The new relationship between their dungeon and the harpies was almost immediately taken advantage of by the harpies. The very next day, day 46 of the succession battle, harpies began dropping in with tidbits of information with expectations of a juicy morsel from the goblin’s new meat supply. The domesticated animals proved to be more desired by the harpies than the matriarch had let on.
Harpies were reporting all sorts of things. As long as it proved even a bit useful, Mark saw that the harpies at least came away with an egg or even a chicken, much to the goblin’s dismay. The goblin’s morale would likely drop a bit because of it, but they were currently at an all time high with the prospect of fresh meat in camp. Mark could sacrifice a bit of goblin happiness to encourage the inflow of information. He could always restock the coop with more chickens. However, the goblins furiously worked to protect their lambs and piglets. They were far more limited and had to grow from newborns unlike the full adult chickens Mark could summon at will.
Still it seemed that the harpies were more of a nuisance than helpful. That was until the last arrival the night before had come. Mark immediately allowed the harpy to choose a piglet, since the information it brought was slightly alarming. There were more than a half dozen gnoll encampments scattered to the north and west of their dungeon and the harpies pinnacle. Apparently, starting on day 45, the call had gone out for them to assemble. On day 46, over a thousand gnolls had gathered a couple days from their dungeon. It had all appearances of a war band.
It was alarming, but Mark had held out hope that the gnolls would move towards Mareth’s construct dungeon immediately to the west of them. Unsurprisingly, his hopes were quickly dashed today as the harpy returned eager to secure itself a second piglet. The army was moving southeast. There were still chances the army was just choosing a slightly longer more favorable route and would come back east after getting past some of the many bluffs, but Mark would not hold his breath for it.
“What do you think our chances are?” Amelia asked, putting a fist sized wooden plaque down. The two were sitting in the crafting house.
“If the ones coming were at the level of the gnolls we faced in the first week of this battle, we would be more than fine. However, as we talked about yesterday. It is suspicious that the gnolls started gathering the literal day after somebody leveled up their dungeon. Perhaps like the wasps this is one of those timebombs the creators set up. If so, I would not be very surprised if this force is far more impressive than the gnoll settlement we took on,” Mark stated glumly.
“Perhaps, the wasps were a bomb set to explode when someone hit level 3,” Amelia said with a hopeful expression.
“Yeah, Perhaps…” Mark said, giving her a reassuring smile. He was far less optimistic. Crassius had been able to get one of his units up nearly to a 4 power rating in only the second week of the succession battle. The gnolls had over a thousand units in their army, which could mean the gnolls would have a general level unit and up to 3 colonels. Provided that they had military tactics tech, that would mean the units would have a 100 to 75 percent boost to their power ratings respective to the ranks. Not to mention the number of captains and so on.
The harpy had not given much detail other than general numbers of the gnoll army, but Mark was positive the army would not consist of a thousand 1.0 to 2.0 power rating gnolls. Their dungeon could easily deal with the threat if that was all there was to it. No, dungeon level 2 promised to open units of 2.0 power rating and above. With experience and rank percentage increase, it was possible they could be dealing with units all the way up to 5.0 power rating if there were rank boosts. Hopefully, he was wrong, but Mark would prepare for the worst possibility.
“At least we have enough MP, to max out our unit capacity,” Amelia offered. It was true they were sitting at just over 55,000 MP. This attack would once again delay them from unlocking another branch using their MP reserves as Mark had been planning, but their MP was more than enough to prepare for the attack.
“You're right, I think we will definitely have enough MP to bolster our defenses and weather this attack. The real concern would be if we are attacked by one of the other dungeons immediately after. I think Mareth and Nehemiah are definitely keeping close tabs on us, and we know Mareth is not against hitting us when we’re down like she did last time after Crassius’ second attack. What is really going to kill us, is having to expend so much MP when others don’t have to. We are going to fall further behind.”
“It's almost like we are being targeted,” Amelia sighed. “I wonder if any of the dungeons have suffered so much… So what’s our plan? It seems we will have a couple days before they get here.”
“I’ll come up with something and tell you later. We need you to churn out as many of these necklaces, piercing arrows, and leather vests as you can. I think they will make a real difference. Take some Eres rock if you have too,” Mark said, giving her a smug smile and excusing himself.
“Eres rock!” Amelia squealed in protest. Mark felt for her. The Eres rock salt licks were gross. It was basically like having a nasty tasting gum dissolve in your mouth. What was worse is that, they would be forced to experience it for several minutes based on their manna reserves. As far as Mark knew the girl had only tried it once, and had promptly spit it out.
“The tragedy of being good at something. Just take it as me recognizing your talent,” Mark said, moving his shin out of range of her foot.
