Mark had to shield his eyes the moment after the countdown timer hit zero. It was as if they had been shrouded in a black curtain to only have it removed exposing them to the morning sun.
[Age of Dungeons succession battle has commenced. Contenders remaining 35 of 35]
After a quick adjustment period, Mark was able to look around. They were in a small clearing in the forest. Plateaus reminiscent of some he had seen when driving through the American Southwest filled the horizon, with the closest not too far away. However the environment was far different than the southwest. Lush forests surrounding them indicated that they were not in an arid environment.
In the clearing with them was a large tractor sized machine with two main sections. A scupper, for what Mark could only guess was coal. The other half was a furnace. The other implement in the clearing was the giant manna bellows. Each side of the bellows was about 10 feet in length and would be about 8 feet tall when not compressed. It was placed about forty feet from the coal generator.
Other than that there were 3 solid mounds of black crystal and the 8 foot tall human shade figures. The shades were already getting to work. Two positioned themselves at the ends of the bellows while the other 6 started mining the coal with the ends of the arms that had shifted to be more picklike.
Mark spent another minute studying their surroundings before turning to Amelia. “I would like to take an hour or two to look into things a little deeper. You should take that time to relax a little. When I’m done I would like to learn a lot more about our situation.”
The girl nodded in response. It looked like she needed some time, and to be honest Mark was excited to really sift through the options available. He was far more excited than he was anxious. The fact that this was a battle of life and death had not apparently sunk in.
Mark retreated to sit under a tree at the edge of the clearing. He was an engineer so had been inside a lot more than he would have liked over the last few years, so did not like the idea of sitting out in the open. He could only assume his skin would still get sunburned here, if he was exposed for too long. On the other hand, Mark could only assume that some of his basic assumptions about how the world worked could be wrong despite the look and feel of his current environment.
It felt like this was some place that could exist on Earth. The trees seemed normal. However, he had noted the term manna in multiple places on the interface. Then there was the fact that he had been brought to some other world in the universe or into another dimension. Whether it had been done through use of technology or magic, who could tell.
By definition magic was something supernatural that could not be explained by science. It brought forth the old adage, about ‘significantly advanced technology being indistinguishable from magic.’ Either magic was real, or the powers that brought him here were so scientifically advanced that it would be the same thing as far as he was concerned.
Mark’s mind only briefly flashed to his life prior to 20 minutes ago. From the sound of it, he might not even be able to go back. The prospect was not as horrifying as he would have thought. His parents would still have two other children to be able to visit, and his siblings were all married with kids, so he was kind of the odd man out when it came to them as well.
It was a shame he would not get to take a shot at things with Emily, but… On second thought that was a real travesty. Emily was not some girl from a magazine or tv show that he had fantasized about without really having a real hope. She was a top notch prospect he had even put a little effort towards. Sure, she had been in a relationship the entire time, but screw him, Mark had heard he was a real asshole anyways. Them breaking up had always been going to happen if he could believe everything he had heard.
He sighed, taking a seat down in the shade. He only felt a momentary shiver from the resulting cool feeling. It felt like the morning in the early spring. It would likely warm up as the day progressed. The feeling was enough to break his train of thought. It was what it was he would just put Emily back into the category of ‘girls he did not stand a chance with.’ with every other attractive girl with a great personality. Of course this time it was because he had been summoned to another world.
Mark sighed. What had he said about his destiny earlier? Apparently, he was now destined to spend the foreseeable future with only Amelia as far as his company. Not like he was gonna chat up a goblin. Despite himself, Mark smiled. Not about being trapped with Amelia. The girl looked like she was 13 and was rail thin. She was far from the voluptuous mature type that he dreamed about. Yup, definitely not.
Despite the ‘dying if he lost part,’ Mark could not help but feel excited about what was to come. There were no do overs in this game, and the stakes were insane. The whole realm was watching. Mark had no inclination how many people that was, but it sounded like a lot. Then if they won, Amelia would literally become the high queen of Arcadia.
‘Hmmm,’ he wondered what would happen to him if they won. Would she take him with her, or perhaps a darker fate… Perhaps he was as disposable as the goblins that he could summon. Whatever, nothing he could do about it.
