Day 42
MDef NW 2-4
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MDef NW 5-7
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MDef NW 8-10
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MDef NW 11-13
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Lake report:
100% of shore claimed to five spaces and planted with grass. 33% of shore claimed out to six spaces and planted with grass. 12870 total shore spaces.
100% of water-side shore claimed to nine spaces deep. 6% claimed to ten spaces deep. 17498 total underwater spaces, 8014 with grass (16% of lake floor claimed)
status Day 42, Size: 49,659, core 42, Eighty Eight upgrades available
Mana: 15,644/24,829, Water: 8214, Ice: 587 Fire: 5 Lava: 12
Oh, perhaps they traveled at after second color change to avoid my highly effective eagle scouts. It is good that they focused on MDef NW12, as that is nearly twenty miles from Mountain 1 and I am well warned before spending any of my mana for today.
There sure seem to be a lot of them however.
I have seen well over twenty individuals, even if no more than ten or so have entered my area at a time. It seems like my Giant Fire Eagles were deemed an effective threat since they went after them first. Fortunately, I have a lot more available that I can call in at first color change.
Well, they certainly are being through. The birds are all dead, the nests torn apart and now they are taking all of my fire grass.
They seem to be doing some magic at my entrance. I want to see what they can do, but I am not willing to give them access to the core, so time to put in those other traps.
Feels like I can do tiny or small projectiles either alone, in a small or large group. Since I only need a single impact, and tiny should be harder to detect, I am going to have a manually triggered trap on the support next to the core, on the side facing the core, and the trap will launch a large group of tiny projectiles. Five mana, seems reasonable. Now, how about those spikes. Feels like the basic spike can hit the space where it is deployed. But there is a longer spikes option, for hitting an adjacent space as well. They also have small and large group options. There are two empty diagonals to the core, how about a small group of long spikes in each of them pointing at the core, looks like six mana each. That gives me three different options, each one with multiple opportunities to trigger the core trap. The new traps plus not letting them get close to the core will hopefully be more effective than the carelessness I showed with Trap 1.
Are they stealing my lava too? There are a couple of staff-holders standing near the entrance, and they are doing something to pull a steady stream of my lava out of the entrance and letting it pile up a few spaces down-hill. Perhaps not steal. As no one seems to want to get close to the slowly growing and hardening pile, so they are trying to drain my lava?
That seems much more challenging than just trying to swim through it. They have managed to empty the first space and open the secret hatch under it, but the smaller person who did it seemed to be on fire by the time they got back out. They were also being very noisy.
On the plus side, it looks like fresh lava is slowly seeping out of the walls of the drained area, presumably part of the up-keep.
I wonder if I could super-charge that refill process? If not, I could at least generate more lava deeper in the shaft and have it refill the stolen lava from below.
But first I think I should wait for my eagles to be available to get a better idea on how many of them there are, and if I can deal with them without revealing any new tricks. It is not like they are draining the lava very fast after all, they probably will not get past the third or fourth space before first color change.
They stopped? They seem concerned about the lava grass down in the shaft that they uncovered. Perhaps because it is dripping lava even faster than the walls? The smaller invader is there and has new, white wrappings on its extremities, but seems to have strong objections to going back into the opening. The small invader finally leaves and the staff-holders gather around the opening while manipulating the local mana. It seems that they are trying to harvest the lava grass, but whatever they are doing is also making it release a lot more lava. By the time they get the grass out of the entrance it refilled almost half of the space it was in. If they need to do that for the other twenty six lava grass, it is going to take them multiple days to get down to the core.
I wonder why they are not trying to dig down? Is it because it is rock and not dirt? Perhaps because they cannot detect the collection area of the sub-core? Whatever it is, I am glad it is slowing them down, as I am not keen to sacrifice my defenses any faster than I must.
Finally, time to send scouts to check on how many enemies I am dealing with. They just got the second lava grass out, so they are now down to less than four days to reach the core chamber of MDef NW12 at their current rate of progress.
Scouting Report
MDef NW12 is currently surrounded by roughly a hundred invaders mostly wearing the core-killer icon.
There seems to be some sort of transparent dome covering the entire area, but the purpose of this dome is not entirely clear.
Any scouts that approach are immediately attacked by both spell and arrow. The intensity and immediacy of the attacks suggest a high rate of attrition for any attacks made against the invaders with giant eagles.
The scouting party consisted of four Giant Fire Eagles and two Giant Acid Eagles.
All scouts returned.
There were no invaders killed and no resources harvested
Interesting. I wonder how they would handle nearly fifty Giant Elemental Eagles harassing them?
Getting just close enough to make the core killers shoot in defense then veering off? If they are not in formations and each make approaches from different directions or angles, that might drain their mana reserves and slow them down even further. Moving lava seems pretty mana intensive as they were on their third set when they harvested the second lava grass, and none of the staff-holders from the first set have returned yet.
