A misting rain was hardly enough to keep Mark inside. It was actually quite the reprieve from the rain that had been coming nearly nonstop over the last month. The torrent of rain and flash floods had caused rivers to spring up across the low points of the valley but had not really caused them much of an issue except for making the condition of their settlement far less favorable. The month of rain had turned their dungeon into a muddy mess. Nearly every day a section of their earthen wall would collapse despite the many wooden supports bracing it up. It was still early in the morning, so the goblins were all sleeping huddled together under the pagoda tower’s protection. Mark would have an hour or so to himself, except for the handful of entrance guards forced to come along.
Mark glanced at the two story tower. The wood contrasted against the cloudy sky. It was practically finished. They just needed to add the tiles for the roofing. It was already impressive looking. The two levels of the tower would provide the vantage for their range defenders to mow down attackers. Which was a good thing since the walls were far less formidable than they had been a month earlier.
Mark did not know whether they would ever be really fixed until the conditions improved. It did not matter too much in the short term since the nearby dungeons had all remained hunkered down just like they had, and in another six weeks they would unlock masonry and start building something even better. It would be the next sinkhole they would work toward.
Today they finally got the last of the RP needed to finish metal casting, allowing the new project. It was the second of the second level techs to be researched. They had saved up their MP for magic energy production II for the first 13 days after hitting level 2. The Tech did not give much, only allowing them the ability to build three manna pumps.
Just like the manna bellows, the manna pumps could pull manna from the environment, this time directly from the earth. Just like oil wells a counterweight spun while the main arm dipped up and down. The only difference was that the oil pumps did not need to be manned like the bellows did. Each pump cost 25,000 MP to build, but it was easily worth it since each pump would add 2,500 MP to the daily production, paying itself off within 10 days.
It took an additional 7 days to build the three manna pumps, increasing their daily production rate up to 16,630. Since they were spending just under a 1,000 MP on daily upkeep costs the MP was really rolling in. They were currently sitting at 42,958.
Besides unlocking the tech and building the pumps, Mark had only spent MP on a few things other than upkeep. Mark had summoned 50 level 2 warrior legionnaires to keep the barracks training going, for 11,500 MP, but the biggest expense was the 20,000 he had dropped for the outpost in the old wasp nest. The gnomes had secured the location, sealing and concealing the tunnels. It was a necessary expenditure to give them access to the pool of toxic essence. They would need it soon to build the creepy crawly units in large quantities. Mark only needed to leave a handful of goblins to guard the outpost and transport the essence from the pool to the outpost building. The gnomes had done a phenomenal job. Unless someone knew it was there it would be difficult for anybody to locate that there was anything but cliff face there.
Last month things had been relatively quiet with the exception of the two attacks on their dungeon. Dragon was absolutely dominant. The contenders that saw him, had immediately given up, despite being the 3rd and 4th ranked contenders. A benefit of only being attacked by strong forces meant that the spawner options could only be good. Mark of course had already accepted the first of the options presented. The skeletal knights were actually their first units to have metal weapons. Each carried a rough heavy iron sword. Nick Holt had perhaps had the same frame of mind as Mark had, deciding to pursue metal casting first, or he had just equipped them from the store. Metal weapons became available from the interface store as soon as a dungeon hit level 2.
Of course, Mark had decided to unlock their own ability to create metal weapons since the interface store charged a premium for the privilege to get metal weapons or shields. Mark scrolled through the tabs. Now that they had unlocked metal casting iron weapons became a part of the standard loadout. Any units they summoned from now on would have iron weapons. For replacements they would need to make their own, but they would need a few things.
The first was the mine to get the raw resource. Mark would pay for it with DP since they had a lot. Other than the 30 DP they had spent for the third floor spawner and a few DP to make buildings a part of the dungeon, they had been saving it up leaving them with 48 DP. The mine would take them down to 37. Mark was not too concerned about losing a floor for utility purposes. They would still have another floor to build. Plus dungeon features II likely would give them the ability to build more floors among other things.
The other thing they would need was the forge building. Just like the crafting house or the research building, the forge promised to be a staple building that they would depend on for the rest of the battle. Mark could pay 30 DP to build it directly, but that would take away the opportunity to get a special feature. Of course if Mark really wanted the special feature, he would have to get the gnomes to do the work.
