by Taj McCoy El
Build points available: 82
Wave 9 starts in 9:00 minutes
“Alright, I’m gonna get back to the cat before he ruins all of my planning,” Mayah said while slapping Mags on the knee and using her as a support to stand up.
“Let me know when we’re finished.”
“Yeah right. Get back to work slacker.”
Margaret snorted.
As Mayah walked she added a magic missile to D1 and an ice tower on C2 and C4. Now to take care of those pesky skythes and cover our air routes. An arrow tower on building 1 will cover lane 1 and lane 2 so if I put the arrow towers on buildings 1 and 3, and then alternate to buildings 2 and 4 on the next row. Those skythe shouldn’t cause a problem.
She added arrow towers to E2, F1, F3, G1, H4, I2, J3, K2 and K4. She was walking along lane 5, but was also keeping a close eye out for any stragglers mobs that had broken free. But as it stood there weren’t any even making it into row D. She added another magic missile on C4 and finally walked up to Grax.
His posture was slumped, and he was giving off a vibe of boredom.
"I think you play this game too well.”
Mayah held a finger up to her mouth and shushed the cat. “Don’t jinx it.”
“Yeah, yeah,” he grumbled. "I just hate the waiting.”
“Don’t. Jinx. It.”
"I know, I just—”
Mayah slapped a hand over his mouth. “Stop talking. Or talk about anything else. Understand?”
Grax nodded and Mayah slowly removed her hand.
Mayah decided it was best if she took over the conversation. “We need to add ice towers up and down the lanes to slow down any possible skythe invasion. After that we start upgrading towers. Okay?”
Grax nodded.
“Sorry I had to shush you,” she apologized.
“It’s alright I get fidgety when there is action going on and I’m not involved.
Mayah placed ice towers when the build points allowed keeping 40BP in reserve. She added sixteen by the time the round was over.
Wave 9 starting:
Temple Gate Integrity: 420
Build points available: 67
Wave 10 starts in 9:00 minutes
Mayah watched the first-round spawn and try to infiltrate the temple. “Okay, now that the slow towers are in place, we upgrade the magic missiles. And start upgrading everything from the beginning. So, first is the magic missile on A2, Then B1. now we wait for the 30BP to get B4.”
“And five skythes incoming.”
“Shaz! Just when I used up the points. Go dagger as many of those things as you can. I’ll cover this path and message Mags.”
Grax and Mayah watched as four of the skythes not only made it over their first line of defenses but also distracted the arrow towers and allowed the weesps that spawned before them to get deeper into the fortifications.
Mayah began upgrading the arrow towers into crossbow towers Starting from the temple end of the field. This put them in front of the flying shadows and lessened the grip on her anxiety. Grax took one out before they outpaced him, and then he turned around at row G and came back to stand beside her.
The Skythe on lane 3 disappeared, taking fire from both sides. Then the ones on lane 2 and 4 winked out one behind the other. The last one on Lane 5 cruised past the last arrow tower on J1 it got hit by a slow tower on K1, and Mayah saw there was no arrow tower on L1 and it flew around the corner towards the temple gate unmolested.
Mayah knew Margaret was on the job, and she had other things to do at the moment, so she looked away from the temple and towards the courtyard.
Either Margaret will get it, or she won’t.
It wasn’t the end of game, but it was so far from a perfect game. She let the last few rounds rush to their doom.
Wave 10 starting:
Temple Gate Integrity: 420
Build points available: 73
Wave 11 starts in 7:00 minutes
“Seven minutes???” Grax yelled.
"I pretty much just told you this a few minutes ago.”
“And I’m just supposed to believe everything you say?”
“It would definitely make your life easier.” Mayah shrugged
Grax pointed a finger and his mouth opened, as words failed to form it shut. His brain decided to give it another try. His mouth opened again but then gave up for good. He just shook a finger at her.
“Oh, princess… One day, princess. I’m gonna do something so amazing that it’ll make your head spin.
“Good for you. Let me know when you do so I can start a slow clap for ya.” She started a slow clap right then and there, staring deep into his soul with the stoniest of gazes.
“Build the stupid towers.”
‘Whatever you say, cat.”
Mayah used the funds to upgrade the missile towers which were now shooting two missiles one after another. Next, she upgraded all the arrow towers in the beginning run up to row D.
“Fluff, what’s that?”
Faster than any mob they had seen beside the volk and the skythe, this mob had made it through row B and it showed no signs of stopping.
Mayah zoomed in. “Commander.”
“Oh geez, really?”
She added ice towers to row C and another magic missile on D4.
“Those things give me the creeps. Get ready just in case.”
They waited next to the exit of their gauntlet as the commander’s dot got closer and closer to the exit. Mayah peeked around the corner and saw it getting blasted with ice from the right and fire from the left, and then the two magic missile towers began exploding shells against it in tandem. Mayah wanted this thing dead and upgraded the Magic missile on D4 just to make it happen.
