Chapter Two-Hundred Eighty-Three

Today is looking to be pretty busy.  Onyx should be coming out of her spawner soon, Hullbreak seems to have decided what spawner he’s going to add to his new cliff-side section, my own new section is starting to see curious delvers go deeper and deeper, and it even looks like Berdol is getting ready to inspect Hullbreak.  He even has a new friend, if the expedition reports are to be believed.

And that’s just on the home front.  Vanta’s borders have stabilized now, so the Southwood is giving the little guy some more advice on how to set up nodes and trying to give advice for encounters.  Vanta loves numbers, and never sends one of his little denizens when he could instead send a swarm.  I doubt he’s able to specialize his spawners yet, but I bet he’ll be aiming for every swarm variation he can get.

The idea of swarms has even had me digging through the complex web of options for my spawners, wondering if I could do anything interesting.  My bees are probably the best suited for that, but I don’t know if I want swarms of them, at least not yet.  The bumbles have had a few fights with the more curious delvers, but I don’t know if I’d call a swarm of them a fun fight.  Honestly, once I get the next tier of spawn, I’ll probably have the bumbles join the rotation in the manor and on the grounds.

It’s difficult to keep focused on my own things right now, though.  I kinda want to tag along on the inspection for Hullbreak, but I also don’t want to miss Onyx emerging and possibly saying Violet’s first words!  Thankfully, though I can’t personally be in multiple places at once, I have scions who can do it for me!

“I’ll go hang out with Berdol and his new friend, Boss.  I’ve been meaning to ask the First Mate if there’s anything her Captain needs for the lighthouse.  Light, probably, but you know what I mean,” he finishes with a smirk as he lazes not far from my core.  If my core keeps getting bigger, I’m going to need to ask him to expand the space in the Secret Sanctum.  Or just dig out more area.

“And I think Rocky’ll be more than happy to wait to greet Onyx.  She’s been kinda looking up to him, and once she’s a Voice proper, they’ll have all sorts of things to talk about, I'm sure.”

Works for me.  I poke Rocky with the idea and feel eagerness, even as he winds down his training.  I dunno if a cooldown is required for scions or for undead, but the routine seems to be working pretty well for Rocky, so I’m not going to force him to speed it up.  There’s enough room on Onyx’ progress bar that he can afford to take a bit of time.

Oh, and make sure to ask if Hullbreak needs anything else, too.  It’s good for him to be fully in charge of his new expansion, but there’s nothing wrong with getting some help, too.

Teemo just waves me off.  “I’ll ask him, but I doubt he’ll take it.  You have your own expansion to plan, don’t go taking on planning his, too.”

I grumble and Teemo chuckles before darting through a shortcut.  How dare he be reasonable, and even worse: right!  Still, goofing around aside, I should make sure I’m not mistaking procrastination for patience.  I focus on the… I dunno, line of two seasons?  Propeller of two seasons?  Whatever my half-a-forest is.

Titania and Poppy are working hard, as are my denizens.  I upgrade the spawners while I’m at it, upping the spawn rate but not going so far as to get a new tier of denizen yet.  While I can see a lot of work still to be done, I don’t want to rush it and ruin the whole project.  The pixies are settling into their niche of defenders against the boring beetles, while the living vines are spearheading the efforts to plant new herbalism nodes.

They’re spreading and growing quickly, and though only a couple of the new nodes are ready for harvesting yet, the more adventurous delvers are definitely jotting down every patch they can find for later.  I’m not too worried about them potentially mapping out the section.  The lava labyrinth is the section designed to test their pathfinding, the forest is going to be a test of their martial and magical might.  I don’t mind parties plotting a route to hit whatever nodes they need.  The challenges will be in getting there, not in navigating there.

