"Oohh! I'm back! Did you miss me, my little babies!?" I say while looking at the Braindead Followers in front of me. They don't react whatsoever.
Today I'm going to do another Dungeon Invasion, but there's a few things that I must check before. Basically, spending yesterday's rewards and preparing for today's invasion.
"First of all, the most important thing! I've been thinking about it all day, and finally found a solution for this epic problem!" Yes, I'm talking about the fact that I need a way to capture enemy units. "I won't forgive myself if the same happens another time."
"And the perfect way for me to not forget again about capturing enemy units is… to leave the capturing to another! No, seriously! I can make a new stitched template, and modify the AI so that it captures every unit within range. It's the perfect plan! What could possibly go wrong by relying on my (for now) most intelligent units!"
I create a new stitched subtemplate called Braindead Kidnapper. It is also going to have the Intelligent passive trait because I need to give it two new instructions. Then, I open the AI screen and add the 'follow x unit' and 'capture close units' actions. But I don't want it to bump into me all the time, I will never make this mistake, so I make it follow the closest allied unit instead of me. Oh, and I also make the stitched unable to enter combat by not connecting any other node to the 'enter combat' node. This way, it will survive for more time and capture more units. "Or at least I hope it will help keep it alive." It's a shame I can't add a third action box to the AI to make it follow me in the same way as the others… The stitched only has 2 INT even with the skill that increases the stat.
With the new subtemplate created, I move one stitched from the Follower to the Kidnapper template. "Now I have finished the changes needed for the units that will follow me, and I now have a sure-fire way to capture units! You'll see, Ricard! I'll soon make you eat your own words! Hahaha!" I say while laughing.
"Now to spend yesterday's rewards! First, I must upgrade the Champion, because I really need another spell that can actually kill enemies." I open my Champion's screen and look for the 'Level up' button. Since my player level is 1, I can only upgrade units up to level 2. The level cap includes Champions. Player level is shared by all my dungeons, and the XP to raise it can only be obtained through Dungeon Invasions, Dungeon Battles, or by having players invade your dungeon. And you can't control the last one.
To upgrade a unit to level 2, you need 10 cp. Then the cost increases by 10 cp each level, and 5 cp extra for each previous upgrade. This means 25 cp for level 3, 45 cp for level 4, 70 cp for level 5, etc. And for each level, a unit gains 10% increase to the base stats and 1 skill point.
"Well, let's start!" I spend 10 cp and upgrade my Champion, Mad Rat, to level 2. "Now I have a skill point to spend! What I'm looking for is a single-target cheap spell, something that I can use to damage and kill enemies. And it would be better if it has a side effect that can help my stitched in one way or another, because they are too weak and slow right now.
I immediately start looking through the active skills. I find a few that are promising but don't fit what I want, like Fireball. Finally, I find one that fits exactly what I'm looking for.
Cold Blast (Active skill)Cost: 20 MPDeal (2 + 0.5 * SPI) ice damage to a single enemy. There is a 10% chance that the enemy is encased by ice, making it unable to move for 3 seconds.
"Yep! That's it!" I say. "With this spell I can finally kill something! And it also has a chance to immobilize the enemy, which can help the stitched reach the enemy when the enemy stays at range. And the chance to immobilize is increased to 20% thanks to my Maniac passive!"
"Aren't you happy now, my ugly babies? You will now have a slight chance to reach the enemies before you die! …or before I do... Because the chase with those farmers would have lasted for all eternity..." I say while grabbing a stitched's head and looking at its face. Uuugh… Gross! Gotta wash my hands now!
These are my stats and skills after the level up. Without the Champion's buff, of course. It displays the base stats in parenthesis. It must be because there are passives and other stuff that can increase the unit's basic stats, the 10% per level must be applied on those too, and this way the player can better see and calculate the differences.
