You are Summoned

Chapter 257. New Construction, New Trouble.

My team that was out exploring, minus Glamb who had been killed, left the area around the gnomish cave and continued their mission. Leaving the headquarters interface, I pulled my internal status to see that Glamb was regenerating and I’d be able to summon him before too long. The system hadn’t specifically excluded my minions respawning inside the challenge, but you never knew all the details when you started one of these arena deals.

While the exploration team finished their loop around the mountain, I opened the system notices about the structures I’d completed. I now had my third farm and second housing complex up and running.

Your newly constructed farm has been upgraded to Rank 1. You have reached the maximum number of farming plots based on your headquarters rank.

Your newly constructed housing complex has been upgraded to Rank 1.

To upgrade your headquarters, continue to construct new structures and improve your existing ones.

Well, it looked like I had finally hit a cap and needed to build whatever I still could if I wanted to upgrade my headquarters. From the way things looked, when I did upgrade my headquarters, my farms and housing structures would automatically upgrade by one tier due to the arena certificates I had cashed in. All my other buildings would still have to be upgraded manually, but having two types of structures automatically improve was going to save a lot of time and resources.

Back at the new housing complex, ten eggs had hatched, two from each of the little huts. The newly hatched workers began to move about the cavern. They filled out any work teams that were short of workers, and some even headed for the barracks to be trained as soldiers for our fledgling army. A second set of ten eggs appeared at the huts a moment later, slowly growing additional kobolds for my empire. It looked like each housing complex would provide around thirty kobolds at rank one.

Either the number of kobold workers would expand as the homes reached a higher rank, or maybe the workers would improve. Having workers that weren’t so lazy would probably be just as good for productivity as having more of them. For now, all I had were numbers, and I added another housing complex to the construction queue.

With all three farms having the necessary workers tilling the fields there, it looked like food for a third housing complex wouldn’t be a problem. Quite a nice stream of resources was flowing from the three farms. With a third housing complex, I had to figure most of it would be used up to feed the expanded population.

Jumping back into the headquarters interface, I tried to see what I might be missing as far as what I needed to build to bump our headquarters a rank. A bit more detail had filled in since the new buildings were constructed, and several build sites were marked out and reserved for specific building types.

A fourth farm would fit near the one I had just constructed, but after that, we’d hit the wall of the cavern and run out of room. I knew I had reached my cap in total farms, and when I tried to interact with the final farming plot, a system prompt appeared.

As you build and expand your domain, you will find that there are restrictions on the placement of some structure types. Farms must be placed near each other, or you will face reduced efficiency in their production since workers cannot shift from one farm to another easily during harvest. Other options for food production may become available as you rise in rank and upgrade your structures.

The same is true for your kobold housing. A tribal and close-knit species, the kobolds like to have their homes near each other for a sense of safety. Choosing to build a housing complex far apart from the others may be detrimental to morale. Other options for housing may become available as you rise in rank and upgrade your structures.

Okay, so I had to keep the farms and houses near each other. Checking on my other structures, I didn’t get any additional system prompts warning about restrictions. It might be because I had no additional plots showing yet for those structures and I’d just have to wait until I could build up my headquarters again.

Since I already had at least one of each type of structure, I hoped that the third housing complex I had under construction would be enough to unlock the headquarters upgrade. For now, I was done with construction, but with the second batch of eggs about to hatch, I’d run into another problem. Where was I going to assign the new workers that would soon arrive?

All my farms, and the work teams out harvesting lumber and the wolf remains were full. The simple crafting station also seemed like it was its worker capacity. Maybe my minions out exploring would turn up something for my new workers to do. I couldn’t have anybody lazing about if I wanted to score well on this challenge.

Checking in on my minions, they had just completed their trek around the mountain. It looked like our mountain was just a single, tall and rocky peak in the center of a forest, more of a large hill than a true mountain. In front of my cavern entrance was the grassy field where I had been summoned into the challenge. It gave us just under 200 yards of clear view before the forest began.

