In an uncharacteristic example of her normal behavior, Amelia was already up and around prior to Mark. He was not too surprised though. It was flower day. Today they would unlock the last of their units, leaving them with two RP to spare. Not only would they build a sample of each of their three new units. They would also delve into flower tree germination path upgrades.
Amelia was impatiently pacing back and forth waiting for him. “I already finished out the lotus and used the extra RP to unlock the two sprout stages,” Amelia said smiling.
“Already,” Mark said, pulling up his interface. Sure enough they had five new options for the second seedling stage on their germination path. The killer sprout led to three different options, and the support sprout led to two. Mark gave them a cursory glance, before mentally swiping away.
“I’m gonna go to the bathroom then we can leave.”
“Fine, I’ll be out in the core room when you’re done,” Amelia sighed, stepping out of the hut. Mark was very thankful she had. He was a bit self conscious in the bathroom anytime she didn’t. Now he could relax and not worry about it.
Mark pulled up his interface for his morning update. They were sitting at just over 41,000 MP. Normally, he would have liked to have more on hand to prepare for an attack, but right now he doubted he needed to worry about it. All had been quiet for the last week, and the number of troops they were fielding was at an all time high. Two 300 unit divisions had set out for their two outposts as soon as the MP became available. Mark had built another small regiment of 454 goblins to add to their home base, putting them around 1600 units in total.
The regiment included the 44 bugbear platoon, two 50 legionnaire platoons, 10 red mages, 40 yellows, and 260 horned goblins. Henry, their dungeon’s only colonel, would serve as the regiment’s commander. A regiment could have up to 1200 units, so having the archery and mining divisions fall under Henry’s banner was not an issue. However Mark had run out of the weaker goblin units to summon, both the green and horned goblin units were at their caps. For the garden sanctuary outpost division Mark even had to substitute 76 horned goblins for the green goblins capped at 1000.
Keeping that many units increased their daily upkeep costs, but Mark had a whole queue of jobs that needed to be completed. The core of the regiment had started work on their home base fortress. The 10 gnome builders directed their efforts according to Mark’s plan. The archery division was working to increase their weapon stockpiles. The miners were mining, and the garden sanctuary division goblin’s were developing their new settlement.
Five days ago they had been able to upgrade the sanctuary into a full settlement. The upgrade had resulted in only two major changes. There was no additional option to upgrade the settlement further, so either the settlement was the only upgrade for an outpost or they would need to unlock another prerequisite.
For the first change, the tactical map had been further unveiled as their territory surrounding the sanctuary expanded to be equivalent in size to that of the home base. It was a pretty big increase since before the territory had only been about 400 feet in diameter as an outpost
The second major change was that they could now build more than basic fortifications at the site. The goblins were currently querying stone from the inside of the cavern to build several projects. The main project would be the wall to span the entrance, but Mark also had a team working to build a spawner. Soon they would be able to summon units at that site. Then Mark would push the team to build a crafting house and barracks at the site. They could not duplicate the research lab, but the others were all fair game.
Mark just hoped the goblins did not bring the cavern crumbling down on themselves since they were cutting into the walls. However, there had not been much of a choice. While there were trees near the settlement's location at the edge of the swamp, most were not suitable for construction use. Mark was hesitant to both devote the labor required to bring trees from further away and the attention that doing so would cause. As far as he knew, the other dungeons still did not know about the location. Mark was doing all he could to ensure that did not change.
Besides, the sanctuary was hardly pristine and serene at this point. The goblins had seen to that. However, the vitality bonus provided by the location had remained despite being turned into a goblin squalor, so battle wise the goblin’s filth did not affect the vitality boost his defenders would receive. Mark could only be thankful there were not some sort of health metrics dealing with diseases, sickness, and such.
It left them currently sitting at 13 DP now, five days after the purchase, and of course RP was at zero since Amelia had already allotted the daily quota. Mark swiped through the rest of the menus. Nothing else popped out at him, so he finished his business and prepared for the day.
“Ready?” Amelia asked, falling into step with him.
“Yeah, yeah. I may not be as excited as you, but I’m genuinely interested in seeing them.”
“Don’t act like. You know despite your alleged dislike of the goblins, you hardly use either of our other two branches,” Amelia stated matter of factly. As they exited the portal, she motioned to the legionnaires. After a moment of bickering a dozen fell into step.
