Day 29
Expansion 1-B
image [https://imgur.com/Oo09y5n.jpg]
Expansion 1
image [https://imgur.com/cddHeky,jpg]
Surface(Start)
image [https://imgur.com/VikpKHx.jpg]
Vertical aspect(Start)
image [https://imgur.com/70k2gVy.jpg]
Vertical aspect(E1)
image [https://imgur.com/9VQ2gJT.jpg]
status Day 29, Mana:805/866, Water: 69/866, Ice: 2/866 Size: 1733, core 24,
Sixteen upgrades available
Wow, squaring the surface and those two core rooms really bumped up my total size. More than three hundred fifty area and almost two hundred daily mana is quite a lot. I think I can reach the half-way point towards the edge of the sand. I should start planning for how to find those core-killers. I really do not know how to go about finding them unless they are trying to come and kill me.
Not something I am eager for, but unless I can find another option, I may need to unlock goblins so I can send them out to draw in some invaders to either imprison or kill. Probably kill, as using the prison did not summon the core killers. Then again, they did come when I did not have any defenders at all, and just a bunch of trees getting harvested every day.
Perhaps I just need to find some invader-spawners and set up an orchard near them to draw in the core-killers?
In any case, I’ll need to make sure I have plenty of space on the surface so I can tag most of them with Follow Invader. Perhaps even have other, better hidden, bases around it with plenty of scouts for both early-warning and back-up.
Ok, I like that plan, find some invader structures, build an orchard for them to harvest, then follow the core-killers home when they come to try and enslave the core connected to the orchard.
Perhaps I could even use the invaders that are based at the oasis east of my start? Possibly, but they should soon know about the new oasis with my trees near-by, so by the time I could establish an orchard there, it might already be redundant. I’ll keep that as a back-up option should I not find any better options to the west.
Almost done. I wonder what information I Can get on core killers?
Scouting Report
No new hazards were identified in the vicinity of the dungeon.
A caravan spent the day camping between Expansion 1 and the Core, setting out towards the Core as the sun was setting.
The scouting party consisted of Twelve doves, eight bats, and six coyotes.
Twelve doves, eight bats, and six coyotes returned.
There were no kills or resources harvested.
While most invaders have interests beyond plundering the resources of a dungeon or seeking a boon from reaching the core of a dungeon, there are also occasional invaders with a grudge against a specific dungeon, or even against dungeons in general.
These core-killing invaders will happily smash any core they are able to find, costing the dungeon a substantial amount of mana to replace them. If such invaders find the main core of a dungeon, the dungeon will need to rely on any surviving sub-cores until the main core can be restored.
In the rare case of either a single-core dungeon being or the core killers successfully finding all the cores of a dungeon, the dungeon will need to rely on its counterpart to collect the mana and restore the main core.
This can be further delayed if the counterpart was dispersed prior to the loss of the last core, requiring the counterpart to first reintegrate itself before it can reconstitute the core.
Day 30
Expansion 2A
image [https://imgur.com/Oo09y5n.jpg]
Expansion 2B
image [https://imgur.com/Oo09y5n.jpg]
Expansion 2 surface
image [https://imgur.com/xnAkoM9.jpg]
status Day 30, Mana:878/998, Water: 105/998, Ice: 4/998 Size: 1997, core 24,
Seventeen upgrades available
Ok, today should get me out of this sandy wasteland and hopefully close to somewhere with a bunch of invader dwellings. Starting with E2C, basically identical to A and B from yesterday, then for E2 we start another modified H filled with water and a nice pond on top to help us hide the secret door into the water-chimney. Make the hook at the bottom a little larger than last time because that just felt too small, throw a bunch of water mana to fill it up.
Huh, using water mana to fill the pond and tunnels only costs half as much as using normal mana, that seems useful. Now use some ice mana to make the bottom of the hook even less hospitable. Plant some grass in the pond and ice… hmm, three spaces at the bottom of the hook is not an even number for the ice-water grass. Perhaps I can plant it on the sides of the chimney? Feels ok to try. Huh, that works, also makes the chimney half-clogged with ice-water-weed. That seems like it would make navigating that passage even more annoying to invaders. I should add more water and ice-water weeds to my passages.
Oh, right, I still need to do the surface work and make my scout spawners. A bit short on mana to do it properly, but I can grow towards one corner instead of evenly and still get my spawers properly situated, along with being a bit further from the pond, as I do not want invaders to feel like they need to attack my scouts to get water. I wonder if I can move the spawners at Expansion 1? I know I can create new spawners and add new spawns to them and then destroy the old spawners, but that feels a bit wasteful. I’ll need to grow Expansion 1 a bit tomorrow and see if I can transfer spawns from one den to another.
For today, I have the most critical parts done and enough mana for a little bit of grass. I really need to fix how lopsided Expansion 2 is as soon as I have the mana available though, it feels wrong to be so lop-sided.
Ok, before I finish up for the day, I’ll want my doves to scout the three directions other than back towards Expansion 1, the coyotes should scout the vicinity of Expansion 2, and what information can I get about the core-killers causing permanent damage to my dungeon?
