Day 40
MDef NE/SE/NW/SW, MTravel 1
image [https://imgur.com/VGlyFGt.jpg]
image [https://imgur.com/J0uFDCZ.jpg] image [https://imgur.com/9bjfNqh.jpg]
Lake report:
100% of shore claimed to three spaces and planted with grass. 80% of shore claimed out to four spaces and planted with grass. 9870 total shore spaces.
17% of water-side shore claimed. 498 total underwater spaces 449 with grass. 0.4% of lake floor claimed
status Day 40, Size: 25,211, core 40, Fifty Eight upgrades available
Mana: 11,830/12,605 Water: 1313/12,605 Ice: 587/12,605 Fire: 0/12,605 Lava: 0/12,605
It occurs to me that I need doves at MTravel 1 if I want to send them out to find the next jump-point.
If I add those into the jump-point cost, I should have the mana to afford at least fifteen jumps, today, probably sixteen if I left the core sitting out while the next location was scouted.
Unfortunately, if last night is any indication, I’ll be lucky to get four jumps. But on the plus side, four jumps of a hundred miles gives me more distance than a hundred and fifty jumps when I was building towers. And as the scouts are looking for locations with good visibility moving forwards, I should not need to worry about needing to make shorter jumps. If I can keep going from mountain top to mountain top all the way there, I might arrive in as little as three days perhaps? That seems pretty quick for a sessile dungeon to travel over a thousand miles, so I doubt they will be expecting me.
Ah, good, first color change, time to send out the doves to find the next step towards the home of the core-killers.
Scouting Alert
A large group of invaders wearing core-killer emblems were identified leaving a large spawning area forty miles north of Mountain 1, heading south.
Oh, wow, I was not expecting them to be back so quickly. There must be one of those travel buildings in that spawning area.
Hopefully my fourteen giant eagles can deal with them before they get too close.
Better have them all move in then attack at the same time, hopefully the damage dealt will be spread out more and some of them will be in good enough shape for a second stoop before they retreat.
Ah, found a good spot for MTravel 2. The core killers are still a long ways away, so hopefully they will not be able to detect sending out a new sub-core, especially as it is quite some distance from them and targeting even further away.
Now, hide my targeting core back in the storage area, build out the new surface with the nests and spawns, then send out some doves to find a target for MTravel 3.
Attack Report
The ice eagles led the first stoop, but had to veer off when they were targeted by numerous fire attacks. The fire eagles behind them managed to grab four staff holders and two archers that were defending the formation. Two died from the initial grab, three died by the time they hit the ground, and one survived, managing to slow the fall and put out the fire after receiving serious wounds. One of the Fire eagles was seriously hit and had to return to base with a detour to another peak beforehand. One fire eagle was hit in both eyes and crashed into its attacker, both are considered lost.
The eight remaining fire eagles led the second stoop, they were mostly unaffected by the fire-based defenses used, and managed to take out the last two defending staff holders and four archers. The ice eagles managed to take out the last archer and the previously injured staff holder in addition to the staff-holder that was healing it.
The remaining unarmored invaders were cluttered in the middle of the armored invaders who aimed lances at any eagle that attempted to approach. As the ice eagle that attempted to attack the formation proved ineffective and did not survive the attempt, the remaining eagles either returned indirectly to their base if injured or to scouting if uninjured.
One Ice Eagle and One Fire eagle were lost, two ice eagles and five fire eagles were injured, seven staff holders and seven archers were killed in the attack.
Oh, I did not notice last time, but it looks like I gained a hundred mana for each invader that was killed. That is nice. Not as nice a full mana, but still nice.
It seems like the invaders got really far after they were spotted and before the attacks. It may be better to bring in the eagles from MTravel 1 and 2 as reserves, but not wait for them before making the initial attack. Just waiting for MTravel 1 to arrive took longer than I probably want to wait next time.
