Day 15
Surface
image [https://imgur.com/kQVDC3S.jpg]
Vertical
image [https://imgur.com/eLoDaBy.jpg]
‘Deep’ core room
image [https://imgur.com/d3CLhEa.jpg]
status Day 15, Mana:129/149, Size: 298, core 21, Six upgrades available
Hmm, looks like probably ten to twenty mana from intruders and dead intruders. A lot better than the brief visits of yesterday.
I wonder if that would improve with a second ring of trees and grass? I should be able to afford that plus claiming another ring around that.
That would give me a practice area for trying to throw around mana more than ten areas long.
Hmm, might want that a bit bigger. If I add two more rings tomorrow, I should still have over a hundred mana for messing around and have a practice area fifteen by three consisting mostly of barren dirt.
Intruder Detected
A small fox is prowling around the surface portion of my dungeon. It seems to appreciate the growing trees as it rubs against several of them, often dislodging smaller invaders that it would try to hit with a bite-attack. Fortunately this aggression seems unlikely to be directed towards the dungeon because the over-large ears would make traversing the chimney difficult due to catching the water as it tried to swim far enough down to search for the secret passages.
This reminds me that I was considering putting ice down at the ends of the chimneys, and possibly some environmental mana grass as well.
Scouting Report
The green in the distance is too far to get a good look, but the shape suggests it may be a small group of trees. There is now a group of structures roughly halfway between the green smudge and the dungeon. It was not present yesterday, and does not seem to be moving today. The rippling of the structures suggest they may be made of cloth, but no known symbols were identified.
In the direction opposite the green, there is a region on the horizon that is a darker brown than the sand, possibly another platform of raised earth similar to the one holding the dungeon.
In the early morning, a larger predator was spotted in the sand, but was too far away to identify. It is presumed to be a predator because there was movement and flicker of red as something rat sized was killed and then swallowed whole.
The scouting party consisted of four doves.
Four doves returned.
There were no kills or resources harvested.
Day 16
image [https://imgur.com/WAjwpbA.jpg]
status Day 16, Mana:170/185, Size: 370, core 21, Seven upgrades available
I am concerned that whatever set up those structures may be traveling at night, and I do not yet have any bat scouts. I expect I would need to make a new chimney to have a place to put the bat nest as thinking about putting scouts in either the alternate core room or the original core location gives me a feeling of futility. Perhaps bats have difficulty with secret passages or flying through water. It would be nice if one or both of those prove to be a significant hindrance to most of the non-tool users that have taken up residence around the entrance to my dungeon.
Well, to start with, I wanted to expand my perimeter a bit, then a chimney just deep enough to host a bat nest with a couple scout spawns, so I can spot anything approaching at night.
Now, let’s start small, and just try to throw a couple mana towards one corner of my perimeter using that smoke-ring technique.
Wham!
Oh. Good thing my central core was far enough away for that to hit the ceiling of the core chamber instead of setting off the falling rocks trap above the core.
Instead let me try throwing a point or two at the wall of my secondary core chamber, this time focusing on throwing it from the secondary core.
Pop!
No, from the secondary core! Focus!
Smack!
Ok, good, now more like that ring-pattern
Smack!
This is a lot harder than it looked. Good thing I still have more than a hundred mana to practice with. Oh, speaking of mana, let me just put in those ice bits at the bottoms of those chimneys before I end up using it all for practice.
Ok, I finally managed to get a couple points of mana to travel all the way to the wall before getting disrupted, so I think I am almost ready to start practicing in my larger practice area up on the surface.
I’ll either need a new core or to move my sub core for that, so I really want to make sure I am not going to have visitors.
The bats should be returning soon, I’ll wait on their report before exposing myself.
Intruder Detected
Oh, a bunch of tool-users covered in cloth, probably those same ones that had the cloth structures spotted yesterday by my scout.
Yep, after a visit to my water they seem intent on setting up their structures in my practice area.
It looks like not all of them are tool users, as the larger ones on four feet just seem to be carrying for the tool users, but at least the tool users seem to be taking care of them in return, brushing them and letting them play in my water.
Hey! Why are the carriers trying to attack my fruit?