Amelia shot him a glare that deepened even further when she realized he was already out of range. “Whatever, but I’m not taking Eres rock,” she said, picking the inscribing pen back up and turning away from him. Seconds later her pen flashed as she started on a new small wooden plate.
It was their newest inscription, Mark had come up with the day before. It was Mark’s first vitality inscription. With lack of any other standard equipment for him to inscribe, Mark decided to make simple necklaces that could be worn around a unit's neck. All it would require was twine, that Goblins were able to easily forage, routed through a drilled hole in a wooden plate. The inscription itself could be done rather quickly. Making the twine cord and the wooden plates were the biggest hold up in the process, but they had dozens of goblins in work foraging and crafting.
The necklace would effectively increase a unit's vitality by 30% with a good quality inscription. It was the highest quality seemingly possible for the inscription, but unlike his other designs it was quite easy to achieve. Even Mark had been able to hit good quality occasionally after a few hours of trial and error that morning. The design was just that simple.
The necklace was not perfect. It could easily be lost during a heated battle, as unit’s moved and it bounced around. Still it would perhaps be a game changer increasing vitality by over 3 points for both the hobgoblins and legionnaires. Wounds would not be as deep or bleed as much. At the individual level it might not seem like much, but it would make a big difference overall. In combination with the defensive vest enchantments. Units would be able to survive through more and keep fighting.
Of course it was hardly worth giving either enchantment to the green goblins since they only had a vitality of 3 and a defense of 0. Pushing them up to four in vitality and a 2 in defense was probably not worth the effort. Time would be better served adding another piercing arrow to their reserves and outfitting the higher quality troops.
Mark was more than excited for more and more enchantments to become available. Several of the other attributes were nearing the end stages. If Mark could boost all his units' attributes by 3 points, it would be effectively like raising their power rating substantially. The only limiting factor was the equipment usage restrictions. Unfortunately, it seemed he could not just make a dozen different types of necklaces for the units to wear. They could only have one necklace. Similarly they could have only one other item for other slots.
Another restriction was that he could not use the same enchantment more than once for a unit. He could not make a bunch of defensive inscribed items to fill the unit’s various equipment slots and have them cumulatively raise up his unit’s defense to unreachable heights. There was a provision for sets. Mark could make a bunch of items that belong to a single set, and the set would give a larger overall boost, but shocker, the interface did not allow that as of yet. Mark had not unlocked the required tech.
Whatever, besides for inscribing more items himself, there was not much more he could do to increase their dungeon’s survivability through enchantments in the short run. Only other units that had no enchantments geared towards them were the roaches, and they would require more complicated means. The interface prevented them from using one of their necklaces on them. They would need their own equipment, and so far Mark had not been able to come up with something the interface would allow except for the saddle, and likely poor quality hides being made into saddles was not worth inscribing.
Upon exiting the crafting house, Mark glanced at the octagon shaped research lab pagoda under construction. It was practically complete. By the end of the day it would be finished. It would be a welcome addition. Their dungeon would start getting 3 RP a day instead of 2. The third RP would give them just enough to close out unlocking the fire ant unit.
Of course the greatest advantage would be getting another 10 researchers who would be diligently working to give them new advantages and boons. For its focus, Mark would choose pharmacology. It was time they started making use of their special herbology tech they had gotten from the bullywogs. The focus would be fairly broad. Anything from poisons to potions or pills could become a project.
Any project in the focus should be very helpful. It was not like they could afford to buy and hand out the interface store potions like Crassius had done. For one, they could not field elites that it would be worth it to pay a premium to protect. It was better just to buy more units. Well.. maybe if they ever got the brute orcs as planned, unfortunately things kept popping up before he could unlock the branch
Mark shifted his attention. He needed to come up with his game plan for their defenses. For starters, he elected that 25 red hobgoblins would enter the builder’s hut as non combatants during the battle. Since they had enough MP, he did not feel it was worth risking the loss or delay to progress that their loss might entail. Of course that would mean him building another 5 reds to act as researchers in the new research pagoda that would be finished later today. Then he would add another 5 reds to the entrance guard.
Mark ran the numbers finally deciding to have 15 standard patrols, which would mean he would need to spend 24,885 to buy the additional 9. That would leave them 16 more till they hit the cap for reds. Mark decided that would be adequate to add to the 12 yellow mages that were still in the camp. In addition to the archers, there should be plenty of range support. Mark grimmaced, just those additions would cost them nearly 80% of their 55,000 MP that they were currently at, and unless he pulled back some of the hundred odd frogman from the swamps they would only have just under 600 units to fight outside the dungeon.
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With a defensive advantage and the higher caliber of units they were fielding, perhaps it would be enough. Mark thought about it for a few minutes. No, they could not risk it. He would need to narrow the margin a bit more. He would not build any more patrols, but some reserve units to fill the gaps. However, he did not have to decide everything now. In fact he would not even buy units this far in advance. They would have at least a couple days for him to adjust his game plan. Perhaps, he would have a better idea when they could put eyes on the approaching army with the help of a linked scout squad.