Mayah backed off as the commander made the turn. The sparks from magic missiles being thrown everywhere. She waited until it was about to step out of range of the magic missiles and wound up a Crushing Blow. She ran forward and swung her weapon when one more missile hit the commander in the back.
Mayah was already committed as she swung. Instead of meeting resistance she whiffed through the fading smoke and wound up spinning herself around and tripping over her own foot. She fell sprawling to the ground and lay there staring up at the fiery ball in the sky.
A single clap sounded in her eardrum. Then another and another after a long pause. Then another and another as Grax walked into view.
“Is it wrong to slow clap for the slow?”
"I hate you, cat.”
"I know, but you really don’t.”
"I don’t, but I do.”
Grax offered her a hand, which Mayah took and stood up. She quickly reassessed the situation.
“More commanders incoming.”
“What’s the plan?”
“When I tell you to, upgrade the fire towers to napalm towers. Start with 1 then 3, then we’ll see which one will serve us best. I’ll do walls to contain them.”
“That’s a copy DC1.”
Mayah chuckled as she built the walls along row E and added two slow towers to E2 and E4. Then Grax upgraded all the fire towers to Napalm and that seemed to keep the Commanders at bay.
“Next, I wanna see what a fully upgraded tower from everything does. So, pick a crossbow tower and make it a ballista tower. Then make a fully upgraded magic missile tower, and then finally a plasma tower.”
They watched and waited as the commanders continued to slog through the barrage steadily pushing to row E as they came in groups. Towers would focus fire on the enemy that was closest to the temple and that meant that a lot of units weren’t being targeted once they clumped up together, so they had a lot of HP left when they got farther in. So far everything was perishing under the tower’s assault.
Wave 11 starting:
Temple Gate Integrity: 420
Build points available: 150
Wave 12 starts in 7:00 minutes
“That was sixty-two enemies that round. That means this should be sixty-seven?”
“The math only shows us what the progression has been so far. This is a dungeon and we need to get ready for surprises. This wave I want to add Magic Missiles across D, and then upgrade all the arrows to ballista towers. We’ll start from D and work our way to A.”
“Got it.”
The first thing out of the gate was 5 commanders. right on their heels came 5 skythes. They distracted the Arrow towers again and those hastily placed Missile towers came into play as the commanders made it onto row E. It would have been worse, but the plasma towers really did pack a punch as a steady stream of plasma bombarded the mobs.
Grax upgraded the arrow towers on E through H into crossbow towers and the Last skythe died around row J this time.
“Air defenses mostly complete.” Mayah laughed as a spawn of swaars barely made it to the gate after she added more arrow towers to row A.
The magic missile towers were also becoming her favorites as their range had extended once fully upgraded. They would now shoot mobs on the next street over.
“Ah, nothing like the smell of tower defense in the evening.”
Wave 12 starting:
Temple Gate Integrity: 420
Build points available: 213
Wave 13 starts in 7:00 minutes
“Are you banking the points?”
“Better to have something in the bank for an emergency. Every 4 or 5 levels they hit us with a new mob. I don’t want to get caught flat footed. Besides there’s always some super big bad called a titan, a juggernaut, a behemoth or some other crazy sounding name that just means ‘I smash!’”
"I guess you're right.”
Wanna go check on Mags? I can handle this while we have a surplus of points. Even though Vergie is keeping her company, it’s not the same.”
“Nah, she’ll be fine.”
Mayah added four missile towers to row F, getting ready for the inevitable push from the game.
“You can be such a butt…” she scolded Grax.
Grax just waggled his eyebrows and Mayah had to laugh.
“If that’s the case then it’s time for operation slow down. We need to keep 200BP in the bank but we’re going to upgrade the slow towers one by one starting at the front. Then we’ll fix up plasma row. Last but not least missile towers.”
“What are you gonna do?”
“Enchant some stuff for the juggernaut-behemoth-titan.”
Grax shrugged and got to work upgrading towers.
Mayah pulled out her paper and ink and made a stamp for Over (F) and stamped pages. At 130MP per rune she could only do pages with ten runes each. She enchanted each whole page as she made them, adding a bit of her stamina to make it possible. She charged them and ended the enchantments with grenade. She lay each sheet aside to dry, and when she had a stack of ten or so, the next wave started.
Wave 13 starting:
Temple Gate Integrity: 420
Build points available: 213
Wave 14 starts in 7:00 minutes
She began folding the sheets and tying them to stones. Then she cleaned up her supplies just in time to hear Grax yell.
“Fluff!!! Problems.”
She heard a loud knocking sound as she was pulled out of her work-reverie.
