Following the beast's collapse, goblins arose from all over the room. There were exactly 20 of them, not including Nasal. It was not exactly a surprise since Mark had counters with how many of each type of unit were still in the war party. The fact that a quarter of the goblins had survived was slightly offset by the fact that it was only green goblins and yellow hobgoblins that had made it out. All the more expensive units had been dealt with by the behir, so Mark would still have to pay a lot of MP to rebuild the patrols and units from the entrance guard. In hindsight Mark should have sent a lot more archers instead of the elite goblin units, but they had expected something far different than the monstrosity they ended up finding.
Still Mark was excited. He would have been fine if only one survived the ordeal. Well… as long as the survivor would have the mind to claim the real prize of the day. Mark felt his heart almost stop as he watched Nasal slide container after container of the life essence down the ramp. The ramp was slick, but it was not necessarily completely smooth. One of the containers wobbled precariously before settling down at the base.
“Really, Nasal,” Mark said, flabbergasted by the goblin leader. If they had been slightly unluckier they could have lost some of the precious essence. The claylike container lids would keep the essence contained through most any movement, except if they were turned upside down. “I guess, he is a goblin after all,” Mark sighed. Not like he could forget the fact, but he was the most dependable of them.
Amelia snickered to his side, but Mark noted that she also watched in worry as the goblin leader transported one container after another. Both of them were worried that the leader would slip on the condensation or blood that lined the floor, or perhaps even trip over a groove in the rock or the bodies or bones that were scattered throughout the chamber. There had been a few almost comical slip ups during the fight. Only almost comical, since the result usually resulted in one of the goblins getting ripped apart. While Mark did not particularly care about the goblins, it did cost MP to replace them.
Nasal finished transporting the three containers. Thankfully, he had not delegated the task down as was common for goblin society. He was at least that dependable. Over the next 15 minutes the goblin leader carefully applied the essence. An hour later and they would have their third floor guardian.
“Mark… I got a crazy idea,” Amelia said hesitantly. Mark looked at her. “What if we use the snake monster to attack one of the other dungeons. I mean before we make it a guardian.”
Mark’s mind went ablaze with the possibility. “If we were going to attack a dungeon with the behir. We would probably choose Nehemiah. He is not the closest, but Mareth’s dungeon has those acid attacks which are quick and were extremely effective against Winnie. Then we would have to send a full assault force along with the beast which would delay upgrading to dungeon level 2.
“So, it's a bad idea…” Amelia stated frowning.
“I would not say it is a bad idea. The behir is extremely overpowered at this stage. I think with a full assault force accompanying the beast we would likely have a good chance… But we would lose a week’s worth of progress and risk our new floor guardian. Not to mention we would be delaying dungeon floor number 3 on top of dungeon level 2. I have no idea whether the special reward would be worth it,” Mark surmised.
“So, it would be a fairly risky gambit…” Amelia trailed off.
Mark sighed. “I think so. Delaying dungeon level 2 probably is not too big of a deal, but I would be lying if I said that I felt our dungeon was secure against Nick holt or others. It would take at least 4 days to attack Nehemiah’s dungeon and get our force back. God knows, I want to pay Nehemiah back for the sneak attack last week, but I don’t know if taking him out now will really help us long term. According to you, he is not one of the contenders that is even favored to win.”
“I actually have another idea. We build the third floor as planned and assign the guardian, but then we hold off on the rest of the defenders until we get to level 2. Hopefully, we will then be able to build a much stronger floor. That should secure our dungeon for a long time, freeing us to focus on other things,” Mark posed.
“Yeah, your idea is better,” Amelia relented with a hmppfff.
“It’s alright. Your idea was not bad. Who knows everything could have aligned and we could have gotten one of those special rewards and secured our dungeon afterwards, but I would really rather avoid another nail-biter situation, wondering if we will or won’t make it.”
The rankings posted at nightfall. Mark and Amelia were eating dinner, but they immediately both pulled up their own screens. The rankings only included the rank, the contender’s name, and their faction. Mark’s eyes scanned the list. It did not take him long to find Amelia’s name. They were ranked 20th. That was pretty good, since Altair was a small faction, which generally meant they were disregarded. Viewers had decided that four other dungeons were weaker despite the disadvantage of likely not getting sponsorship support. Potentially they were even stronger than the rankings gave them credit for.
Mark reread the list. Rankings 25-35 were all assigned to the dungeons that had already fallen. A parenthesis at the bottom stated that they were conquered. That was a rather delicate way of saying that they were all dead, although it did go with the dungeon battle theme.
