The defeat of Derrick Blackwell left only six contenders remaining in the battle. They were pretty much officially in the finals with only one dungeon emerging dominant in each of the five regions the dungeons had started in. The exception was their own region which was still contested between Amelia and Gale Barbary.
The feeling that the battle was moving to the end game was only further solidified by the newest move of Gale Barbary. For months, Mark had enjoyed near daily updates about Gale’s development from the harpies flying overhead. Three days ago a heavy fog had enveloped the area. It was definitely initiated by their neighbor since the fog centered on her dungeon and her outposts and nowhere else. Gale had likely figured out that they were using the harpies to keep tabs on her, and found a way to counter it. She was now effectively concealing any and all of her future developments. How she was doing it was still a mystery?
What Mark did know was that Gale had shifted some of her focus. The harpies still flew over the area, and what they had been able to tell Mark was that Gale was gathering lumber… a lot of it. The harpies could still make out the fact that hundreds of trees no longer stretched up into the encompassing mist centered around one of her outposts. The outpost was the one near a river mouth. The biggest by far of the three sources of water that fed into the swamp that surrounded her dungeon along with much of the surrounding area.
The outpost had not been in any trouble up to this point. With only six coal mounds the site fell short of both their outposts. However, this new development was certainly something that could not be dismissed. The lumber was being used for something, and it was not walls. At all three locations, Gale had walls made of stone, so he doubted the lumber was for that purpose. In the end, Mark could only come up with one thing based on the materials she was procuring and why she was only doing it at the one location. Gale was building ships.
It would be difficult for anything other than a flat barge to traverse through any part of the swamp, so Mark guessed she was intending to send ships upstream to the north. It was not a unique concept. For more than a month Mark had been doing the same. They currently had hundreds of Tadpoles and Pollywogs making up their frogmen forces. Once they had finished the mapping tech and mapped out the swampland, the only use Mark had found for the weak units was to send them North.
Mark had been forced to send them through the southmost tributary since Gale held the biggest, and the second tributary was only a mile further to the south. Already the frogmen patrols had added a good third of the currently explored map that was still at only 50% complete. Currently the left third of their map was fairly unveiled
Lewis and Clark had respawned within the last week and had been sent south of the swampland, but North of Nicholas Holt’s dungeon to expand their center of the southern part of the map, and hopefully eventually find the location of Leonard Boulevic’s dungeon.
Although it was through the frogman’s exploration that Mark found out another move being made by one of the dungeon contenders. Several days ago a frogman patrol had made their way south through one of the many tributaries, making it to the center of the map. Mark had been surprised to find that a large lake encompassed an island that was located in the very dead center of the map. After mapping out the lake, the frogmen had landed on the island to explore. Within minutes they had been set upon and killed by panther and wolf beasts.
There was only one other contender using beasts, so the culprit was evident even without analyzing a unit. Still it was only their second run in with Danie Hale, the contender that had surprised everyone by being ranked first on the first round of rankings despite not being one of the battle favorites.
Daniel Hale, currently held the northern region and now it was apparent that he was holding the island at the center of the map. What was on the island was a mystery, but based on the guard that was evidently patrolling the beaches it had to be good.
Mark should have known that there would be something good at the map’s center. It was likely something they would all want, and it had been centralized for them all to discover and fight over. However, it had been Daniel Hale who had discovered and claimed it first. Mark could not help but picture that Daniel Hale had an outpost surrounded by dozens of coal mounds…
As for the other contenders, Nicholas Holt was fortifying the southwest along with a volcano and source of a fire based essence that was midway between Amelia and his own dungeon. Leonard Boulevic was located in the Southeast. Mark and Amelia knew the least about him, but like the rest of the other dungeons, he was either working on dungeon level 3 or putting all his efforts to the level 3 techs.
Avery Kingston held the Northeast. Amelia was in almost constant communication from the renowned model, with both of them exchanging more information about themselves than was likely good for either. Amelia did not have an exact date, but she knew that Avery was still working on saving up for dungeon level 3. She would likely be one of the last dungeons to hit the next level. However, Mark and Amelia had aided her in taking out Derrick Blackwell who had been a constant thorn in her side a week ago.
Avery might be a month behind development wise, but she was also the last contender from Magnum. One of the biggest factions in the Arcadian realm. Not to mention, being a model and princess, she was a household known name. Currently dungeons were able to open three packages from sponsors a week, and Avery was hitting her quota each and every week. Not to mention the fact that she had a good 50 sitting in reserve.
Mark could only assume that it was the same for most of the other dungeons, other than Daniel Hale who was also from a smaller faction. Mark had no evidence of this belief. After all Gale had not displayed any units other than the lizardmen, troll, and giant branches, Mark knew that she had. However, Mark also knew that she likely had hundreds or thousands of miners. It was not out of the realm of possibility that she had an army waiting inside her mine waiting to be used or if someone should happen to attack her.
