“What exactly are you doing?” Amelia asked. “It’s nearly noon. Normally you would be up and doing something by now.

Mark lifted his forehead off the table to look up at the girl crossing her arms and looking down on him. “There is nothing I can do,” Mark replied. “Our buildings won’t respawn till this evening, and we hardly have any MP anyway. We got over 3600 from the battle, so I built a couple scouting squads. One to track down the dungeon that attacked us and the other to act as an early warning if more enemies come. Not that we could do much even if we did know. The rest of our MP I have to save to replace the researchers that we lost. The golems methodically went through and killed all the unconscious mages as well as the wounded.”

“What about the goblins that ran away?”

“Do you even read the notifications?” Mark asked frustratedly.

“I just got up,” Amelia said with a ‘hmpph.’ Her eyes went distant as she pulled up the screens. She always looked a little crazy as she read the screens. Since unless she shared them it would just appear that she was crazily looking at something that was not there, but then he probably looked the same when he did the same.

“What! They abandoned us?” Amelia exclaimed.

The notice read that 31 goblins had abandoned the dungeon due to dissatisfaction. Mark had not really known it was possible, but it was likely due to having to fight two hard battles in such a short time. Perhaps it would not have happened if their morale had been higher to start with, but Mark normally did just enough to keep the goblins just inside the content range at around 40. Apparently, by the time they fled the overall goblin moral had fallen into the single digits. Perhaps due to a combination of fighting hopeless battles and then losing their leader.

“That's stupid,” Amelia exclaimed. Her eyes were still scanning through her screens. “So outside the dungeon we only have five scout squads, and what’s this…? What we can rebuild Nasal.”

“Yeah, thankfully. Although it will take two weeks.” Mark said. Apparently, named units could be resummoned, and they would retain their experience level. Since Nasal was at the regular level he would now have a 10% boost to his power rating bringing him to a 1.3 without factoring his 25% boost for being a Lieutenant. The wait time was a week per every whole number of the named unit’s effective power rating. It was rounded up to 2 weeks since Nasal fell between 1.0 and 2.0.

It was a welcome feature since it would allow him to get back the most useful of his goblin units. Although it currently only was needed for Nasal since Stein and Winnie were part of the dungeon and would respawn when killed already anyways. He would have to find a way to get some more named units. Their forces had already been wiped out several times and they had not even closed out the 3rd week of the succession battle. It would be nice to not have to restart from zero each time.

However things were looking up now that someone had taken care of Crassius. The construct army was likely only half as dangerous as the orc army had been. If they had been better prepared, the construct forces likely would not even make it into the dungeon. They simply did not have the ferocity or high power rating that Crassius’ forces had exhibited. Even the flesh golems would not have been as big a problem if they were better prepared.

The exception was the creepers and their acid attack, it was the only overwhelming part of the construct force. It was an essence attack. Mark only knew due to the quest like notice on the dungeon feature page

[Dungeon has been introduced to the brimstone essence. Introduce more sources to your dungeon. (1/3) to next milestone]

It was an interesting goal, but Mark did not know whether he really wanted to progress it, since it would mean enemy units rampaging through his base and into his dungeon just to finish the quest-like notice. The reanimated corpses had not kicked off the quest, so it did not seem that dungeon defenders counted for introducing essence into the dungeon. Perhaps it was a feature to reward dungeons for defeating powerful enemies.

It corresponded to what Mark knew of dungeons from stories back on earth and what he had witnessed so far. They lived off the bodies of those who ventured into it. All dungeon stories he was familiar with typically involved the dungeons consuming the bodies or repurposing them Which seemed to be the case here, the bodies of the defenders and the constructs had already disappeared. Perhaps the essence from the creepers now was available for a new function.

The question was why the quest had not already popped due to Winnie or Stein being added to the dungeon. Perhaps they did not count since even if they died their essence was reused when resummoning them. So maybe they could just offer essence in its raw form? They could just pour a measure of life essence out. It was worth a try. If it did not work then the quest must be some kind of reward for defeating special enemies.

The acid attack would definitely be something nice to have. Winnie had been taken down in less than a minute due to a barrage from only 4 units. If the enemy force had another couple of units then their dungeon would not have made it.

The creeper units themselves were already scary enough, and not just their looks. They were agile and fairly strong, easily able to go toe to toe with the orc regulars. If there had only been one orc fighting it at the end, the creeper would have likely won. Mark could only assume the creeper was the equivalent of the brute orcs on the construct tree. They were early game powerhouses.

