Chapter 258. Elf vs. Drone.
The elves were picking apart my kobolds with little trouble. Two of the warriors guarding the workers were down, as well as half of the workers. As I watched, the entire group of kobolds broke and ran. Elves showed themselves as they continued to pick off my kobolds one by one.
I was now able to get a good count of the attackers, it looked like there were only a half dozen elf warriors with bows. While they hunted down my kobold exploration team, I ordered my minions into action. It would take them some time to get there, but I was certain that they would fare much better against the elves than my hapless kobold warriors did.
Given the crude nature of their bows, and the simple arrows they were firing, I had to assume the elves were relatively low ranked, maybe only a rank or two above my kobolds at most. I also sent the mana slayer drone to join my team. This was a fight I needed to win, and win decisively, if I didn’t want elves plinking away at all my kobold workers.
I soon lost my view of the attacking elves as the last of my kobolds fled the scene. Only two made it out alive, a warrior and a worker. The housing complexes would start to hatch replacements, but the system sent a prompt advising me of some additional restrictions.
You have taken significant casualties among your kobold population. While your fallen will eventually respawn, the time to respawn a kobold fallen in battle is significantly longer than the time needed to create them in the first place.
Well, at least my population would eventually replenish. It would have been a short arena challenge if the kobold losses were permanent. Looking in on the housing complexes, the new one was still working on spawning its initial population, while at the other two housing complexes, several of the cradles now held darker colored eggs that were growing at a much slower rate. Those darker eggs must have been the replacements for our losses.
I felt reasonable secure inside the rapidly upgrading headquarters, even with only Blieek as my personal bodyguard. Glamb would be respawning soon, and he could stay back and help to defend me if the elves made a mass attack, or if my kobolds decided to revolt again.
Even without my minions, I was more powerful and better equipped than anything I’d seen so far. All I could do now was wait as my drone linked up with the other minions and they began to hunt down the elves who attacked us. I watched their progress, and by the time they reached the area, my headquarters had upgraded.
Instead of an empty shack with a single map table. I now had a bigger empty shack with two rooms, a map table, and a stool for me to sit on. Not much of an improvement, but it was good enough for my needs, and it allowed me to keep expanding. Checking on the farms and housing complexes, they were both changing, upgrading automatically to the next tier.
It appeared that my arena upgrade certificates were paying big dividends. I wasn’t looking forward to having to upgrade each farm and housing areas. The certificates were going to save me a ton of time and resources. While the existing farms and houses automatically upgraded, I considered the two upgrade markers I had earned from the wolf lair. Before I used them, I saw in the headquarters interface that a new building had been unlocked.
Market Square. This structure provides a marketplace for your people to trade among themselves and with any friendly factions that you have trade agreements with. The market will provide a small flow of resources that will increase when outside trade arrives. It will also allow you to acquire special resources and gear that your people would normally not have access to.
In addition, your people will have specific goods to trade with others. Currently your kobold empire has the following goods to offer.
1. Exotic mushrooms for food and medical purposes.
2. Labor.
If a trade partner wishes to purchase labor, an available unassigned work team will make their way to your trading partner and earn resources for your nation for the duration of their labor contract. You may designate how many work teams you wish to make available for export. Teams waiting for contracts will not be available for other tasks.
The market was something I wanted immediately, so I placed its construction first in the queue. After it was done, a new farm, and a new housing complex were next. I thought about saving one of my upgrade tokens for the market, but I also needed the crafters area and the barracks upgraded. Since those structures were already built, I hit them with the free upgrades.
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Every structure I could possibly create was being built or upgraded. The entire cavern seemed to buzz with activity as the system began construction and my kobolds reacted to the changes. The farms were the first to finish upgrading. Their mushroom fields were the same size as before, but I noticed a small section of each farm now had a few raised planters where oddly colored mushrooms of various shapes and sizes grew. Those must have been the exotic goods that the marketplace was supposed to use in trade.
While most of the fields were still planted with the normal mushrooms I’d seen before, the yield looked to have improved, and the clusters of mushrooms were noticeably denser. The workers on the farms didn’t miss a beat and automatically knew how to care for and harvest the new types of mushrooms.