His thoughts continued to shift. What kind of country decided their succession based on a real life strategy game filled with fake beings and what not. Since Amelia was a contender for the throne, was she a princess? How many resources were they burning to put this on? Would it even produce an effective ruler? Which might be the most insane part of it.
Mark let his excited mind run wild for a bit before he focused once again on what was before him. Arcadia, their life after the battle, none of it would matter if they did not win. Besides what Mark was most excited about were the possibilities for the advancement of their dungeon. There would likely be a lot of downtime in the future for him to think about such things or even talk to Amelia about it.
Mark brought up his dungeon status page. Unsurprisingly, the production numbers had changed. The manna bellows had been added right under the coal generator, and both now had daily rates associated with them. The rates appeared to be fixed and not in constant fluctuation as he had first assumed. Although that might change if something hindered or obstructed his shade henchmen.
The coal generator would produce 2,880 MP daily. The manna bellows on the other hand would produce 600 MP daily. Which put him at 3,480 for his daily production. It was not bad. Within the week he would be able to add two additional bellows, and further increase their daily production. Overall unlocking the bellows first thing might not have been a bad first move. In less than a month it would more than make back their initial investment, then it would continue to pay dividends, potentially for the rest of the game.
Mark did not know how long this battle was set to last, but it seemed likely that it would take several years at the very least. Otherwise the participants would never advance very far. There did not seem to be other options to increase production until they advanced their dungeon to level 2. That in itself would likely take several months, assuming they delayed progression to unlock more unit options. It also depended on them lasting that long.
Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
Mark looked suspiciously into the woods beside him. It seemed safe, but for all he knew a wandering beast could pop out and snatch him up. While it seemed likely that whomever put this together would give them a relatively safe start, Mark did not have anything to base his assumptions on. For all he knew the creators wanted a little opening bell carnage. After all 35 was a pretty big number of successor candidates for the people watching to follow.
Amelia did not seem antsy as she had before the battle started, so Mark put the possibility of being immediately attacked as only a slight possibility. Supposedly, the other players were at least 20 miles away, which meant that one of them getting an army here today should not be possible.
It was a valid strategy in some strategy games. Instead of building up their base, a player would build a bunch of cheap troops to swarm another base before they had their defenses ready. It was effective when it worked, but in this situation it would be more apt to backfire since there were a bunch of other participants in this battle. He could assume that more would be hesitant to go with the all out approaches that could be hit or miss.
Likely he could expect scouting units. That was his initial game plan afterall. His defenses would at least have to be strong enough to deter some reconnaissance units that could arrive as early as tomorrow. Not that they would, 20 miles was only the minimum distance opponents could be from each other, and was far enough with this terrain where troops would have difficulty getting here so soon.
No, he was certain he would some time before he had to worry about the others. The ‘independent parties’ as Amelia had called them, or ‘barbarians’ as far as he was concerned were another matter. Months could pass before the contestants started to really pick at each other. The creators would likely not want so much downtime. They had to keep realm viewership up afterall.
Mark noted one more thing before he flipped screens. Their initial coal deposit was limited at 575,000 MP available. Which after doing some quick mental math, put the total suspiciously close to two hundred days worth of mining. The creators had obviously chosen 200 days and then knocked off 1,000 MP to put it at a nice number.
Mark shook his head. Obviously it was if they were saying that the participants would have to venture out and not turtle up. They could not stay put forever without depleting their resources and falling behind.
Mark made a quick glance at his tactical map which now showed an illuminated circle that was precisely 1 mile in diameter. The nearest plateau just touched the edge of their current domain. The rest for all that Mark could see was just forest. Although there were icons for each of his units provided he zoomed in. There were also icons for the coal generator and the bellows.
It was clear that everything in their territory would be visible, likely including enemies. Was it full proof? Who could tell, at least he could more readily put thoughts of some beast swooping out of the woods and ripping him to pieces aside. The map would definitely be helpful. It seemed to be very user friendly, but for now he did not really need it.
His attention shifted to the tech tree. He had to assign his RP daily or it would be allotted randomly when they received the next day's allotment. There were alot of contenders, so the decision took nearly three hours to make.
