Day 44

Travel 1-19 maze

image [https://imgur.com/98xz2bT.jpg]

MDef NW 12 and 13 maze

image [https://imgur.com/yCgqORy.jpg]

MDef NE, NW, NW11, SE, SW surface

image [https://imgur.com/Elwn7fD.jpg]

MDef NW 5-7 surface

image [https://imgur.com/o0CrKn7.jpg]

MDef NW 8-10 surface

image [https://imgur.com/fBXqQho.jpg]

MDef NW 2-4 Surface

image [https://imgur.com/0ufHymL.jpg]

MTravel 7 surface

image [https://imgur.com/1JdMMOA.jpg]

Lake report: (629/1620 left for ring 13)

39% of shore claimed out to Thirteen spaces and planted with grass. 24,319 total shore spaces.

52842 total underwater spaces, 9285 with grass (47% of lake floor claimed)

status Day 44, Size: 102,460, One hundred thirty seven upgrades available

Mana: 29,716/51,230, Water: 9485, Ice: 916 Fire: 3 Lava: 362

Looks like they are getting close to the magma pocket at MDef NW12, I am interested to see how effective it proves to be.

At the very least it has slowed them down, as they seem to be concerned about the amount of heat coming from the rock that they were digging through. Coating the bottom of the hole in ice does cool it off quite a bit, but only for a little while, as there is not a lot of stone left between the hole and the magma, and the magma is very hot.

Shoving shards of ice into the ground sort of works, but that ice keeps melting, and yep, that one that got through to the magma actually got pushed out rather quickly by steam before the magma starts to bubble out of the hole.

They seem very concerned by this and coat the bottom of the hole with ice again, plugging up the magma hole with cooled rock.

Then the staff-holders leave just one of their number there who seems to be keeping the ditch they were digging cold while the rest go off somewhere else. Probably finding others, as they seem to like gathering together to poke at it when they find something new.

There they go, looks like they decided on how to proceed. Some sort of ice frame at the bottom of the hole, and only removing thin layers of stone at a time as they extend the ice frame down. Looks slow but effective. How effective? Hmm, just a single point of lava mana infused into the grass closest to the hardening stone slowed their progress nearly to a stop for a while. Looks like I should be able to pump some mana into the grass and push through that ice frame. Not yet though, best to hold that in reserve until they have people in the hole under the magma reservoir so I can get the most utility from it.

So, if the first twenty levels took them two days, plus an extra day for the magma chamber, I may only have three days left before they breach MDef NW12. I could extend that another day with a second magma chamber, but there are only about eight floors between the first magma chamber and the top of the mana collection field. Once they find the field, they may be able to safely detour around such obstacles without being at risk of losing the location of the core.

That sounds like a second chamber after the first would be a good idea, but that I may only have room for two chambers for the two defensive emplacements they are already besieging.

If they start digging at any other locations, I should put the first barrier chamber closer to the surface, perhaps ten levels deep?

Scouting Report

The location designated as Target 1 is a set of structures surrounded by a wall, which is only one of several walled areas inside of a larger grouping of structures surrounded by a second wall. Outside of this second wall are more structures surrounded by a higher third wall. Outside of this third wall are additional structures, some collected close to the third wall and others close to large areas with ordered rows of plants, some grasses and some trees.

Stolen story; please report.

The scouting party consisted of six common swifts.

All scouts returned.

Well, it is nice that they have neatly defined edges for the area I need to deal with, but all of those walls seem like they may make it challenging to get close without getting detected by the core killers, and traps do not work nearly as well if the target is watching for it.

Hmm, how close do I need to establish the dungeon area to be able to dig my way though to make the pit? Not very. I could easily dig a thousand spaces in a day with little impact on my other activities.

I think I want to send some swifts to identify good places to make a hidden entrance near the outer wall, or at least to hide a sub-core while I prepare a place to hold it, because sealing off the entrance seems like a good idea if I am going to attack the core killers in their nest.

Then, after second color change, I can deploy a new sub core to the designated location and dig a tunnel to the core-killer spawn location.

Nope, looks like I will need to deploy Travel 19 before I can deploy Attack 1, as the closest wall to the spawn point is on the other side of the walled area.

Second color change, Travel 19 deployed, time to place Attack 1.

This one is kind of close to a bunch of spawn points, so probably best to claim the surface around it first, as that goes quick and will give warning in case I need to hide the core before the core room is ready.