Most of the names did not mean much to Mark. He mainly searched for the names they knew. The lowest on the list was Mareth at 21st place, and Nehemiah was actually just below their own dungeon in 18th place. They were effectively sandwiched between their main competitors. Gale was a bit further down the list at 14th, and finally Mark reached Nick Holt’s name. He was sitting all the way up in 3rd place.
Second place was held by Richard Lambert from the Republic of Neurim. Amelia had actually mentioned the republic several times before. They had three contenders like the other three major factions, but they always put all of their eggs in one basket. Their choice contender always survived till the end. Sometimes even receiving questionable support from the other two in their faction. Luckily, it seemed like one of the dungeons from the republic had already fallen.
First place was held by Daniel Hale from Luca. It was an unfamiliar faction. A quick scan through the rankings only revealed one other from the same faction, although they had already been conquered. It must be quite the upset if someone from one of the medium sized factions was currently ranked first. Mark could only imagine how strong the dungeon would have to be to garner the support from more viewers than a larger faction. Some people would vote truthfully for rankings. Kind of like college and professional sports back on earth there were brackets where people ranked the dungeons and were allowed to periodically update them. People who guessed right could win rewards. It was one method to keep people a bit more honest, but people would always be a bit biased for contenders from their own faction or those from factions that did well historically.
Besides for first place, the major factions had a fairly good hold on the top ten, with only two other medium sized factions holding a spot, and they were in 9th and 10th place. The major faction, Magnum, held 4th, 5th, and 7th, and 6th place was held by another contender from the Altin Federation, the same faction as Nick Holt. Then a contender from Gale’s faction, Guennever alliance, currently held down 8th place. Gale and the other surviving Republic contender were the only contenders from major factions outside the top 10 that were still in the battle, meaning three had been eliminated.
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Fortunately Crassius had eliminated one in his early rampage. It meant that Gale was the only contender from a major faction in their little dungeon grouping, and she had the lowest ranking among them. It was seemingly a spot of luck that none of the nearby dungeons were considered to be strong.
Mark checked one more thing. A quick scan showed that there was only one of the other five minor faction contenders left, and that guy was currently sitting dead last in 24th place. The real question would be whether that guy and themselves could hang on as other contenders started getting more and more outside help.
Mark’s attention was grabbed by a new notification.
[Admin: Initial phase of the succession battle is completed. You have been assigned a public relations representative, Cynthia. She will work with the broadcasting department to maintain your image. A new chat feature has been made available.]
Cynthia: day 56
The assignment message had been on her desk when Cynthia first arrived this morning. It was the final day of the second month of the succession battle, so representatives had been given a full day to get acquainted with their client before the first official rankings were posted.. Assignments were coming a month earlier than the creators had projected. Contenders were progressing slightly faster than the creators had intended, but at least they had known it was coming for a week now.
The purpose for the public relations (PR) representative was to cultivate the image of their contender to attract sponsorship. They would work closely with broadcast personnel with their contender’s feeds. During phase 1, they were not assigned due to the versatile nature of the battle. There was no point in putting too much effort for each of the contenders when a good number of them would not make it to phase 2 when sponsorship was actually available. In fact exactly one third had not.
The difference was that in phase 1, the battle was only broadcast on a monthly basis. Phase 2 the broadcast would be weekly with short daily highlight reals to mainly serve to keep people informed of the status of the contenders. It officially kicked off the battle fervor which would last until the battle’s completion. The shift between phases had always been set to occur at the end of the same month that the first contender reached level 2. Of course that honor had gone to Nicholas Holt, but a handful of other dungeons had already followed suit, and most of the others would not be too far behind.
Although the sponsorship feature had been unlocked, few had actually started to receive support packages. Only people like Nick Holt whose family was chomping at the bit to support would receive packages this early. The rest would wait for the phase 2 kick off. However that would soon change. Once the highlights started getting broadcast weekly sponsorships would start rolling in. At least for most people.
Cynthia was not exactly surprised by her assignment to Altair. She had paid close attention to the feeds of a couple of the projected lower ranking dungeons for the last few weeks. She was always going to get one of them provided at least 23 contenders survived through phase 1, since she was the 23rd representative. The job might not last very long since the bottom ranked contenders were not expected to make it very far, but it was still a dream job that she had somehow managed to lock down. She could only be thankful she was not the 25th PR rep who had lost out, when a 11th contender had been eliminated only a week before phase 2 started.
