I wish I could survey the entire battlefield right now, but Rocky is my last scion standing over there. My zombie boxer is trying to get himself back under control as he stares at the smoldering remains of the Harbinger, and I can’t really blame him.

That thing was a nasty piece of work, and I could actually feel it’s magic subtly influencing Leo and Honey both through their bonds with me. It couldn’t control them, but it could give them little nudges, little suggestions, toy with their emotions. If anything that attack of Rocky’s was too nice of an end for that monster.

I just wish it was actually the end of it. I’ll double check with the others, but I doubt ordinary wandering monsters get titles like that. If it’s not a random invader, it’s a scion, and if it’s a scion, it’ll respawn in its dungeon. Oh, speaking of spawns: there’s still a big chunk of army for Rocky to deal with. At least he won’t have to fully deal with it on his own.

When Leo ordered the denizens into the holes for protection, he also ordered the tunnelbores in there. With them, they can dig through the collapsed section and charge back out, if they need to. Rocky is their main target at the moment, as easily my strongest force on the field right now. Thankfully, their weakness to cold gives Rocky a pretty simple solution, and even the killing machines are starting to understand charging at him is maybe not the best idea.

I ask Rocky to keep an eye on the denizens and watch for any other tricks, but I think the battle is pretty much over, even if there’s a lot of invaders still to clean up. Which gives me a chance to try to go over the battle in my head.

We won, but it’s easily the most costly victory since the battle with Neverrest. I wouldn’t go so far as to call it a Pyrrhic victory, but we’ve definitely gotten a shiner or two. Leo and Honey are counting down to respawn, looks like it’ll be in the middle of the night for them to come back. I’ve also lost a decent number of the denizens I sent, and I don’t know if the mana from killing the invaders will offset the cost.

Worse than the possible loss of mana, though, is the simple fact this war has only just started. The other times I’ve had to deal with hostile dungeons, I’ve managed to make it nice and quick, settling it with a single battle, but it’s not going to be so simple with this one. For starters, I don’t even know where it is!

It’s under the surface somewhere, but I don’t have much else to go on. I’d wager it’s a pretty good distance away, though. There’s no way it only has those leech-headed things as denizens, not with the strength of that scion. That it only sent them suggests it’s far enough away it can’t react quickly to the things I sent. It could even be far enough away that it couldn’t even react in time to send something that just deals with cold better.

It might even be what the dungeon sees as a token force, a glorified expedition to try to bring back some mana. If that’s the case… I think we’re in trouble. My gut says it’s not that bad, but I also don’t have guts anymore, so I don’t know how far I’m willing to trust them.

The dungeon even now should have some vague idea of the forces I can bring to bear, which is definitely bad. I feel like I’ve done so well in battles so far because nobody knew what to expect. In terms of intelligence gathering, the unknown dungeon definitely came out of this fight better than I did.

It’s not all bad, at least. Rocky didn’t embrace his boxer title, so there’s still that ace up our sleeves. I’ll also definitely need to bring another scion or two over if I want to make sure we can hold the line here. Slash will be a huge help with armies clashing, and it could also be an excellent chance for Nova to try to get some levels. Hopefully in a few smaller skirmishes before another big battle.

I’m also definitely going to need to focus on my own spawners a bit more, too. I’m going to absolutely see more than the leech-heads the next time we actually fight, so I’d better have a few more surprises of my own when the time comes. From how the battle went… I should probably try to focus on the hands, the earth elementals, the wyrms, and the wolves. I might work on the bird spawner, too.

The birds have the fewest upgrades to reach max, I think they’ll only have one or two new things to spawn. With them being focused on resources, though, I’m not certain how much benefit they’ll be in battle. Or maybe I’m completely off base here and they’ll end up being the perfect logistics solution to having my denizens so far away. I’d rather not spend my mana on maybes, but it’s an option.

The wolves are a pretty obvious choice to upgrade, I think they have one or two more new things before they max out as well. They’re probably going to be great for scouting the tunnels past the hole, and that’s without them getting any really cool new abilities with the new types.

The wyrms are also an obvious choice, as they have a ton of room left to grow with the spawner, and even the basic wyrms are perfect for scouting under the ground. I’m going to want some serious power houses eventually, and the wyrm spawner seems my best bet for it. The only real downside is that it’s pretty expensive to upgrade, enough that I’ll probably only be able to get a single new type, at least for a while.

The earth elementals also should probably get upgraded. They have plenty of room for new types, and I still need to choose a specialization for them. Ordinarily, I’d be inclined to go for resources for them. I’d probably end up effectively getting mobile mining nodes, which would be cool. But I also should look to see if the physical or magical specializations offer anything in the way of sneaky scouts. The rockslides have been amazing for getting intel. On the other hand, the wyrms might be able to take over that role if I get more of them, freeing the elementals to go for resources.

I could even pay through the nose to respec them after the battle, but even with my mana income, that feels like a waste. I’m leaning towards the resource focus for them, but I’ll wait on actually deciding, at least for now.

Lastly come the hands. They were a lot more effective than I was expecting, so I shouldn’t underestimate the little guys. If further upgrades can pack even more magical might into small packages, they could be a great choice. But what to choose?

I think I’ll actually wait for Leo to respawn before I spend anything, but I can still come up with a few options while I wait. If I build an army like a party, there are roles to fill: heavies, lights, supports, range. By that metric, I’d say I have light attackers and range covered, at least to a point. The wolves, in basically all their forms, are great light attackers, able to get in, do a lot of damage, and get out before retaliation hits. The hands and birds are my range attacks, and I could probably swap the birds for bats as we get back under the ground.

I have some support denizens, but not as much as I might have expected. While I can’t forget the healing ants and slimes, I’d like to get a denizen that can put out some buffs or debuffs. With my current spawners, it’s probably the hands who will be most likely to be able to provide that kind of support, though a new wolf might manage something, too.

I’m lacking in heavies right now. The twinsnakes are pretty heavy, but thanks to the winter, they’re pretty limited. They should do better once deeper into the earth, at least. I think if I want to get more heavies, I’d expect the wyrms to be the ones to offer a new tanky denizen. The earth elemental spawner could definitely do it, too, but I’d not only have to abandon the hope of focusing on resources, but I’d probably have to kiss subtle elementals goodbye.

So probably the wyrm and hand spawners for the best chances at filling the gaps in my army. It looks like I’ll have enough to get the dragon spawner to cough up something new, but it’ll be close. I might need to try to encourage more delver activity to cover the cost… or try to figure out why I didn’t get a boost from that battle. We did kill a lot of invaders, and Rocky even smoked the enemy scion, so where’s my mana?

It doesn’t take long to figure that out, at least. I can see Rocky has a large pile of reserved mana sitting in his proverbial pocket that neither I nor he can access. I’m pretty sure it’s because he’s on expedition. Scouts don’t get to keep the intel they gather if they don’t come back to report in, research expeditions have to bring the interesting things back, so why wouldn’t fighters have to bring back the mana they gain, too?

I’ll have Teemo check with Leo, or maybe bug Poe while we wait for my wolf to respawn. Once he’s back, we can talk about what upgrades to get, and rotate out the denizens on the front line so we can get at the mana I’ll need to actually afford them.

I also need to talk to everyone about what to do, going forward. Aranya and Yvonne will want to know how the battle went, and Tarl will probably have advice for fighting the other dungeon. I’ll also need to check in with Rezlar and see about his plans for encouraging more delving. This campaign is going to be longer than anyone was hoping for.