Daniel Hale
The next major move in the battle was against him, Daniel lamented. For about a week he had watched as Leonard’s forces built barges on the edge of the central lake, so the day’s assault was by no means a surprise. Daniel had spent the week bolstering his forces. However the much larger and more sophisticated warships manned by lizardmen were a different matter.
Gale working with Leonard was a surprise. Through a scouting caval he had watched the battle. She had to have lost the bulk of her forces worth hundreds of thousands of MP in a battle not two weeks ago, yet here she was with full sized ships filled with lizardmen, lesser trolls, and the handful of tier 3’s. Amelia’s scouts had seen them depart Gale’s fog territory just the day before, giving Daniel some warning. According to her champion, these vessels were similar to ones from the lower dimension. Mark had called them Roman-like Triremes with a few sails and oars. Each vessel held over a hundred units.
In contrast, Leonard's forces made up the bulk of the attack. Tens of simple barges with rackety walls covering the front third and a drop ramps up front. Orcs and gnolls manned oars propelling the amphibious craft forward. A few similar landing craft were starting to fill up from Gale’s forces. It was her forces that started the assault, sending blue orbs over thousands of feet of water and earth. A few of his beasts were caught by the exploding ice bombs, but most fell wide. The trees and underbrush near the beach on the other hand was being absolutely devastated.
Luna ‘the peak,’ his named moon wolf, was the next to make a move. The giant wolf set its feet and reared its head back before bringing it forward. Luna’s mouth opened and a brilliant white beam lanced out striking one of the gnoll landing craft. Wood exploded and the craft bucked in the water from the force. The gnolls in the front were killed instantly. The rest were left floundering as what remained of the raft started falling apart.
Then came a volley of large stones from the four armed tier 3 girallons. The 10 foot giant apes were extremely strong, even for their base power rating of 3.7. The small boulders sailed hundreds of feet forward and into the air before slamming down like meteors, usually just making big splashes in the water. The occasional hit splintered the wood as the rocks smashed right through. A few more amphibious craft joined the first in falling apart, as the occupants did their best to hold onto logs and make toward the beach.
The rest of the beast forces started assembling as the landing craft prepared to make beachfall. The defenders started forming as the front ramps fell down exposing only a pair of wall shields that quickly moved forward. The shield bearers faltered a step or two as they splashed down into a foot of water and wet sand. Spells from evolved beasts and projectiles from the lesser primate units were already in the air slamming into units as they poured out into the surf.
Luna let loose another white blast, killing probably the front quarter of orcs on another landing craft, but it was just one of dozens. Now that Daniel's beasts were gathered in mass, the blue orbs launched by the lizardmen started to claim some casualties as they continued to freeze whole areas of beachhead.
It took only minutes for the orcs and gnolls to move out of the surf and to get into melee with the quickly forming line of armored gorilla regulars (1.8 base power rating) and gorilla kings (2.7 power rating). The primate branch was the only branch that Daniel had that could fight like a standard force. Their weapons and armor were more crude than that of other armies. Their fighting prowess was also more savage with little technique from classes, but they made up for it in raw power. They easily surpassed most other units with an equivalent power rating.
Still Daniel could only grimace as he watched the primates only manage to fight on an equal footing as the orc and gnoll warriors used skills and powerful enchanted gear to make up the difference. It took the tier 3 Orangutan and Tier 2 chimp mages firing spells steadily to keep the attackers from overwhelming the defensive line. The ape defensive wall was strong, but they were few in number and already the number of attackers that had landed was starting to outnumber them.
The defensive wall was pushed back steadily, but that was according to plan. Once they reached the edge of the beach, Daniel sent a quick order through to a battlefield commander. An army of lesser beasts led by peak tier 2 cave bears swept down on both sides engaging units as they left the surf and attacked the orc and gnolls from behind. The attack’s forward progress faltered as the reinforcements were cut off, as all of the beach turned into a mixed melee. A melee in which his forces would clearly emerge victorious if given enough time, but then five more landing craft landed to the far right of the main battlefield.
Daniel had already directed forces to lay and await, but his hopes for an easy victory took a significant hit after seeing what lay within. The landing craft ramps dropped in quick succession to reveal centaurs in full plate. The front centaur in each carried two massive shields to guard the entire front quadrant. Each centaur was mounted by orc chieftains. Spells and projectiles were absorbed by the leading centaurs as they led the charge out and into the surf. They quickly made it to the beach and engaged Daniel’s reserve primate defenders. Even a girallon thrown boulder only caused a lead centaur to falter a step as the dual magic shields absorbed the impact.