With the mountain circumference explored, and no visible paths to the peak, I had my minions begin to explore the forest area nearest us. While I was focused on the forest, I also tried to assign another squad of workers to gather more lumber. To my surprise, the system rejected my request.

This resource field isn’t sufficient for additional work teams. Explore and discover new resources for your workers to exploit.

Well, there went that idea. I was going to have to wait for my minions to explore. On that note, I checked if one of the work teams could also be used to explore.

Workers cannot be assigned to explore new areas unless well protected. To assign workers to explore, you must also assign a military unit to escort them.

That was easy enough. I now had two complete squads of my kobold soldiers. The newest squad, freshly trained from the recently hatched eggs, had joined the first in their patrol duties since I hadn’t queued any orders for new soldiers yet. Attaching the new squad to a team of workers was a success, and I ordered them to help explore the forest where my minions were heading.

For my minions, who were a lot more capable than my kobolds, I sent them along the unexplored forest toward the south, scouting the space between our cavern and where the rock gnomes’ home was located. If there were important resources out there, or some threat, I wanted my people to discover it before the gnomes did. I had a feeling the gnomes would become more friendly with us, but finders keepers ruled this land.

On a whim, I tried to assign a second work team to the explorers, and it worked. A third was a no-go, but it looked like a group of five warriors could escort two full groups of workers without any trouble. Whether they could actually protect them against the threats out there was another story.

It wasn’t long before the kobold exploration team found another patch of forest that the system deemed a resource location. I set one team to gather the resources there and had the second team stay with the warriors to continue exploring. As they continued to explore, my final housing development was completed.

Your newly constructed housing complex has been upgraded to Rank 1. You have reached the maximum number of housing complexes based on your headquarters rank.

Congratulations. Your burgeoning empire has now reached all the requirements needed to upgrade your headquarters to Rank 2. Once the upgrade is completed, additional building options will be unlocked, as well as new upgrades for your existing structures.

Just what I was hoping to hear. Checking on our resources, I could see the silo was almost empty. I had no idea how many resources were needed for the headquarters upgrade, but I had to figure it would be quite a bit more than the other structures had cost me. I placed all the existing resources, and all our current resource production, into the headquarters upgrade.

With the new housing complex done, my population was expanding, and while the resource income from the farms was still there, it had dropped back down to the levels of the lazy wood gathering parties. At least I now had a second team of workers out gathering wood, but they were showing the same lack of work ethic that their kin had shown.

Still, with two wood gathering teams, the farm income, and the natural trickle from the headquarters, it would be enough to upgrade the headquarters before too long. I’d soon have extra workers and another team of warriors to send out when the eggs from the third housing complex hatched.

Your minions have defeated the remnants of a significant threat near your people.

Side quest issued: Explore and loot the alpha wolf lair.

Nice, while I had been organizing the workers and soldiers, my minions had stumbled across the lair of the wolves that had attacked the rock gnomes. There were only a few wolves left in the pack, and many of those were still nursing wounds from the earlier fight. My minions had little trouble dispatching the foes.

I had my team explore the lair, which was only a small nest dug near a large tree trunk. Before too long, Khurr found some buried remains. Among the remains were two silver objects that the system explained.

Congratulations, you have successfully completed the side quest, Explore and Loot the Lair of the Alpha Wolf. Additional resources have been awarded.

You have acquired Structure Upgrade Markers. These markers can be used to upgrade any structure, except for the headquarters, from Rank 0 to Rank 1.

That was a great find, the new resources from the rewards began to flow, and my headquarters interface now showed the two markers were ready to be used. Trying to use one now on the barracks, I found that the headquarters upgrade still had to be completed before the tokens could be used. With the additional resources, it shouldn’t be long before I could start upgrading.

Your forces have been attacked by a newly discovered faction.

“Just when I was about to get things rolling,” I complained to myself.

A glowing red indicator on my headquarters interface showed the team of soldiers and workers exploring further into the forest were pinned down by archers hiding in the trees. I caught a glimpse of one of the archers, noticing the lean build and pointy ears, it looked like we were going to have some trouble with elves.