It was not till well after the attack, that Mark saw the full extent of the measures that Gale had enacted to pull off the surprise attack on their dungeon. The first surprise was the arrival of Cedrick and a whole village of gnome refugees. Gale had sent a much smaller second force to crush the gnome village. Several dozen had been killed, while holding off the gates against a lizardmen force accompanied by a half dozen giants.

However, perhaps the attack had the opposite effect than what was intended. Instead of removing one of her enemies' allies, she had instead caused the gnomes to double down in their support of the dungeon. Mark now had access to hundreds of more researchers, crafters, forgers, etcetera… They still would not partake in battle against other dungeons with the goblin forces. There was probably some rule against direct aid against another dungeon to maintain the balance, but the extra auxiliary support would make a world of difference by itself.

The second measure that Gale had taken had just been confirmed. It had not gone unnoticed that the harpies had failed to stop by the dungeon after the battle. Finally, Mark had sent a handful of units to look into the situation. All that was left was a camp ripped to pieces, bodies, and feathers. It almost looked like a fox had been let loose in a henhouse. As far as Mark knew there were no survivors.

Gale had likely attacked them the night before her assault on the dungeon. Since the harpies all roost every night, it was not surprising that Gale had managed to catch them all. It was a bit of a blow. It meant he would have to drastically increase the amount of scouts for both their home dungeon and garden sanctuary.

Besides for Gale, no one would have been able to approach their dungeon with a large force, while the harpies had been with them. The night time when the harpies did not patrol was the only exception, and the kobolds would know if such a large force tried to move on them from below the surface.

What really made him frustrated was that he had seen the potential gap in their security and had made moves to prevent exactly what had happened. There were always two goblin scout groups monitoring for an army from Gale’s dungeon. Both scout teams had been alive yesterday morning before the battle. Mark had checked. But sometime during or after, both teams were killed.

So far the bodies for one of the teams had been discovered. All four goblins had their throats cut. They had also been tied up. Mark’s best guess was that they had been incapacitated during the night and kept alive, so that Mark would not have any indication. It was a move he had never considered, and it had worked since he had not had either of the scout teams linked.

One change Mark had decided to implement was the addition of the thrash bears to the goblin scout force. A couple dozen tier 1 units scouting and rummaging around their dungeon, would be difficult to target by other enemy dungeons. One goblins with the beast handler class could receive simple updates. The bears could not relay details, but at home in the forest, they would not miss the passing of a large force. Then they could report back within a matter of hours, despite ranging distances that would take normal units a day to manage.

Now that they had unlocked the last of their tier 3 units, Mark had also decided to put their RP toward breeder, one of the germination path’s budding stages. It was a unique upgrade, so Mark was looking to see what new capability that it would allow. If they could breed beasts for free, it would be very beneficial for the long run.

In total they had received just over 148,000 MP for the battle. However, Mark had already spent it all to replenish their auxiliary and offensive forces. They had lost literally every unit at the home dungeon including Henry, Nasal, and Ezekiel. The latter had died under an avalanche of earth after setting off all of the earth shaper enchantments. Mark supposed that even a mad scientist could not predict exactly how it would go after setting things in motion. The caverns and caves underneath had collapsed more than expected. Mark was not too upset since it had saved their dungeon, and now there was a new natural defensive barrier of overturned land that would stifle other dungeon assaults.

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Despite the gnomes coming in to fill many roles, Mark still allotted 50,000 to summon 100 new level 1 red mages to establish their auxiliary complement. It took 35,500 MP to remake the mining regiment, archer division, and 50 thrash bears to patrol the region. Goblins from the archer division would fill up the barracks, while 10 bugbears for 13,500 would fill the spots for their gymnasium. Summoning 50 mystic budding stage sunflowers, took up much of the remainder.

All of their DP would be going toward their newest spawner for the next 10 days. At 60 DP, it was by far their most expensive spawner. However, the offering was also the best. It gave a compliment to the various high tier units that had actually entered their dungeon. The spawner could have up to two charges that could be used whenever, even at the same time. Each charge would give 1 cloud giant, 3 orc warmongers, 1 orc chieftain, 3 lizardmen dominators, and 1 salamander. Both charges would double down on the high tier units. The downside was that only one charge would be generated each week, and it would not start until the units for one of the charges were killed. Mark could hardly care about a long respawn time. If they survived an attack that made it down to their 9th floor, and were attacked again within the next week or two then they were likely screwed anyways.

Their dungeon was back up and running, with a weak defense. Mark could only hope that Gale and Nicholas had lost enough where they would not be able to make a move in the interim. Both had lost hundreds of thousands of MP worth of units. Probably more than they had been expecting, and they had not even got the end result that they had been shooting for. Mark could only hope that they were both having to evaluate things.

The fact that the three dungeons had coordinated to attack them, did not necessarily mean they had an alliance. Mark could only imagine that the failure made future cooperation even more tenuous. However, the attempt had made it clear that dungeons were once again starting to look outwards after having reached dungeon level 3. It had also highlighted the danger that each of the three dungeons could pose.

In truth, Leonard Boulevic had not revealed much that would be considered alarming during his part of the attack. However, literally later that day, their scouts Lewis and Clark had found a vantage to give Mark a glimpse of Leonard’s dungeon. The southeast region of the map still had plenty of forests, however the underbrush was nearly non-existent. Just trees, separated by large prairie fields and the occasional river. Nothing to provide any concealing cover.

Soon after providing the look, the scouts had once again been dispatched by a group of centaurs, but Mark had already seen enough. Leonard was also building walls of stone, likely mined from the dungeon, but the real fight would likely occur well before that. At one point, Mark had pushed towards making a cavalry. Then after one attack, Mark had been left wondering whether the goblin riders actually were worth the cost.

Leonard on the other hand had held nothing back. There were dozens of camps with hundreds of beasts and their riders. The good thing was that Leonard did not unlock any additional tier 2 branches. He only had gnolls, orcs, and basic steads. However, he still had plenty of higher tier units. Two tier 2 units from each of the humanoid branches. Wargs from the basic steads branch, and two apparent combination units: centaurs and minotaurs. The lack of any tier 3 units did not at all make Mark think that Leonard would be an opponent. In the open field, he would likely be very dangerous.

The real question was where should he go from here. By all appearances, Avery was open to a full alliance. However, her dungeon was clearly behind the rest, and besides for Leonards her dungeon was the furthest from their own. Daniel Hale was receptive, but for now was non committal. His final decision would likely rely a lot on what the major players decided to do next. Unfortunately, it seemed he saw Avery and their own dungeon as a sort of buffer between himself and the real threats in the battle. He might come to their aid, or he might even side against them.

Mark could not blame Daniel Hale. He, himself, was considering possible team ups and scenarios. Unfortunately, he did not think that they had too many options. They were the only dungeon that shared their region of the map with another dungeon, and it was clear that all of the dungeons considered their dungeon the weaker of the two despite their accomplishments. Mark did not have many strings that he could pull to initiate things. It was a very much ‘We’ll call you’ type situation. They would have to wait till someone else made the offer.

So Mark endeavored to do the only thing he could do, strengthen their dungeon, and develop their strength.