There were only 15 centaurs and riders per a landing craft, but the 150 units formed an elite force. Chieftain spells were already piercing out at the awaiting defenders. Daniel quickly pulled more powerful reserve units to deal with that flank. This front would fall quite quickly with what he had initially allotted. The shadow cat, Midnight ‘the reaper’ and the earth dragon ‘first primordial’ led a gang of girallon’s and lesser beasts forward cutting through the edge of the forest.
Three patrols of centaurs immediately broke off riding out to deal with the reinforcements. Leonard probably felt that they would be plenty to deal with the reinforcements while the two remaining patrols would be able to deal with the remnants on the beach. He would be wrong. How could two named units and a half dozen tier 3 ape monsters be dealt with so easily.
Midnight met the lead centaur head on. Black ethereal claws 3 feet long projected from Midnight's actual claws and tore into both shields like scythes. Surprisingly both shields held, but the centaur behind them had its arms break from the impact. The orc chieftain rider was sent flying as his mount was stopped mid stride. Midnight continued on leaving the centaur to be torn apart by one of the girallons following behind him.
The ‘First Primordial’ on the other hand tore into a whole patrol by itself. The earth dragon was a full 40 feet long with its body sitting a good 3 to 4 feet off the ground when standing. It was likely the biggest dungeon unit in the entire battle. Having become a unique named unit with a double primordial evolution the creature had more than doubled in size. The 14.1 power rating allowed it to unleash utter destruction despite just being an overly large brute with no magic.
The centaurs splintered but were not dissuaded in their attack. Power lances and other spells started wreaking havoc on the monstrosities that they faced. The centaurs on the other hand were very nimble and were able to keep out of range of all but the unique named units. They weaved in and out attacking the oversized gorillas' flanks and rear as the girallons were distracted by other units. The centaurs and chieftains all had enchanted or straight up magic equipment, allowing them to do far more damage than Daniel would have liked. Two girallons went down during just the second pass.
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However, once again Daniel felt things were in hand, but more landing craft were landing at the main battlefield, and Gale’s large ships had even drawn close. A dozen giant humanoids leapt off the ships. They crashed into the water, sinking briefly before their heads and shoulders appeared moments later. They started walking forward on the lake bottom. In another minute they would join the battle overturning the balance. The lizardmen slingshots also started redirecting their deadly blue orbs toward the elite battle taking place to the side. Daniel guessed Gale would not care about killing a few of her allies elite centaurs and orc chieftains if it meant killing some of his best.
The primordial earth dragon took multiple shots and two other girallons took a shot a piece. The ice orbs did not instantly kill anything, however the wounded girallons went down. The centaurs moved in to finish them off almost instantly. The earth dragon took the blows in stride as whole sections of its body were covered with ice patches. Midnight nimbly dodged the orbs with god level reflexes as it continued to assassinate its enemies one after another.
Subsequent volleys meant many more hits to the primordial who started to slow. Its giant bulk made it a favorite target as orbs burst on or around it frequently. Daniel started to realize that the battle was not going his way, He only had Vivi ‘the first’ and a few other elites in reserve at the main battlefield, but with a dozen giants and trolls among several hundred lizardmen joining the main battle it would not be enough.
Midnight would be just fine, but it did not look like the earth dragon could escape the bombardment without retreating from the battle entirely. In less than a minute nearly its whole body seemed to be nearly frozen solid. Its movements were stiff. Daniel felt sick watching the strongest unit in the battle being brought low by the ranged attacks. The slingshots were far more accurate than they had any reason to be. Now that the ships were close their margin of error had decreased to the point where 1 of every two orbs hit the giant primordial. The earth lizard had taken a good 20 hits, but the beast had slowed significantly.
Daniel sighed as he watched for another few minutes. Before he made a decision. Sure he could make a second wave of units to meet the attackers midway from the beach to his settlement, but in the end Daniel knew he would lose the island today. He would lose what he had and four unique named units, but the named units would respawn.
There would be several hundred enemies left alive on the beaches when all was said and done, combined with the 100 lizardmen on the ships and hundreds of orcs and gnolls on the far banks waiting to be ferried across, he would not be able to win. Instead he focused on gathering as much of the primordial essence as humanly possible. With his current means he could only store it for about 3 months before it started to lose its potency, but that would be plenty of time to rebuild an army using it all up.
Far out into the water 4 sets of frog eyes watched.