For some reason, the farmers seemed much more diligent in their work than my outside gathering teams were. Maybe it was because they also needed to eat, or it could be that the more diligent workers naturally gravitated toward the farming work. Lazy or not, it seemed my people approved of the upgrades I was making.
The growth and expansion of your tribe’s infrastructure has been noticed and appreciated by your people. Morale has improved from Moderately Hostile, to Disgruntled.
It appeared the risk of imminent revolution was gone. As we grew and improved the kobold tribe, morale should also keep improving. My attention shifted back to the forest as my team of minions stalked the area where the kobolds had been ambushed. The mana slayer drone had linked up with the others, and Khurr seemed to be on the trail of something.
Khurr was my tracker, but it was Glurk who fired the first shot. A pair of elves moved from behind trees about twenty yards from my party, each had their bows drawn and ready to fire. Glurk’s shot hit first, and his powerful masterwork longbow had no trouble punching the arrow completely through one of the elves.
The other elf loosed his shot, the arrow shattering against the armor of the mana slayer drone as he stepped in front of the others. Khurr was up next, and his crossbow bolt was closely followed by Elida’s sling stone to finish off the second elf. The mana slayer drone charged forward while the rest of the team formed up and took cover behind some trees.
I couldn’t tell if the elves attacking us were the same ones that had ambushed my kobolds, but they were just as aggressive. More elves popped out from behind trees, firing at the charging drone. Their simple bows and arrows were useless against the drone’s armor, and each shot pinged off the drone as he closed the gap.
The closest elf chose to turn and run just a little too late as the long arms of the drone cut him down. Two more were taken down by my ranged fighters as they fled, and the last, seeing that escape was impossible, chose to stand his ground, facing off against the charging drone with only a simple steel dagger. My drone dispatched the last elf with no trouble and hadn’t received a single scratch during the fight.
My team’s fight with the elves had drastically different results than my kobolds. I kind of wished that some of the kobolds might have been around to see how they should try to fight. Without any threats in the immediate area, Khurr began to scour the ground for tracks.
Glamb was also ready to respawn, so I summoned him inside the headquarters to help protect me in case there was any trouble closer at hand. While Khurr and the rest of the team tracked down where the elves had come from, I checked in on my construction efforts. The housing complexes had finished their upgrades to rank one, but it wasn’t much of a change.
Each housing complex still had five huts, but those had expanded a bit more, and some square footage and almost reaching the edge of the plot they were situated on. The next rank of upgrades would need to expand up or down rather than out. At each hut, new eggs began to grow as the upgraded housing and farms could now support a larger population. I’d have to wait and see what my new population totals would be and how many kobolds each housing complex now supported.
The barracks and crafting center were still upgrading, and the marketplace also had a way to go before it was constructed. Back out in the forest, my team had managed to track down another ambush team of elves. The half-dozen ambushers met the same fate as their kin and fell to the armored drone and my ranged attackers.
As my minions continued their advance into elf territory, the forest started to change. The trunks of the trees were getting larger and were beginning to resemble the giant redwood trees in California. My team suddenly took cover as, in the distance, I could see that a small village had been constructed among the branches of the trees. Shapes flitted about the treetops as the elves prepared for our assault.
Without hesitation, the drone charged forward and was met with a smattering of arrows. It wasn’t the rain of arrows I’d sort of expected from tree-dwelling elves, but maybe they were just starting out like my kobold empire was and had a limited number of warriors available. Just like before, the drone was impervious to the elf arrows.
Most of the fire was coming from one particular tree, and my drone wasted no time in starting to climb his way up. More arrows struck and a green blast of energy, similar in size to my magic missiles, was also hurled by an elf with glowing eyes. Unlike the arrows, the magic left the armor scorched and lightly dented.
In response, the drone climbed a bit further before aiming his shoulder-mounted launcher up into the trees. Three grenades coughed out of the launcher and a spread of explosions blasted the area where the mage and archers had been hiding. Shouts of pain were heard as the shrapnel from the grenades sliced through the defenders.
A trio of bodies fell from the trees, thumping onto the ground. Things had gone quiet, and no more attacks hit my drone, who had kept climbing the tree and was almost at the first of the structures built in its boughs. A voice called out from another tree, frantic and tearful.
“Stop, please, offer terms. We’ll do what you want, I don’t wish to see my people destroyed.”