Well, that certainly seems to be an effective distraction, as even the current lava drainers are now focused on the harassing eagles. So, while no one is paying attention, seems like an ideal time to see what happens if I supercharge the lava chimney with say, two mana per space to produce more lava?
That is quite the plume of lava, I hope it does not go high enough to actually endanger any of my birds. I wonder if I can get a status report on how the harassing and excess lava are affecting the invaders?
Attack Report
Forty eight Giant Elemental Eagles approached the enemy position while maintaining a safe distance and not directly engaging. The enemy position responded with an on-going barrage of attacks that may have been intended to drive off the eagles. During this action, a spray of lava was launched from the dungeon and started painting the inside of the transparent bubble around the invaders. When the bubble dissipated, the lava fell back to the ground, starting fires.
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Many invaders were struck by the falling lava, most of which went down. Some due to being struck from above by hardening lava, others by the residual heat setting fire to both cloth and flesh. Those enclosed in metal armor seemed to fare best, but still made great haste to shed any armor which had lava sticking to it, even if it had hardened.
Roughly one sixth of the invading force have been knocked down, with an additional third fleeing north west in a disorganized fashion.
That sounds good, if roughly half of the invaders are at least injured or fleeing. Eagles, go pick off any of the retreating invaders that do not immediately shoot at your approach.
The remaining core killers seem very unhappy with this eventuality, especially when the eagles peel off and start attacking the ones that ran away. Many of them start yelling at each other, while others fire off magic effects at the area around the entrance. Those do not seem to have much effect aside from leaving a few cracks and scorch marks. The others seem more worried about the invaders that were knocked down. It seems that less than half of them were killed, with many of them having burned flesh or missing limbs where they were struck by falling lava. That was surprisingly effective. I have already seen an invader maneuver within both water and ice water, so I wonder if either acid or poison-water would be more similar to the ice or lava.
Then again, perhaps Ice could be as effective as lava if it were as far away from the ambient temperature as the lava is. Ice is usually less than the ambient by no more than a hundred degrees, while lava is closer to a thousand degrees above the ambient temperature. I may need to try supercharging the ice next time someone tries to swim through my ice-water to see if I can get it closer to a thousand below ambient.
Hmm, that idea feels difficult. Not the supercharging, but the thousand degrees. Well, no real opportunity to test it now, so I’ll just need to wait and see what happens when I can.
Looks like the remaining invaders are getting organized again, putting the injured in a cloth structure outside of the lava-affected area, but they do not seem to be putting the bubble back in place.
Looks like they are getting ready to start draining the lava again. I hope they appreciate the refill and that I re-planted those two lava grass for them.
It does seem like instead of the bubble, they put up some sort of channel so that if I shoot out lava again, it will just go down the middle of the already scorched area and not towards where they are setting up their remaining structures.
It would be nice if I can do that again, but they do seem to learn quickly.
It seems they decided that draining the lava was not worthwhile if I can just fill it back up again, and they are instead starting to dig through the rock. Although it seems that digging through the rock, even with magic, is a lot slower than digging through dirt. Good to know.
Hmm, if the lava is giving them so much difficulty, what if I put in a magma floor, perhaps twenty levels down? That would still be well above the top of the mana collection field, although it might be expensive to do it as a standard feature.
Then again, it looks like it will take them more than half a day to get down that far, so it can probably be added on an as-needed basis.
Oof, more than thirteen hundred to make a floor eight wide on each side of the shaft and filled with magma and lava grass. On the plus side, it will generate enough lava mana to make three of those lava plumes per day should the need arise. Of course supporting all of that grass underground also costs more than the core room, so another good reason not to spread these around too much.
Oh, the first scouting swift has returned with a distant peak to claim, good bird.
I think I like the idea of continuing to use lava defenses for the travel sites, as it seems to be a very effective material for defense. Although I suspect it also blocks the bonus intake mana for having an opening. Not that that matters a great deal, as it would only be an extra seventeen mana, and that is less than the amount that my mana varies every day due to local wildlife seeking water.
It seems that burrowing through rock is even slower than sucking out my lava. Then again, the stone hardly returns like my lava does
It took about a quarter of a day for them to dig out a dozen floors worth of earth, while it takes them about the same amount of time to suck out three floors worth of lava, and the same amount of time to dig out about two and a half floors worth of stone. If they continue at that rate, they will hit my magma shield in a little under two days.
No wonder they wanted to do the lava chimney first, even working as a group, it seems like they can only tunnel through rock at half the speed of a starting dungeon.