The 10 gnome builders were currently still working on the basement for the research lab, and likely would be for another month. Mark grimmaced at the thought of what he would have to promise to get Cedrick to devote some more gnomes to the project. It would be a quick project, likely only taking a couple of weeks depending on how many gnomes Mark could get Cedrick to devote to the project. Luckily, Mark had expected a new building, so had already arranged for their weekly meeting to fall today.
Mark opened up the project page under the research building. Quite a few projects had finished, and new projects had been started.
Their enchantment arsenal was by far the largest. They now had 8 enchantments, having finished the endurance, duplicate projectiles, and energy shield projects. Mark had already made new inscriptions for the projects. Their main endurance inscription was put on leather belts, which mainly had to be provided by the gnomes since the goblins' leatherwork was atrociously bad.
The duplicate projectiles became the second inscription that could be added to arrows. The inscription would go near the base of the arrow to minimize interference with the piercing enchantments near the head. Still the interference would make the arrows unstable unless both inscriptions were at least of average or good quality, and even then the interference seemed to drop the potency of both enchantments to a degree. Still the passive special feature lessening interference between the different inscriptions was likely playing a role in even making it possible to accomplish.
Amelia and some of the gnomes were the only ones able to accomplish the task. Even if Mark could manage to make two good quality inscriptions, he could not do it on the same arrow since it required some skill to diminish the interference on the second inscription. Amelia related it to something akin to weaving a second inscription onto the first. Mark and the Reds could not even begin to manage the process.
Still it was not overly taxing. Amelia by herself could easily make a hundred each day if it was the only craft she worked on for the day. Her finished arrows would split into four midair. Each would retain the piercing enchantment, resulting in a deadly barrage. It was the craft that had convinced Mark of his next step.
Mark had run into a lot of problems with the manna shield inscription. The manna required was just too much for what even their mages could manage. The shield would drain them, making it virtually useless since it would only protect them for a short time and leave them drained and useless. However, one of the projects in progress might solve the problem.
The manna reserve project was the most anticipated of the enchantments in work. Although there was also the light, smoke, and flame enchantments, among a handful that were still undefined.
For classes, they had two unlocked. The goblin war-drummer class had been unlocked over a week ago now. It was a pure support class that was not upgradeable. All it did was boost morale by a minimum of 20%, which did not sound like much. Until Mark saw it in practice. He only summoned one green goblin with the class to minimize the MP expenditure, but quickly found that the goblin war drum class would be a staple of their large armies.
It would raise morale 20% even in dire straits. If things looked to be in the goblins favor it could raise it by even more. It could even get the goblins up to a perfect 100 in morale for a limited amount of time. It was a level they had not reached yet for morale, Fanatic. The results were far from the minor boosts provided when moving through the standard happiness levels: miserable, unhappy, content, happy, or cheerful. Goblin’s in a fanatical state would go into battle with all the ferocity that came almost naturally for races like the orcs or gnolls.
Mark could only imagine what it would be like to have thousands of goblins in such a state. Only issue with the class was their sphere of influence. The closer to the drums the goblins were, the more intense the change of state would be. Even at this point Mark would have to scatter a handful throughout the ranks.
The second class unlocked had been far more anticipated, the spiritualist class. Unlike the war-drummer class it was not specific to goblins which meant the gnomes could use it. The spiritualist class was a specialized class that fell under the mage umbrella. Meaning they would have to rank their mage class up to unlock higher levels of spiritualists, although the spiritualists class would already be unlocked. Spiritualist’s could raise the spirits of former enemy dungeon units. A level 1 spiritualist had a capacity of a 5 power rating worth of units.
The class was slightly limiting since it did require life essence to build units, and they would have to go into battle with another dungeon to capture enemy spirits for future use, but it did show promise. If they ran into an enemy dungeon that used goblins. The spiritualist would be able to capture the spirits of up to 20 green goblins to fight on their behalf. Of course it was likely better to capture 2 or 3 better units. It was a lot of effort, but once they unlocked mage level 2, the spiritualist capacity would further increase. There was one caveat for the class. They could only have 10 of them at any point in time, and it counted ones placed as defenders in the dungeon. It was an unusual stipulation, but then again Mark could see how the class could break the balance if there was not such a limit.
A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.
Several more specialized class projects were still in progress including the Tattooist (class), the goblin War hammer class, and the sapper class. Both the former sounded interesting but were hardly near completion, being under 50%. The sapper class was actually something they really needed. Mark would be building their mine today. Sapper’s would likely be far more efficient at mining then any other class type, but they still had some time since the completion was only at 84%.
