“See them holes there? Just watch them for a minute or so,” Cedrick said pointing at the plateau cliff face Mark and Amelia both stared intently as Mark zoomed in as far as possible.
“This ability is simply extraordinary,” Cedrick exclaimed. Once again the succession battle features were not seen as something unusual, but were taken in stride by the gnome leader. The gnome scouts had taken their linked scout squad close to the site of the location of the third known essence source.
“I don’t think I’m going to like what comes out of those holes,” Amelia stated scrunching up her face. A minute later she self confirmed the thought. “Ewww, no we should just leave that place alone.”
Mark just gave her a reproachful look. It was not like the girl would be the one going. Mark would not either, but if there was an essence source located within, they needed to obtain it. He would be more than willing to send the goblins to do so.
A four or five foot long shape had exited one of the holes and moved along the vertical cliff face briefly before skittering into one of the other holes. A minute later another one did so again. This time the creature stayed still for a moment, its antenna twitching as its head swiveled. The interface identified it as a Cyan wasp worker, although it did not show the power rating since the creature was not within their territory.
The wasp was an overgrown replication of any that could be seen on Earth. Its body was completely black and cut into three sections. The first two were spherical with the final one, or abdomen, being far more ovoid. The creature was several feet tall, although most of that height was likely due to the legs extending down to the ground. The wasp had wings tucked into its side, although they appeared far too small for actual use.
“Told ya it would be a tough nut to crack. We haven’t seen too many of them flying about, although the ones that do are twice as big. The smaller ones just skitter around along the wall. One thing you can be sure of is that there is a lot of em in there,” Cedrick said scratching his chin.
“Lil ones should not be too much of a problem, but the bigger ones look real nasty. A bit too much for me to feel comfortable sending just my war band. If you could send a bunch of your stronger goblins with us, I think we could manage,” Cedrick stated resolutely.
“And you're positive there is a source of toxic essence in there?” Mark said, his eyes were still staring at the interface screen.
“There was a few years ago. Of course that was when it spread out and seeped out of the very cliff face itself. Prolly why them buggers moved there in the first place. Can only imagine their tunneling has somehow prevented it from seeping to the surface like it was, or perhaps they are consuming it,” Cedrick shrugged.
“So if we work together with you to wipe out the hive, we can split the essence fifty-fifty?” Mark posed.
“Aye, as long as you send an equivalently strong force. I think it would take a fairly good amount of goblins to equal a fifty gnome war band,” Cedrick said.
Mark considered for a moment how many goblins it would take to present a force equivalent to a gnome warband. The gnomes might be small, about the same size as the goblins but they were far more hearty. Cedric’s power rating was in the mid 2’s and many of the gnomes that would likely participate in the attack would be in the mid or high 1’s at the very least. Even the legionnaires would fall well short with only a 1.2.
Then again, any amount of goblin mages would be supremely beneficial to support an attack on the wasp hive. The gnomes only had a handful amongst their ranks. A fireball shot down one of those tunnels should be fairly effective against the insectoids, and as long as the carapace of the wasps was not too hard or thick the magic bolts would likely have nothing to stop them as long as they made it through the hard exoskeleton.
Mark thought on it for a bit. With the addition of their new outpost MP production was up to 9,130 a day. Building a good sized batch of strong units was no longer as daunting a task as it had been, so they could certainly spare to send some. Right now they had a lot of units, many of them were on the weaker side and they were unable to sustain their numbers through foraging. Mark estimated that he was burning through nearly 900 MP a day to supplement the goblins. On top of the 500 that was devoted for the gnome builders, the amount of MP expended for daily upkeep was not inconsequential.
It might be time to restructure their forces to only keep stronger units during down periods and build fodder units when preparing for an attack. It also made sense for them to unlock higher class levels, so that each unit was as strong as possible. Right now they still needed numbers to work on their defenses, but in the future having a bunch of weak units lying around would just be an unnecessary drain on resources.
Mark no longer needed to worry about an army being able to sneak up on their dungeon. Scout teams were posted all around the valley, and the standard goblin squads also patrolled at all times of day. On top of that they had a good grasp on their surroundings and the nearby dungeons.
It would guarantee that they would get some heads ups prior to a full scale assault on their dungeon. The outpost on the other hand was less secure. Mark had sent 10 goblin squads, 5 mages, and 10 legionnaires, which should be enough to secure it from beasts and barbarians. At least once defenses were built up. However, another dungeon could easily take it out.
