Dungeon Life

Chapter One-Hundred Forty-Six

The next couple days see a sharp increase in delvers. I think its a bit of a combination of them wanting to get in some more quality delving before winter really sets in, and of Rezlars quests being put out. It also helps that people are checking out Hullbreak now, too. For the moment, people seem content to mostly fish. Theres been a few people diving in to get at the nodes, but its getting pretty dang cold to want to get soaked and then have a long boat ride back to town. Still, hes mana solvent now, so thats a weight off me.

Violet is also raking in the mana, at least for her size. Shes picked up gremlin and mole scions, named Onyx and Nose, respectively. Onyx is fairly self-explanatory, but Nose I can only think is because its got that star-shaped nose that some moles do. Oddly, neither seems very interested in the metalworks, but Legs, her centipede, is.

With both of them being pretty self-sufficient, I have my mana basically all to myself, so I should probably do something with it. With the boxing ring finally complete, Rocky is probably going to be bringing in a lot of mana soon, too. So what should I do?

Expanding is always an option, and while I have the cavern layer about where I want it now, I dont want to go expanding until I have a better idea of whats out there. And I dont really want to expand into the Underswamps. Im pretty sure I could leave plenty of it for the scythemaws to live, and for my spiderkin to easily hunt, but thats not the most defensible of territories. Sure, itd be a pain for invaders from an enemy dungeon to slog through, but its also not something I want to build a castle on. Id need to let two sink, then another to burn down, fall over, then sink, just to give me a foundation for a fourth. Thats a lot of work.

Poes been sending expeditions through the other various passages, and Im just glad hes trying to keep track of all that, instead of me. Theres countless tunnels and cracks to chase down and try to map, and most dont have much interesting in them, though deep to the north seems to show signs of volcanic activity. That could be a good direction to expand in, but that will have to wait for later, until we get more information. So lets turn our attention inward.

Theres a couple spawners that could use some love. I upgraded my birds to ravens pretty quickly, and have basically ignored them since. My bats have been even more ignored, just having the fruitbat specialization and I left it at that. The most neglected, by a mile, is my poor crawling hand spawner. I switched it to crawling hands instead of the skeletal ones Neverrest had, and then never did anything with them except make Thing.

Thing is doing great, but his spawner is kinda shameful, really, and its my fault. So let's see if we can fix that. What niche do I have that could use some filling? Well a lot of my stuff is more physically focused, than magically. If things arent specialized towards resources, theyre usually more specialized towards mundane fighting. The Jakobs Ladder snakes are a good step towards fixing that, but theyre for the cavern layer, which is more geared towards stronger groups.

While I have electrical stuff in the house and generally around, people basically have that problem solved with electricity resist potions. So I need to diversify. The crawling hands are more me removing a specialization than setting one, so I take a good look and settle on a magic specialization that should give me just what I want: arcane hands.

Listening to delvers talk shop as they delve, Arcane seems to be an affinity thats a bit of a magical catch-all. Its not individually strong with any of its spells, but it can do weaker versions of practically everything. My gamer sense tingles at that bit of balance, even as my engineer sense grouches about that only being feasible if magic is an extra fundamental force, and so arcane should be incredibly powerful. Maybe its specifically limited to only magic, instead of massaging other forces, like a sledgehammer to open a door, instead of just using a key.

I should leave that kind of speculation to Honey, and not just so I dont explode Teemos brain or something. Chasing theoreticals is too easy to distract from doing actual practical things. And the practical thing is to get practically-Things all around the manner and the crypt complex to spice up encounters and get people thinking how to counter more magic than just lightning.

Other practical things I should do include actually doing the node stuff I told Rezlar Id do. It doesnt take Tiny long to web off a few of the wood nodes in the maze, and then my ratlings can get to work tearing the hedge down in those spots. The fruitbats will be able to grow new hedge probably in the spring, actually. For now, Tinys webs are more than enough to keep people from sneaking in that way.

It costs a pretty penny in mana for me to change the nodes, but the delvers seem ravenous for the wood. I wonder if any of them are intending to use it as firewood? Not that I mind. While the mana per gather is a lot lower, there are a lot of gathers going on now. It might actually be making more than before.

I also set a limestone node not too far from the access shaft in the caverns, but dont upgrade it to a quarry just yet. I have the room to, but I want to make sure our concrete mix is up to snuff before I get into industrial-scale production. And thats a job for Queen.

It doesnt take long for Teemo to explain everything I know about concrete, because I dont know all that much about it. I know limestone dust, sand, and gravel, but theres probably more to it than that. Will any sand work, or does it need to be silicate? Is all rock silicate, technically? What actually makes granite and marble and limestone so different? Is ash needed? Does it specifically need to be volcanic?

Sheesh, maybe I shouldnt be so surprised concrete doesnt exist here yet. I hedge my bets and make sure I have at least basic nodes for as many types of rock as I can, then let Queen loose on the problem. She immediately calls on Thing, Slash, and Coda to help her out. I can feel her intense hunger to figure this out, and Im just glad her nature is turned more towards learning than combat. Shed probably be a nightmare to fight, if she ever actually needed to.

The selected scions are also eager to help her figure this out. While Thing is also a scion who enjoys new information, it seems like Queen wants him to be more than just someone to bounce ideas off of. Hes probably one of my scions who knows the most about magic, and getting a bit of magical knowledge could let them make a magical solution to the mundane goal, or to refine and improve it once they figure out how to make it work.

Slash isnt too interested in the academic aspect, but he likes working with the stones and doing some of the heavy lifting. Hes easily the largest of the scions involved with the experimenting, so hes basically playing Igor to the mad civil engineering going on.

And speaking of mad engineering: Coda has this fire in him about the entire affair. I can feel his drive even without the bond, and Id put money on him listening to his fate affinity along with his Architect title to guide the creation of concrete. Its all in the gathering phase right now, but once they get down to mixing it might end up being his show even more than Queens.

As it is right now, Im enjoying watching them work together as I consider further plans. I should probably see about maxing out another spawner and getting another enclave going, but Im hesitant. Any enclave is going to need more room, and that means expanding. If I expand deeper, the risk of Aranyas old dungeon noticing us increases, or we could trip over some other undiscovered one.

I have the option to expand up, but Im also nervous about that option. It could be something as simple as a beanstalk or something sprouting and blooming a huge cloud at the top, or I could accidentally bring a hurricane that will stick around. It might even just float chunks of the town around me, or do something else destructive. Maybe itll just tear a hole in the sky which may or may not be full of unpleasant things. Theres just so many unknowns with it, no matter how curious I am about it.

No until I get more info about what it entails, Ill leave that big shiny button unpressed. Hopefully thinking about it like that will help keep the temptation at bay. Sure, big shiny buttons are tempting, but how often do they actually do something besides blow something up? I think Ill try to keep everything from exploding for a while longer, at least until I know exactly what will detonate, and what the minimum safe distance is.

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