Peter spent the rest of the time schmoozing, and doing his best to trade, but Emma and Fellette were right. The few older dungeons he had tried with had scoffed at him. A D tier ‘card’ was too far beneath their notice. Others offered a trade, but Peter was in no position to trade two or three of his D tier’s for a single one. Despite it being a decent deal generally, he was strapped for resources.
However, he had gotten a few bites. A few from other new dungeons, although Peter only was looking for other D tiers. E tiers would not buy him much. A few of the intermediate level dungeons had made the trades perhaps interested in what his core type had to offer in the future. His trades might not be worth looking at right now, but given a few years…
Now Peter was back in his core space once again. An hour timer hung over his head, so he quickly took stock. He now had two D tier cards for ember and ape. Then he had one for Water, crystal, glass, crustacean, fallen, and bones. The last three were from other new dungeons. Peter had briefly met the angel and fallen type core, Gabriel, and made the trade, and had also snagged one from the bone and crustacean rookies. Something he doubted would happen in the future, since already the new dungeon cores were closing ranks with their factions. Most had chosen similar types as their guides meaning they were quickly ushered into the fold. Lone holdouts like bones would likely be incorporated soon.
That left Peter with 14 D tiers, 1 E tier design cards. Then he clockwork’s paltry offerings, and 5,000 essence of which to still spend. Based on his haul, Peter elected to go with his first design for the dungeon floor. A simple floor with not much too it, other than one small trick. It was on the smaller side, but should do for his purposes. The floor design by itself would cost him 1,705 essence knocking down his available resources even further.
Peter’s plan was to only send a nominal attack force while focusing on defense. Once his defense was successful he would have all the defenders join in on the attack. As long as he held the other cores' dungeon exit, she would not be able to send units back to his dungeon. Well… Unless she kept some stationed in the no mans land between the dungeons. In no mans land opposing forces could neither see nor fight each other. They would have to enter one of the dungeon entrances to make any bit of difference.
What he did next would likely determine whether he would be victorious or not. Peter would first use his 5 triplecations, and build his other forces based off of them. If he could just get one C tier, he might dominate her forces easily. If not hopefully he would have 5 powerful D tiers strong enough to lead the rest of his forces to victory.
Peter set up his first triplecation. A design, ember, and ape. The three cards disappeared from his inventory and spun in front of him like a rubik's cube going crazy. Eventually they started to settle and he was left with three choices.
Flame lemur D ATT: D(-), DEF: D, SPE: D
Smouldering ash elemental D ATT: D, DEF: D, SPE D
Burnt knuckle gorilla D ATT: D, DEF: D(-), SPE: D.
This roll was certainly on the lower side. As cool as the burnt knuckle gorilla sounded, Peter went with the smoldering ash elemental, using his one increase to push ATT up to D (+). As far as stock cards, Peter received 5 ember cards and 4 apes. If anything he would have hoped he got the high roles for the cards he only had 1 of, but in the end they were all only D tier. By next year's congregation already a D tier would just be a minor player. If he did battle, dungeons would have C tier units at the very least.
Peter ran his second triplefication with the same three card types, burning both the other originals. The results were fairly similar with only one choice being at least regular in every category. Peter did not choose it however since one of the other choices had a D (+). That was what he was looking for since his increase could potentially rank that attribute into the C tier. Which Peter quickly did. The result was Chimp flame launcher ATT: D, DEF: D (-), SPE: C(-). For stock cards he got a reroll for ember and then a 3, adding 8 for a total of 13 stock ember cards. He only got a 2 for ape, putting him at 6.
Peter quickly moved on doubling the water attribute with design, water, and crustacean. This time Peter elected not to have a choice so that he could make two increases. The result was the best yet. Blue horned crab ATT: D, DEF: C(-), SPE: D. One of the attributes had tier’d up on its own. He almost laughed maniacally as he put both increases into defense. Sure enough its defence went to a C (+). Which was apparently enough to make the unit a C tier overall. Let her try to crack that nut. For stock cards, he got 2 for water and 4 for crustacean.
Peter quickly moved on. Choosing to go with 2 increases for the remaining 2. However he clearly had peaked early with the blue horn crab. His design, fallen, and crystal triplification had given a purple sand slime with ATT: D, DEF: D, SPE:D. Peter used both increases on defense, but still only got a D (+) in return. Moving up a rank was apparently not guaranteed for each increase. He got 2 fallen and 3 crystals to add to his stock cards.
The final triplification was design, bone, and ember. He was not about to combine bone with his only other remaining original glass, so he used a stock card from the type he had the most of, paying 100 essence to grab the ember stock card. The result was a fire kite. A bone bird with ATT: D, DEF: D, and SPE: D. He added both points to special since the representation of the bird did not look to be a defensive type. Still he only got a D (+). His rolls for stock continued to be good, getting first a 6 and then a 5 for 10 stock cards in total. A good thing since it might be difficult to get more cards from the guy without a battle.
Unauthorized reproduction: this story has been taken without approval. Report sightings.
With his 5 champions summoned and meandering about in his dungeon, Peter went about spending the rest of his essence. He used 40 D tier design cards to summon 40 D tier units. Most were far weaker than the rest, but he got a few that were at or pretty close to their level. With the remainder of his essence he summoned 20 E tiers. The 65 units would have to make do. It would be quite depressing if he got swamped with like 7 or 8 hundred E tiers and lost through pure numbers, but hopefully it would be enough.