Scouting Report
A collection of stone structures were located west of the dungeon. Some areas between the structures were covered with cloth.
A small number of invaders were spotted among the structures, but as the number of invaders seen was much smaller than the number of structures, it is likely that this cluster is engaged in conflict with another cluster.
No new hazards were identified in the vicinity of the dungeon.
A caravan spent the day camping at the surface of the dungeon, setting out towards Hazard 1 as the sun was setting.
The scouting party consisted of fifteen doves, ten bats, and nine coyotes.
This book's true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience.
Fifteen doves, ten bats, and nine coyotes returned.
There were no kills or resources harvested.
While an invader will occasionally develop an ability to cause permanent damage to a core or counterpart, such abilities are cursed and will rapidly destroy anyone who uses them. Because such an ability requires a monomaniacal hatred of dungeons, anyone who develops such an ability will quickly destroy themselves by striking against sub-cores and trap cores, limiting the damage that can be caused to any well established dungeon.
Day 31
Expansion 2 surface
image [https://imgur.com/6y7t8dm.jpg]
Expansion 2 vertical aspect
image [https://imgur.com/thKeBDO.jpg]
Expansion 2 C
image [https://imgur.com/HjwDedH.jpg]
Expansion 2
image [https://imgur.com/cddHeky.jpg]
status Day 31, Mana:1041/1156, Water: 137/1156, Ice: 6/1156 Size: 2312,
Nineteen upgrades available
Ok, this is getting more and more concerning. At first I was thinking it was an issue with the sands being unstable, but even for my sub-dungeons that landed on dirt or stone, the tilt is just getting bigger and bigger the farther I go.
Expansion 1 is only tilted by a little more than one measure in four thousand, but Expansion 2 is twice that, at more than one measure of rise for every two thousand measures of distance. If I cannot make things even again, then the farther I get from my core, the less stable my structures will get. I am going to need to start making my structures more robust to handle this tilting if it gets much worse. Perhaps the most concerning part is that my structural sense insists that everything is flat and sturdy. If I cannot trust my structural sense to identify when things start getting unsound, that could be catastrophic.
I could try re-creating structures that have proven to be stable in the past, ignoring my structural sense crying out to me that it is uneven and unstable, but I really do not like the idea that my most relied upon sense is failing me. Do I even have any other senses? My sense of where different parts of me are in relation to other parts probably counts as a sense, and that is what is telling me that Expansion 2 is tilted relative to my core, and that Expansion 1 is half as tilted in relation to my core.
I suppose I have an intruder sense that lets me locate and derive details about intruders. Equipment, designations, types, body-type(That first centipede really through me for a loop, as I was pretty sure it was an insect, but then it went from six to eight legs and I wondered if it was some new kind of spider, then there were another pair of legs, and another, and they just kept coming. At least that prepared me for the millipede that came by the next day. Those -pedes have a really weird body-type. I wonder what other types of -pedes I’ll encounter).
I wonder if the scouting reports count as a sense?
No, as my only sense other than my intruder sense, I do not have any real alternatives should it start to fail me. It seems odd that it would disagree with itself, but I’ll just be careful about putting anything delicate into new constructions, and hope my entire dungeon does not collapse.
Well at least claiming the surface has little chance of collapsing anything, and Expansion 2 really needs some attention. First, I think I need to expand the claimed area around the pond to be at least as large as the grassy area around Expansion 1, and even out the grass to a two-space wide perimeter around the pond.
Next, I think I need a few upgrades. First I think I want advanced spawning. Wit my current rate of growth, I will be able to afford to make my own shark pool sooner than later, and it would almost be worth having to start all over to watch the core-killers dig through the icy-slush at the bottom of the shark-tank searching for a secret entrance while being attacked by half a dozen sharks big enough to bite them in half in one bite!
[Upgrade Complete, New Feature: Advanced Spawning]
Next, those beasts that carry things for the caravans, they feel like they fall into that Ruminant category mentioned by Advanced Spawning. The tool users seem unconcerned by their proximity, as opposed to the coyotes, and one of my scouts saw a few of them wandering around by themselves, so presumably they are common in this area, and could make less obtrusive scouts than the coyotes, especially to get a look at the structures and what, if anything is hidden under all of that cloth between the stone structures.
[Upgrade Complete, New Defender: Ruminants]
Ok, now I can put down some camel spawning in my grassy areas, but first I should see about getting closer to that cluster of invader spawners.
If I wanted to be patient, I could have a scout drop of a small invader next to the closest structure, spending my over eight hundred remaining mana in claiming more area and putting in grass and spawners, but I can do that while waiting on the core killers to show up, so instead I’ll put up a tower and launch claim-shots in the direction away from Expansion 1.
Hmm, nothing in a mostly direct line, I’ll need to try to broaden my angle a bit.
Woa, I just claimed a bit more than a hundred and seventy thousand spaces away. It was really high up too, as far as I can tell.
I guess the structures can wait, as usually traveling that far would take more than a dozen steps. Perhaps being up high will let me start taking bigger steps?