“Well, yeah humanoids are better for building and other daily tasks. You know how much the spiders eat. With only five of them, they are still able to go out and hunt, but can you imagine a whole force of them? The forest would be swept clean in no time, and the plants… Well from what I can see they would be better defenders. They are on the slower side, and are more powerful when they can take root.”
“So what do you think we should do about the germination path? From the looks of it they are going to keep branching out. Assuming it follows the same cost as classes, the next level will be 25,000 MP a piece. We could only unlock the third tier of one of them, and open an additional two on the second tier.”
Mark pulled it open and shared his screen. They would have a couple minutes before they got into the forest where they would do the summoning. At the first tier there were only two options, the killer sprout and the support sprout. The killer sprout broke into three options, Wild, bloodthirsty and arcane seedling. The support sprout broke into two options, the shelter and health seedlings.
Assuming the third tier followed suit of each option opening into 2 or 3 new paths, there would be 10 to 15 new branches. That could mean the fourth tier would have 20 to 45 branches and the fifth tier could have 40 to 130 new options. When considering that the fourth tier and fifth tier would cost at least 50,000 MP, it was quite probable they would never unlock all the routes, even if the new options were at the lower end. Even unlocking the tier 3 options would be quite costly, costing at least a quarter million MP.
“We could go with what you said, or we could unlock all of the tier 2 options and see what tier 3 has to offer. Based on what I see they should become more specialized the more tiers we unlock. We would not unlock a tier 3 option today, but likely we won’t be able to unlock all the routes even if we survive to the end of the game. The seedling options are still cheap, we could open it up and see which directions we want to develop.”
Amelia nodded. “That works, lets go ahead and start now.”
“Don’t want to save it for after summoning the units?” Mark asked. She glared at him. “Okay, okay,” he placated.
Amelia did not wait. She started at the top with the first killer sprout option unlocking the wild seedling for 5,000 MP. Two paths from the tier 3, vegetative state, became unveiled, bold and tranquil. They both read what the first tier 2 option gave. The wild seedling option seemed to be the basic upgrade for the killer sprout path. The killer sprout increased a unit's strength, agility, and dexterity. The wild seedling upgrade increased the same attributes. The bold and tranquil vegetative state paths would likely follow suit to some degree.
The first unlocked upgrade only held Amelia’s attention for a good fifteen seconds. Like a kid with Christmas presents, she was eager to see what was next. The bloodthirsty seedling was the next to be unlocked. Once again two more options were unveiled for the vegetative state, enraged and manic. The bloodthirsty seedling however increased a unit’s attack. Based on the vegetative tier 3 options, this seemed to be some sort of berserking path.
They moved onto the third one, the arcane seedling. Perhaps the seedling that Mark had been most interested in. This time three vegetative tier 3 options were unveiled, mystic, occult, and decay. The later two of the tier 3 options made Mark extremely interested. Mystic sounded like a basic option, but occult and decay…
However, Mark's attention was drawn by what the arcane seedling actually gave. Units would get the spell magic missile. A quick look in the encyclopedia on the spell made Mark smile. It had a 3 second cast time. Three times longer than the magic bolt, but the magic missile was more powerful and would always hit the intended target, assuming something did not intercept it. Not to mention the range. There was none, although it was mentioned that after 100 feet the missiles would get weaker.
It was far better than magic bolt that his goblin mages haphazardly shot a target. For one, the amount of magic bolts that actually hit their intended targets was probably less than half. Then a magic bolt might take down something with a power rating less than 1 with one hit, but more powerful units could easily shrug it off. They would be less likely to shrug off a missile to the head or the neck…
Once again Amelia was already moving on. The support sprout gave boosts to defense, vitality, and endurance. The shelter seedling carried on with all three of those, and unveiled two new tier 3 options for the vegetative state, shield, and barrier. Both options seemed to indicate that they would continue down the path of making a unit an ultimate defender, or a tank.
The shelter option was apparently the most boring, Amelia was on the final seedling option within seconds. The life seedling gave units a healing spell. The plant version of the healer. Three new vegetative options became available, health, versatile, and beast shepherd. The health option likely would continue along the healer path. Mark could only guess what the versatile path would entail. However his attention was drawn to the final option, the beast shepherd because by the name was the disclaimer, unique.