Not all of the time had been on that train of thought. He had become enamored with the encyclopedia function on the interface that automatically gave amplifying information when bidden. While it still did not elaborate on future research or things that were grayed out it had definitely helped to clear some of the gaps in his understanding of this place.
Of course it was not lost on Mark why the encyclopedia would not reveal more. If it did, there was no doubt that others would do the same as him. They would scour through the screens and would chart a course that maximized benefits. Likely this would lead many participants to go in the same general directions, since no matter how well a game was made there would always be optimal paths. Others paths would be okay and there were sure to be some that were basically a rotten rope. The creators seemed to want to keep an aspect of the unknown involved to encourage diversity..
Regardless, the encyclopedia had illuminated enough for Mark to make a decision. He chose crafting. Crafting would enable his units to make tomahawks, arrows, etc… These weapons would be far more effective then the goblins standard load out, or what they came with when summoned. Right now his green goblins came with a wooden club, sling, five stones, a water pouch, 1 day meal ration, and one gunny sack that strapped across their chest.
Once crafting was researched the standard loadout would automatically update to 2 crafted weapons at no additional cost. The weapons would just be shaped stone attached to wood to form tomahawks, spears, and knives, but it was still far better than it was now. Eventually he would be able to increase the standard loadout to metal weapons, but that was still a ways off.
Mark had debated picking foraging after realizing that they would have to continually supply his unis with food, but in the end he decided it was not worth putting off crafting for. Buying a basic unit ration only cost 1 MP per unit. He would have to occasionally have to mix in better meal rations to keep his unit morale from plummeting, but crafting was not something that could wait.
Those were two aspects that he had not really dealt with in games. Usually unit upkeep costs were either negligible or not even a part of the game, but now he would have to plan for them. The moral aspect was even less welcome. Units might abandon their post or fight half heartedly if their morale was low. There was an overall morale for his entire force, and then it extended all the way down to each individual unit. ‘Great I can’t even count on my troops,’ Mark had thought when he had first noticed that feature.
Right now he did not have a morale rating since he did not have any active fighting units. The shade henchmen were mindless constructs, so morale was not a factor for them. It was an annoying feature for sure, but it could still play in his favor as well. When attacking his forces could rout the enemy, if done smartly. It was better than the alternative, both forces grinding each other's forces down till one side had no units left. All Mark had to do was keep each unit's personal morale up, and then prevent them from feeling too overwhelmed.
The issue could also be skirted for his dungeon defense. Units could be assigned as guardians. They would no longer be able to leave their assigned post, but they would fight till their end. It also had the added benefit of allowing them to respawn at no cost. Mark had steered himself away from that avenue of thought after realizing that they were a ways off from that. They would have to spend 10,000 MP to buy the first dungeon floor, and it was not a loophole for some ultimate defense; Each floor could only have so many assigned forces.
Mark jumped to his feet. It had taken him slightly longer than he had initially told Amelia, but there had been a lot to look through. Besides the girl did not seem to mind, She was lounging under another tree… eating?
‘How did she get food?’ Mark thought, but the answer was all too obvious. He had spent some time looking through the store screen after all. The store had food as well as a variety of other goods. Sure enough, with a quick glance at his notification he noticed it.
[Emilia Cromwell spent 6 MP buying a buttermilk bread pastrami sandwich.]
Then Mark noticed the notifications under it.
[Emilia Cromwell spent 12 MP buying a fine thread count blanket.]
[Emilia Cromwell spent 24 MP buying a high quality pillow cushion]
Mark glanced back at the girl, he was approaching. Sure enough her head rested on a pillow and she was laying on top of a blanket. He sighed, just like that and 42 MP was gone. She would likely be spending more before the day was through, there was still dinner after all. Then there could be afternoon tea? Who knows the girl was in a royal succession battle afterall. Hopefully the other participants were even more wasteful. Still he needed to put the girl on a budget.
Mark sighed he could not blame her entirely. He would have to eat and buy things as well, but he would be damned before he wasted extra MP on things with adjectives like ‘fine’ and ‘high quality’. He was more the ‘adequate enough’ type of guy. Food on the other hand was another thing. His personal moral would take a serious hit if he limited himself to the base unit rations. They were basically hard bread and jerky as far as he could determine. No, the sandwich might be the right call. He would get something like that, and then the two of them would have a nice long chat.