To say that he was pleased with getting another branch, would be an understatement. Mark was ecstatic and after opening up the units tab, even more so. Although there were only 3 units to be unlocked for creepy crawlies level 1, they all seemed promising. A giant cockroach with a power rating of 1.0. A Fire ant with a power rating of 1.5, and finally, there was the wolf spider with a power rating of 1.8. It promised to be a real powerhouse for level 1 since it cost 600 MP for a single unit. In Mark’s mind a higher MP cost must mean it was good stuff.
The fact that it was a unique branch was readily apparent. The units did not only require MP to summon. They also required toxic essence, which apparently gave them a toxic nature. It also indicated that they were likely stronger than, say, a regular insect branch that might exist on the beast tree since essence was a part of them.
However, Mark’s imagination really started running wild after reading the brief descriptions for the different units. The three unit types were all massive versions of the species synonymous with their names, so massive in fact that Mark could easily see them as viable cavalry options for the small statured goblins. Bugs and spiders were supposedly pretty strong for their size, so carrying a 50 to 60 pound green goblin should not be too difficult for the smaller roaches and ants. The wolf spiders should be able to carry any of the goblins.
Unlocking the beast tree had always been a consideration. Mark knew that one of the branches was standard mounts since it had been an example in the encyclopedia. It was probably the interface’s way of going ‘you want cavalry? Then unlock the beast tree.’. It undoubtedly included horses, and perhaps it also included other fantasy type mounts he had seen in shows or book like boars, goats, wolves, or lizards. However, Mark had been leaning toward other options.
Mounts would be effective for transportation or open terrain combat, but in the end they were kind of just accessories. He wanted them, but could not picture spending the MP on opening the beast branch just to get them. Mark had always been thinking of concentrating on standard humanoid-like forces. He had planned on unlocking another humanoid branch or two, or perhaps going for either the undead or construct research trees.
The more time that had passed during the battle, the more cemented these ideas had become. It was clear that a lot of power that a unit could have came from classes, equipment, and inscriptions. Which currently were all being geared for goblins and other humanoids. Beasts and the plant trees could be said to be an nonstandard route since they did not have classes. They also did not use weapons, and inscribed items would have to be specifically made for them. In the end he had thought that it would suck to give up mounted units, but the beast route would potentially split their focus too much. He definitely was not planning on doubling down and going for other beast tree branches. He could not really picture how to effectively use beast armies, and it did not really go with their specialization.
Now it looked like perhaps they would get what he wanted from the beast tree without having to go that route at all, and honestly, the creepy crawlies would match better with the goblins, than goblins with normal steeds. Mark could not picture even the bigger goblins on horses, but a ugly goblin on a hideous bug would be a match made in heaven.
Amelia on the other hand was less enthused about the new branch. She accepted it as a necessity for their survival, but it did not mean she wanted to come face to face with a giant roach. Mark would have to at least keep them out of the settlement proper. It should not pose too much of a problem to keep her away from then.
The real problem was the logistics of getting the toxic essence back to the dungeon. There was a literal pool of the stuff in the abandoned wasp nest. Enough that Mark thought they would never have an issue with the requirements for their level 1 units at least, provided the essence pool was replenishing at a reasonable rate. Since the toxic essence had been seeping through hundreds of feet of rock from its source to seep out of the rocks, Mark had no reason to think that it was not.
However the stone essence source that the gnomes had was far more limited like their own life essence source was. Containers made to preserve essence away from its source were even more limited; they required a lot of stone essence to make. Then there was the issue of actually carrying them back. Filled with the black toxic essence liquid, they proved to be extremely heavy. The expedition had filled up quite a few, carrying them back on long poles across multiple gnome or goblin shoulders, but half of that would always go to the gnomes. Then there was the fact that Mark assumed that their dungeon was under constant surveillance from other dungeons.
How long could they go, before the other dungeons found out about the toxic essence source? If they had not already. Worst case they would end up fighting other dungeons for it. Best case, the other dungeons would send their own expeditions to take some of the essence for themselves. The supply might seem pretty limitless, but it did not mean that Mark wanted to share. Who knows what they would figure to do with it.
No, they could not keep sending units back and forth. It would cost them 20,000 MP to build an outpost, but it was definitely the solution. Perhaps, it would actually save them MP in the long run if they did not have to expend MP to hold or retake it. He could build as many outposts as he wanted. The only limit was two resource collecting settlements at their current stage. While essence was also technically a resource the interface was not preventing him from building the outpost, so Mark assumed the limit was really on MP collection. It made sense, since it was basically the main currency, and was an effective way to limit and keep in check the capabilities and growth of the dungeons.
