The third month of the succession battle was drastically different from the first two months. True to what her clients had expected there seemed to be a lull in the building of armies as dungeons focused on building their strength, but with alternate dungeon entrances popping up all across the map contenders did not need large armies to strike at the competition, so the battlefield was not completely quiet. During the month four dungeons had fallen through their alternate entrances, which was a sharp increase from the only one dungeon that had fallen through the alternate entrances in the preceding two months. Sponsorship units and powerful new level 2 units made quick work of the meager defenses that most of the dungeons had in place. Even her clients had been attacked twice through the alternate entrances.
The first was the expected return of Nick Holt on Day 71. As expected the attack hit like a sledgehammer on their dungeon. Parties of elite adventurers poured into their dungeon, 15 at a time. Their first floor fell completely to fifteen skeletal knights, a new unit from the skeletal branch with a base power rating of 2.5, but the attacking units had power ratings of 3.9 due to being adventurers and level 3 warriors. Only half the knights had fallen before they were able to finish off Winnie and the other defenders and proceed to the second floor.
The second floor was able to finish off the first adventuring party along with the two following. Unlike the first floor, the other defenders were able to better support their guardian. The legionnaires and brute orcs were just strong enough to somewhat be able to stall the more powerful attackers, while the mages and Bruce whittled down their numbers.
The second adventuring party was another group of skeletal knights. The third party had five more knights and ten lizardmen units that had likely come from a sponsorship package. Only a couple of red mages were able to survive the 3rd wave as the last of the lizardmen took down the floor guardian. The fourth adventuring party was a group of fifteen fiends of various types, all with power ratings in the mid to high 3’s. Likely another sponsorship package the fiends burst right through the respawned units on the first and second floors and the surviving second floor mages.
Cynthia only felt worried for a few minutes. Once Dragon engaged the fiends it quickly became apparent that the attacking force would fail. The fiends opened wounds all over the behir, but Dragon was killing them far easier. He was slower than he had been as a living being, but was still easily quick enough to catch them one by one. Dragon’s body was absolutely massive, so the small wounds from fiend claws and fangs were just too insufficient to slow the brute down. It would take more than a few similar strength adventuring parties to take him down. Nick Holt had apparently come to the same conclusion and had decided to give up the assault despite having several more adventuring parties standing by.
Mark had gladly accepted the dungeon spawner that resulted from that attack. It cost 30 DP but would produce 10 level 3 warrior skeletal knights. The 3.3 power rating knights could respawn once daily, which would occur as soon as the third floor was free from attackers. It meant they would get two rounds of 10 knights to fight as long as the knights had not been attacked within the last day.
The second attack came only 2 days later from the 4th ranked contender, Jack Wynham. The Magnum faction contender had gone the construct route. Since Winnie and Bruce had yet to respawn, the construct forces stormed right through the first floor, only losing one full a few gargoyles to the rolling pin. The second floor was just able to manage to wipe out the remainder of the first party, before easily succumbing to the second. However, Jack Wynham also gave up on the attack after his second adventuring party was easily wiped out by Dragon and the supporting skeletal knights.
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Despite not seeing the big picture, almost all of the contenders had figured it out. The alternate entrances were their greatest weakness, and by building more floors to shore up that weakness, they were only spawning new entrances through which their dungeon could be attacked. Despite it potentially exasperating the problem, they had little choice. The 25 defenders on a floor were just too insufficient to deal with a potentially revolving door of 15 unit elite adventuring teams.
The dungeon features II became a priority as contenders all rushed to fill up the weakness as the battle entered a cold war-like state. Oddly enough, the least concerned with that aspect was her own clients. They had proceeded with Mark’s plan of knocking out the magical production II tech and metal casting. It was likely because their third floor was one of the strongest yet made, and that was with only the guardian and a spawner. It looked like it would still be some time before, Mark would feel inclined to add the 25 defenders.
Other than the two attacks on their dungeon, all had been quiet for her clients. Since all of their MP and RP were being saved to research techs, they really only could develop their dungeon through designing and inscribing enchantments. Which they were doing. The three neighboring dungeons were all still around, but had not bothered them in the slightest.
Cynthia smiled as the rankings were finally posted. The bottom 15 places had now been decided since they had been conquered. The top ten places had hardly changed. The exception was that the contender from the Guinnevere Alliance holding down 8th place had been eliminated. The 9th and 10th place holders had shifted down, with the new 10th place being held down by Leonard Boulevic from the Republic of Neurim.
The next ten places had seen more of a shuffle, with Gale Barbary moving up to 11th place. She was the last remaining contender from the major faction, Guinnevere Alliance, and was also the last contender from a major alliance to not fall in the top 10 on the rankings. Mareth and Nehemiah held down 17th and 18th place respectively. Mareth had overtaken Nehemiah in the ranks, and her client had not been ignored. Amelia Cromwell was now the last remaining contender from one of the minor factions left, and she was now all the way up in 13th place.
It was not that people thought that her client was that strong compared to the other contenders. The bias against minor factions was still there. It was that her third floor made people wary to rank them any lower. No one expected adventurers to be strong enough to overwhelm Dragon and the skeletal knights anytime soon, and none of the battle’s powerhouses were located anywhere near their dungeon, so no one expected for an overwhelming force to hit the dungeon proper.
Bottom line, her client was riding a bubble of relative safety while many of the lower ranked dungeons were teetering on the edge. It was well deserved in Cynthia’s opinion, since they had endured a brutal gambit over the first few weeks of the battle. But the bubble would not last forever. Higher level classes, skills, better inscriptions, etcetera… were coming.
Other dungeons were coming along at an alarming rate. The gap between her clients' inscriptions and other dungeons was falling. A month ago hardly any of the other dungeons had more than the standard gear. That was changing. Her client had taken down the behir with a bunch of weak goblins with piercing arrows. Who was to say that the other dungeons could not perform the same once their equipment or other capabilities hit the same level.