You are Summoned

Chapter 262. Plains Inhabitants.

“Blieek, head down there and see what you can do to help,” I ordered my minion.

The goblin trotted toward the market and the entrance to the trade route that was near it. I still couldn’t see who, or what, was stalking my trio of traders, so all I could do was wait and watch. When the dot got almost on top of where the traders were slowly traveling, the trio stopped and dropped their packs.

I had expected panic and for the kobolds to turn and run, but to my surprise, the traders drew simple bone daggers from their belts and stood their ground against whatever was coming after them. Blieek was on his way, but not quite there yet when the threat revealed itself. A thin string of web shot from the darkness and hit one of the traders in the chest.

The trader was dragged off his feet, but his companions came to the rescue, hacking at the sticky, but impressively strong webbing. Losing one of their daggers to the web, the strand broke and retracted back into the darkness, freeing the trader who fell to the ground and struggled to find his footing.

As he tried to strand, a shape dropped down from the ceiling, landing on the poor kobold. It was a spider the size of a Great Dane, and it chomped its oversize fangs into the hapless trader. The kobold’s scream of pain was a short one as the giant spider pumped venom into the wound which quickly killed its victim.

The other two kobolds responded by attacking, the one who had lost his weapon in the web clawing with his hands, and the other one stabbing with his bone dagger. Neither weapon was effective, and the attacks only served to distract the spider from its meal. The creature scuttled after the unarmed kobold, bowling it over and giving it the same treatment as it had given his comrade.

Blieek finally arrived on the scene, and despite the goblin spear wielder’s relatively low tier and rank, his gear made him formidable among the relatively weak creatures that I’d seen so far in this challenge. He used his one and only ability, Charge, to close the gap between him and the spider, his spear driving deep into the monster’s abdomen. I didn’t know spiders could scream, but this one sure let out a loud squeal of pain as the spear slammed home.

With his Charge ability, Blieek’s attack did an extra 10% damage, but it still wasn’t enough to put the spider down in one hit. The other kobold arrived, hammering at the spider with his dagger. Sadly, the dagger was dull and brittle, it barely cracked into the spider’s carapace, but it at least did some damage to the monster.

With a heave, Blieek pulled his spear from the spider’s abdomen, and disgusting goop poured from the wound. Furious over the attack, the spider flexed its legs and leaped onto Blieek, driving its fangs deep into my goblin minion’s gut. Not giving up, Blieek drew his steel dagger and stabbed it into the side of the spider’s head even as the monster’s venom poured into him.

With a final shudder, both Blieek and the spider died. The surviving kobold trader moved to one of the fallen kobolds, kneeling over his comrade. I felt a pang of grief at first, thinking the kobold was mourning his friend. Instead, he was just grabbing his bone dagger to replace the one he’d worn out attacking the spider.

While your trading caravans possess some small ability to defend themselves, you must make every effort to protect your trade routes; continued losses will affect morale and could lead to issues with your trading partners.

Frustrated with the loss of Blieek and two of my kobold traders being taken out, I could only wait and watch what was happening. The final trader made it safely to the gnomish village, and their caravan made it to mine without any trouble. Both groups swapped out packs and began their return trip, just as the elves had done.

I hadn’t gotten any resources when my kobold trader reached the gnomish village, but I assumed whatever it was bringing back would help. Trade was a two-way street, and I’d only gain resources when the traders arrived at my marketplace, not when they left.

Things continued in much the same manner for a while, I watched the trading caravans move back and forth between the various villages. So far, my traders were only going to the gnomish village, and had ignored the elves. Maybe that would change when I upgraded the marketplace again. My two missing traders also slowly regenerated. One replacement appearing after each round trip was completed.

My minions out on exploration duty were also slowly peeling back the fog of war on my map. So far, I had the mountain and rocky lands near it in the center of the map, the forest ring was next, and then plains waited further out. I’d only encountered one faction in each section of the map, the gnomes for the mountainous area, and the elves for the forest.