Good thing I claimed the surface area, as there are already armed invaders entering Attack 1, and my shaft is only twenty floors deep. Well, no help for it, I need to relocate the core and close up the entrance before they can start their attack.

That was uncomfortably close, as the invaders were practically standing on the entrance by the time I managed to close it. I need to hurry the next thirty floors, then perhaps dig a bit to the side before I build the core room. First I should refill the next several floors below the surface in case they start to dig, as they can dig through one floor faster than I can dig through thirty, even if they are a lot slower than I am, they are not that much slower.

Ok, fifty floors down, thirty to the side, and the middle of the core chamber is dug out, time to relocate and refill the rest of the shaft. Probably refill the sideways shaft as well, it is going in the wrong direction, and I would not want Attack 1 to be found before it has served its purpose. I do not want it found after it serves its purpose either, but at least then I would not need to replace it.

Now, four hundred twelve spaces of narrow tunnel to get under the Core Killer spawn area.

It occurs to me that I need a way to identify where the edges of thai spawn area are if I want to collapse and destroy it.

Ok, four bats sent out, one to land at each corner, with scout tags added just in case that is needed.

Hmm, if I spend most of my mana on it, I could hollow out a twenty by twenty space area fifty floors deep. Hopefully it is not that large, as that would require a lot of careful bracing to keep it from falling before I am ready, ad it also might not allow for enough defenders to make sure anyone who falls into the pit does not make it back out.

Thinking about it, I am not sure I can manage a pit fifty floors deep. If the supports are shaped similar to my launching pillars, then twenty five floors may be the ost I can do before the base of the pillars merge together.

Could I make the support pillars the same width all the way up and then just have the spaces between them?

Stone seems like it can support nearly twice the span of earth at seven spaces, so if a fifty floor tall pillar would need to be nineteen spaces wide to be stable, and there pillars have spaces seven wide between them, that sounds like the pillars would take most of the space.

Yep, just under half of the material would be removed with nineteen wide pillars separating seven wide corridors. Perhaps a bit more, since the outer walls would count as supports as well. The best case scenario after something no more than seven spaces across, would be a nineteen square pillar in the middle of a thirty three square area, letting more than two thirds of the material be removed. After that would be a fifty nine by fifty nine space room with four pillars, letting me remove just under three-fifths of the material.

But how do you collapse multiple nineteen space wide pillars at the same time? Could I plant lava grass in narrow passages laced through the base of the pillar then super-charge them all to try and melt the stone?

That could work, but I would really rather have a back-up plan in case it does not. It is not like I often have the walls in my current lava tubes melt very much, so perhaps stone I have claimed might be immune to my lava? I know my lava can melt some stone, at least if it is hardened lava to begin with, as that is how I tested my ability to push back against that ice thing they are doing to try and get into MDef NW12.

Ah, the bats are back, and it looks like the enclosure is… eighty two by eighty four spaces.

Well, I guess it is nice that it is close to, but under the maximum size with a three-by-three set of pillars, which would be eighty five, but that still leaves me needing to find a way to collapse nine pillars at roughly the same time. Of course I also need to dig out the non-pillar area, and with my current mana generation that would take me more than six days worth of mana. I can cut that down to five days of total time if I focus on expanding my mana production for one or more days first, so that may be the plan.

Unfortunately, that means I am probably going to lose MDef NW 12, 13 and possibly more, should the acid and poison defenses not be as inhibiting as the ice and lava defenses.

I do not like just giving up on them, but I am running out of ideas. I still have my ‘melt the ice’ trap that I can use once there are enough targets to make it worth while, but I do not know how much that will slow them down. Now that I think on it, I should probably do both MDef NW12 and 13 at the same time, because they seem to develop counters pretty quick once I show my abilities. That means no ice melting tomorrow, as MDef NW13 will be spending most of tomorrow getting past the first magma chamber, but after that, I just need to watch for the staff-holders going down below the magma chamber.

Good thing I already built the new magma reservoir for MDef NW 13, because it looks like I will need to put almost all of my mana into lakeside grass for the next few days. Looks like I can extend my domain almost ten additional spaces from the lake shore, and since it is not quite the end of the day yet, let me see how much more of the lake bed I can claim with todays water mana. Finally over fifty percent. Another few days and I should have the entire lake floor as part of my domain, then I can try to claim the harder to control water portions of the lake.