform fireballs against tree trunks, he did not think they would last as long as they would back in ancient or medieval earth. A couple of the trees this morning had even been weakened to the point that they collapsed, as a result of being the target of a handful of fireballs.
Wooden ramparts seemed like one of those things that would be pretty effective for the first portion of the succession battle, but they would eventually time out. Mark had come to the conclusion that the current earthen walls and traps would have to be it for now. Still a couple of towers would improve things.
“I was starting to think you might never come,” Cedrick said, hopping up from a makeshift bench. One of his big meaty hands clutched a large beer stein half full of the ale he had spent their precious MP on. “Follow me,” he added, leading them to the building's entrance.
The gnome gave a detailed analysis of the building's exterior pointing out various features including wood type. Mark just nodded along. It was well made, but in the end it looked like a fancy version of a log cabin. Like any he could have seen by lakes or at campsites back on earth.
It was a single story with three interior rooms. A double door served as the entrance and two windows were placed on either side. There were four more additional windows. One on each side and two on the back. There were a couple steps leading to the doors with a porch overhead. The roof was raised to allow rainwater runoff, and was made of thatch. It basically looked like someone had put a brown hula skirt over the roof, but Mark had seen them using some sort of resin-like substance to ensure that water did not seep through.
Mark was still not sure whether it would rain here in the Endless bluffs. So far it had not, although it had looked like it might one of the days. They were about a month in, so he was beginning to wonder.
Finally, Cedrick finished with his overly lengthy explanation and they headed inside. The doors lead into the large room. There were some chairs, desks, and tables as well as a bookshelf that supposedly would auto populate based on what they decided to research. Windows were on each side of the room, and two doorless entryways led to the two back rooms. The two back rooms were filled with pretty much the same things. They were all a part of the research lab, and had appeared by themselves once the building was built.
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Mark waited for Cedrick to finish his unneeded exposition. Mark could not fault the guy. They were proud of their work. It was not like they were in a hurry. It was late afternoon now so it was unlikely that they would be able to get much out of it today. Once finished, Cedrick stared at Mark. It was his turn to show the usefulness of the research lab. What he had known and told the gnome leader had been pretty vague. Mark just made his screens visible, so the gnome leader could follow along.
The gnome's eyes widened and he soon was swiping his hand through the image. Amelia started to give a short explanation about the interface for the gnome. Mark had already moved on and become absorbed with his new building options.
The research lab could be used to research up to three things. The split was based on room size. The big room had exactly four times the square footage of the back rooms. They could allocate up to 20 researchers in the main room and 5 for each of the back rooms. Each room would have its own focus. The focus could be very specific like ‘healing potions’ or could be more general such as just ‘potions’.
The research options had various levels of difficulty. The focus being more general and less specific would also factor into the progress speed of research. The progress speed was much more ambiguous. It would be shown by a simple percentage complete. It was not specified what constituted progress actually being made. The rooms could only focus on one topic, but they might have several different projects that were being worked on, all with varying levels of completion. Then there was a fair chance of several of the focuses from different rooms complimenting each other on a common project.
The options were numerous, but Mark did quickly notice none of them were the same as options that they had on their research tab. The research lab would be the only way to get them. Mark had wondered how they were supposed to get magic items or potions. The research lab had been exactly what he had expected.
At some point Amelia had finished her discussion. Now Cedrick and her were also lost in the possibilities. Amelia had opened her own screens so that she could scroll on her own. Mark had made it through the list within a couple minutes. There was a lot that could be researched, but in the end it was still basically a game so there was a finite limit on them.
The succession battle creators had to have taken the time to think up each one and then determine how to place it, so that it did not become a broken aspect of the battle that gave too much of an advantage. The creators had already expressed that they would not mind adding a patch midgame, but he doubted it would look very good for them to change the specifics of something a contender worked to obtain.
Mark quickly started to narrow down his considerations. Everything was nice to have, so Mark started on things that they needed and could use immediately. Anything with magic weapons or using special metals was immediately out. They did not have the requisite techs like basic minerals or mining to obtain them, nor did they have buildings like a forge to make them. Mark had already decided that the crafting house would be their next building project. The crafting house was the building required to build small items or potions
Mark quickly had the list of his top options. Most of them were based on having a crafting house since it would likely be done before anything research wise was completed. Not that Mark had any clue on the timeline. One option did catch his eye that he had not expected.
Research for specialized classes for unit branches. Right now they only have the basic classes. Once their dungeon hit level two they would gain access to advanced classes that fell under the base classes such as swordsman under warrior or ranger under the scouting class, but this research option was offering other classes that would never be available otherwise. Sure they only had the goblin branch open, but it was still enticing. What was even better was that the difficulty rating was ‘Easy’. He could make the focus more specific and less general such as saying he wanted only magic based classes, but Mark would rather just keep it general and see what they got.
The other two looked like they had looked through the list at least, even if they had not come to a conclusion on what they wanted, so Mark felt comfortable with starting. “My top three choices would be enchanting, potions (specifically manna restoration), and specialized class research. For the last we could keep it general so that gnomes could research the gnome branch and we could research the goblin branch. The manna restoration focus I would be fine switching out once we have a good method of restoring manna.”
Amelia nodded along with Mark. They had talked plenty, so she should be aware of their needs. Although the manna restoration was a relatively new need they had just discussed over lunch. Enchanting items like arrows or spears was a no brainer. The specialized classes were something that would bring obvious benefits.
