Before starting down the steps, Raek asked Femur to add one more to the contract, a guard named Rufus, seemingly picked at random as they walked. Stew sent the contract. Rufus signed, then Rufus, Theus, Raek, and Garrik started down the steps.
While the delvers descended, Ba'Rush and Femur walked back to the boundary of the soon-to-be town with the architect Raek had hired, a man named "Quintus." Stew had a few minutes, so he followed in Femur's head. The false dungeon core was slowly degrading in Femur's sack, but it was working well enough for the moment.
"The hill blocks the best light from the north, but we can make-do with a forum there and the basilica and guild halls here on the southern end. They will face the dungeon entrance. Hopefully that won't be too ominous." Quintus glanced nervously at Femur.
Stew and Femur pretended they didn't notice, their attention was on the ground preparation and digging. Survey teams were stretching long cords and marking the ground into squares with stakes and flags. To Stew, it looked surprisingly similar to things he'd seen crews do in his previous life.
Quintus continued. "Our problem right now is finding enough water for the baths and public fountain." He stopped walking and faced Ba'Rush. "You said you believe there's a strong stream to the west?"
"Yes. It starts high enough up the mountainside, about there. You could divert it pretty easily." He pointed to where the mountains rose higher toward the pass. "Or you could build an aqueduct, eventually."
"Aqueducts take an extraordinary amount of time unless we can hire an extra stone mage. Ours will be busy enough with the roads and walls here."
Ba'Rush shrugged. "For money matters we will have to talk to Raek. He's watching the purse strings for this."
Stew was looking forward to seeing an earth mage at work. He would be willing to throw in an extra mana crystal or two to get the additional mage if it meant he could see an actual aqueduct. Fresh water seemed like something that would bring more delvers to the dungeon, so it might be a good investment. It wouldn't be a terrible thing if delvers had a place to bathe before adventuring too. He still had to smell them when they entered the dungeon and some of those bandits had been ripe. While he was distracted with his own thoughts, Femur spoke up, apparently he was also thinking about smells.
"Speaking of west, you say the livestock pens will be here to the west? Won't the wind be in the wrong direction?" Femur held up a moistened finger.
Quintus started. "No!" He seemed surprised to hear a goblin speak, or maybe to speak in such perfect Latin? "I mean, no, Dominus, quite the contrary, The wind here tends toward the west, as you, no doubt, can feel just now."
Femur scowled. "So you think it's fine for the stench of a whole town full of flesh eaters to blow over the pens. Every animal there will be in a constant state of panic. They will be so stressed it will sour the meat." Femur shook his head. "I'd never raise rats downwind. What do you plan to pen here? Owls? Pigs in nose clamps?"
Ba'Rush chuckled. "This lot won't even eat a horse unless it's lame. They'll have some geese, lambs, goats, pigs, and a few cattle for special occasions."
"Then at least let me bring in some goblin ranchers to manage this mess. This fool will poison us all."
"Is that…" Quintus was turning paler and paler as the conversation between the big orc and the spindly goblin continued. "Is that the will of the dungeon then? I can move the pens. We will just need to re-route the road to the east gate a bit and— "
Stew interrupted, taking using Femur's vocal cords. "Pens will be fine on the west side. The residents of the town won't appreciate the smell of livestock, I would think."
"That's the dungeon talking. You can hear the difference." Ba'Rush said.
Femur grimaced, but nodded. "Boss says panicked goose meat is good for business."
"Besides." Stew added, just for Femur. "I do want to talk about adding some goblin ranches, we just need to talk privately first."
That perked Femur right back up. He and Ba'Rush started quizzing Quintus about drainage and sewage management. They all seemed surprisingly knowledgeable about it.
Stew was interested but he needed to keep an eye on the delvers. He left a few instructions with Ba'Rush and Femur to avoid any major mixups and switched his attention to the second floor, to quickly warn Lorelei to let the party pass that was just arriving in the swamp.
"Can I just have one? They look like a tasty bunch."
"Not this time, but I'm sure they will be back to delve another time, then you should be able to have a go at them."
"Fine. I'll just tend to my flowers then." She was transplanting a weird looking, dark-petaled flower that appeared as a [Phantom Orchid] in Stat-o-Vistion™.
[The Phantom Orchid is a rare and ethereal flower with a transparent stem that causes it to seem to hover above the ground. Its translucent petals are tinted with deep purple and soft blue. The central stamen emits a faint, pulsating light that can only be seen by lost souls. Found in haunted swamps where the barrier between worlds is thin, the Phantom Orchid exudes a fragrance that's detectable only when the swamp's breeze shifts just right. Legends say it holds potent magical properties, bridging the gap between the living and the spirit world. Adventurers should beware, where Phantom Orchids grow, restless spirits walk, their mystical allure draws adventurers and the undead alike.]
Stew wondered what it meant that he could see the stamen flicker faintly.
He didn't have time to ask Lorelei about it. He needed to check on Cecil and the golems where they were training in the darkness on the fourth floor under that eerie breathing constellation. It occurred to Stew that, as a dungeon, his vibe was definitely trending toward "creepy."
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"How's the training going?"
"Sir! It's going quite well, although the sudden enhancements may have invalidated the most recent trial. May we have your permission to run it again?" Cecil sat on a low mound of grass, a roll of papyrus across his bony knee. A sharpened reed stood in a pot of ink beside him.
"Sounds like a good idea. I'll have the controllers reset." Stew reached out to Don and M.C.P. They reset their golems to rerun the last test.