For essence projects, only the vitality bomb had been completed. After which it was good for a single use. It would create a 30 foot diameter sphere of influence that would heal and revitalize units. Once again it had limited use. It depended on their supply of life essence, and it was indiscriminate so would have the same effect for any units caught in the sphere of influence whether they were enemies or allies. Mark did not see them needing it anytime soon, but would definitely be useful at some point later in the battle. There were only two projects still in work. The rock skin pill was at 92% completed, and the other project was as of yet undefined.
The pharmacology class had a host of projects in work and a couple that had finished. The first was a poison that came from grout roots. They were small trees that needed very little earth to grow. They were all over the Endless bluffs sprouting up out of the rocky soil near the plateaus. The poison was a paralytic that sapped a unit's strength. It was not earth shattering, but would be useful against powerful units that would not be brought down by a single arrow. Much to Mark’s dismay the poison did not replicate with the duplicate projectile’s enchantment.
The second completed project was actually the Eres rock potion. Now instead of a nasty salt lick, units could drink a nasty potion to recover manna. The efficacy of the eres rock was not any better. Units would still regain the same amount of manna, but impurities were removed. Units could now take far more before they started to get sick. It would keep their mages in the battle a little longer. Other than that there were 5 projects in work including the anticipated healing potion.
Mark nodded before shifting to the building tab. Without hesitation Mark bought the mine for 11 DP. Mark read through the information before placing the mine near to the edge of their territory, which was now up to a mile away after reaching level 2. The mine was like the dungeon entrance. There was a smooth arched doorway that led to an antechamber. It was its own temporal space like the dungeon, so the units were not actually tunneling beneath their dungeon proper.
It did not matter where they built the mine entrance, so Mark had chosen near the edge of their territory where they would build their fortress in the future. The plateau to the southeast had part of its cliff face in their territory now. It would come in handy when building the fortress. Mark figured they might as well put the mine there since they would be querying stone for the walls once Masonry was complete.
More importantly were the notes for the mine. All sorts of resources could be found within. Simple metals like iron or copper would be plentiful, but they would also be able to find advanced metals and base essence among other things. That alone got Mark excited. They already had a use for base essence. The inscription pens could use it to make more powerful inscriptions. If they could find some, their inscriptions may no longer be limited to good quality.
Contenders could take anything they wanted outside the mine. For the rest, there was a void hole in the center of the antechamber. They could dump whatever they dug out and did not need into the void, endlessly. The trick was that the mine did not replenish. The distance rocks and materials would have to be carried would only increase. Shafts could cave in. It was up to the contenders to decide on the method.
Mark ran his fingers through his hair. He had half expected for dungeon walls and tunnels to regrow similar to a game like dungeon that respawned walls after a fixed time. Instead his units would eventually be tunneling miles and miles into the ground in search of the high end resources. Despite being an engineer he had no idea how to ensure shaft integrity, other than perhaps putting in wooden braces periodically. It was not something he had ever even considered before.
They could not afford to wait another couple weeks for the sapper class to finish. He would have them start a couple of tunnels in the three directions opposite the mine entrance. They would be level and just go on and on. The sappers could determine where to go from there, or perhaps Cedrick could give some direction. They seemed to have some experience in that area. Another point to bring up when they met this morning.
Regardless, Mark shifted to the units tab. They had five full patrols stationed at the home dungeon. Mark had devoted nearly a whole day's worth of production to bring the last expedition force back up to the standard and to summon an additional 50 legionnaires. Mark would have the patrols rotate in and out of work at the dungeon for now. He would keep the legionnaires at the settlement to continue work on the pagoda tower, 25 of them were allotted to the barracks anyways to raise their experience level up to regular.
Mark would never miss the opportunity to cycle more units through. It would be a waste not to. The add-on had also been completed several weeks ago. Once again 25 units could work in the training area to learn a class. There was no set time frame. Units could learn up to whatever level their dungeon had unlocked. The timeline would be based on their intelligence, morale, and what class level he wanted them to reach. The green goblins were the only units he had that were unclassed, so he was having them cycling through. He started with green goblin archers. So far none had reached scout level 2 in the two weeks they had been working at it, but they had at least reached level 1. It was not surprising since green goblins were the dumbest and had the lowest moral of all the goblins.