Although for now, Mark felt that it was unlikely given where the known dungeons were located. The construct dungeon would have to travel in a roundabout manner circumventing their dungeon to get to the outpost. The kobold dungeon would have to circumnavigate the constructed dungeon as well to attempt, and there was no evidence that the lizardmen had even left their swamp. Intel from the bullywogs stated that they rarely left their settlement walls.
“I think we can spare 10 goblin squads, 10 legionnaires, and 20 mages. Maybe more if we held off for a few more days,” Mark finally said. The legionnaires and 20 mages would be the quality and the 10 goblin squads would provide the numbers.
“Hmmm, we will have to make it work. The rainy season should start any day now. We might run into problems if we can’t finish things before then,” Cedrick concluded.
“Very well, we can have our units set out today. I will have Nasal lead our forces, but they will ultimately acquiesce to whatever strategy you decide on.” Mark concluded.
“I will go get my men then and will pick your troops up this afternoon,” Cedrick said, bowing out of the crafting house.
“That will basically cut our forces in half. Will we be alright?” Amelia inquired.
“Should be fine, now that we got the outpost up and running. We could practically replace that amount by the end of the day. We have 3,300 MP right now, so could already almost rebuild the squads. However, I’m thinking of only building stronger units to save on upkeep costs. We still have 10 goblin squads here which should be plenty to keep working on our defenses and maintain the patrol schedule.”
“I guess…” Amelia said as she sat back down at one of the benches and cracked open a small booklet with the title of piercing enchantment.
The piercing enchantment had finished late last night. The gnome, named Crouse, who had been spearheading the project had diligently put in the extra hours to finish the project. The gnome was still excited about the project and had decided to station himself in the crafting house instead of the research lab for the day. Even now, Mark could pick out the jittery old gnome over in the corner practicing the inscription process.
It did not bother Mark or Cedrick. It had been the first topic that they had discussed with Cedric this morning. Another handful of gnomes would likely start residing at the settlement to work in the crafting house or replace researchers like Crouse who moved to practical application of their craft.
“How is the inscribing going?” Mark posed. Amelia had uncharacteristically arrived well before him. Like the gnome she was equally excited.
“It is a lot less magical than I thought,” Amelia said with a ‘hmmmff.’ “First of all, this is basically a mini text book,” She added, presenting the book to him.
Mark took it and quickly scanned through the 40 or so pages. It was filled with a bunch of alterations of seemingly the same diagram separated by blocks of text.
“The inscription is the same, but adjustments got to be made based on the object that is being inscribed and the material being used. It is much more nuanced than I had pictured. I haven’t even gotten to actually trying to inscribe an item,” Amelia sighed.
“Well what did you expect? Did you think it would just be coloring inside the lines like for a children’s drawing book,” Mark stated handing the book back. He did not know if they had the same type of coloring books in the higher realm, but Amelia had at least inferred the meaning. She gave him a sour expression.
“Then you should give it a try as well, and we’ll see who does it better,” Amelia said, turning away from him.
“Maybe later, I’m going to make sure Nasal can get the goblins ready to depart,” Mark said. He exited the crafting house with a smile on his face. Inscribing did not seem as simple as he had thought either, but he was sure that would only help him be better at it than Amelia. The only worrying thought was whether any of the goblins would be able to manage.
Mark sighed. It was a scary thought. The encyclopedia mentioned some things about the inscription process. The process basically imparted magic onto inanimate objects. If something was not quite done right, it could result in a number of things, but most likely would result in the material exploding. The even scarier part is a mistake could result in it exploding immediately or anytime after. They were like live ordinance in that regard. Perhaps he could have whoever proved to be the best inscriber quality check the work of all the rest.
If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. Please report it.
Of course Mark had thought of trying to take advantage of the unstable inscriptions. Exploding arrows would be useful for something. However, there were far too many variables involved. The process could not really be duplicated with any degree of certainty. The fact that the encyclopedia had a specific note disregarding the possibility was a good indicator. Even if he did expend a lot of effort and found a particular use of an unstable object, the interface would likely just issue a patch for it anyways.
Getting the goblins ready to depart was fairly easy. It was less easy for Mark to cough up the nearly 1,000 MP required to send them on the five day expedition. However, Mark quickly got over it. A 1,000 MP used to be a fourth of his daily budget, but now it was less than a ninth. Mark spent a few more hours checking up on the defenses and various other aspects, noting a couple more tents being erected by the gnomes.
