Gale stood on top of the wall peering out into the swamp land. Her blond hair was cut short resembling a boy’s comb over. She was dressed in military style, with a blue long sleeve overcoat embroidered with gold. The overcoat was closed near her navel with a couple of brass buttons with the back flaring down to her mid thigh. Her white undershirt was tucked into her trousers. Overall it was a commanding and elegant look. Which was precisely what she was going for as one of the three representatives of the Guenevere Alliance.

Gale was the oldest among the contenders at 96, just 4 years shy of 100 year cutoff. She was also the only contender that was a grandparent as far as she knew. It was a little strange since some of the contenders were not even 20. While the two grandchildren she had were not that old, most of her kids were. It was almost sad that such young people were a part of this. They had hardly even lived. Still she herself could live another 400 years, so it was not as if she pitied them enough to show mercy. The fact was that only one could survive this battle, and she would make sure it would be her.

Gale was extremely confident in herself, but she was not a fool. Life was full of surprises, anything could happen. Worse case her kids would lose their parents, but she would not have given up the opportunity to someone else either. She was the oldest among her own siblings and had always liked being in charge, and she would rather die than to have one of her siblings or cousins end up becoming the supreme ruler.

“You’re doing it again?” came a masculine voice from behind.

“Doing what, Tom,” Gale said, glancing back at her husband.

“Standing atop of the wall. Makes me think of an ancient sea captain with their foot braced up against the bow gazing out into the horizon,” Tom said, pulling himself up onto the wall beside her.

Tom had wanted to join her for the succession battle. He was not really her champion. She was the dominant personality in the relationship and would call the shots. However he was her support. They had lived together for nearly 65 years, and they would spend their last 400 years together as well or months should the worst happen. Their kids would be fine despite the outcome.

“An ancient sea captain… Can’t say that I hate the comparison,” Gale said with a wolfish smile.

“Anything new?” Tom asked.

“Ha, there is never anything new here. Just the swamp, fog, and those blasted plateaus. Sea captain indeed. Still can’t say it does not work to our advantage,” Gale stated.

“Ah you know what I mean. Have you seen any more of those bullywogs?”

“Nope,” Gale said matter of factly. “Its been a couple of days.”

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In reality, Gale and Tom were almost the exact opposite of a sea captain. Instead of venturing off to far off places, their strategy was to hunker down. Gale had chosen the Indomitable defense specialization, which had started them off with the building and masonry techs. An indomitable defense was exactly what she was going for. The swamp itself would already be difficult for opposing armies, but her wall would be insurmountable here soon. Currently it was only 6 feet tall and one and one half feet wide, but it was just a start.

Gale had selected lizardmen since they were strong, but unlike the other strong humanoid options they had a bit more intelligence. On day one her lizards had set to work to make use of her advanced masonry tech. They packed swamp mud into long wooden molds, which were left to dry out in the sun for a week. They were then cut into individual bricks about a foot in a one half in length and a half foot in width. She had thousands of bricks curing in the sun most days. That process had worked for this preliminary wall, but the wall was already about as high as it could be due to the resources used. The weight of the mud simply would not hold up when considering the foundation was on the weaker side, the limitation of having a base in the swampland.

Luckily, she had just unlocked the mining tech which had opened new possibilities. It allowed the possibility of having an auxiliary floor of her dungeon. A mine would allow her to query stone bricks. Sure she had to buy metal picks and other tools at a premium from the store in order to do so, but it would allow her to build the fortress she envisioned. The current mud wall would do for the time being, however it would pale in comparison to the castle she would construct.

Gale would start building outside the mud block wall and eventually move to replace the mud wall with her inner keep. They would just have to do the best they could as far as the foundation was concerned. The wall would likely not be perfect even as some parts settled more then others, but hopefully it would not be so much that it would not last through the succession battle.

However the wall was only half of her plans. Her dungeon defense would be indomitable, but she could not completely turtle down. The starting 4 piles of coal would only last till day 200. She would need more resources pouring in, so that she could keep bolstering her defenses and perform attacks herself.

So far, Gale and Tom had not caught a hint of another dungeon. The bullywogs that occasionally traveled through her territory or attacked did not belong to any dungeon. They usually had a good number of units, but were relatively weak willed when faced with the ferocious counter attacks of her lizardmen. Still she would have to send scouts out soon.

Gale would receive a good amount of support once supporters were allowed to start making donations, but she could not count on that entirely to win the game for her. The other Guinevere representatives would likely get just as much as long as they still showed promise. Some of the other faction representatives would too. The support would only even the playing field for her with the other elites and not give her an advantage. Only the representatives from the weaker factions would suffer at that point of the battle.

A distant splash drew her attention. Her tactical screen confirmed. The bullywogs were coming once again. They were positively insufferable. They were not really dangerous, but were more of an annoyance since her units would be pulled from actual work to fight them off.

“Tom ready our troops. I think half of them should be enough. The rest can keep querying the rock.” Tom nodded before dropping down off the wall. “Well at least today will not be completely boring,” Gale said as she tried to make out the approaching figures through the ever present fog. The bullywogs might not be much of a threat, but just the fact that someone was attacking got her blood pumping.