Sure the tool users were happy to harvest them, but when some of them were set down near the carriers, they started viciously trying to kill the harvested fruit?!
Seems strange, as you would expect them to use their legs for a kick attack, as they look much stronger than their jaws, they do not even have sharp teeth to make their attacks effective.
Invaders are weird
Ah, the sun is coming up, and the bats are returning to their nest to report.
Scouting Report
This region exhibits a great deal of night activity, especially as the morning approaches.
There are a large number of insects and small animals that come out primarily at night, and tend to go into hiding before the sun rises over the horizon.
A caravan approached the dungeon in the early morning and started setting up camp.
The largest predator would have little difficulty killing a giant rat, but seemed wary and changed directions when it scented the caravan.
The scouting party consisted of two bats.
Two bats returned.
There were no kills or resources harvested.
I guess the bats are a better scout for keeping an eye on the locals. Lots of different types that mostly seem to avoid the light. I wonder if adding lights to the dungeon would keep these types away, or if they are only concerned about really bright lights, as they seemed fine with the moonlight.
Perhaps they will go away at sunset and I will have a chance to finish practicing once they are gone?
If not I can always put more trees in my main core room.
I want to keep an eye on this caravan anyway, just in case they try to do something with my dungeon. If things look bad, I could even afford three more upgrades before I retreat. Perhaps a defender and some more environments?
Once they finish with their structures, the new arrivals spend a great deal of time with my water. First filling barrels and taking their carriers into the water, then going into the water themselves, calling out to each other and some of the smaller ones even throwing water around at each other.
Fortunately, they do not seem to be moving large amounts of water out of my pond, so I doubt it will cost me more than a point to replenish it all, one area of water is quite a bit more than they are taking.
Looks like the structure invaders are taking all my fruit, at least the fruit on the surface.
They all seem intent on making bite-attacks on my fruit, even cutting it into smaller pieces to account for not being able to make an effective bite against the skin of the fruit.
Avoiding the light and biting things? That reminds me of something. Vampires? Allergic to light and able to extract vitality using a bite attack? A condition that can potentially be spread to others with a bite attack?
Fortunately my fruit do not have any form of bite, so no worries about this condition spreading from my dungeon once these invaders are gone, but if they all have this condition, then traveling at night and sucking the vitality from my fruit with their bites does make a certain amount of sense.
I am glad they do not try it on my trees.
Come to think of it, it is probably a lot neater and cleaner than however non-vampires infuse themselves. Oh, I think they have one of those with them, it is very small, perhaps too small to survive the bite that would turn it into a vampire, and that is why it seems to be half covered in some sort of mush, only partially made with my fruit. There is one of the full-sized vampires that seems to be trying to train it to suck vitality with its mouth like the rest of them, but the little one seems much more accustomed to being covered in the mush for being infused.
Once the sun is well up, the vampires have all retreated inside their structures and seem to be resting, which seems vaguely appropriate, except for a few holding spears who are wandering around poking at the carriers and looking for anything approaching their structures. Sort of like the invader-defenders of my last dungeon, except they are covered in cloth instead of metal.
Not much changes until the shadows start to switch to the other side and start growing again, but the vampire-defenders get very excited and start rousing all of the other vampires, pointing off into the distance.
They all get very excited and start digging up dirt to pile on the sides of their structures. Curious as to what they are doing, I let the dirt accumulate on the surface instead of cleaning it up, as they do not seem intent on going deep, just covering the outsides of their structures.
They also move some structures to be right next to other structures and then put dirt on those as well.
The smaller invaders in my dungeon also seem to be very anxious, as many of them try to hide underground or behind my plants.
I start to get nervous once I realize that the vampires seem to be layering defenses against whatever is approaching, starting with my trees, then dirt, and finally fabric structures all huddled together, even moving their carriers to be behind and against their structures.
It is not long after the vampires stop throwing dirt around and run into their structures that the wind picks up and starts making my trees dance with great vigor. Then something starts to eat away at them, starting with their leaves.
I cannot see any new invaders, and a close inspection seems to indicate that it is tiny shards of sand poking holes in the leaves and knocking off bits of bark.