Pretty soon they might all be over here. It made Mark wonder once again about the nature of the beings here. Were they lines of code and this was some sort of virtual reality, or was everything here real. If that was the case would the creators erase everything once they were done with it. He was fairly certain that the battle creators had complete control over things here, and it was not just a world built and set in motion. Or course he could be wrong.
Regardless, it was pretty messed up, that they had beings like the gnomes in the first place. The gnomes each had a lifetime of memories. This world was all they had ever known. Were the memories just implanted? Or had the creators been working on building this place over hundreds of years and the gnomes had truly been alive for a lifetime. Whatever the case it was remarkable that they were able to do this, and Mark could not do anything about it. He put the thoughts aside and went back to the crafting house.
Amelia only glanced at him before returning back to her work. She already had an arrow set before her and was using one of the pens to carve into the shaft. The arrow was held aloft by two different vice grips that Amelia could turn a crank to rotate the entire arrow as her other hand kept drawing the line.
Mark decided to just watch her for a bit. Another few minutes and she was done. She gave an excited ‘Ha’ as she released the arrow from its constraints. “Another below average quality inscription,” she said triumphantly showing off her creation. She turned towards him and presented her arrow. “I’ve completed two although they were both below average. At least I haven’t had a miss yet like the gnome back there.”
Amelia pointed to the gnome who was tucked away in the corner of the room. There were also a good bunch of goblins, but they were on the other half of the room working on building arrows.
“Well good job. However, I don’t know if I would be excited about something that was deemed below average?” Mark smiled as he snapped a handful of arrows. He decided to set himself up at the back wall. There was no point in them being bunched near each other since there were only three of them on this half..
“Fine, we can just see if you can do it better?” Amelia said, placing her arrow down carefully on another table.
Mark grabbed his own ‘Piercing enchantment’ pamphlet and started to read. There were two big concepts for inscribing. The first was interference which their building specialty helped with. The second was inscription quality in and of itself. Higher quality made the inscription have less interference, but it was the quality itself that helped the inscription to be more effective as well as being more stable.
Mark was surprised to find that the first quality level of poor was already deemed to be moderately unstable. Below average was unlikely to become unstable, and Average quality was deemed to be fairly stable. Good quality and above were normally stable unless something external affected them. Amelia’s two below average quality inscriptions were probably fine. Perhaps the worst case would be a goblin losing a few fingers or having an arrow explode in their quiver.
However, the inscription quality also affected the effectiveness. The difference of quality between a poor quality inscription and an artifact quality could be very big. A poor quality piercing arrow might punch an extra inch into its target. An artifact quality arrow might punch right through a stone wall and the bodies behind it and keep going.
Of course materials also came into play. A piece of paper with a defensive inscription might not be very effective even if it was an artifact quality inscription. A better material with a worse quality inscription might fare far better. The paper example was not perfect, since materials also played into the inscription quality. A good sturdy material might allow for a very normally unstable design resulting in a high quality inscription. Even a perfect inscription on a piece of paper might be low quality due to the inherent stability of the material for the type of inscription. It was a shame since it would be very easy to draw the inscriptions on a piece of paper, but then all of the dungeons would have to deal with the difficulty of finding appropriate materials and inscription designs.
It took less than half an hour for him to read through the pamphlet fully. He then spent a full hour making preparations to make his own arrow. Where Amelia had seemingly used some guesstimation and gotten right to work, Mark carefully planned a design out doing a very detailed engineering drawing. There were a bunch of different variations of the inscription plus of standalone deviations that could be added or removed.
The variations gave inscriptionist options and deviations allowing a good deal of flexibility in conforming the inscription to different sizes and types of objects. The degrees of complexity could either give the inscriptionist flexibility based on the object's dimensions or make it easier to reach a higher quality level for the inscription. It was apparent that Amelia had chosen one of the simpler ones and chose to inscribe it on the arrows shaft with empowering lines leading up to the actual arrowhead for the actual piercing part.
During the hour and a half, Mark heard more than a few faint pops or loud booms on the other side of the room. They were always accompanied by a short squeal or cry from the girl. Mark had checked in on her to see if she was okay for the first few, but now each one just made him smile. The wood splintered, occasionally sending small slivers flying, but it was hardly too dangerous as long as she did not catch one in the eye, which seemed unlikely since it was normally evident that the inscription was going unstable.
Mark put the finishing touches on his very engineering-like diagram for the inscription that he would attempt. He had an overall drawing with distances between lines set. He also had determined the order the lines should be drawn. He glanced back at Crouse who had meandered on over at some point to try to glean inspiration. From a way the gnome was carefully studying his diagram, Mark could tell that he was impressed.