Mark only briefly considered whether to include any beasts in the attack. He eventually decided against it. The beasts or Calvary could not take advantage of their defenses effectively. No, it would be better to have more units manning the walls. Not to mention using the beast units at this point would unveil them to the other dungeon scouts that would undoubtedly watch the upcoming battle. Mark had done what he could to keep it a secret. So far they had only summoned one unit, and it had been kept tucked away deep in the woods. A hidden ace like that could come in handy on an attack.
Mark pushed around a bunch of ideas, but in the end he was left frustrated by how much the MP expenditure would be to hold off the attack. Just to match the approaching army man for man they would likely have to expend more MP than they currently had. Sure they had another two days for their MP to go up, but they would still be losing a good week of MP production to repel the attack. The MP they would receive for defeating enemies in their territory would only regain them perhaps a day's worth.
It would not only set back their plans, but it would also put them in a vulnerable position with the surrounding dungeons. It really did seem like they were facing more unnecessary hardships compared to the other contenders. How could they continue to compete?
Day 48: Mareth Ingall
Mareth watched as the lumbering figures broke through the outer wall. The attack had been sudden. One of her scouts motionlessly sitting amongst the foliage had only identified the figures minutes before they would reach her territory. It was seemingly an impossible task since each of the trolls was a good 12 feet tall. Surely, one of her outer rings of scouts should have picked them out before they got that close. It was as if they had popped out of a hole in the ground almost right on top of her.
Mareth had scrambled for the few minutes that she had to bolster defenses. She had nearly 700 units already, but with only a few minutes to prepare it was best to be safe since she did not have visuals. When only 15 red blimps had popped on her tactical screen, she felt the extra preparation had been unnecessary. That is until she saw the hulking figures, each carrying a tree trunk sized club. Almost a perfect nemesis against her constructs or well anything really. All but one of the trolls had a power rating of 4.2. The leader was all the way up to a 4.5.
Still Mareth had not been overly concerned, until after the first barrage of acid balls from her creepers. The trolls were left with nasty skin wounds, but not a single one went down. Worse when Mareth zoomed in to see the extent of the wounds she had found that there was seemingly something inherent to the trolls combatting the corrosives from eating through their flesh. They were indeed her nemesis.
The 700 units she had felt were sufficient only moments before, now felt to be far from enough. The breach in her walls had been completed in only a matter of minutes. Now hundreds of her units surrounded and jabbed at the hulking figures. Wounds were accumulating, but the trolls continued seemingly unperturbed. They swung their clubs back and forth. Her units, the buildings, were all being quickly turned into debris. Only a few minutes had passed, but her units had yet to bring down one of the trolls, although it was true a handful of them seemed to be on their last legs.
It took only another 20 minutes for the trolls to reduce the rest of her settlement to rubble and kill her units. They were just too overpowered at this stage in the battle. Mareth watched a pair of the remaining trolls enter her dungeon. They would be the first enemies to ever enter. While it was true that the two were heavily damaged, Mareth was not quite confident that the 25 defenders could hold out.
Why had she not built a second floor? She had the MP. In fact she was currently sitting with over 100,000 MP. Likely could have built several more floors, but she had held off a lot of other expenditures in favor of ranking up her dungeon to level 2. She had decided to wait a few more days to build up her MP reserves, before taking the step. Now she might never get the opportunity, if her 25 defenders could not hold out.
Day 49: Gale Barbery
“Blasted frogs! I swear after we get through this, I’m going to wipe the bulllywog village off the map,” Gale promised. “If there even is anymore,” she added. This time it looked like they had pulled out all the stops.
Hundreds of green and aqua figures continuously popped out of the water and over the stones, forming the foundation of her new wall. They were seemingly popping out from nowhere, having traveled all the way through her territory submerged. Interestingly enough the frogman did not appear on her tactical map either, so she actually had no clue on how many there actually were. However, there were over 500 of them and there were no signs of them stopping.
The army was in her territory before she could take any additional measures, but the attack was not a complete surprise. Gale’s lizardman were almost as at home in the land as the frogmen were. They had noticed something. Perhaps they had seen some swirls in the water, or what little wildlife there was had quieted down. Regardless, they had raised the alarm of approaching enemies in time for her lizardmen to set aside the stones they were toting to the outer stone wall and to start prepping their defense.
Still, Gale would not have been overly concerned. The frogmen were not a real threat to her lizardmen, but the frogmen had brought something new this time. Already several 15 foot long crocodile monstrosities had climbed up and over her stone wall and back into the mud. Each one had a power rating of 3.6, and looked to be quite dangerous. Perhaps the frogmen had some beast tamers. Regardless, Gale was not too worried.