Ok, so that is a bit awkward, I managed to plant a sub-core at that distant location. But it is tilted at quite the angle. At least my structural sense agrees that it is not a tenable angle. The question is, where can I make a reasonable entrance?
Lots of large rocks and a fairly steep incline.
I needed to expand my surface space to nearly a hundred spaces before finding a reasonably hard to get to, but well angled entry for digging my entry chimney. On the plus side, the grass I planted on the surface turned out to be ice-grass. Possibly because I planted it on a snow patch.
On the down-side, I do not think I can build much of a tower to increase the range from this base. On the plus side, this entrance is naturally more than two thousand floors higher than my other entrances, so that should be sufficient for some pretty distant placements.
Ok, now for the scouts, probably four pidgin scout spawns. Hmm, the nest gives a warning that the doves may have difficulty in this terrain, but still allows it. More expensive though, probably due to the ice aspect of the area. I wonder what that will give them?
The nest for the bats on the other hand refuses to accept the bat spawns, something about the expected flight ceiling. I suppose the bats do not generally fly as high as the doves, and being much smaller the cold might be a problem as well. No, they would be ice-bats, like the birds are ice-doves. Must just be too high for the bats to get back to the nest. That falcon that was hunting my doves over at Hazard 1 tended to fly pretty high, I might consider trying to unlock those, or better yet, see if they are part of an entire class I can unlock like the Ruminants.
Ok, I still need to take a step towards the town before I take down my targeting tower, and this is the angle that I used to get the farthest, so send a claim and core there.
Huh, this seems to be a slanted outcrop of stone, let's see how big it is.
Pretty big, and even odder, it seems to be resting on a much smaller stone with only a relatively small point of contact. Under the larger piece of rock, close to where it comes out of the ground seems a little damp, so that seems like an ideal place to put a chimney-pool entrance. Even with a close inspection it might not be obvious that anything has changed, which seems ideal for a hidden core like the ones under the sand, but even better, as I can still claim a sizable part of the surface for scouts and keeping watch.
I may need to check if I can find or make similar structures around the area where I will be putting in the trap garden core.
That support point looks pretty small, but my structural sense seems to think it is fine. Perhaps stone is a better structural element than dirt? I wonder if I can make a larger room with a stone roof instead of just a layer of mana-infused dirt?
Hmm, when I look at Expansion 1A with an eye to digging out the support pillar, it feels like the roof will take a little more mana, and I would need to change the target of the core trap, but a nine-by-nine room with stone walls and roof seems doable. I am pretty sure a fifteen-by-fifteen-by fifteen shark tank would still need at least one support pillar, even if it is made from reinforced stone, but a twenty by twenty tank with a three or four wide pillar in the middle seems like it could work. It would still take more than five days worth of mana just to dig it out, and probably twice that long to fill with water, but it should work…
Focus, need to hide the new sub-core. Not enough mana for the full core room template, but I can still dig down thirty floors, then put in the hook and the core room, just not quite enough to fill it with trees yet.
I’ll need to add a den and some coyotes to Trap A tomorrow, but for tonight I need three of my scouts to each pick up a small invader and drop them at my target areas, one next to the closest structure, then north and one south of the invader spawn area, both between seven and eight thousand spaces away from the invader area, on top of the closest approximation of the stone structure I found in Trap A in their target area.
Ok, carried invaders are now tracked, so time to focus on a defender group including falcons while I remove the last piece of the targeting tower.
Scouting Report
An appropriate structure was found north of the area designated Trap and the invader was deposited as instructed. No such structure was located south of the area designated as Trap, so the invader was deposited in the middle of the search area.
An invader was deposited against the outer wall of the collection of structures.
A large body of water was located approximately one hundred miles west of Mountain 1, a small lake less than half a mile long and half that wide was located two and a half miles to the south east. A larger lake two and a half miles long was located six miles to the north west.
The mountains extend to the north east and south west.
Structures were spotted near the lake to the north west, and possible structures were spotted near the shore of the large body of water to the west.
One ice dove was lost to an eagle.
No new hazards were identified in the vicinity of the dungeon.
A caravan spent the day camping between the dungeon and Hazard 1, heading away from the dungeon as the sun was setting.
The scouting party consisted of eighteen doves, ten bats, twelve coyotes, and four ice doves.
Eighteen doves, ten bats, twelve coyotes and three ice doves returned.
There were no kills or resources harvested.
Raptors include all birds of prey, from the majestic eagle to the common kestrel, and from the nocturnal owl to the omnipresent vulture. While largely ineffective against armored opponents, a hawk can often maim an unarmored invader if they are still on the surface and not expecting an aerial attack, while a large eagle may be able to carry off smaller invaders or animal companions. A giant eagle can often lift invaders or pack animals and drop them from great heights while the legendary Roc can usually carry off mounts and beasts of burden, but giant eagles can be difficult to spawn without claiming the peak of a large mountain, while the legendary Roc will rarely spawn anywhere but the tallest mountain in the range. Elemental raptors often add elemental damage to their claw attacks