A group of halberdiers stood in a line facing a line of grapplers. It seemed wildly mismatched, but they were all level 10, so Stew imagined they were all pretty good at what they did. He hadn't had a chance to really watch a fight since the upgrades.
At a silent signal from the controllers, the grapplers charged, barehanded. They were sleek looking and ran like Olympic sprinters.
The Halberdiers swung their massive polearms as if they weighed nothing, and didn't so much charge as dance into the battle whirling around to add more power to their swing.
The first grappler rolled over in mid air to dodge a low swinging axehead only to take the butt of the weapon straight to the head when the halberdier reversed grips and thrust it forward without hesitation.
The blow didn't seriously damage the grappler, but it tumbled to the ground, its momentum changed.
Another grappler arriving a half second later faced two halberds swinging toward it from opposite directions and chose to block and deflect them rather than dodging. The grappler's arms windmilled and swept up the rapidly moving weapons driving them first up where they lost most of their momentum then back down to where the grappler could trap them, one under each arm.
Another grappler leapt its comrade's shoulders and ran straight up the shaft of one of the halberds as if it was as wide as a road. With one, well timed kick, it beheaded one halberdier then used the impact as a springboard to land on top of the next, knocking it to the ground.
The rest of the grapplers and polearm fighters met now. The battle, despite the early win by the grapplers, seemed even at first. One grappler would bind up a halberdier and take it down, or a halberdier would catch a grappler in mid charge and cleave it halfway through or smash the butt of the weapon completely through the other golem's chest.
Eventually the awkwardness of the long weapons and slow recovery from an attack, even when using a reverse and thrust with the butt, made all of the difference. The last of the halberdiers was down and three of the grapplers still remained.
"A very similar result." Cecil made a mark as the golems began to respawn in place and the slimes collected mana cores. "So far, halberd beats sword or ax with shield, one-hand with shield beats unarmed.
"And unarmed beats halberd. Rock, paper, scissors."
"Pardon, sir?"
"Nevermind. What matters is that it looks like we can't just churn out one speciality. Good to know." Stew wondered how they would do against mounted attacks. It seemed like the long reach of the halberds would be especially useful there. He wondered about adding some of those spear carriers to the mix.
For now, the next step would be to train his controllers. He could pit them against each other with not dozens, but hundreds of golems and let them fight it out until they leveled up and became better at tactics.
Before he could do that, he was going to need much more mana and even more action points.
He left Cecil to rerunning all of the match-ups again, just to make sure they had a good sample. After that they could try some mixed units and see if the controllers could get creative. He moved his attention to Bossy.
"How's the herd?"
"We now have six additional members and are about to add our seventh once we accumulate enough milk." Bossy, placid as ever, munched away at grass under the moon and stars.
She was a perfect picture from a block of cheese or a milk carton, a black and white Holstein cow, just as Stew had imagined when he summoned her. The cattle of her herd, on the other hand, were huge, standing taller than an average human with weirdly powerful shoulders and slim rumps. Apparently all those prehistoric paintings hadn't been exaggerated, these were giant, bodybuilder cattle straight off of a cave wall, ready to chase around a bunch of stick figures. Despite all of that, they seemed just as content as Bossy to crop grass at the moment.
Stew checked his stats and felt some satisfaction watching the numbers go up. Actions were increasing at six times the rate they had before, even with Bossy's production dedicated to unlocking more cows. He decided he would let the action points accumulate to 1000, then take a break from action production and use all the milk to grow the herd for a day. That should get him to 100 head in a very short time, and give him enough room to seriously consider growing that golem army.
A titanic black bull suddenly appeared, facing Bossy. He stood over two meters tall and his horns, pointed straight ahead, were massive even though they looked small compared to the rest of his body.
"Oh, now I am very pleased to meet you." Bossy said.
[Auroch Bull: Level 1]
[An Indomitable protector charged with the defense of the herd, this colossus among cattle stands, implacable, against any threat. Gentle and calm among his kin, this beast is nevertheless a deadly foe when challenged.]
[Mana Cost - 1 / day]
[Health 30/30]
[Agility 5]
[Strength 18]
[Constitution 9]
[Actions: 1/1]
[Action Recharge: 1/day]
[Special attacks]
[Charge]
[Gore]
[Sweep]
[Special Abilities]
[(passive) +20% to milk production for all cows in the herd]
[(passive) +1 to defense to the herd]
Stew checked Bossy and one of the other cows and didn't see any changes to explain how the point of defense worked, but from the sound of it, it was some combined stat for the herd?
As he was looking, Stew realized he hadn't named any of these new cattle. Names like "Daisy" and "Buttercup" just didn't seem to fit these stone age brutes, and he was expecting to need to name quite a few, so he went with Auroch Cow 1-6. He was tempted to name the bull "Ferdinand" but that didn't seem fair after giving the milk cows numbers, so he just named him "Auroch Bull 1."
With the milk multiplier, he should be able to start really growing his herd in just a few more hours. Then he could start exploring these cow upgrade options. It looked like he could just spend mana to upgrade a cow or bull, would that also upgrade the bull's production buff? What about the cow's production?
A thunderous explosion filled with mana rocked the dungeon. Stew could feel it like a blow to his body.
Even though the fourth floor was technically its own pocket dimension and no sound or vibration could be felt here, the herd and the cats all stiffened and sniffed at the air, sensing something had happened.
"I better check on that." Stew said.
"Yes, please let me know what that was." Bossy also had her head up, sniffing the breeze and using whatever other senses she might have.