The Eagles managed to pick off some of the runners, but most of them escaped by coming back to MDef NW12 after the initial confusion died down. I would at least comfort myself with having seriously injured several of the invaders, if not for the fact that one of the staff holders currently digging through the rock has a pink and hairless arm and pink and sandals foot where I distinctly remember them having a pair of scorched stumps where that extremity was burned off by the falling lava. I’ll have the eagles go back to harassing, but I do not have any good ideas on how to take advantage of the invaders being distracted. Perhaps one of the eagles will get lucky and take out an invader that is not paying attention?
Ah, a good location for MTravel 11 has been identified. Hopefully it is somewhat better than MTravel 10, as that just seems to be a few high ridges five hundred plus miles south of the target. That would not be bad, but the scouts found nothing north or northwest with any height to let me travel a decent distance. MTravel 11 is north east even though I am already east of the target, so hopefully it will lead to something heading in a better direction.
You know, these core-killer people seemed a lot scarier before they got slowed to a crawl by something so trivial as digging through solid stone. They could probably go faster if they were not so worried about making all of those steps in the side of the wall, not even proper steps, but very narrow steps that are probably hard for the ones wearing armor to go up and down. Not that I would offer them such advice, even if I could, they are trying to kill me after all. Actually, those stairs might be a good thing, as they will no doubt need to carry the hammer chest or an enslaving chest down them if they ever get through, so perhaps that will be an opportunity to have a bat or dive fly into their faces to try and get them to fall off of the stairs. I do not know if a fall of a few dozen floors would matter much to the invaders(although my instincts suggest that it would be bad news for most non-fliers), hopefully it would break any chest or chest-contents that were being carried.
Hmm, the location found for MTravel 12 is still going north east. A hundred mile step and only getting thirty miles closer. Not great, but better than the steps I can manage myself. At least they are fr enough apart that it should be implausible for them to be considered as part of the same dungeon, even if the structures are almost identical(not that it seems like anyone will be getting a proper look at the layout beyond the surface).
It took them half the day(more if you count the failed start on the lava tube), but they are now a quarter of the way down to my magma shield. They have more than eighty percent of their starting force, and I am in need of some good ideas on how to deal with them. Hopefully the magma shield will surprise and destroy some of them, but I should not expect that to work more than once, and I am not coming up with a reliable idea for stopping them.
Second color change is starting, so I can have the eagles all fly up high and dive down on them all at the same time to try and take some of them out. I’ll lose some eagles, but hopefully not more than will respawn from the day change. What I want is a much bigger and tougher bird, but eagles are just about the biggest raptor there is.
Just about. Wasn’t there a legendary raptor mentioned in that description? It needs the highest peak to nest in, but I have a bunch of peaks, and Mountain 1 is the tallest one I have. Perhaps it is tall enough?
Oh, it feels like it is. Needs a huge nest however, a bit bigger than three by three. Considering that the giant eagles are happy in a nest no more than four feet across, the Roc sounds huge if it needs a nest nearly twenty feet across. Perhaps big enough to chase off the invaders even?
Wow the Roc costs more than fifty mana even before the multiplier for having a spawn point, and it cannot even take on an elemental aspect boost.
Really? Because it is a legendary beast, I do not get it on the day I create the spawn point, and the spawn point caps out at a single animal and not two per spawn like the others?
I sure hope it proves effective, because I am kind of disappointed so far.
In any case, the color change is well progressed and the eagles are about as high as they can get, so have them each target a bow or staff holder and dive on them in unison.
Attack Report Forty eight Giant Elemental Eagles approached the enemy position in a high altitude stoop. The enemy position responded with a barrage of attacks that managed to score fifteen direct hits. Eight of these were wing hits that forced the eagle off-course, three were head hits that either killed the eagle outright or caused it to crash into the ground at high speed. The other four were torso hits that may require extensive recovery, but did not stop the ongoing attack. Ten of the eagles were deflected off of invisible shields. Two eagles had the same target, and in the collision all three were killed. Nineteen eagles struck and killed their target. Two eagles injured their targets and managed to kill them before dropping them. Two eagles injured their target but did not get a good grip. One eagle grabbed and injured their target but was killed before finishing it off. One eagle was killed while leaving after the attack.
Twenty two invaders were killed.
Forty eagles returned, fifteen of them injured.
Only seventeen percent losses, not too bad when I can replenish fifty percent overnight. Although a lot of that was probably because they were not expecting a real attack after so much harassment.
And there is the location for MTravel 13. A couple hundred miles closer than yesterday, so not bad. Still almost four hundred miles to go. Another good day or two and I can do more than just defend myself from attacks.
Well, second color change has come and gone and I still have more than two thirds of my mana available, even before counting those interloper kills. I’ll save about a thousand in case of an emergency, but the rest can go to expanding the grass in and around the lake, I think.
Already? The lake bottom grass is barely more than two floors deep and any additional water grass will need maintenance. Fine, the rest can be planted on the shore, it will just take a few extra days to claim the lake floor.