Mad Rat (Lv 2)
HP242 (220) STA16 (15) SOU18 (17)
EP198 (180) MP242 (220)
STR18 (17) CON18 (17) AGI20 (19)
SPI24 (22) WIL20 (19) DEX22 (20)
SPD7
Mad Rat - Skills
Active
Rat Transformation (Innate)
Chain Lightning
Cold Blast
Triggered
Shared Voltage
Passive
Mana Attuned (Innate)
Maniac
I still have 108 cp left. "I am going to create more stitched with the remaining points. This will leave me with 8 cp. It's fun that I can create exactly the same amount as the ones I took for the dungeon invasion, so now the dungeon will again have 20 Stitched!" I quickly put them into the Reanimation machine's creation queue. Which forces me to wait for a while as stitched start popping from the machine. "I never thought I would say this in my entire life, but… I am running out of corpses! I must get some more! Only 8 corpses left! Luckily, I'm going to get more in a while."
The newly created stitched are bumping into things in the laboratory, so I assign them to the corresponding templates. "There are five squads of four stitched each again! Nice! Mommy is gonna leave for a while, ok? Defend the dungeon with your lives, ok, you stupid and ugly monstrous babies?"
I open the invasion menu and look for another easy dungeon, setting the player's level to 1. "What faction am I going to pick today? I don't want to repeat humans, so maybe elves? It will give me a chance to get some half-brother 'materials'. Hahaha!" I laugh at my own stupid joke. "Yes, let's go with elves this time!" I quickly set the faction to the 'Sylvan', the name of the elvish faction.
"I can see a lot of dungeons with… how to call it… original names? 'We are the best', 'ElvesRule2', 'Adgperetpr', 'ComeAndDye'... The last one doesn't even know how to write properly! And the one before? Isn't it just some random letters?" I am astounded at how stupid humans can be… Who would ever want to enter those dungeons? I avoided all those dungeons with strange and stupid names and picked one that had a normal name. "Here I come, 'Willowcreek forest'!"
I soon find myself surrounded by trees. They are huuge! I've never seen trees this big before! Well, not in person. I've seen secuoyas and similar stuff in photos. Some of these trees are more than 20 meters wide! And I can't even see where their trunks end when looking up.
"Elves, living in a forest with huge trees. Add to it some bows and hate towards dwarfs, and they check all the typical fantasy tropes."
Just after saying this, *Swish!* an arrow flies towards me and I take some damage. "Here they are, the bows!" I jump while exclaiming, full of joy. Will there also be dwarfs later on?
*Swish! Swish!* Two more arrows fly towards us. One hits me again and the other hits one of the stitched.
"From the angle, one of the two shooters must be in one of the trees. The other is at ground level."
I decide to go for the easier one and quickly run towards the direction where the arrow came from. The stitched follow me from behind.
"There you are! I can see you now!" I say. Meanwhile, four more arrows have hit us. One of the stitched has taken more than half HP as damage.
As I get closer, the elf tries to run away. "No, you won't!" I say at the same time as I cast my new spell: Cold Blast. The spell hits, and the elf is momentarily stopped. A small ice sheet can be seen surrounding the elf's joints. "The immobilization triggered on the first try, nice!"
Thanks to the immobilization, the stitched reach the elf before it can start running again. And they beat the elf to a pulp in a short time. During this time, I'm trying to find the location of the other archer.
*Swish!* Another arrow hits me. "I've got you now!" Thanks to this arrow, I've seen where the elf is hiding. He is on top of a tree branch, so the stitched won't be able to reach it.
I cast another Cold Blast and it hits the elf, at the same time the elf shoots at me. But the difference in stats makes the exchange extremely unbalanced. His health was reduced by almost half while I took an insignificant amount of damage. After two more of those exchanges, the elf falls to the floor, dead.
"Fiuu…!" I exhale, relieved. The combat is finished. "If this proves one thing, it is that tactics and placement trump pure stats. Those are the basic elvish units: elvish Scouts. And in a 2vs6, including me as a Champion, they almost got one stitched and I lost 1/4 of my health. Yes, most of the damage came from myself thanks to the Maniac passive, but still…"
"Well, let's continue this dungeon invasion!"