Day 289: Mark
Mark and Amelia watched the battle. The means of Daniel Hale and Leonard Boulevic were both beyond impressive, and of course Gale’s forces were nothing new. Mark was glad they had noticed the ships leaving the base yesterday. Mark had of course had Amelia alerted Daniel Hale to screw over Gale since of the two they definitely hated her more. Daniel had mentioned that Leonard’s forces were already amassing, so Mark had frogmen swim all night and day to get to the point where they could watch the battle.
Now they had far more intel on the two dungeons they knew the least about. Both would prove dangerous in battle, which was not a surprise at this point in the battle. Still Mark liked their chances against Daniel. Other than the primates the other beasts would fall quite easily to their enchanted weapons. However, Mark had to remind himself that Daniel had a full other tree branch not even exhibited here. Then there were the unique titled beasts, but how many could he possibly have. Mark had noted at least 3, but it was hard to tell since other evolved beasts looked equally powerful making them difficult to pick out.
Leonard’s forces on the other hand would be very difficult to deal with. They were highly mobile and powerful, but most concerning was the level of their equipment. In battle Amelia and him had counted on having the best gear to make it through, but Leonard had quite a bit of magical equipment and enchantments that were at least at the same level. Besides for Henry they did not have powerful units that could just smash through the high level gear. It was a good thing that Leonard's dungeon was on the far side of the map.
Two weeks had passed since their own desperate battle with Gale’s army. All of their structures had long ago respawned. Mark had not spent much time with their MP since. He had maxed out their sunflowers since they were the only units that required time to charge an attack. Their home dungeon now sported 100 while their settlement sported the remaining 25.
At half a million MP, they still had a ways to go to save up for Settlements III to max out their MP production for their dungeon level. However, Mark did spend enough to buy units to figure out the specifics of their two new germination path upgrades: breeder and symbiote. Both knew upgrades led to a single fifth tier germination path upgrade, meaning Mark had probably unveiled all of the potential paths.
The breeder upgrade was far different than he had expected. Instead of allowing him to expand his army by quickly breeding and birthing new units continuously, the upgrade gave a proliferate ability that could only be used on any of the creepy crawly units, but not the thrash bears. The proliferate ability would cause them to spawn a bunch of miniature versions of the unit. A wolf spider quickly made a large egg sac that burst minutes later creating tens of young, each with a power rating a quarter to a third of the wolf spiders.
The spider young lasted several hours before they dissipated. Other creepy crawlies spawned varied numbers of young with varying power ratings. The three spider types birthed the most. The scorpion and cockroach only produced a few young that were far more powerful. The centipede fell in the middle.
It was a pretty strong upgrade, but it did have its limits. The breeder could only breed one unit once until its young magically dispersed into the air. The proliferate ability also used up quite a bit of manna so the blood rose breeder he had summoned could only use it once before it had to recover some manna for a second use.
However, Mark salivated thinking of the possibilities. Each breeder would be a decent addition to battle since they still had their healing spell and empower to strengthen beasts. However their true utility was prior to battle. He could see them magically breeding up to half a dozen units a piece before battle. Mark would be able to make an entire creepy crawly army of hundreds or thousands. Sure they were weak, and would suffer catastrophically against area attacks. However it would be an effective swarm tactic in battle.
The symbiote upgrade they finished researching today was also really good. Once again, Mark made a blood rose symbiote, but they would not get to test it more than once. The symbiote upgrade allowed the blood rose to fuse with one other living unit. Once had unfortunately fused it with the wolf spider. The two units effectively became one. A giant wolf spider with tens of thorny tendrils exiting from various parts of its abdomen. Initially the blood rose had a power rating 3.4, when combined with the 1.8 wolf spider it became a 3.2 amalgamation of woody vines and exoskeleton.
The upgrade would have its applications although it looked like he would need to use it on only the more powerful beasts to actually get power rating benefits. It would be effective at creating powerful units that counted as one. They were also fairly difficult to kill since there were two control centers to keep the unit going. Taking off the wolf spider’s head would still allow the blood rose to control the unit. The symbiotes would be beyond perfect for dungeon defenders and elite units. The fusions would potentially keep the good aspects from both sides including the healing and empower abilities of the previous germination stages as well as beast evolutions.
Mark pictured a highly mobile unit shooting the sunflower’s sunburst ability from its mouth, like Daniel's unique named moon wolf. Or midnight scorpions fused with the blood roses helping them to block their flanks, Mark had not missed that the wolf spider symbiote had kept the blood roses ‘blood frenzy’ ability.
Honestly, Mark did not know which of the two upgrades he liked better. The breeder upgrade would allow him to make small swarms of weak critters. The symbiote upgrade would allow him to make powerful but expensive units. However, Mark did know where to put the remaining 4 RP for the day. There was one more unique trainer germination upgrade.