Cedrick scratched his chin with a frown on his face. “I’m afraid that when we talk about building this building one of the biggest selling points and one of the main reasons why I quickly agreed, was the prospect of studying essence. Now I can’t say that any of the options wouldn’t be nice. The three you propose all are excellent options, but as far as the Holmsturg clan is concerned, we would like to see that essence study be one of the focuses.”
Cedrick studied Mark as he strove to keep a passive expression. Mark was not against studying essence. It was definitely a good option. But they already had an option to use the one essence source that they knew of and he would not say it was a prime concern. To top it off, it was labeled as a very hard difficulty.
That being said, it was the twist of this succession battle so it had obvious importance. The method they had to use their life essence was somewhat limited since they had to use it within an hour after a living being died, and the measures of essence they would require could not be discovered until attempting to do so. Essence could only be removed for a day before it started to lose its potency, so it was difficult to use. Regardless it seemed to be a nonnegotiable point for the gnomes.
“Very well, we can include it as one of our focuses. Since it is not a priority to us I would like to put it in one of the back rooms, though,” Mark stated while studying the gnome leader. This was actually what Mark would want to do, since it was not an immediate concern. However, it was also a test for the gnome leader. If the gnome leader pushed for the big room, then they either had a lot of interest in essence, or more likely they knew of a source of it.
“I would like to ask that we make essence the primary focus. I have a bunch of gnomes eager to look into it, so I could fill many of the 20 spots. It is a very hard research difficulty, so it would be good to have as many bodies working on it as possible.”
Mark tried to look like he was thinking about it, but he had already decided on a course of action. “We will agree to that only if the gnomes have access to a source of essence and we can potentially get some of that essence as well,” Mark stated. Cedrick's expression had morphed to a very serious expression. That definitely confirmed that they had an essence source.
“We will go first. We have access to a life essence source. Of course the gnomes can have access to the life essence although it is fairly limited. We get maybe a measure a week,” Mark added. He had sent goblins to the life essence spring multiple times over the last week and had confirmed that it was indeed filling back up. Cedrick's expression lightened.
“Aye we have a source of Stone essence and know of another, although we would have to fight if we wanted to get access to it,” Cedrick stated firmly. “Your terms are acceptable. Perhaps at some point in the near future we can talk about obtaining that third essence,” Cedrick added, rubbing his chin.
“Yes, once things are settled in another week or two perhaps we can… Do you have a preference on the other two focuses?”
“Since you have had good faith with us. I will tell you that we have a method for manna restoration. We don’t have many mages, but we do have a few. We can show you how to make them. I’m saying this because of the three options potions is the least desirable and that is assuming we make the option the more general ‘potions’. Our clan definitely would like to explore the potion focus, but as a whole I think we like the idea of the other two.”
“Building things is basically in our blood, so enchanting is mighty appealing, and the specialized classes. We have access to the basic classes and the advanced class ‘brawler’ under the warrior class, but the prospect of new classes would open up more options.Then the fact that either of these research options could potentially combine with the essence research option… Practically has me salivating. I don’t suppose we can open up another room or two,” Cedrick said wide eyed. It was a mad scientist expression, if Mark had ever seen one.
Mark flipped open the options for improving the research lab. Since the gnome was interested in it, Mark was definitely fine with potentially getting the gnomes help with doing so. There was a basement option that would add two more rooms with ten researchers a piece. There focuses would also be able to combine with the other three. The other expansion option currently available was an add on single room building. The focus would not be combinable with the others, so he doubted the gnome leader would be about it. However, Mark could not discount the option since it would give another RP point.
“Hmm,” Cedrick murmured when Mark made the options visible to the gnome. “ The basement would be nice. But it would certainly take a lot of work. Likely three or four times as long as the building itself since we would have to be careful not to affect the foundation and would have limited workspace having the work in confined spaces. We could not rush the job either. The other option is not as appealing,” Cedrick concluded.
“We were planning to have the builders work on the crafting house and perhaps some archer towers as the next couple of projects,” Mark stated.
“Aye, It's best not to be too greedy. Fill up some of ur’ other shortcomings and then we can come back to it,” the gnome nodded.
“Very well, then we will go with enchanting and specialized classes for the two small rooms, assuming we get the method the manna restoration method. Then the only matter we need to conclude is how many gnomes we could expect to fill research positions.”
The gnome scratched his chin. “Lets say 20. If I don’t put a limit on it every gnome in our village would be liable to be over here scratching at the door. If that is it, I’ll be off then. Maggie will be dying to find out about things, and the other building should be just about done.” The gnome left through the door.
“Will those options work out?” Amelia inquired. “I mean essence has the highest difficulty rating of very hard.”
“I think we could not be in a better situation. For one we can potentially get immediate access to the manna recovery method before Crassius comes back. That alone will help me sleep better at night. Then the prospect of these research focuses potentially combining… Cedrick is not the only one salivating. Plus did you see the special feature we got for having the gnomes build this for us?”
Amelia shook her head, so Mark pulled it up.
[Due to the nature of your research building, you will receive an unexpected boon every time you discover interesting places and unique people groups.]
The reward was fairly ambiguous, but was open ended until they had searched the whole Endless bluffs battle map. It was a welcome boost, albeit an unknown one. It also did not take any extra effort on their part, so it would be pretty easy. It just gave them one more reason to explore.