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It was a unique option for them, likely since the creepy crawlies counted as beasts. Well at least they followed the beast bloodline upgrade route. In truth, Mark was unsure of how much they would actually need this unique option. They already had a beast tamer class project in work at the research lab, but he felt the unique disclaimer would likely goad him into it.
Actually, most of their 12 new tier 3 vegetative options were enticing. In the future, he could see them spending a lot of MP to unlock the germination pathways. After reading through all of them and thinking for a moment, he actually recognized that they all seemed to follow class archetypes.
For the killer sprout, wild seedling, it was the warrior path. A dependable fighter with increased strength, agility, and dexterity. Based on the tier 3 names, bold and tranquil, and seeing how the first two tiers had worked, Mark could infer what bold and tranquil would entail. The bold option would likely move down the strength route. The tranquil option would go the agility and dexterity route for a graceful fighter. Interesting, but when compared to the other options available they were not at the top of his list to unlock.
The bloodthirsty seedling almost definitely followed a barbarian or berserker like path. Units would have an increase in their attack power with little regard for anything else. The fact that the two tier 3 options were called enraged and manic, assured Mark that his assumptions would not be wrong. In all honesty, these options were at the very bottom of his list. He could not help it. He had an engineer type of mindset. He liked things to be more predictable.
The arcane seedling was obviously the mage archetype. The mystic path likely followed a standard mage build. It might be the boring sounding of the options, but after seeing that they got magic missile as their first spell, Mark could not discount it. After all, the flower units were strongest when they were rooted in the ground. What class would suit them better than to serve as mages.
The occult option hinted at things forbidden, but there were numerous possibilities as to what they would be. The decay option seemed more evident. Mark could picture enemies shriveling up like raisins. Regardless, All three tier 3 magic based options would be high on his list to unlock.
The shelter seedling followed the tank archetype. The difference between shield and barrier was not too difficult for Mark to infer. Barrier’s were likely protection from magic based attacks, meaning that the shield option was more literal in its name in protecting from physical attacks. Both options were actually fairly high up on his list to unlock. The right flower units could be pretty durable, making them into unbreakable shields that sounded good.
The life seedling followed the healer class. The health option would likely stick to that route. What exactly the versatile or beast shepherd options would give were a little more ambiguous. Mark would have to unlock them to find out more. The unique beast shepherd option had a real pull to choose it, but versatile likely would fall lower on his list.
Mark and Amelia discussed the options as they walked. Amelia seemed to lean towards the same options that Mark did, except for the two tank options. She seemed to have switched them with the berserking options. The berserking and healing options were at the top of her list. Apparently, Amelia liked the idea of a crazy rampaging plant. “
“Could you imagine one of the plants climbing over a wall with its vines, going absolutely nuts. Then we could have some plant healers following right behind healing them up…”
The way she described it, actually made them sound pretty good. Mark only sighed as he realized that at some point he would likely be unlocking all of the tier 3 options at some point. Good grief, that would be 300,000 MP, but unlike the beast and humanoid upgrade paths the plant germination path offered a wide variety of options. For a creative mind type like Amelia, the path would be extremely appealing. Based on her excitement, Mark knew where their daily RP quota would be going tomorrow and the foreseeable future. The only thing that would cut off that idea down at the roots would be if the units were let down by the three level 2 flower options they were about to summon.
Once they got to a small clearing, Amelia wasted no time. After a quick argument, Mark quickly won. Amelia acquiesced quite quickly in order to move on. Amelia wanted to give the samples a boost, but Mark wanted to see what the units were like without any upgrades. Otherwise, wanted to see what the base unit was like, so he could determine what paths they would be most suitable for. Giving them a germination path at this stage might muddy the situation. They would start with the weakest of the new units, the sunflower with a 2.0 power rating.
The sunflower appeared towering over them. It was easily 15 feet tall with a foot diameter stem at its base that stood among a tangle of 10 foot tentacle appendages and roots. The width of the step tampered down to half that of the base. The face looked like any sunflower he had seen. The center is a blackish brown circle flanked by foot long yellow petals. By far this was the biggest unit they had access too. A monster of a plant.