Luckily, this morning Cedrick had agreed with his idea. It was much easier for him to build the outpost, than for them to continually send people back and forth. The gnomes would go along with the surviving goblins of the last expedition. They would fill in all of the tunnels to erase the traces of the wasp nest and then return, leaving a small contingent of goblins to guard the outpost.
The idea was to make the location as inconspicuous as any other face of the many bluffs that dotted the landscape. Then the essence could just be collected when needed through the interface. A scouting team had confirmed this by taking a measure of stone essence to the Crassius outpost. When the essence was given to the outpost building, Mark had access to use it at the home dungeon. Of course he did not have any uses for it currently. He had just taken it back out, and put it in a new stone essence container.
The meeting with Cedrick had gone well, but what Mark was really looking forward to was using the toxic essence that had already been brought back. It would last for months in the containers, which was fine since Mark had some things to unlock prior to being able to use it. Sure he could just convert MP to rush it, but he needed to keep plenty to build up their forces in case an enemy attacked. The surrounding dungeons seemed to be currently focused on their development right now, but he could never know for sure.
It would still be another couple days till he found out whether his calvary idea would work. They already had 6 RP of 10 for domestication which would unlock the mounts feature, but then Mark would have to also unlock one of the units. Unfortunately, the unique branch did not have a base unit that came unlocked with the branch, like all the standard branches had. Although since the giant cockroach only cost 4 MP, it was not too big of a concern.
However there was one glaring downside to having received a second branch. The costs of all the other branches available to them had jumped by 50%. The orc branch Mark had been eyeing the most after having seen them in action on multiple occasions had jumped from 30,000 to 45,000 MP. I was still easily attainable. A week of saving up MP except for maintenance costs would get them there, but it still frustrated him.
If they had just unlocked another branch first. Then the free branch would come when things were already more expensive. Not that he would not accept it. The free branch was worth the days of MP. Fortunately, the other tree prices had not gone up since they technically had not unlocked one.
However he was beginning to feel that it would not matter. Was it even worth it to unlock another full tree? Doing so would cost the same as upgrading their dungeon to level 2. It had always been readily apparent that the creators of the succession battle were making it difficult for dungeons to unlock a large variety of different units.
Amelia and he had talked about it a lot. The idea was likely to have dungeons maintain a specific identity. The units were basically the face of the dungeon. It would likely not be as interesting for the viewers if all the dungeons all used a wide variety of different units. The identities of the dungeons would all become muddled together. Instead it was better for dungeons to be locked into certain unit types. Goblins would always be one of the staples of Amelia’s dungeon, just like the new creepy crawlies would. Likely they would only be able to unlock a few more since the cost for unlocking new branches would only keep going up.
Since unlocking settlements 1, Mark had a growing feeling caused by the influx of MP that a second outpost could provide. They were bringing in 9,130 MP a day. The 100,000 MP required to unlock dungeon level 2 was not such a distant thing as they had once believed. Every day the feeling was increasing, a sense of urgency. That at any moment the shoe would fall. Another dungeon would reach level 2, unlocking a host of new features.
Mark did not know exactly what new features would be unlocked upon reaching level 2, but he did have an inkling due to having played strategy games that followed the same general flow. The ability to gain more MP, RP, and DP per a day would likely increase. New techs would grant huge advantages. A level 1 dungeon would likely find it difficult to compete for long.
The feeling in his gut was that the clock was already at 11:55 and ticking toward midnight. The time for level 1 dungeons was passing. A majority of the time in the games he had played the player that brought in the more resources and researched things quicker than the others won. They did not have to reach level 2 first, but neither did they want to lag too far behind. Building a good foundation for progression was important, but they were in a race. A bicycle simply could not compete with a motorcycle.
It was not only the dungeons near them that they had to worry about. There were two entrances into their dungeon located somewhere else on the map. Nick Holt, one of the richest contenders, had already found one. He would surely be working to upgrade his dungeon in hopes to start getting support from his family. Mark could only hope that feature would not start till dungeon level 3, but Nick holt was only the enemy they knew. Who knew what other dungeons were near the other entrance.
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The number of adventurers that could be sent through those entrances was based on the attacking dungeon. They currently only got 10, but who could say how many more they would get. Mark felt that in the best case, they would get an additional 5. In addition to having stronger units the dungeon would not last long.
Luckily they had not been attacked again before assigning the reanimated drone corpse as the second floor guardian. Mark had done so as soon as the expedition had returned late last night. As soon as the drone had reanimated, Mark had been able to glimpse its stats. The drone had a power rating of 3.3, likely some of its strength having been lost due to the condition of its body and not having enough life essence to fully do the job, just like what had happened for Winnie.