Unfortunately, they had not unlocked the goblin equivalent. The red hobgoblin option was still available to unlock at 7,500 MP and had the highest base power rating at 1.5. As a hobgoblin it promised to be a good mage or researcher choice, but also likely had physical prowess closer to that of the legionnaires than that of the other goblin types. Mark would love to unlock it, but unfortunately he had always felt called to use their resources for other pursuits. Even if they had unlocked it, the unit base cost was 350 MP which would make it difficult to build a good amount when they were just trying to survive.

“Wow, we really are going to lose a whole day of production?” Amelia stated bringing Mark out of his thoughts.

The building page had a timer marking a 24 hour period from when they had been destroyed including the builder hut. The shades were safe, but they could not work without the bellows. The coal generator was still operational, apparently being impossible to destroy. Mark had thought about using some of the MP they had to build a couple shades to start mining the coal, but decided against it since they would not be even able to mine the 500 MP each one was worth. They would just have to wait.

“What about the gnomes?”

“They came back earlier. The builders have already restarted working on the crafting house. They had to restart from scratch since the orcs burnt what they had down.”

“And we don’t have units to rebuild our defenses. There really is nothing you can do,” Amelia said.

Mark gave her a flat look. What made her think she needed to check up on him. Did she think her work horse got lazy all of a sudden? He had always been busy when there was something he could do to try and improve their dungeon. Their lives were on the line, so he was going to do all he could. He guessed he could be out there shoveling dirt himself to start the rebuilding, but he was not going to go that far. It would hardly be worth the effort.

“Well since you have nothing to do… wanna watch a movie?” Amelia said, perking up.

Mark sighed. “Sure, what do you have in mind?”

The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

“Maybe a comedy. I think we have enough doom in gloom already to attempt to watch something serious,” Amelia said as she ambled towards the couch.

The couch was another thing that Amelia had insisted on buying. All of her spending did add up, but in some aspects Mark was grateful to an extent. He briefly pictured what it would look like if he was by himself. He probably would only have a cot and be eating things equivalent to Vienna sausages only splurging on a good meal once a day or so. It would be more economical, but he would definitely be far less comfortable than he was now. He likely would not have even bought the hut, which allowed him to have perhaps the most important thing to him, a full service bathroom.

The bathroom was not overly large. It just had a small shower, toilet, and a small counter with a sink. Still the shower kept him from feeling grungy. It had cost 400 MP to add it to their hut, but it was far better than the bath scrub they had been using. It was likely second on his list after good food for things that renewed his mind and spirit. It even beat out the toilet which Mark was also supremely grateful for, although he could picture himself making do without it. Mark definitely thought the couch, the table and various other things were superfluous, but he had also used them. They brought some comfort to his life.

Amelia was not wrong for wanting them, Mark had just been frustrated since he would have rather used the MP for their dungeon increasing their survival chances even if it was only marginally. Still Mark could only be thankful she was not using more than the 100 MP a day, not counting the 3 or 4 big purchases, like one might expect from a spoiled rich kid with no concept of money.

Supposedly, she was some sort of princess, although some things did not quite line up. The girl was more on the reserved side and seemingly was used to following rather than leading or being in the dominant relationship position. She often deferred to Mark. Mark could not even picture her ordering servants about. Maybe it was due to some sort of training to raise some sort of altruistic leader, but that did not seem right either.

Amelia was elegant, and she was certainly smart enough for her age. However, she had not seemed to be taught more than basic education. Hardly something he would expect for a potential ruler of billions. Maybe they had raised her to be a delicate flower figurehead. It was the sort of role most noble women might be put in back on earth… Well, before the modern era, but then why would they not have prepared an aide or something.

Sure they did not expect her to win, but then they should have worked with her to at least help her to stand on her own. Even if they had been looking to send someone else, if she was the back up, why would they leave her hanging out to dry and not prepare her at all. The only reason Mark could come up with was that they did not care.

“Mark,” Amelia said, staring at him with a worrying expression.

“I’m fine,” Mark said smiling. “I was just thinking about something.”

“Okay, well I picked out something I have had on my watchlist for a while.” Amelia said, smiling.

A movie blinked on the main core screen. Mark shifted his tactical map to the edge of his vision. The alarm would warn him of any enemy units, but he still did not want to dismiss it. If one of his scouts saw something they would have half a mile to cover before notifying him. If he saw one of his units running back, he might instantly spend all the MP they had just in case. It would not do much, but it would be something.

Mark was less than thrilled to see that the movie was a ROMCOM. Even worse it was set in the higher realms high school equivalent. Mark could not count the times he rolled his eyes. He guessed that many of the movie tropes from earth were universal. Still he was not completely uninterested since it was his first look at another society.