It does not take long before all my trees on the side away from the vampires are without any leaves, and much of the grass is also damaged or buried. I started out cleaning up the sand as it landed, but that was getting my grass eaten away almost as fast as the leaves on the trees, so I followed the lead of the vampires, letting the sand build up to protect what was left of the grass.
When the vampires start coming out of their structures, I realize that the sand is no longer eroding my trees and the darkness is now due to the time instead of the sand carried by the wind.
When they start digging out their structures and packing them away, I clear out the sand and debris from my dungeon to take a look at the damage.
It looks like most of the trees are completely bare of leaves and on the first couple rows on the side facing the wind, the bark and many of the branches have been stripped as well.
They are still alive or else the clean-up would remove them as debris, but I do not expect much mana from them today.
Support the creativity of authors by visiting Royal Road for this novel and more.
Thinking of the cleanup, the vampires seem concerned by the stuff covering their structures going away.
There is a vigorous discussion with much pointing at my trees and water before they hurry up to finish packing and depart.
All in all they were probably some of my best invaders. So long as they do not come back and try to kill me that is.
Hopefully not, as so far the ones that take my fruit generally seem to be happy to have me around.
Although they did seem more interested in my water, but hopefully that has a similar effect.
I expect that this is the sort of thing a counterpart would help me to understand better.
On the topic of things to help with, if this sort of damage is going to happen on a regular basis, perhaps I should finish putting all the trees in my deep core room to boost my protected mana production, then tomorrow I can create a new sub-core and resume practicing on the surface.
Oh, there were enough of them that I got mana during the day, leaving me with over sixty mana. I guess I can throw in some grass with the trees then.
Scouting Report: Day
In the late morning the wind began to increase until it started picking up sand and dust. This happened at a rapid pace and the scouts were not able to return to base due to the wind. The scouts did not survive.
The scouting party consisted of four doves.
No scouts returned.
There were no kills or resources harvested.
Scouting Report: Night
Just after sunset a caravan left the vicinity of the dungeon.
No new hazards were identified in the vicinity of the dungeon.
The scouting party consisted of four bats.
Four bats returned.
There were no kills or resources harvested.
Day 17
image [https://imgur.com/GSYJo2g.jpg] image [https://imgur.com/MUHEDZ4.jpg]
‘Deep’ core room
image [https://imgur.com/zAeIyFM.jpg]
[status Day 17, Mana:114/234, Size: 469, Eight upgrades available]
Yep, all my trees top-side losing their leaves took quite the bite out of my mana generation.
I do not really have a good place for a new secondary core, so I guess I'll be frugal and just move my existing one topside for experimenting with throwing around mana
Hmm, but what if I damage it? Not really keen on losing this whole section to an accident.
I suppose I could spend a little to double the length of the practice area and put the traps just a couple levels down, should be able to do that and the new core for less than fifty mana, leaving me another fifty to practice throwing around mana constructs before I need to put the new core away for the day. Then tomorrow I should have almost two hundred mana to perfect the technique.
This ring technique is harder than I thought, only about twenty mana left, so better re-hide the new core, and perhaps spend any leftover mana on making its storage area nicer.
Scouting Report: Day
A caravan camp was spotted some distance from the dungeon.
The dust has only partially settled out of the air, limiting visibility and range.
No new hazards were identified in the vicinity of the dungeon.
The scouting party consisted of two doves.
Two doves returned.
There were no kills or resources harvested.
Scouting Report: Night
A caravan was identified moving away from the dungeon.
No new hazards were identified in the vicinity of the dungeon.
The scouting party consisted of four bats.
Four bats returned.
There were no kills or resources harvested.
Day 18
image [https://imgur.com/J6fYcwc.jpg] image [https://imgur.com/bWk0JEN.jpg]
Storage
image [https://imgur.com/UQ0i3Ab.jpg]
status Day 18, Mana:246/257, Size: 515, Nine upgrades available
While I am keen to get my ‘throwing cores’ plan started, I need to be careful and not neglect growing as well. Perhaps one-quarter of my mana held in reserve in case of emergencies, and then use that for growth once everything is safely put away.