A couple hours passed. It was nearing noon, before Mark saw the short stocky gnome leader enter the crafting house door. Mark put down the energy shield enchantment book. He had chosen to work on new inscriptions for the difficult enchantment while waiting. The crafting house had become their unspoken meeting place, mainly since it was often raining for the last month. They usually tried to meet at least about once a week, even if there was not an agenda for them to work out.
“What ya been up ta,” Cedrick said as he found a seat across the aisle from Mark. Before Mark could answer the leader added, “have ya tried out the new spiritualist class.”
Mark shook his head. “Well that be a shame. A couple of our youngin’s have taken it up. One already captured a whole pack a wolves,” Cedric said, with a toothy smile. “Em things are bloody difficult ta kill. I sparred against em a couple of times. It takes quite a few physical attacks to dissipate em, and they have no sense of fear. Makes em quite nasty.”
“Really, I can’t wait to try it out myself,” Mark said enthusiastically. “I meant the class, not fighting them myself,” Mark added. He had practically seen the offer on the gnome's lips. “For now, there are a couple of things that we were hoping to get your help with.”
The gnome leader’s bald forehead scrunched up at the thought, “Ohhh.”
“One of them is just advice. We were able to build a magic mine to the southeast. Hopefully, the sapper class will be beneficial for that, but until then I was hoping to get some advice so we don’t start off on the wrong foot.”
“A magic mine,” the gnome said, his eyes taking on a greedy tint.
Mark smiled to himself. A way to connect their two needs was already forming in his mind. Of course the gnomes would be interested in the various things the mine could offer. Mark watched the gnome's greedy facial expression turn to pure avarice as Mark detailed the types of materials that could be found. He had him.
“I don’t think a goblin sapper could throw a stone at our best miners,” Cedrick posed.
“Of course, you know how I feel about the goblins in general. Perhaps, we can work something out. As far as what we want from the deal…” Mark tapered off as he pulled up the forge building schematic. “I was hoping to get this completed as soon as possible.”
“Awww, seems you’re able to build a forge now,” Cedrick said as he started scanning the schematic.
It was a shame it had taken a month to research the Tech. The gnomes already had it. Mark had of course tried to see if they could once again use their specialization to their benefit, but level 2 dungeon techs were apparently completely off the table. It was a shame, but for balance's sake the creators had probably limited how many techs or what level techs they would be able to trade for.
“Sure, I think we could build this up real quick. For the water source, I would want to build a well. Might take a wee bit longer, but it will save time in the long run," Cedrick said, waving the schematic aside.
It only took them a couple of minutes to work out a deal. Cedrick would have the forge built in a week. He would also have some gnomes work in and manage the mine. The gnomes would take 25% of the resources other than the basic metals which they would only take what they occasionally needed. If Mark wanted to keep more or all of the higher resources, he would have to make a deal.
Losing a quarter of all the higher level resources would hurt, but they would likely find more and do so more efficiently with the gnome’s help. Not to mention they would get another one of the core buildings from the deal. Mark could leave the mine’s management in their hands. He would just provide bodies for labor, and reap the benefits. But why should he stop there?
There was another race that was even more at home in mines than the gnomes. The kobolds lived almost their whole lives in the mines. If the gnomes were interested in the high quality materials that could come from the mine, then the kobolds would be even more so. Even better, it would be far less risky for them. Units from enemy dungeons could not enter the mine, and Mark had no reason to suspect that there would be enemy creatures like the behir to be found within.
It should not be too difficult for Mark to get a couple of different deals going. The rock in the magic mine extended in all directions endlessly. Mark could restrict the different groups' efforts in various directions. Cedrick just shrugged when Mark mentioned the idea. As long as his group got their share of the mine shafts that his gnomes managed, he did not seem to care. They concluded their negotiations, and Mark found a red hobgoblin to send along with the scouting team.
After sending the scout team away. Mark once again dwelt on his plan. This whole battle they had been on the defensive. Even the attack on the gnoll village during the first week had been more of a preemptive strike, but right now they were in a unique situation where they were not under immediate threat. They also had just completed their first round of level 2 techs. Other dungeons were in between being a powerful first level dungeon and acquiring real level 2 strength. If they had finished any of the level 2 techs then it would not be more than 1 or 2.
The more powerful dungeons in the battle were already collecting unique rewards for conquering dungeons. It would be wasteful if they could not take advantage of the lull in the battle to collect one for themselves. Once more it would only take a handful of days to collect the MP he would require.