Well, I chased them off for now, and tomorrow I will have almost twice as many Fire Eagles, so hopefully that will keep them from getting very far even if they come prepared to face what they faced today.
Oh, a dove is back? Did it find a good place for MTravel 3?
Looks like it did, so let’s put that one down with its own scouts and defenders, letting us hide away the core of MTravel 2 and send out scouts for MTravel 4.
The east and north east doves returned without finding any particularly good prospects, it seems that the mountains are fading to hills that do not have the height for my fifty mile plus steps. I can head that way, but I suspect they would not even be suitable for eagle nests, so I would either need to identify something suitable to the new environment that I could empower with an appropriate element, or use an upgrade to gain general access to GIant Eagles so I can place their nests outside of the mountains.
I could probably manage normal sized eagles if I placed the nests on top of stone towers, but those sound like a pretty obvious indicator of a dungeon.
That is the down-side of getting the groupings instead of individuals, I suppose, as I can only use them where they are environmentally appropriate. I wonder if that is why the Raptor and Ungulant groups are so large for a single upgrade: they would be very difficult for a normal dungeon to get much use out of them.
Ah, good, the dove sent north managed to find something suitable to the north and a little west. So establishing the surface parts of MTravel 4 and send out the dove scouts to the north, north east and north west, as there seems to be little available to the east.
Finish up MTravel 4, move the core for MTravel 3 down into the core room, and done, now to see if the doves can find MTravel 5 before second color change when they return.
Building all of these lava tubes reminds me that many of my core rooms only have a little bit of ice protecting them under a large depth of water. As I am producing over a hundred ice mana per day, there is little reason not to use some of that to make those ice barriers deeper than they are. How about Mountain 1, that one is pretty exposed and apparently under attack, so putting in a bunch of ice and grass to support it seems like a good start.
Hopefully the lava tubes will prove at least as effective a deterrent as the ice tubes. I wonder if I would add the small snake swarms to both of those, or just leave them as a surprise for Lake 1 defense?
I should probably wait until I have seen how useful the lava tubes are for defense, no point putting snakes in them if they are trivial to bypass and need to be replaced with a different entrance after all.
Ah, the scouts have returned and one of them found a suitable peak. Only half as tall as Mountain 1, but they seem to be getting shorter and shorter as I go. And this one is only about sixty miles from MTravel4. Hopefully tomorrow I can manage more or longer steps, as I still have more than a thousand miles to go.
Well traveling is done for now, and I still have over nine thousand mana thanks to those kills. How much of the wet side of the shore can I claim using only water mana?
Looks like the rest of the first ring, all of the second ring and more than half of the third ring. Planting all of that with grass should do good things for my water mana generation. Although it does take more than half of my remaining mana to do so.
I am tempted to try using my old method of targeting to find the next mountain so I can keep expanding with the mana I have left, but even when I knew exactly where the top of the mountain was, it was quite a challenge to hit it. If I just scan for distant areas and plant a core there, I am concerned about planting a core on the side of a mountain where the top is not close-by and the current area cannot target areas closer to the destination.
Support creative writers by reading their stories on Royal Road, not stolen versions.
For now I suppose I will satisfy myself with more distance than a hundred tower-based steps, and grow my mana generation to allow me to make more tower hops in a day should that need arise.
That said, it looks like I have enough mana to claim and put grass on the rest of the fourth ring, all of the fifth ring, and about a third of the sixth ring, meaning I now control all of the surface within fifty to sixty feet of the shore. If I keep growing like this, I may well reach MDef SE in another twenty or thirty days.
Scouting Report
The group designated Core killers was tracked from the vicinity of a large collection of structures forty miles north of Mountain 1 to a point roughly halfway between those structures and Mountain 1 where they were attacked by a group of four Giant Ice Eagles and ten Giant Fire Eagles. Fourteen were killed and two were lost
After the combat the Core killers waited for a while, then started heading back towards the structures at a slower pace, maintaining a close formation.