It remained to be seen who, or what, was inhabiting the plains, but I was sure my minions would uncover the newest addition to the map before too long. The unknown areas continued to house threats, and my minions were occasionally attacked as they explored. It wasn’t anything they couldn’t easily handle, as the system difficulty seemed to mirror my kobold’s empire’s power, not my own.

Having minions was going to be a big advantage for me in the challenge. The other competitors would have to explore on their own, leaving the headquarters and the tasks waiting for them there incomplete until they returned. Or they would have to wait for their faction teams to slowly explore the map. If the others had a faction as annoyingly lazy as my kobolds, it could be some time before they explored anywhere near the same amount of territory that my minions were able to.

To speed things up, I divided my forces. When Blieek respawned, I had him join the other goblins and create their own group. The drone, Elida, and Khurr formed another team, allowing me to explore twice as fast. None of the creatures we’d encountered proved up to the task of defeating my smaller teams so far, but if another creature like the alpha wolf and its pack was out there, I’d probably need to bring everyone together to defeat it.

My buildings also continued to improve, and once the silo was complete, I ordered the marketplace to upgrade to rank 1. Everything else had been maxed out and it was the last structure to do so. With the trade flowing between the other two factions, resources were building up at a decent pace.

The upgraded market proved to be just a few more stalls, nothing too exciting. As I suspected, going up a rank did add a second trading caravan. A new trio of kobold traders was now making its way from my marketplace to the elf village. Once complete, the marketplace upgrade also unlocked rank two for my headquarters, which was next on the upgrade agenda.

Your headquarters has reached Rank 2. At this rank you may directly intervene with your minions, casting spells, using abilities, and activating items to support them. Spell cast times will be lengthened when cast through your headquarters. The additional time required will be dependent on the distance from your minion.

That was good news, I could now do a few more things when my minions were fighting. Using the Duplicate spell after activating the Ring of Final Sacrifice was my go-to tactic for more powerful foes, or huge hordes. Now I could use the combo to my heart’s content. I’d just have to factor in the extra cast time, which meant it probably was going to need to be planned a bit further in advance.

Time passed and my city, as well as its population, began to grow. Rank two of my headquarters gave me a bit more furniture, including a bed for sleeping. So far, this arena contest seemed to provide for my needs just like my personal space did. I was happy for that, as one feature of city building that I was happy to do without was figuring out some kind of waste disposal system in the cavern.

After the headquarters upgraded, I made the rounds with the other buildings, starting with new farms and housing. It took time for the new population to spawn, and I wanted to get them started as soon as possible. As an added bonus, my arena certificate upgrade continued to work, upgrading the rank of all the farms and housing complexes automatically. All I had to do was build a new one of each in the building slots that had opened up.

As my upgrades continued, my minions had to deal with another threat. Just like I’d feared, there was another big predator out on the plains. It was some kind of carnivorous, prehistoric ostrich-looking thing. The goblins had run into a small flock of ten of them, and they looked dangerous enough that I didn’t want them to tackle them alone, so they waited for the drone and other minions to arrive.

Once they were set, my team opened up at range, cutting down three of the birds before they got into melee range. I did cast Duplicate on the drone before the fight, figuring he was my best fighter and with two of them, I shouldn’t need to use any exploding minion shenanigans. The birds were tough, but their teeth and clawed feet fared poorly against the armor of the drones, who held the front line for us.

While the drones held their attention, my ranged minions went to town on the attackers. Elida threw in a few healing spells, keeping both drones up for the entire fight. After a few minutes, the last of the birds collapsed, and I breathed a sigh of relief. My minions were pretty far out on the plains, but I had to figure the bird remains, if we could safely gather them, would generate a decent number of resources for us.

I assigned a freshly hatched squad of workers, along with another newly recruited squad of warriors to harvest the remains. My minions had to continue their exploration and couldn’t wait around just to stand guard. I wanted to have the whole area of the challenge uncovered before the first stage ended.

Before I could order the harvest, my team caught movement in the distance. It wasn’t another group of birds; it was a group of around a dozen humans. They were pretty far away, but I could tell they wore some kind of armor and carried spears and bows. I think I had just encountered the faction that I suspected was living somewhere here in the plains.