A minute later Mark had his own arrow set up on his work station. The arrowhead was situated in the center of the desk, since Mark had worked out a design to put on both sides of the broad arrow head. His inscription would be made symmetrically over both sides of the arrow head. Mark took it a step further by carefully measuring and tracing the inscription with another utensil onto the arrowhead. He turned the arrow back and forth
Finally, Mark was ready to actually inscribe. He confidently took up the inscription pen and allowed a steady flow of his manna into the pen as he glided it along the traced outlines. He quickly outlined one side in a couple of minutes before turning the arrow and starting anew on the other side, but only got a couple lines on the backside before a couple cracks started to appear on the rock surface. Mark just had enough time to turn his face away before the arrowhead exploded sending rock shards into his side.
Mark grasped his side in pain, but quickly realized that none of the fragments had even broken through the material of his shirt. It had basically been the equivalent of being peppered by a low power BB gun. Mark grimaced, as he heard a snarky snicker from behind him. At some point a now pale-faced Amelia had elected to watch his first attempt. Crouse also was off to the side, but his face held a more meditative look as if he was reflecting on what Mark had done wrong.
Mark’s focus was soon back onto task. He went over his design, electing to make a few changes before starting again on another arrow. Amelia and Crouse continued to watch since both of them were seemingly already low on manna, or he was just that interesting. The second time he was able to finish the arrow to completion, but he was still less than thrilled with the result. He placed the poor quality arrow aside and began on a third arrow. At least he was moving in the right direction. However, the next two arrows fared no better. One exploded again, showering him with the small pebble shrapnel. The other resulted in another poor quality inscription.
Mark was growing increasingly frustrated as he looked over the inscription over and over again, but unless he wanted to do something completely different he could not figure out what he was doing wrong. The fact that he heard Amelia snicker each time his work finished with poor quality or exploded in his face, did not help. She pointed out the fact that it was taking him more than twice the time to work on a single arrow then it did for her since he was tracing and measuring prior to inscribing. She had successfully completed 9 out of 14 arrows before running low on manna. Even the gnome had a pile of the lower quality inscription arrows, with plenty up to below average quality.
A half dozen arrows later and Mark finally put his design aside, intent on trying something else. “Lad, would you mind if I give your design a try?” the old gnome asked. Although he had already snatched the paper up before Mark could respond.
“Be my guest,” Mark stated as he started scanning through the piercing pamphlet. He was looking to make another piercing design for an arrow. The inscription could also be added to other weapons, but he was fixated on making a good arrow design. He did not get far before hearing the gnome mumbling excitedly and Emelia’s congratulations. Crouse had apparently had some success with Mark’s design.
Mark was over there in a second. The weary looking gnome was holding up an average quality arrow with his inscription. It was the best result someone had, up to this point, and apparently the design might allow for better quality inscriptions based on the gnome’s reflective remark. “I felt a bit unsteady while I was doing this. Perhaps if I was fresh…”
“Well at least your designs are good,” Amelia said, clapping Mark on the back. “It’s just your artistic spirit that sucks.” She snickered as she snatched up the diagram intent on trying it herself.
The gnome showed some hesitance to give it up, but he was far too expended to make a deal of it. Amelia on the other hand had recovered enough manna to make a go at it. It was likely that the gnome had repeatedly been expanding manna all morning. Eventually, this would result in the manna recovery rate slowing down and a buildup of mental fatigue.
Mark was beyond frustrated when Amelia had several successes in a row. Both were average quality, and she was kept on intent to do even better. Mark figured out the issue by watching her, while conversing with the gnome. There was an artistic touch that was required when making the inscriptions. The rate of manna could be varied based on the design and materials. Mark started to watch the runes of Amelia’s pen as it glided along. He watched the white runes fluctuate in intensity as Amelia tried different things. Sometimes hardly any runes would be lit up. Other times they would all be practically pouring out the white light.
Thinking about it, Mark determined that it would be difficult to find some sort of scientific solution to varying ones manna when inscribing. The head and shaft of each arrow had slight variations. The grain molecules making up the wood or rock were slightly different, and that was for these interface standard arrows. It would only be worse for things crafted in the world. Perhaps math and science could get him part of the way, but he would never be able to reach perfection with a set formula.
Mark sighed as he went back to his own station. He would have to learn to get a feel for things as he inscribed. Crouse and Amelia were both apparently better than him at it. Mark got back to work. The design was not too complex and was already established firmly in his short term memory. He might not be a natural, but he could only improve.