That ring approach just flat did not want to work, but I did manage to adjust the approach to create a traveling shell that can, presumably, deliver a construct. Almost out of mana though, so I’ll need to try that out tomorrow. I wonder if I can get the dove scouts to get me more details about the brown area opposite the green splotch, if it is anything like my current area, that could be a good candidate for my first remote core.
Scouting Report
A caravan camp was spotted in the area designated as Expansion 1
No new hazards were identified in the vicinity of the dungeon.
The scouting party consisted of four doves and four bats.
Two doves and four bats returned.
There were no kills or resources harvested.
Day 19
Storage
image [https://imgur.com/cf0BKh9.jpg]
status Day 19, Mana:261/288, Size: 576, Ten upgrades available
Well, good news, as the shell can successfully deliver a construct intact, but the shell needs at least twice as much mana as the construct to survive long enough to be useful.
On the plus side, the more mana spent on the shell, the longer it lasts and thus the farther it can deliver the construct.
Not enough mana left to try with a secondary core, but it generally seems to work, and I can even control which direction it travels, sort of.
The extended scouting report confirms that the target area is very similar to my current area, at least before I got here.
So similar in fact that I wonder if they were created by the same process or entity.
Something that may become an issue should the creator of these areas come back to perform maintenance or something, but otherwise, probably not critical.
More importantly, I got a better approximation on how far away it is. If I were to try to create a path, even just one area wide and on the surface, it would take at least fifteen thousand mana to reach it, perhaps twice that. Suddenly spending a thousand mana or more to develop the technique of delivering a sub-core that distance seems a lot more frugal.
Scouting Report
No new hazards were identified in the vicinity of the dungeon.
Area designated Expansion 1 has been scouted: no new hazards identified.
The scouting party consisted of four doves and four bats.
Four doves and four bats returned.
There were no kills or resources harvested.
Day 20
Storage
image [https://imgur.com/CT7MG46.jpg]
status Day 20, Mana:258/291, Size: 583, Ten upgrades available
I wonder if I could designate that green area and send all four doves to scout that? The falcon probably would not get all four, I hope.
Success! Sort of at least. I managed to deploy a sub-core outside of my dungeon, but when I was trying to place it one hundred spaces towards the scouted target, it ended up closer to twenty spaces away, and in the direction the sand-wind came from instead. At least according to the bats.
I really need a better way to perceive the outside world. I guess it is time to use an upgrade then.
Upgrade Complete, New Feature: Spies
Really? I already know that that one is useless without a counterpart.
Perhaps it is a prerequisite?
I still have another nine upgrades available, so I have plenty of lee-way for relocating if needed, and with my scouts checking the barren terrain in all directions, it would be difficult for them to approach without at least one full day of notice.
Ok, I’ll try again for a way to directly locate things outside my dungeon.
Upgrade Complete, New Feature: Follow Invader
That looks more promising actually.
I think I will try it out on that mouse trying to sneak up to the water for a drink.
Ten mana is more than I expected, but on the plus side, I know exactly where that mouse has been in the last day. I can even see what the ground looked like at the time. Interesting, I wonder how long this lasts?
That should help me know where to aim, at least if I can get a scout to retrieve an invader from the target area, but some way to tell how well I am aiming would be important as well. I can hardly afford to launch secondary cores at random and hope to get close to the target area.
I have been able to launch both grass and a secondary core, but the grass fails to form if it is not in my domain. I wonder if I could send out some of my mana as if I were trying to claim an area and place that in the transport construct?
Oh, that is nice, I can see where it lands, inside or outside my dungeon. If it is outside it dissipates fairly quickly, but until it does, I can feel the location just as surely as I can tell the location of any other part of my dungeon.
I suppose that might make that new follow feature less essential, but using both can only help.
For now I am going to practice targeting the rock my tracked mouse invader sleeps under during the day.
Unsurprisingly, knowing where my target is, knowing where my previous attempts landed, and getting lots of attempts due to the cheapness of the missile, makes this whole ‘targeting distant objects’ much easier.
Not easy though, as it seems that the further away the target is, the more finicky it is to hit that target.
And when I start targeting specific coordinates even a tenth of the way towards my target area for the first core-throw, I cannot hit the specific target at all I either hit the near-side of a dune in front of the target, or I hit the near-side of a dune beyond my target, even with the smallest shift in aiming I am capable of performing.
