The red dragon was one of the survivors. However the dragon was heavily wounded after slaughtering the entire goblin contingent, and it could do little more but to hobbly away. Back on earth an animal wounded to the same extent would likely die from its wounds, but something as strong as the dragon would likely recover if given long enough, assuming Daniel did not have it healed before then.
The first primordial was another elite survivor. The giant earth dragon also hobbled away leading hundreds of weary and wounded beasts and primates behind it. The goblins manning the ballistas continued to fire after them, but no friendly units gave chase. The only units Mark had that could run them down were a handful of tier 3 spiders or centipedes that had survived and Mark would rather not waste them for little gain.
In the end they had several hundred of their own survivors. A knot of goblins had been pushed to the back of the fort and had fought off attackers from on top of the piles of lumber pushed against the cliff face, supported from the survivors on the walls.
Ezekiel had fallen, his giant robotic contraption ripped into two by an angry gorilla, but there was a touch of good news. They had received a new unique titled unit. Just in time to give them someone other than from the nameless rabble to lead their upcoming assault on Daniels dungeon.
Seven red witch doctors had survived the assault on Gale’s dungeon. After Daniel’s attack, four were still standing. Each had a dozen shrunken heads now hanging from their person. One had more than the rest, which had apparently been enough to meet one of the unique title thresholds. Mark decided to go with the name Lucian. First fitting name he could think of for the nefarious being, despite contemplating on it for a while.
[Congratulations: One of your elite units has received a unique title, Stolen Valor. Each of the 100 titles can only be given once during the succession battle. Each unit can only have one title. (Titles still available: 62/100) ]
[Stolen valor: The Stolen Valor title recognizes that a unit has stolen a quantity of power equal to or greater than its own from enemy dungeon units, making it its own. The unit’s wisdom and intelligence will be increased by 50%. The visage of the unit will enrage enemies. In addition, contestants can pick one of the following.
- Added stat points, attack, and defense
- Special curse ability
- Essence skill: (essences currently available: toxic, electricity, stone, sulfur.)
Time remaining 60:00]
The stolen valor came from the shrunken heads hanging from the witch doctor's waist. They increased mana pools, decreased spell or curse duration, among other things. It was not overly surprising that a red could double its strength being only a tier 1 unit, with heads from tier 2 or even 3 units to supplement its own.
The title benefits were fairly similar to what had been offered for Henry. However, Mark and Amelia settled on the second option instead of the essence skill option. Lucien had gotten the title due to using a curse after all, might as well play to one's strengths.
The title gave Lucien a special ability similar to that of Numerous, Nicholas Holt’s unique titled. It was called the Sphere of corruption. It caused a general drain on all enemy units that entered the zone which extended a good hundred yards in every direction. The effects became more pronounced as units got closer to the center. Units that died within the corruption sphere would rise again and fight for their new master. Friendly units were not affected. The last benefit was that enemy ranged attacks would be drained of momentum and energy. Strong enough attacks would still make it through, but it would help protect their new elite.
It was extra protection that Lucien needed, since he was relatively squishy for an elite unit, with only a power rating of 4.2. This new ability was now his main source of strength. Since his title ‘Stolen Valor’ also seemed to act to grab the ire of all enemies who saw him, he would need any additional protection they could manage.
The ability itself sounded great. It was a literal army raiser. However, it only worked on units that died within, and the units would quickly lose the power that reanimated them if they were to leave the sphere of corruption. To effectively use it, Lucien would need to move toward the front lines and stay there to gather strength. Not optimal for a weaker mage elite, but it was what they had. Lucien was not the only unexpected boon from the battle.
As soon as Daniel’s forces had retreated out of their territory, they received the MP windfall they had been expecting for defeating enemy units in their territory, but the amount surpassed their expectations being nearly double that of their last major dungeon defense, despite a sizable piece of the enemy force retreating. It was less than they had spent to form their defenses so was still a net loss, but at least they would get some of it back. Daniel on the other hand was leaving empty handed.
Now for their retribution. Almost immediately Mark used 110,000 of the 286,000 MP windfall to summon a hundred bat goblin mages. Within ten minutes of having received the MP, the bat goblins were sent out in patrol sized forces, with their numbers supplemented by half of the weevils.
Their mission was to find and destroy Daniel’s production sites, and to continue to do so before they could respawn. Their scouts had already found one outpost when looking for the home dungeon within the last week. Now Mark wanted to find them all and strangle Daniels production for as much and long as possible. If they wanted to win in their upcoming assault they needed every advantage they could manage. Mark had sent a patrol to look for and hunt the red dragon down as well, but the giant reptile had holed down somewhere. Mark eventually had them give it up and fly to the north as well.
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In the days that followed, the air patrols successfully located and continually kept 3 of Daniel’s outposts destroyed. It only lasted a few days before, new primates and mage beasts fortified each one of them. Wiping out the outposts became impossible, but a quick sneak attack to kill a shade henchmen or two was still quite feasible since they moved out in the open between the coal mounds and the outpost hoppers. A couple fireballs were enough to do the job, and then the bat goblins winged back into the night. It would cost 500 MP at the very least for Daniel to resummon a new shade henchmen, but he would also lose out on any MP production that occurred in the meantime.
However after a week the red dragon returned to monitor the skies. After losing a couple of bat goblins, Mark had to restrict the air patrols to monitor the outposts from cover and only take to the skies at night. They would also only act in small teams. The red dragon could patrol the whole area quite quickly, and it could easily run down any that it caught sight of.