“What is that?”
She zoomed in to see a mob on the center lane banging at the wall. After another hit, the wall collapsed.
“It’s a titan,” Grax laughed
Mayah gave him an ‘I told you so’ shrug and said, “Rebuild those walls as soon as it’s through.” She told Grax.
She studied its slow passage to the next wall taking three hits of its giant cleaver of a sword to destroy the fortification. The mobs behind it used the opening to shortcut through the defenses.
“Upgrade the missile towers on D2 and D3, then build towers on F2 and F3 and H2 and H3. Upgrade them if you can.”
“On it.”
“If he makes it through, I’ve got something for him.”
After the upgrades they watched as it made its way slowly forward. It refused to bow under the assault of the plasma and missiles and broke through the last wall as the next round started.
Wave 14 starting:
Temple Gate Integrity: 420
Build points available: 362
Wave 15 starts in 7:00 minutes
“What’s plan here, Fluff?”
“Stand back so you don’t lose your whiskers.”
Grax stood behind her as she tossed the tossed the grenade with 2 sheets of Over (F) runes. With a rush of air, a pillar of fire shot into the sky. Mayah and Grax stepped further back.
The fire cleared and out of the smoke the titan stepped through. The titan itself was smoking but other than that it seemed like it was fine. The missile towers were still pelting it and continued to step forward.
“Oh, you wanna play rough, do ya?”
Mayah tossed two grenades at the titan. Two pillars of flame shot up and twisted around each other. Again, the titan lumbered forth showing no damage until a missile hit it and it turned to smoke.
Mags: What was that?
Grax: Fluffs made new big bada booms
Mags: Be careful.
Fluff: We will.
“Grax, anything happening at the front?”
“Sorry, I was watching the fireworks.”
“What are you even good for?”
“Doing what I do, of course.” He shrugged nonchalantly.
Mayah went to cuff the kitty, and he danced away, laughing.
“We’re in a dungeon, remember?”
Mayah grumbled and looked at him with daggers in her eyes. Then she turned to look at the flow of mobs.
All the while, she muttered, “Pink tutu, agility modifiers. Pink wrist bands for fire resistance. Pink headband, stamina regeneration…”
“Aw, c’mon, Fluff, I was just playing”
“Pink booties for more agility.”
“I’m sorry. I’m sorry.” He dropped to his knees and pleaded. “I’m begging, almighty leader, please don’t pink me out?”
For two rounds. Mayah designed gear with excellent stats, bows, frills, and lace. And for two rounds, Grax’s apologies increased in fervor.
11.8 Who’s the boss?
Wave 17 starting:
Temple Gate Integrity: 420
Build points available: 15
Wave 18 starts in 5:00 minutes
I’m starting to hate those juggernauts. They just walk all the way through anything we put up. And since they get so deep, they distract the towers from shooting at the enemies that enter after them.”
“See why I started dropping towers in the back now?”
“Yeah, yeah!”
“They’re still better than that last titan though. They just throw them at us every couple of rounds now. And how many mobs are they throwing at us every round, now?”
“The first spawn was seventeen. second round started about fifty seconds after the first one started. It took about ten seconds for the mobs to get off the spawn points in total.”
“How do you track this stuff?”
“For one, my brain works.”
“Haha. Whoops, Here comes another string of juggernauts.”
“Let’s just shore up row G and make sure they feel the fire of those extra plasma towers we added.”
Waiting for them to die so we can get their BP is really slowing us down. I want one to get through so I can patearlo en el trasero.”
“Translation please?”
“So, I can kick its butt, of course!”
“Getting antsy again.”
“Just a little.” but I’m glad that we haven’t had to worry about the skythes getting through any more. The ballista towers make quick work of them.”
Alright I need to make some more grenades for our soon to be arriving guests.
Grax just nodded, and she made about twenty sheets and enchanted half of them because she wanted to conserve her stamina.
Wave 18 starting:
Temp
le Gate Integrity: 420
Build points available: 15
Wave 19 starts in 5:00 minutes
“And we have a titan.”
You know the drill.” just repair the walls behind it. And I boom it up if it makes it through. Keep building those towers though.”
Got it”
Mayah made more sheets with nine Over (F) runes on it. And enchanted those since her mana would recharge in a few minutes, and she didn’t need to use any stamina.
“We got two more titans. Lanes 2 and 4.”
“Same program. Different titans.” Mayah sighed.
Mayah continued to make her Over (F) grenades and ramped up her stamping. Last spawn of the wave two more titans spawned on lanes 1 and 5.
“We have a titan on every lane.”
Wave 19 starting:
Temple Gate Integrity: 420
Build points available: 313
Wave 20 starts in 5:00 minutes
“Just keep throwing those walls back up.” Mayah kept stamping and enchanting as fast as she could.