As far as Nicholas Holt and Leonard Boulevic, Mark knew they were likely opening sponsorship packages every week and also had some to spare. Mark just did not have eyes on their dungeon to keep tabs on any of their developments.
Mark and Amelia had collected a handful of sponsorship packages. They were currently sitting on 11 in total, having had the number double after their most recent victory. However, their packages were on the weaker side. It was just one of the advantages the other dungeons had always held over them.
However, Mark could not complain. Unlike the beginning of the battle, Amelia and him were fairly safe. Their defenses were improving every day as stones were mined and added onto the walls surrounding both the garden sanctuary settlement and their home dungeon. Every week or two a new project from their research laboratory was completed. An edge that gave them the ability to continue to compete.
The latest round of freebie projects they had gotten from their most recent unique reward had in no way been a disappointment. The earth shaper enchantment by itself added so many possibilities. The earth shaper enhancements were one time use enchantments, as in they were used, had an effect, and were subsequently consumed in the process. However, a good quality enchantment made on a plank of wood could already pull earth up and into an earthen wall both five feet in height and width, with a foot of thickness. They could be used in a line to instantly create a small barricade as long as Mark had enchantments to use.
While the battle had moved away from the point where a five foot tall earthen wall could make a major difference it did not mean that the enchantment did not have dozens of other possibilities. Other easy to use applications were insta forming pittraps or making a patch of land form into a bunch of spikes making it difficult for living creatures to traverse. Of course his tests had not included higher quality uses of the enchantment. In every other facet a jump from good quality to exceptional quality meant a drastic increase in effect. Mark laughed maniacally when he thought of the idea of using the enchantment to form earthen ramps up to the top of someone's walls. It was definitely feasible.
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However, the battle managers had anticipated some of the game breakers the enchantment would allow. The enchantment could affect any type of material, but would have less effect on harder materials. With the same good quality enchantment a wall of stone might only make it to 2 feet in height. There was also a provision that the enchantment could not be used to affect man made buildings or be used to destabilize them, unless the enchantment was made for it.
Mark could not use the enchantment against one of Gale’s walls causing it to crumble. Neither could he affect the earth underneath her wall to do the same thing. Of course if he built a wall he could have an enchantment that changed the base to where it would fall over when activated. Mark could picture collapsing large walls on enemies, but since it took a long time to build walls he doubted it would ever be realized. Still the basic uses for the enchantment were not bad.
The corruption incendiary on the other hand could do exactly what the earth shaper enchantment could not. It was a sulfur based liquid that would weaken most things it came into contact with. Armor and weapons that were splashed with the liquid became more brittle and dull. They looked almost like they had undergone years of oxidation. A sample wall had been splashed with the liquid, and the effects were definitely noticeable, but to a far lesser extent. Mark would need a substantially higher quality if he wanted to topple someone’s walls with it. As far as living units splashed with the stuff, it would burn hell out of them. However other than the sharp pain, it would not debilitate them enough to take them out of the battle quickly.
The higher quality that was reached by the incendiary brew the greater the effect. Mark had been able to get up to average quality. One of its ingredients being an essence certainly made it more difficult than other potions although not to the extent on how much harder the rock skin pill had been.
The flame juggler specialized class was certainly interesting. The base spell for the class was to create fire. They could conjure multiple balls of fire that each had a quarter of the power of a normal fireball. Their manipulation skill was where the class truly came into its own. The fire jugglers could manipulate their own flames as well as flames from other sources. They could strengthen the flames and keep them from dying out.
It did not take Mark long to figure out that manipulating existing flames was a better use of the flame jugglers limited mana pools. Regular mages could create fireballs, and fire jugglers interspaced through the mage ranks could keep the flames alive, strengthen them, and cause them to spread. It was even possible for Mark to bring along a lot of flammable material that could quickly be set on fire to really strengthen his flame juggler’s capabilities.
The void embuing project was perhaps one of the most interesting. Mark only had a couple of examples so far, but even a below average gem with this embuement was something incredibly useful. The project turned the idea of embuing over. Instead of packing magical energy into a gem, the gnomes were actually creating a vacuum that could then absorb energy. Even a gem with only a weak quality embument could absorb two magic lances. A third magic lance had caused the gem to crack, with only part of the lance being absorbed.
Of course that was only since the user tried to push the gem past what it was capable of. Normally the void embument could be used up to the point where it was full. Then it would slowly expel the energy over time. However the bugbear who had used the void embument had said he could tell where the gems limit had been. The only requirement was to have the gem close to where the magic lance’s flight path. In the future, Mark could potentially have high quality rings that would keep their owners safe from a good number of magic attacks.