Fifty miles north east of MTravel 4 is a body of water roughly one hundred miles wide, narrowing to the north west to less than twenty miles wide. Beyond the narrow point it quickly widens to more than fifty miles wide. The body of water extends for more than one hundred and fifty miles east of MTravel 4.
The scouting party consisted of twenty doves, twelve bats, twelve coyotes, four ice doves, four Giant Ice Eagles and ten Giant Fire Eagles.
Twenty doves, ten bats, twelve coyotes, four ice doves, Three giant ice eagles and nine Giant Fire Eagles returned. Three Giant Ice Eagles and five Giant Fire Eagles were injured.
There were fourteen invaders killed and no resources harvested.
Lava can provide a challenge to even the most experienced of delvers. While it is similar to mud in that it is a fluid form of earth, without the lighter water to reduce the density or the air pockets that permeate loosened soil, lava is generally too dense to make any head-way through without extreme measures. Additionally, lava is hot enough that it will rapidly destroy any tools, equipment or personnel in close proximity without significant protection. This makes moving lava almost impossible without significant use of magic, as even bringing in cold or water to neutralize the damaging heat will only turn the lava into hard stone that is even harder to penetrate.
That said, the heat and glow of magma can dramatically change the ambiance of a room or section, easily emphasizing an area as dangerous and not for the ill-prepared.
While lava works well as a threat, it is often not tenable as an actual challenge, except as a severe punishment for failure for those seeking the richest treasures. An example might be a room where delvers need to jump from platform to platform to reach a reward, but instead of the forgiving unpleasantness of mud below the platforms, a major prize might have lava in place of the mud, turning a fall from something unpleasant but not hazardous to potentially life-threatening.
Day 41
MTravel 2-5
image [https://imgur.com/VGlyFGt.jpg]
image [https://imgur.com/J0uFDCZ.jpg] image [https://imgur.com/9bjfNqh.jpg]
Mountain 1
image [https://imgur.com/zSnFp16.jpg]
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 two spaces deep.
40% claimed to three spaces deep.
5750 total underwater spaces, 5701 with grass (5%)
status Day 40, Size: 29,521, Sixty Four upgrades available
Mana: 14,760*/14,760, Water: 5901/14,760, Ice: 727/14,760 Fire: 2/14,760 Lava: 3/14,760
Surprisingly, it looks like I hit my mana cap, even with all those low mana expansions and prioritizing water mana over normal mana. I also got a few fire and lava mana, so I guess it takes slightly less than half of a typed mana to maintain each space with that configuration.
Speaking of mana, I have plenty of mana to go further than the two to three hundred mils I can scout with my doves, but I got my doves by asking for something inconspicuous, if I use a couple upgrades, I could get the common bird that can fly the fastest and farthest in a day, then perhaps the fastest bat so I can travel day and night?
Not terribly efficient, but with sixty upgrades and more every day, I can afford to use a few.
Upgrade Complete, New Defender: Common Swift Upgrade Complete, New Defender: Free-tailed bat
That ‘common’ in the name sounds promising, although I doubt they are commonly elementally enhanced. As it is still the middle of the night, might as well start with an out-cropping with a bat nest on the under-side.
Ah, the bats have returned. Huh, it seems like it landed in several places, although one of them got more attention than the others, it also seems like it had to spend a lot of time at and around the step location before it came back. I wonder if this scouting irregularity is related to why birds will only scout between first and second color change?
Well, even if it is approaching first color change, at least I got an extra step for today: MTravel 6 and it is far enough north that it should be on the other sie of the hundred mile wide lake that was limiting my expansion options. But if Lake 1 ever comes under threat, a base hidden under a hundred mile wide lake seems like it would be difficult to find, so something to keep in mind.
If the bats are not working well, I wonder if I could send the birds out in pairs, so that while the first bird is coming back to report a good location, the second can continue on to find a second location and then return to the new base to report it.
It might be a little complicated to relay that to the scouts, but if I can get it to work it should help speed things up nicely.