However, after naming the reanimated drone, the unit’s power rating had jumped up to 3.8. It was a larger jump than Winnie had gotten. Perhaps since the drone was to be the second floor guardian instead of the first. For the name, Mark had chosen Brutus. Just cause…
With the addition the dungeon was notably more secure. However, Mark still was saving up DP to unlock the third floor. He already had 16 of the 50 DP so it would not be too far off. Finding a third floor guardian would be added to the list of things that they would need to accomplish.
In addition to unlocking the third floor, Mark made a tentative game plan to reach dungeon level 2. Unlocking level 2 would take a dedicated two weeks, but before that he would want to get at least one more branch. That by itself would take a good week. Then there would undoubtedly be other costs. Mark decided to give themselves about another month to reach level 2. It was a significantly reduced timeline than what they had previously thought. At the beginning of the game Mark had thought it would be 4 to 6 months before they leveled up, but things were going a lot quicker than he had expected.
It was not the only decision that Mark had come to. The goblins were already finishing up the earthen bulwarks and other additions surrounding their dungeon entrance. The earthen walls were fully repaired. Outside the walls the landscape had been changed. Piles of earth, ditches, and crude wooden walls changed the topography.
Approaching armies would hopefully be funneled along and concentrated along certain routes per his design. Pitfalls were interspersed throughout. They likely would not cause too many fatalities, but would hopefully at least stall enemy units some. Units would be more cautious after seeing them, at least provided they were living breathing beings. The constructs or undead might hardly be affected.
Since the work was nearing completion, Mark could hardly allow his goblin workforce to remain idle. Progression was happening too quickly. Mark could have decided they could not just hangback and rely on the gnome builders for everything. There was also a feeling that he was maintaining a delicate balance with the gnomes.
The gnomes liked building and creating things, but Mark was starting to feel that the relationship might start to go sour if he tried pushing them to projects that the gnomes would not directly see benefiting themselves. They were not his people to control as he pleased. By nature the gnomes loved the research lab and the crafting house. Their leaders could also see the benefits that it would bring them, so it was easy to get them to work on those projects. However, other projects would not necessarily go that way.
It was better to keep pushing for their help on the joint type ventures and not dungeon specific tasks. For Mark and Amelia they were only in this world for the duration of the succession battle. For the gnomes, this world was their own. Mark did not know what would happen to them once the succession battle was over. Perhaps they would be left to their own devices. Perhaps they would just cease to exist. It was not something Mark could affect. However, he would make use of them as much as possible in the meantime. If they outlived the succession battle and had lives afterward, good for them. The things they did during this time would help them in the future.
Mark had two projects that he would have the goblins work on. There were just too many for them all to work in one area, so it was better to have two simultaneous projects. The first was the barracks. Mark was tired of dealing with the 10% experience penalty. Building the barracks would be simple enough. It was basically a compound of buildings with adjoining courtyards for training. It would still take a couple of months for the goblins to complete.
The other project was a guard tower in the center of their main fortification. It would allow ranged defenders to pour arrows and magic down onto their enemies. The packed earth in the center did not really provide any advantage to archers and mages. At most it allowed them to shoot and cast slightly over the heads of the melee fighters.
The design for the guard tower was Mark’s own. It was not exactly his focus. He was a mechanical engineer not a civil engineer. However, he knew enough to design something fairly simple. Luckily, the interface did not prevent other designs than what it provided for simple buildings like a watch tower.
The design Mark decided to go with was a double pagoda watchtower reminiscent of Asian architecture. There would be two levels with the base of the first being about fifteen feet in the air, held up by large tree trunk sized supports around its perimeter as well as holding up its interior. The levels would each only be 10 feet tall with clay tiled roofs. Archers and mages would be able to rain down projectiles from the greater vantage. The slanted roof and waist high railings would provide defense from return fire.
Mark had originally been thinking of waiting till they were able to make a watchtower of stone, and to perhaps have a few rickety ones in the meantime, but there were a couple of research projects that would help with the durability. One was the defense enchantment that had completed a couple days ago. Defensive inscriptions would help the structure get through magic and physical based attacks. The second project was another use of stone essence. It was only at 86% but Mark knew enough about it. The essence could be used to strengthen structures.
It would have a greater effect on rock or mineral based materials, which was the reason that Mark had designed for the roofs to be composed of clay tiles. However it would also help to a lesser extent with the wooden support beams. Hopefully, the two methods could be used in conjunction. All in all it was a rather obvious use of the essence type.