Sun Flower 1 (1/50) (none) Power lvl: 2.0 Morale: -- Strength 12 Attack: 4 Defense: 1 Endurance 11 Abilities/Skills Agility 2 Sunburst: 0/100% of charge (non MP attack) Vitality 14 Intelligence 8 Wisdom 8
Of note the sunflower had a unique magic attack, Sunburst, that was powered through sunlight. They would have to give the unit a bit to charge up since it was currently at 0 of 100%. Overall the unit was very impressive for a 2.0 power rating, but there was one real drawback. The unit’s movement was entirely too slow. Mark had not seen a slower moving unit. Even the rock golems moved two or three times as fast. However with their height Mark could see them vantage for magic attacks.
Mark only got a few minutes to test out his new unit before Amelia summoned the bloodrose. At that time, Mark already got a pretty good idea of how fast it would take the sunflower to charge up its special attack, 20 minutes. Of course right now they were in direct sunlight in the early summer. Mark had a feeling that if there were other factors like cloud cover it might take longer.
Even at first appearance the blood rose seemed menacing, a thicket of vines wrapped up tightly to the size of a hedge 7 or 8 feet tall. What made the unit menacing was the thousands of shark tooth like thorns that covered the vines. Oddly enough there were no roses for which the unit got its name. However that mystery was solved after reading the blood rose’s special ability.
Blood Rose 1 (1/41) (none) Power lvl: 2.4 Morale: -- Strength 14 Attack: 4 Defense: 2 Endurance 18 Abilities/Skills Agility 8 Blood Frenzy Vitality 17 Intelligence 3 Wisdom 4
Blood frenzy allowed the blood rose to use the blood of its victims to grow roses. The more blood and the amount of blood the blood rose took in, the more roses would appear. It did not detail what the roses did, but Mark was sure they would like for as many to appear as possible. Even the interface pointed to this with a disclaimer. Enemy units and friendly units could not be sacrificed to increase the blood rose’s blood frenzy. The blood rose had to entangle or kill the units itself.
Mark smirked. The battle creators would have almost had to make another patch because of him, because that was exactly where his mind had gone. Regardless, like the sunflower the blood rose promised to be quite a powerful unit compared to its power rating of 2.4. When the bloodrose untangled its vines it could reach up to 30 feet from its center. Along with its smaller cousin, creeping ivy, Mark could form a literal thicket wall.
Unlike the sunflower, the blood rose had a decent movement speed. when tasked to do so. The vines stretched out in the intended direction of movement clawing and digging into the ground as it went. Furrows were carved into the dirt upon its passing. Like a tractor was pulling something to till the land. No way this thing could be sneaky. However, Mark had identified Amelia’s rampaging flower unit. This thing could likely claw its way right up a wall regardless of what it was made up of.
Without being able to test the blood frenzy the two moved on to the final flower unit the midnight lotus. The midnight lotus appeared. A flower with dark purple flowers 8 foot in diameter with petals curving up 6 feet into the air appeared in front of Mark and Amelia. At its base were green lily pad like leaves. Around eight, 15 foot long tentacle-like vines reached out in all directions. The root structure looked far from sufficient to support the massive flower. Mark did not need to test it to know the flower would be extremely slow.
Midnight Lotus 1 (1/35) (none) Power lvl: 2.8 Morale: -- Strength 10 Attack: 1 Defense: 2 Endurance 8 Abilities/Skills Agility 2 Malevolent aura: Vitality 22 Intelligence 7 Wisdom 7
At first look the midnight lotus was not very impressive. It was relatively fragile. The tentacles had the durability and strength similar to that of the creeping ivy. The movement speed was even slower than the sunflower. However, the unit was a support unit not a powerhouse by itself. It all depended on the unit's special ability, Malevolent aura.
[Malevolent aura: increases the power of flower type units within its vicinity, up to a maximum of 25%. The closer a unit is, the greater the effect. Other unit types from the plant tree will benefit from the malevolent aura at a reduced rate.]
Mark was kicking himself for having waited so long to unlock the level 2 units. The level 1 units had been alright. However it would have taken boosts to make them really shine. However the level 2 units changed everything. He could already picture an ultimate defense with a bunch of the level 1 and 2 units working together.
Amelia was just as excited. Even she understood how the three level 2 units complimented each other perfectly. The bloodrose could form a defense. The sunflowers would be great mages. All of the level 1 units could fill in the gaps. All while the midnight lotus boosted them all. She gave him a knowing smirk. Mark sighed. Lunch today would be him going out to eat to, ‘I told you town.’