It was basically set in a science fiction world. A lot of the aspects that science fiction writers had come up with were nearly spot on, except for the clothes. The materials and styles might be slightly different, but nothing would have seemed too far out of the norm from Earth standards. The high schoolers did wear uniforms, but it was closer to something you would expect from students attending a catholic school.

Society was hierarchical, like a noble society in a modern world. Although instead of titles the power was held by various families. It was far less individualistic than American society. Family members worked to increase their position in their family by increasing the family's prominence or building relationships with other families. It made Mark wonder if Amelia’s family was just the most prominent family, but the Cromwell name was never mentioned in the movie.

“It's like we watched completely different movies,” Amelia had said, eyes narrowing. She had asked him what he had thought. Mark had been a little absorbed in the other aspects of the movie and the tangents they led his mind to instead of the actual cringe worthy plot, so had only been able to point out societal and cultural aspects of the setting. Of course, the setting was normal to Amelia.

“It was alright,” Mark finally said, answering her question on whether he liked the movie.

“Good, there is another one that sounds just like it,” Amelia said victoriously. She likely could tell that he was not really serious.

Mark ran his fingers through his hair, at the thought of enduring another. He sighed. Whatever, as long as she was happy.

Two movies later, Mark was more than ready to be done with his break from dungeon duties. A man should not have to endure a cringe movie like that unless he was on a date or something. Like the date he had been supposed to have had with Emily the day he had been brought here. Mark briefly pictured himself with her at the movies. He felt a surge of adrenaline at the thought of being in the movie theater with her. Perhaps he would have held her hand, or even… put his arm around her and had her snuggle in.

Mark shook his head. It was best to not let his mind dwell on Emily. Right now he was stuck with the brat. Mark was not stupid. He knew how things worked. Two people of the opposite sex stuck together for a long period of time. He could only work to keep his mind from going there.

Mark had a couple friends that had served in a couple of the different military branches. The guy in the army had called it boot camp goggles, about ones standards conforming to the potential options available. The guy in the navy had said something similar, pointing out a girl and saying ‘she is a 5… but was a boat 8’. Then he explained how you add a 3 to where a girl normally fell on the 1-10 attractive scale.

Amelia did not need to be on a boat or to be the only girl available to be considered attractive. She was already extremely cute… Crap, it had just been cute a couple weeks ago. When did he start to consider the extremely part?

“Can’t you summon them from here and then give them orders through the pedestal ?” Amelia said, looking up at him.

“Uh, well, uhhhh…,” Mark stumbled out, flustered at being caught in that train of thought by her. He cleared his throat to pretend that was why he had been verbally tripped up. "Well, it would be easier in person,” Mark said turning toward the cavern-sized door leading out of the dungeon.

“Okay, I’ll come with you,” Amelia said, falling into step behind him.

It was past 1800 and the buildings were set to respawn in a matter of minutes. They made it up to watch the last of the changes. Near the end of the respawn window the building had inflated like balloons into existence. With only a couple minutes left to go, they looked perfectly whole.

“I’ve been meaning to ask something?” Amelia posed as they waited. A glance toward her, revealed a very serious although hesitant expression.

“What,” Mark asked. He honestly had no clue what she was about to ask, but he would be lying if he said his heart was not beating a little faster.

“I know you have been working hard the last few weeks and I haven’t really been much help. So… I would like to start contributing. I was thinking about working in the crafting building when we get it up and running.”

“What? Oh…” Mark said. His cheeks felt warm. What had he been thinking she was going to ask him?

“I don’t know how good I would be at it, but surely I could do better than a couple goblins,” Amelia explained, as if she had rejected the thought.

“But we aren’t able to be researchers. Do you think it would be any different for the crafting house?” Mark cut her off. Mark had definitely tried to be a part of the researchers in the research lab, thinking that even if he could only devote a couple of hours a day it would be leagues better than the lot of hobgoblins. But he had been barred.

“Hmmm, well I think it is quite likely…” Amelia said. “After all we probably could not be a part of the research lab, so as not to unduly influence things, but I don’t see why I would not be able to craft things we have already unlocked.”

“I suppose that makes sense,” Mark said hesitantly. The only downside would be that they would not have one of them always watching the video feed on their linked unit, but he could have one of the dungeon defenders keep tabs when they weren’t. There should not be an issue with safety since enemies would show up on their tactical map well before they got close to the actual settlement, and the girl did need something to keep her occupied besides books and movies. “If we are able to. I don’t see why you shouldn’t,” Mark said finally. “Actually, I might also spend some time there myself when I have free time,” he added.

“Yah!” she exclaimed. “Once we get a couple of goblins again, I think I will learn how to make arrows and other weapons. It should be a good starting point.”

“That’s fine, just have the goblins gather any materials you need. Neither of us should stray too far from the actual settlement.”