And that is not just the shape of the sand, I have verified that this odd angle-size change takes place all the way up until my pedestal blocks closer targets. In part this may be good, if every space took as much of an angle as those spaces close to my pedestal, then I could not target very far at all, but if it keeps shrinking, my target may well be smaller than my aiming resolution.
Before I finish up for the day, I am having some second thoughts about not having a day-time watcher, so I think I’ll add another dove spawn to the nest so I can have a watcher on-hand while the other four are trying to get a look at the green area guarded by the hawk.
Scouting Report
No new hazards were identified in the vicinity of the dungeon.
The scouting party consisted of five doves and four bats.
One dove and four bats returned.
There were no kills or resources harvested.
Day 21
image [https://imgur.com/vg3lIsA.jpg]
Storage
image [https://imgur.com/WOzo2JN.jpg]
status Day 21, Mana:275/305, Size: 611, core 21, Ten upgrades available
Ok, this is a bit of a problem, the furthest that I can shoot my ‘claim ball’ and hit anything is a bit over seventeen hundred spaces. While that is a lot further than I can reasonably claim across the surface, it is still less than a tenth of the estimated distance to Expansion 1.
While different directions vary the actual distance by a fair bit, there is a notable exception: if I hit one of my trees. Clearly, tall things block this effort, so presumably there is a particularly tall pile of sand around that range.
Now the trees can be avoided by just going up or down a floor, so presumably the same would work against the sand hill. Down means digging a tunnel to shoot through, which would likely be highly effective, but also lose the whole point of the exercise, so a floor up then.
Well that worked, at least partially, as I managed to target more than twice as far away with the targeting core one floor up from the surface. It seems odd that it is the same distance in all directions, perhaps the magic that keeps these patches of dirt from being buried in sand pushes the sand away, and pushes it further the higher up it is so it is not at risk of collapsing on top of the dirt and burying it?
I wonder if every floor will double the distance I can target before it is all blocked by the piled up sand? Should that be the case, five floors should let me target an area more than thirty times as far away, and plenty far to target Expansion 1. If it adds instead of multiplies, it may be more like twenty floors
Of course actually knowing where it is will take some effort too, and I have used quite a lot of mana with all of this, so I think I will build my targeting tower five spaces tall, then send one of my doves to pick up one of the smaller interlopers, pause for a moment to let me target it for following, then drop it in the middle of Expansion 1 so that I can target it. It looks like I still have a vague memory of everywhere that first mouse went for a day both before and after I targeted it, so that should make targeting Expansion 1 from my tower pretty easy.
I wonder if I could do something similar to those core killers the next time they come across one of my cores?
I do not have any sensation about where my old dungeons might be, so clearly the location memory would not carry over should my main core get shattered, but I only lose a sub-core that should not be too bad. And I doubt they will expect sections of my dungeon to be thousands of spaces apart from each other, nor will they likely expect me to be able to follow them back to their nest so I can do to them what they have done to so many dungeons.
Yes, I like this plan. Distribute a large number of sub-cores with bats and doves for scouts, track down the core killers to their nest, and then what? Dig out a huge empty dungeon under their nest and destroy all of the support pillars causing the nest to fall into a deep pit, turning it all into rubble? Judging by what happened to my trees, that will do bad things to anyone inside the dungeon, but I may need to test how tool-user structures handle falling into pits. I wonder if I can find my previous dungeon and see what happened to the structure above the sub-core?
Not sure what I really want for my growth mana, perhaps half of it to expand my test-range and the other half to plant grass on my core room? That works.
Scouting Report
No new hazards were identified in the vicinity of the dungeon.
Two doves were lost.
Area designated Hazard 1 has been scouted.
The oasis designated Hazard 1 contains a variety of plants and structures around a central body of water that is slightly larger than the one in the dungeon. The green area is substantially larger than the dungeon, with an irrigated area of slightly over three acres.
There are several permanent structures and a large sheltered area for temporary structures.
The scouting party consisted of six doves and four bats.
Four doves and four bats returned.
There were no kills or resources harvested.