Day 47

Status Day 47, Size: 331,459, core 44, Two hundred fifty six upgrades available

Mana: 165,729*/165,729, Water: 9485, Ice: 1248 Fire: 15 Lava: 2292

Ah, I finally have the mana to destroy the Core Killer spawn area. Although had I been more careful with my mana cap, I could have had more leeway available, but twenty thousand mana for non-digging activities seem likely to be sufficient.

So now some final preparations and let me see if I can have it destroyed before first color change.

First I need to secure a good source of water for chilling and filling the pit after it is dug, and this should be done first because they will not be able to detect it in the spawn point.

So from Travel 11 I had to target the top of a cliff for Travel 12 to get past a twenty mile wide body of water, so expand 11 towards 12. Huh, looks like 11 was at the top of a cliff as well, nearly twenty five floors down, but there does seem to be water at the bottom.

So a couple hundred spaced out into the water, it is only a couple of floors deep, but that may be enough.

Next we start at the bottom and dig out a seven wide ring around the inside edge of the spawn area wall.

Ok, this is a lot of stone.

Oh, what is that? Some sort of biological material transport passage? As far as I can tell, it does not seem to have healing properties, so it should not matter if some of it gets into the pit. I may need to close off the ends of the passage to avoid my trap-water from draining away, but that is not urgent while I am still digging out the pit.

Huh, they seem to like having these transport passages under ground, but these new ones seem to be carrying much the same as the other one, so not a problem.

Ok, all but the top ten floors are dug out on the perimeter, now for the cross passages between the pillars. More of those transport passages, but as they seem already drained by the perimeter dig, they clearly are not an issue. I will close off those perimeter passages though, no need to let out the water.

Quick and quiet, the entire grid is dug out leaving only ten floors of dirt and stone to hide my activities from the core killers.

Next I think I should set up my water chilling and start filling up the pit.

Why is the water only half a floor deep where it was more than two floors deep before? The parts by the cliff are not even under water?

Ok, plenty more water if I just go deeper, right? Whatever is draining the water cannot possibly drain the hundreds of square miles of water connected to this area. Probably.

Huh, another three hundred spaces before it starts getting deep again, how about another two hundred spaces to get a good depth. There we go, three floors should be sufficient, now a four-by-four-by three pit of ice aspected area lined with ice trees.

And put a transport ring at the bottom of that with the other end on the wall at the top of the perimeter.

Nice, plenty of icy water flowing into the trap pit. Takes a bit of mana, but I should still have plenty.

Now, narrow tunnels at the tops and bottoms of those pillars so I can fill them with architectural mines.

Wow, almost four thousand mana worth of architectural mines, I do not think I have ever spent that much on traps before.

The water is almost to the top of the excavation, so time to quickly dig a narrow channel just on the inside of the wall, then I can trigger the mines and drop the whole thing!

Oh, right the sharks. The flow through the ring has slowed since the water is now covering part of it, so I can spawn some giant sharks on the source side of the ring and have them swim through once there are no more rocks falling past the ring.

I wonder why I created giant bull sharks instead of giant spear tooth sharks? Perhaps because of the much higher sodium content of the water? Fortunately they are small enough to swim through my ring, but not by much. Good choice.

Three floors left, two floors, uh, oh, something is interfering with my digging, better blow the mines!

Fortunately all of the falling rocks and pieces of broken pillar count as debris and I can clean them up quickly and almost for free. That has significantly lowered the water level and pulled in the sharks earlier than planned, but I am ok with that.

The Core killers seem very put out by this collapse. It seems like most of their buildings are not built to withstand falling, tilting, sinking into water and having the ground under them crumble or vanish. There seem to be more than a few that were killed just by the buildings. That is good, as my mana had dipped below ten thousand from keeping the water around the trees icy and letting it pass through the rings. Looks like some core killers are trying to pull others out of the ice water. The sharks seem to appreciate their snacks grouping together like that.

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There is some effort to kill the sharks, but the icy water seems to greatly reduce the accuracy and effectiveness of those attacks.

Now that the trap is open to the surface, I think I should claim a perimeter to keep an eye on what is happening around my pit.

Oh, it seems there are a small number of dirty and wet people weathering loose clothing looking down into the hole and being loud at each other. I guess those are the ones that could get out of the trap. They seem very concerned and get less noisy when they see one of my giant sharks swallow someone who managed to get to the surface. I think they were still alive, even if they were not moving much.