Mark would find out what reversal skill would do in a couple of days. However, the other projects had pushed Mark to the point where he needed to spend some of the MP they were saving up to increase their auxiliary staff. Before they had only 50 red hobgoblins that were full time researchers, crafters, brewers, inscribers, tattooers, and forgers. It would set them back another day in reaching magic energy production III, but Mark had decided to double their full time auxiliary staff to 100 reds.
Now that their dungeon was level three the unit cap for the reds was 500 units, so Mark did not feel as restricted. In truth they had hundreds of other units that had been helping out when they were not going to battle, but they were needing more and more enchantments, potions, etcetera… The need grew by the day despite the growing stockpile of weapons they had set aside. Unlike the 1,000 miner regiment that would fight in a pinch, these 100 would never fight no matter how bad things got. Mark could not risk their developed experience.
A day set back in progression would easily be offset by what 50 more units serving as auxiliaries could accomplish in the long run. It had been long overdue. However, this next expenditure was more to ease Mark’s curiosity than to meet any need. The big ticket item for the day was that 6 of their 8 daily RP had been enough to hit the 70 RP required to unlock the first of their level 3 units.
Mark’s first choice had been the Gnarled wood goblin. The topiary unit was one of two cheap options, but had the greatest potential to add strength quickly since it would follow the humanoid upgrade class. The potential to use weapons and enchanted gear made it one of the more enticing offers. At 1,800 MP per a unit, summoning one now would not be cheap, but both Amelia and himself were eager to see what their first unlocked tier 3 unit could do. Mark summoned a basic level 4 warrior. He could send it through the barracks to increase its experience and then send it through the gym for skills later.
Gnarled wood Goblin (1/33) Warrior lvl 4 (recruit) Power lvl: 4.2 Morale: --- Strength 16 Attack: 5 Defense: 9 Endurance 18 Abilities/Skills Agility 12 Vitality 20 Intelligence 10 Wisdom 10
By looks the gnarled wood goblin was not the most intimidating of units. It was as the name suggested, gnarled roots formed into a goblin. It only stood five and a half feet tall so was not overly large. However, Its stats were far better than that of a normal bugbear and its joints appeared to be as limber as any natural humanoid. Of course the unit’s natural defense was unusually high.
However, after a half hour of tests Mark could not help but feel a little disappointed. The unit followed the humanoid upgrade path, meaning it could have a class and skills, however it was not a flesh and blood unit. Healing or stamina potions were unusable, as were enlightenment or rock skin pills. In addition the unit could not make use of some of the enchanted gear. Defensive armor worked, but the ones that tried to increase strength or vitality were useless.
Still Mark felt comforted in the fact that while it could not take advantage of things that other humanoids could, it also did not share their disadvantages. The unit did not need to eat, so upkeep costs for keeping them around would be nonexistent. That was important by itself since Mark was already spending nearly 2,000 MP a day in upkeep.
The gnarled wood goblin could also take root to recover stamina or heal like a plant unit could, but the biggest boon was that it could benefit from things that affect plants. A midnight lotus’ malevolent aura could boost its power rating by up to 25% based on the gnarled wood goblin’s proximity to the plant. Since Mark also made the midnight lotus healers they would also benefit from the hour long healing blessed aura, and be targeted for greater spot healing.
Overall Mark was satisfied the gnarled wood goblins would be handy in many situations, but they along with the other topiary option would make excellent lotus defenders. A level 4 warrior would already have over a 5 point power rating if they were fighting close by to the larger flower. On top of being able to use skills, they would be simply dominant. However, like everything else in the battle there were limits. They would only be able to summon 33 of each type due to the cap limit for a tier 3.
Satisfied, Mark looked at what to put the remaining 3 RP for the day towards. They currently sat at just under 130,000 MP, so they were a long way off from getting the million they needed for magic energy production. They also had made it back to 101 DP. It would delay progress again, but Mark wanted to build another dungeon floor. The potential of level 3 adventurers was just too high to trust the seven floors that they currently had. They still had 2 more floors that could be bought for 100,000 MP before they hit the limit and would need dungeon features III to continue.
Mark sighed as he selected the second topiary unit option, the knotted spore spider. Mark would love to unlock the better beast options, but right now they needed another powerful floor in their dungeon. The knotted spore spider would be able to have a fifth level bloodline for a 50% power rating increase as well as get the additional boosts from the midnight lotus, the same as the gnarled wood goblin.
It felt like a bit of a loss to not pick up the evolution upgrade first as well, but that would be too substantial of a delay in their progression. Hopefully, he could unlock it before the ninth floor. Perhaps he would make an entire level of evolved Carnivorous centipedes. Since they all already had base power ratings of 3.8, their power ratings would be simply monstrous. However with the malevolent aura the gnarled wood goblins and knotted spore spiders could potentially already reach that level of strength despite probably not being as dangerous as the giant centipedes were sure to be.