So I’ll make two nests of swifts at MTravel 6 and send them out in pairs.
While I wait for them to come back to report, I am wondering what I should do about the Core Killers coming after Mountain 1. Sure there are four defender sites around it to help, but the core killers now know I have a bunch of giant ice and fire eagles, so they may be ready for them.
Are there any more peaks between MDef NW and the transport point? Perhaps I can send out the doves at MDef NW to find the six tallest peaks between their nest and the structures, and put more defensive installations on them?
Oh? That was pretty quick, are there six more tall peaks?
There we go, an even dozen locations to put more defender spawns between the transport point and Mountain 1. So, half ice and half lava? They have seen both of those, do I have any other viable options?
What about acid and poison?
I could do three of each, with the Ice on the tallest where the natural ice is closest, then the poison, acid, and fire on the shortest of the peaks?
Sounds like a plan, A quick move of the targeting core from Storage and I wonder how many of the designated peaks I can reach from MDef NW.
I got eight of them, now let us see if I can use those to reach the last four without the added cost of moving cores around for better targeting.
Oh, before I build those out, a swift came back with a good location for MTravel 7. Two hundred and fifty miles, quite the step, and the other swift is out looking for a place for MTravel 8 while I make that return trip shorter by building MTravel 7.
Ok, Fire and Lava done for MT7, so now for the ice water for MDef NW 2 to 4.
It looks like poison wants to be a gas, so I had to make the maze full of both water and poison to have something they need to swim through, as just sleep gas was ineffective against those that were prepared, but the ice water stopped even prepared core killers.
Fortunately acid and lava are both happy to be liquids when I put them down, so no need to combine them with anything to increase the difficulty.
A dozen defensive sites feels like a lot, but when dealing with people that want to kill me and my kind, too much is very preferable to too little.
It seems that the swifts are living up to their name, with a sustained rate of travel roughly half again the speed of the doves, which is fortunate, as the mountains on the other side of the water seem to be much more spread out than the range I am in on this side. Or at least the mountains in the direction I want to travel are spread out. Another interesting tidbit is that they do not seem to like spending much time on the ground. They also seem happy to fly after second color change, which is nice. I am not sure if they would do a better job than the bats for scouting at the start and end of the day, but that is something to try. Especially as the last set of scouts I sent out are not back yet.
I still have enough mana for five more mountain tops, so I’ll reserve mana for at least one more in case the scouts come back with a location, but I should expand my hold of the bottom of the lake, and possibly speed that up with more water weeds.
With almost six thousand water mana, I can claim roughly another ten percent of the lake bed, even if I can only plant about fifteen hundred of those spaces with grass.
Oh, nice, the scouts returned with another mountain top. I’ll go ahead and establish MTravel 9 and put the rest into water grass. At this rate I should be able to claim the entire lake bed in just a few more days, and then start taking control of the rest of the water area in the lake.
Scouting Report
MTravel 6-8 are on a large body of land that is roughly square and about four hundred and fifty miles on each side. There are mountains along the north along with some mountains in the center and southern portions of the land mass. MTravel 9 in the eastern portion of the northern mountains where the land mass extends to the north and east. MTravel 9 is roughly six hundred miles south of the target designated as Core Killer Base 1.
The area between Mountain 1 and the target designated enemy Transport 2 is currently patrolled by Forty two elemental doves and twenty eight giant elemental eagles.
The scouting party consisted of twenty six doves, twelve bats, twelve coyotes, fifteen ice doves, thirty nine fire doves, nine poison doves, nine acid doves, twelve fire swifts, ten Giant Ice Eagles forty nine Giant Fire Eagles, six giant poison eagles, and six giant acid eagles.
All scouts returned.
There were no invaders killed and no resources harvested.
Intruder Detected
Wait, where? MDef 12? They surrounded it? How have they already killed the giant eagles? The doves are almost gone too? How did they bypass my scouts? What are they-?
Day 42