There seem to be some people dressed in identical armor and carrying spears that want to be noisy at the wet people, particularly the one with the largest feather sticking out of its helmet.

Well, nothing terribly interesting up there, now to see if I got it.

After clearing out the debris, there are a number of chests, many of them spilled onto their sides and leaking coins or other materials.

There! That one looks like the chests they brought in when attacking my dungeons, and there seems to be one of the core-enslavement devices near-by. Probably from a different chest that got smashed and removed as debris.

There are several more of that style of chest nearby. One of them probably has the hammer.

I am fine with exposing and smashing the enslavement devices, as those do not do anything unless they can touch my core, which is a safe distance away, but that hammer hurts and I am not sure what, if anything, can be done to get rid of it.

If I want to be able to open and close chests, I think I may need to use some tool users.

Hey, upgrade, I want to be able to to create a tool user that is happy in icy water.

Upgrade Complete, New Defender: Ice Water Goblin

That should work. Create a few, have them collect the chests into a line and carefully peek inside each one to find the hammer.

Oh, that is a bit more obvious, as one of the chests seems much heavier than the others.

Yep, all of the other ones are either empty or have an enslavement device.

I wonder what would happen to an enslavement device dropped in lava?

I quickly dig out a small space on the side of the pit away from my sub-core, put in a door, drain the water and then make a lava space under it, with grass in case I need to super-charge it.

I have one of the goblins take an enslavement device, stick it through the door into the air, and drop it into the lava.

Lots of hissing and steaming, possibly because it was still wet, but it eventually starts to break down and fall apart. The feeling of oppression that it gives quickly fades to nothing as the components blacken and liquify.

How about if they drop an entire chest into the lava?

That takes a bit longer, with a lot more steam and fire, but shortly the box stops blocking the impressive feeling, and a little while after that the oppressive feeling goes away.

So that works to reduce my exposure.

I quickly expand my disposal area to be four-by-four with a pair of open doors that the chests can be passed through.

I have the goblins start passing the non-hammer chests into the disposal chamber as I empower the grass to heat the lava further. Some of them seem only to hold water, but the extra-hot lave makes short work of the water, chests, and enslavement devices.

Once about half of the chests have been destroyed, I have the goblins carry the hammer chest over to the disposal room.

But before I expose myself the the effects of the hammer, for however brief a period it takes to destroy it.

Hey Upgrade! I want resistance or immunity to Bane being able to permanently weaken me!

Upgrade Complete, New Feature: Bane Resistance(5)

Not as effective as I would like, but hopefully enough.

I have the goblins drop the hammer-chest into the extra-hot lava. Once the lave eats though the chest, I Can feel the draining effect of the hammer. Fortunately it is well away from any of my cores, but it is still very unpleasant. I turn up the power to the mana grass, I want this thing Gone!

The hammer starts to glow red, and I feel a demonic wail pass through me as it finally starts to break apart and I can feel the all devouring hunger dissipate. Was the resistance enough?

Status Day 47, core 46

Mana: 20,182, Water: 8885, Ice: 1224 Fire: 15 Lava: 2192

Environments: Water, Ice, Fire, Lava, Acid, Poison, Mud, Steam, Smoke

Defenders: Rat, Giant Rat, Bat, Dove, Canids, Bears, Ruminants, raptors, Felinoids, Reptiles, Amphibians, Ice Water Goblins

Traps: Sleep gas, Core Trap, Trap Core, Falling Rocks, Small Projectiles, Moving Spikes, Architectural Mine

Features: Rebirth, Nest, Den, Prison, Mana Grass, Mana Tree, Secret passages, Alternate Entrances, Doors, Scouts, Spies, Follow Invader, Advanced Spawning, Fluid Handling, Bane Resistance(1)

Good, it looks like it managed to eat four levels of my bane resistance, but not anything else.

I have the goblins dispose of the rest of the enslavement chests, but the major threat of the core killers is now gone.

It is odd, I have been so focused on this one problem for so long that I do not really know what to do next.

Sure I still have them attacking some of my defensive outposts, but. Wait, do I?

No, it looks like they have stopped digging, are taking down their cloth structures and seem to be getting ready to leave. I suppose I should do something to thin their numbers, but without the hammer, I do not know that I even care enough about them to drive them off. They are just irrelevant now.

I'll have the eagles keep an eye on them, and I will repair the damage they have done, but that is enough. Pursuing them and wiping them out might encourage retribution or even another bane, and I would really rather that they just stay irrelevant to my survival.