The building projects would both take a good while, but it would also keep the goblins busy. Of course Mark wanted to make sure the projects turned out well so the goblins needed adequate supervision. He would have the gnome builders check in on the jobs periodically, but he needed intelligent supervisors around the clock. Fortunately, even without Nasal he still had the red hobgoblins who were even smarter. He currently only had 10 of them outside of the dungeon. All working as researchers.
Mark decided to summon 10 more red mages. They would both help supervise the project and work as inscriptionists. They only had so much manna, so it would make sense to allow them to dual hat away from the crafting house while their manna recovered. Then of course during an attack they would also be capable defenders for the settlement. They were pretty versatile, although it came at a cost. The 10 of them would cost 5,000MP which would knock their current MP down to 18,065. However it was definitely worth it.
For the rest of the day the settlement was bustling with activity as goblins scurried about, grumbling, at his direction. He was not planning on being so hands-on for the duration of the projects, but it was essential that things got started off right. He was needed to make decisions such as where they would chop down trees for their lumber, which effectively expanded their clearing. He also spent a good amount of time teaching the new Reds the ins and outs of his plans.
It was late in the day when Mark returned to the core room. Amelia was notably absent, likely still at the crafting house. Even when she ran out of manna she would often hang out there making arrows or other things. Mark guessed that watching movies and reading books got old after a while. The crafting house was really her only outlet and she was spending more and more time there. One to relieve her own boredom. Second to increase her already sizable lead on inscription capability.
Mark had not stayed still in perfecting his abilities. Eventually through trial and error he had figured out how to perfectly modulate his manna flow to result in an average quality inscription for the arrow piercing enchantment that he had come up with. It was the same quality that Amelia could produce, but the difference was that he could easily do it over and over again. He had basically gotten the inscription down to a science. Amelia on the other hand could turn out lower quality inscriptions when her concentration lapsed or her instincts were off.
Mark could not completely hold it over her since when he started another inscription he would have always had a large amount of up front work. Where he would once again have to figure out the manna modulation during the different strokes. There was a chance that it would not even work for other inscriptions entirely.
Then there was also the fact that Amelia even had a couple good quality inscriptions to her name. Instances where everything had clicked and she had gotten things just right. Whereas Mark had already reached the upper limit of what detailing the manna manipulation down to a science could give. There was also the fact that his approach only perfectly worked with the standard interface issued arrows. The ones that were being crafted by the goblins inevitably had differences so his science did not exactly work on them. Amelia’s approach on the other hand could make slight adjustments, so her capability easily still eclipsed his for now.
Mark nodded at the two reds watching the dungeon feed before he entered the shack. Soon warm water was streaming down his body washing the dirt and other grime. It had been a fairly productive day.
As he often did, Mark allowed himself to relax for a few minutes, doing his best to not hold onto any thoughts. Some mental downtime was important, and there was nothing better than relaxing while allowing the hot water to wash his cares away. He needed a break, but just as important he also needed to continually re engage things with a fresh perspective. He had only worked as an engineer for a couple of years, but he had definitely faced getting scope locked.
Where intense focus actually kept someone from progress. It could easily happen as someone mentally went down trails and rabbit holes. As ideas progressed it could eventually lead to a finished project different from the original objectives as things evolved with each new passing thought. It was important to take in the big picture so as to not lose the forest while focusing on the trees so to speak. Last thing he needed to do was miss something basic while getting sidetracked.
During the succession battle, it meant him constantly reevaluating their defenses and dangers. They had already gotten too close to being destroyed several times. They had gotten through by pure luck in some instances. However it was not a good idea to rely on it. However, once again Mark failed to come up with anything new. The other dungeon entrances were a definite unknown since they could never know when another dungeon would attack through them, but he had done all he could until they were able to build a third floor.
The main dungeon should be fairly defended. Scout teams and occasional squad patrols should be able to catch approaching armies with enough time for him to build more units for their defense. Even if they did not, there were still enough soldiers to give an army a hard go. Then the army would now have to go through two full levels of their dungeon.
It seemed to Mark that it was unlikely that another dungeon would perform a full scale attack in the near term. Just like for him, they must also be feeling a growing tension in the progression race. The remaining dungeons on the map would not topple so easily, and taking one out might not even provide enough benefits for how much it would set back their progression. The dungeons were all treading a fine line of moving forward and dungeon development after all.
Mark finished drying off and exited the contender hut. Once again he felt they were secure for now. However, it was always the things that one failed to consider that ended up biting them in the end. There was something glaring that he had failed to consider. Something that he had missed, nearly blindsiding him, threatening to abruptly end it all.