Peter spent the remainder of his time getting familiar and positioning his units in teams that made sense. He could get anything under the sun, including undead or whatever else might be difficult to get normally. The difference was that they would always be weaker versions than if a type card was used, and his combinations would always weigh far too heavy toward what type card was used. Ten minutes later he was as ready as he would ever be. He could only watch as the time ticked down.
[Your dungeon has been connected to Beera, the lightning dungeon core, 0. Battle will last until one core is destroyed or 1 hour elapses.]
As soon as the announcement occurred units started pouring into Peter’s dungeon. His own strike team quickly moved as well although they would only focus on holding the opposite entrance. Peter was able to watch both on two different displays. Among the enemy units he saw genies, various beasts, and an animated suit of armor with blue sparking eyes, among a host of others. Beera’s forces were nearly as diverse as his own. Although Beera’s guide was clearly a genie, with a dungeon type of jinn, the elemental-like humanoids were by far the most prevalent.
Peter quickly scanned through them. The names blurred as he moved along, but he quickly got the scope of her forces. Beera had unlocked D tier as well, so his forces would not be swarmed by hundreds upon hundreds of weaker units. However, she had them few and far between using them more as champions than to comprise the bulk of her forces.
A quick size up was all that Peter managed before the two sides clashed. The smouldering ash fire elemental along with a handful of other D and E tiers were beset on all sides as they worked to take and defend the enemies entrance. Peter had sent them as the attack force because they were all the type that did not play nice with other friendlies.
The second clash happened about 10 seconds later. Beera’s forces had found themselves in a decent sized cavern with one large pool of water and only one tunnel exiting on the far side. Beera’s forces entered uncontested for a good 100 yards before they slammed into the wall that was the blue horned crab. The purple sand slime and some other front liners fought to the crabs side holding the line, while the flame kite whizzed through the air 20 feet overhead. The flame launching chimp and a few other mage type units provided support from behind.
Units started falling immediately. The blue horned crab reaped two beast types immediately, hewing them in half with one cut of each of its front claws. The purple sand slime immediately moved into the enemy ranks and started causing chaos, as flaming attacks came from overhead.
The flame kite was the first defender to fall. Apparently the flaming bone bird’s high defense was reflected in its high speed and not in resisting attacks. From the start tens of electrical attacks were launched up after it. The kite nimbly dodged quite a few, but one hit sent the bird down steaming. Peter saw on his interface that the bird was in fact dead.
The purple sand slime fell relatively quickly as well, hit by an electrical melee attack from the reanimated suit of armor. The armor was one of Beera’s D tier so the one attack was fatal. Peter’s assault force was also being bloodied with a good third of their number already being down. Although they were causing even more casualties due to their overpowered attacks. The smouldering ash elemental moved around like a tornado wreaking havoc. It’s allies were equally as destructive, each with a big attack. They had dispersed out into the initial room. There was no line among them, just a bunch of eddies of chaos.
Peter started his trick nearly immediately once his initial room was clear of enemy forces. He had expected these tutorial battles to be pretty unstructured, or down and dirty. Just forces trying to force their way through the enemy first. It was basically a race, so it was likely his opponent would not be too careful about clearing rooms before continuing on. There were alot of stipulations in dungeon floor creation, but there was nothing to prevent a secret passage through the water.
Peter had sent 20 units through, 8 D tier and 12 E tiers. Anything that could make the trip other than the crab that was holding the line. They surfaced through the pool into the initial chamber right behind the enemy forces. Beera’s assault force did not know what hit them as his melee centric units slammed into mage types without warning. Beera had about 150 units in her assault force. In a matter of 10 seconds, his ambush killed a good 10%. Beera did not have any strong melee units at the back to put a stop to them. They were all up front trading blows with the blue horned crab.
Peter had not been sure that things would work out as they normally would. Dungeon units were a bit different from actual living beings. Would they be psychically affected by being attacked on all sides? Peter still was not sure on that question. However, Beera’s assault forces despite being numerically larger was clearly having difficulty restructuring themselves to meet the ambush from behind and they continued to fall.
The reanimated suit was the last bastion among the attackers. It was taken from behind by the one remaining pincer of the blue horned crab. A good number of his other defenders were just as battered but there were still 31 left. Peter quickly sent the order for them all to advance. His own assault force was winding down with only two holdouts. A D tier porcupine unit and the smoldering ash elemental were the only two remaining and they were beset on all sides.
Beera likely had started with at least a good hundred defenders, based on what Peter could tell, but the 10 units of his assault force had likely killed a good 40 of them. It should not matter, his defenders would soon transition and finish things up. His units were still likely outnumbered 2 or perhaps 3 to 1 at the worst, but then he also likely out numbered her D tiers with his own by the same ratio.
Peter had sent all his defenders forward. Beera had not sent any units through her dungeon entrance since the beginning, so unless she had units standing by in no man's land his dungeon was safe. Even if she had made such a move, she would not be able to communicate with them, so unless she had set another wave to move in after a set time, he should be in the clear.
True to belief his forces moved through her dungeon with ease. She had elected for standard dungeon decor with man made sides versus his stone cavern interior. His units moved right on over the large hewed stones cobbled together with brief flicks of mortar. Peter was a bit worried as his assault force was whittled down, but her forces fell even quicker. In the end, he had 7 D tiers remaining when one of them destroyed her dungeon core. All of his triplefication D tiers had fallen, including the blue horned crab, during his assault. It hardly mattered since D tiers and E tiers were little more than fodder in most battles after this year.