The lizardmen fought from behind the old mud wall. The new stone wall was far too patchy to provide any measure of defense. Only a few sections even jutted out of the water. Most of the wall was either right at the water line or just below. It would take several more months for it to even be the size of the mud wall. It would be far wider and enclosed more than double the area.
“Dear, perhaps we should go inside the dungeon,” her husband's voice came from down below.
“Not now, Tom!... I much prefer to see the battle from here,” Gale said.
There was just something about being there in person. Almost like she was a part of it. She had lived nearly a century, but had never felt so alive. Seeing two opposing forces clash was far more interesting than the political bickering she was accustomed to. Here she did not have to worry about getting stabbed in the back or other agendas. No, here she had complete control. The succession battle was far from over, but she already felt like the Queen of the realm.
Day 49
The news kept coming in over the last few days. The construct dungeon had been hit by a small war band of giants the day before. The dungeon was still there, but everything had been almost entirely destroyed on the surface. Mark supposed, Mareth had almost faced her own extinction moment.
Then earlier today, the bullywogs had attacked the lizardman dungeon. Although Gale’s forces had fared far better. There had even been word that her forces had already set out in the direction of the bullywog village. The village likely would not exist by tomorrow. It was not a real loss for Mark and Amelia. There had been a couple more interactions with the bullywogs, but they just did not really have anything that could be useful. Their village was a hovel and they seemingly had no motivation for improving their lifestyle.
Maybe if Mark could have convinced them to join forces, but from what he saw of their own frogmen they were not the best fighters. Perhaps the system had not been as generous as he had previously thought when giving them the fishery. They got their fifth batch of tadpoles and pollywogs. Mark decided to keep these ones here for the fight instead of sending them into the swamp along with all the others. So far they really had not proved all that useful, so these 26 level 2 warriors could fight for them today. It should be somewhat of a boost to their defense, if only marginally.
The news was welcome. Other than the kobold dungeon, the others would not seem to be in a place to take advantage and attack them after they finished with the gnolls. Luckily, the kobold dungeon was the furthest from them, and it seemed they would perhaps make their move on Mareth. She was having a bad few days. Although Mark could not be completely comfortable with the news. After all, the kobold army could just as easily shift toward their own dungeon since Mareth’s dungeon was somewhat in between the two.
However, it was not only good news that reached them. According to one of the harpies, a good sized band of orcs had joined up with the gnolls. Mark did not have to guess where they had come from. Likely, they were the remnants from Crassius’ second attack, who had fled after their dungeon had fallen. Even from the grave he was proving to be a real pain in the ass. It was what it was.
Mark’s preparations had run into a snag while preparing for this attack. They were hitting their capacity with units left and right. First with the green goblins, Mark did not have enough to build the 15 patrols he had planned. To mitigate the issue, Mark finally unlocked the horned goblins. He had been putting that off for a while since there really had not been much use for them.
Mark had never really seen the need for the horned goblins until this point. After all, if he needed fodder there were the green goblins. If they needed anything else there were the hobgoblin varieties and the legionnaires. The horned goblins 0.6 power rating had just not been very enticing. However, they needed them now. It only took 1,000 MP to unlock them. Now nearly half their fodder was made of the little horned brutes. They were just slightly bigger than their green brethren, and not any smarter. Their added stats were all to their physical attributes.
Horned Goblin (1/166) Warrior lvl 2 (conscript) Power lvl: 0.6 Morale: 50 (content) Strength 6 Attack: 1 Defense: 1 Endurance 8 Abilities/Skills Agility 9 Vitality 6 Intelligence 3 Wisdom 2
Mark also had recalled most of their forces guarding their outpost. Since Mark had elected to not use their new insect units in this battle he needed the numbers. It was not really much of a risk. A builder hut at the outpost would ensure the shade's safety if it was attacked. After the battle, he could determine how many units to send there afterwards to make it secure.
In total their forces consisted of 15 patrols, the 25 entrance guard, 33 mages, and 26 frogmen. Eight of the patrols were filled with green goblins. The other seven had horned goblins, and one of the patrols even had yellow hobgoblins instead of the legionnaires since they were capped at 83 units. The 10 squads and 20 legionnaires that had returned from the outpost would be kept as reserves to bolster weak points. In total they had 759 units that would fight outside of the dungeon.
Mark scanned his forces with his personal interface. Amelia was looking around with the big dungeon one. The earthen fortifications were pretty crowded. That was despite three of the patrols being stationed outside the walls. Mark would need to expand them in the future. They had been made when several hundred units was an overwhelming force. Although they had been expanded slightly after the construct battle, they would need to be widened further soon. Although some of the problem would be solved by the massive two story tower that was being constructed. It would potentially hold several hundred goblin archers and mages, but it unfortunately would not be of any benefit today.