Cynthia had never been to Altair. She did not even think she had met someone from the planet, yet she had been excited when the assignment became official. It was definitely a setback that it was a contender from one of the weakest factions, but of the three feeds she had watched their dungeon showed the most promise. At the very least, they would survive longer than the other two and she could keep playing.
What had been a surprise were the rankings. Amelia Cromwell had been projected to be in 23rd place, but had landed at 20th when the first rankings became official. Cynthia was sure that there were three very unhappy PR reps out there, upset that their contenders had dropped a place, but their loss was her gain.
It was the projection's fault for thinking Amelia Cromwell should be 23rd in the first place. Their dungeon was clearly better than some of the other dungeons, but the stigma of being from a weak faction had clearly skewed the voting. However, rankings concluded a full hour after the second month's broadcast had concluded. Meaning there had been plenty of time for voters to shift rankings around.
The fact that they had obtained the behir alone had resulted in some voters ranking their dungeon down into the single digits. Of course those were outliers, Cynthia felt occurred due to the current number one dungeon. That guy was one of the few that went the beast and plant routes and he was utterly dominating those around him. He had even earned a moniker, which was not exactly common in these battles. Most were known simply by their name, but Daniel Hale was now referred to as the Beast Lord. Although he had unlocked the tree branch, he had mainly used them for defense.
Beasts dominating one side of the map played favorably for other dungeons with beast branches unlocked, and Amelia had both managed to get both beast and plant branch. Not to mention the powerful reanimated beast corpses. It could be said Amelia was the contender that had the most similar prospects as the number one dungeon. Although they had not done much with either of their new classes. However, the reanimated corpses had played a pivotal role in their dungeon's survival since early on. With the new behir, the comparisons were already being made. Many rankings had shifted moving Amelia into the mid teens, some even moved her into the single digits, picking her as their rankings major upset. Cynthia was not sure whether Amelia could last that long, but with the new behir she was at least confident that Amelia would be safe for another month or two. It was welcome job security.
Her client was also doing well in other areas of the game. All sorts of metrics were ranked in this battle by various entities. The rankings were supposed to be the overall combination of a contender’s performance, but it was also the most susceptible to being skewed since it was somewhat of a popularity vote.
Solid unarguable metrics like MP production, her clients had managed to get down into the mid teens. Which was despite being one of the four dungeons that got the poor start condition, receiving only 3 coal mounds in their territory. They were also doing pretty good in the more ambiguous metrics. Research wise they had managed to get into the single digits. They were one of the few dungeons that had completed most of their level 1 techs. On top of that their research lab was doing very well. The quality of equipment, enchantment wise, was one of the best.
Of course they were also metrics for which her client was doing very poorly in. Fighting strength they were 22nd, and due to all the attacks on their dungeon, Amelia was at the top of the rankings for MP expenditure waste. Which was not a good metric for her to be leading. Another area where her client was falling behind was unit upgrades. Every single other dungeon had at least a few level 3 classes or their equivalent unlocked.
Regardless, the rankings were not everything for Cynthia. If her client was able to continue to survive their ranking would naturally increase. Instead Cynthia had to come up with an angle to sell her client. Her client likely would get little if any support from her family or faction, and obviously other governmental entities were out since they would have their own candidates. No one thought she could win, so few would support her for that reason. No, Cynthia would have to garner support from private parties, typically companies or interest groups.
The route Cynthia would take was already decided. A young guy, a young girl, the romantic route was the obvious choice, and the contender and champion themselves had practically laid down the tracks, making it easy. Cynthia may not be the only one going down this route, but she had something going for her that the reps didn’t. A big scene of the champion racing across their dungeon to save the girl. Haaa! let the other reps compete with that.
There was maybe one other dungeon that could play the romance aspect as good or better than Cynthia could. Avary Kingston, the model from magnum, currently sitting in 5th place. Let alone being a popular model realm wide, the girl was also a princess from a major faction. If Cynthia did not have such good material to work with, competing would be near impossible. It was still an uphill battle, since Avary Kingston would be expected to make it far into the game and Amelia was not.
Cynthia quit thinking about it and went back to work sifting through the feeds. It would be up to her to put together the hour long special introducing these two to the Arcadian Realm. She would of course highlight their dungeons feats, letting potential sponsors see that they would not go down easy, but she would also focus on the two as characters. The realm did not have to know that Mark spent 90% of his time away from her, and the girl either was lounging around or crafting. Nope, Cynthia could paint the picture of the two of them fighting together hand in hand despite the two making it difficult for her.