In the end Mark expected that Daniel had at least lost a good 100,000 MP of production or unit replacement costs at the minimum. About as much as it had cost to summon the air units, but he still had and could use them. Perhaps the real gain was that Daniel now had to keep stronger contingents at each outpost site to protect them. Dividing his forces by even a little bit could only help in their future assaults.
A little over two weeks after construction had been started the institute was completed. Just another two story cabin made of wood and stone, nothing to grandiose. It did increase their daily RP by 4, bringing them up to 15, but that was the lesser gain in Mark’s opinion. The real purpose of the institute was to dedicate efforts to unlock upgrades.
Mark could assign up to 10 researchers, and he could dedicate them to working on various upgrades. They could be used to progress anything other than dungeon techs. Which was just fine for Mark. He immediately added 10 more reds to their auxiliary staff and manned the institute. Instead of having them all work on different things, Mark assigned them all to work on the upgrade Mark wanted the most, the beast tree second evolution.
It would take 34 days. If he dedicated even their increased RP for the same thing it would take a full 67 days. Even saving up their MP would take 20 days, so it was effectively saving them quite a bit of time or resources. The bonus for the gnome built institute increased research progress, so the 29 daily RP points of research they were effectively getting could have been even less. The research speed was heavily dependent on the quality of the units assigned. The red hobgoblins were only a touch worse in intelligence and wisdom than the bugbears, but they were cheaper and had a higher unit cap. An extra few points a day probably would not make much of a difference.
Mark belatedly had to agree that the institute had been the right move. The second beast evolution would take over a month, but as soon as it was finished, they would start knocking other upgrades out with frightening speed.. Then they still had their automatic 15 RP that could go to something else. Having all of their different upgrade paths no longer seemed to be too much of a detriment. Perhaps in a matter of months they would be able to reach the end of the line on a lot of them. Then what would the institute and RP do?
Mark had wanted to wait as long as possible before launching their counter attack on Daniel. His only deadline was to work in the attack prior to Daniel’s unique titled units respawning, which would have given them at least another week. However Mark soon realized that perhaps he had waited too long, when their ever watchful scouts caught sight of a second champion.
Daniel called it something else, but Mark had dubbed the new champion Kong, since it was a 30 foot tall gorilla. Fortunately, like the dragon it was likely far to big to enter someone’s dungeon, or Daniel would likely be able to take them out before their army ever got there.
Kong was a fearsome looking beast with tusk sized canines, and would be a difficult obstacle to overcome despite being smaller and less powerful than the dragon. Kong had a power rating of 23.1 compared to the red dragons 29.9. Regardless it was a substantial difference over any of their units. Without Henry, they did not even have a unit with a double digit power rating, but Mark could not wait for the bugbear leader to respawn. Daniel would get five more of his own unique titled units back in the same time, and likely at least another champion. They would have to perform this attack without him.
After the appearance of Kong, Mark had their forces set out after only a few more days. There should be another couple of weeks before the weaker cats Vivi and Vince respawned, but they simply could not afford to wait any longer. So on Day 365 the bulk of the army set out. A good hundred wolf spiders were sent in the next few days to supplement the forces and to bring more supplies.
This was a real army, numbering in the thousands and costing over one million MP. The goblin numbers alone fell just shy of 5,000 and cost 797,000 MP. Most of the units were relatively cheap, but the 500 reds that had been summoned alone cost 350,000. A worthwhile expense since they would be the witch doctors, flame jugglers, and mages that were the true power of the force. In contrast, they only had 75 bugbears and gnarled goblin elites.
The other side of their forces were the creepy crawlies, although the tier 3’s numbered less than 100. They were mainly here to breed thousands of tier 1 offspring. They had enough breeder sunflowers to raise the creepy crawly armies, and a handful of blood rose trainers to lead the elite spiders and centipedes when they actually went into battle. All the rest were support units that might be used once their function was over. Over 200 fire ants and 300 wolf spiders had set out with the initial force to haul supplies and gear.
A group of 8 fire ants were even strong enough to haul platforms that carried ballista and its operators. Mark had 9 of these ballista platforms, and a handful of others carrying supplies. Based on their latest defense the ballista could play a vital role in actually bringing down a champion. The platforms were mobile enough with the ants being able to navigate the uneven terrain quite well, and they were easily strong enough to keep up with the army despite their burden.
Several more veins of petrified wood and mithril had been excavated over the last few weeks. Overall they had less excellent quality and above enchantments, but they had far more masterwork and artifacts than they ever had for their other battles.
As far as air units, Mark could summon more to add to the numbers already on station all the way up to the morning of. The last of the wolf spiders would leave two days prior, leaving the rest for more weevils and smaller plants that could also be given the breeder upgrade.
They were putting their full weight forward for this attack. Failure would likely stifle their future since Daniel would be getting the defensive MP windfall if they failed. Then his ability to summon new champions and respawn titled units would far eclipse their own, increasing the edge he had over them. Not to mention everything had been quiet from the southern dungeons, meaning they were likely saving up for dungeon level 4. Win or lose, they would be playing catch up. The benefit was that neither of the southern dungeons should make a move on their dungeon since they were both keeping each other in check.
If either did happen to attack during this period Mark would have to convert their DP. They had 326 right now, which would likely be far from enough, but Mark was fairly sure neither would make the move. They were both likely quite content if Daniel and them continued to burn resources on each other.