I make sure to pat Titania and Poppy’s bonds with plenty of encouragement and happiness at their progress.  They’re both doing a bang-up job already, and Poppy even tries to draw my attention to the yew/willow project.  Poppy has a whole pile of seeds for what should be true hybrids that she wants to test, and I give her my blessing to see what they have to offer.  I don’t know if any of them are viable yet,and judging from how it looks like she’s still working on cross-pollinating, I don’t think she quite knows yet, either.  Still, it’ll be interesting to see if any of them will sprout, let alone hybridize into the kind of tree I’m looking for.

If they don’t, there’s already a pretty strong contender among the experiments in growing the trees together.  There’s several variations on grafting, but the process seems a bit labor intensive and doesn't quite give the look I want.  One that looks very promising is a tree where Poppy is coaxing the willow to grow almost more like a vine than a tree, winding around the yew as a base.  Above the ground, it’s very promising.  The roots might be an issue, though.

Poppy has a handful of vines constantly tending the roots of the two trees, ensuring one doesn’t crowd out the other.  I think it’ll still work at scale, even if I have to upgrade the vine spawner to have the numbers for it, but I’m not ready to commit to it yet.  It’ll be a solid plan B while Poppy experiments with the hybrid seeds.

The sudden chill of Teemo diving into the ocean derails my train of thought, and I feel his smug satisfaction as I focus on him.  “Ah, the Boss is paying attention now!  Done playing with plants for the moment?” he asks.  While Queen’s version of a water-breathing potion makes it a bit awkward to speak underwater, Teemo is still a Voice, so it’s easy not only for me to understand, but the others as well.

Said others are Berdol, who is looking like he’s trying to stay professional and not laugh, and a tall elf who looks mildly uncomfortable about the whole situation.

“So, the new guy is Olander, Boss.  He says he’s a pretty experienced delver, and the ODA hired him to help Berdol with the spring inspections.”

The elf looks more confused at that, and is easier able to express it thanks to the aqua affinity potion he must have gotten from Old Staiven.  “ODA?  The Dungeoneer’s Guild contracted me.”

Teemo waves him off.  “That’s just what the Boss likes to call you guys.  He came up with it before anyone ever told him the real name, so he tends to still use it because he thinks it’s funny.”

The elf looks more confused, while Berdol abandons his professional demeanor for a moment and laughs.  “That’s just Thedeim.  He’s a bit odd, but easy to get along with.”  Olander still doesn’t look like he gets it, but he doesn’t try to belabor the point.  Berdol takes a few more seconds to compose himself, before addressing Teemo with a more business-like tone.

“Voice Teemo, would you be willing to ask the Voice of Hullbreak if she would like to accompany us on the inspection?  She seemed inclined to, once we were done fishing.”  I can feel a ping from Hullbreak, which Teemo interprets before I can really process it.

“Yeah, she’s on her way.  You can get started on the nodes until she gets here?”

Berdol nods and checks his clipboard, making me wonder just how Staiven’s aqua affinity potion actually works.  There’s a lot of complex things that have to be going on to allow paper and even ink to function properly.  Queen probably would know, but I don’t think I could torture Teemo with having to sit through her trying to explain it.

“Let’s get a sample of the corals first, then.  It looks like most of the seaweed and clambeds have defenders.  So we’ll chip off a few pieces while we wait for her.”  He looks over to the elf, who nods with a faint smirk as he replies.

“You’re the boss on this one.  I’m the hired muscle, heh.”  Olander pulls a pick from his bag while Berdol produces just a pick head, and everyone swims down toward the nearest coral.  The elf quickly slices off a chunk, while Berdol spots one of the sea cucumbers and makes a note, which Teemo shamelessly swims up to read.

“The sea cucumbers appear unchanged and are still specialized for resources, helping the corals grow.  Coral nodes appear to be slightly richer since last inspection, so are likely upgraded.  No new varieties spotted as of yet.”

Berdol yanked away his notes as soon at Teemo started reading, but my Voice continued from memory until done, and even blows a raspberry at Berdol for the fruitless effort.  “Still verbose.  Tarl would have probably said ‘cucumbers unchanged, coral nodes upgraded, no new nodes’.”

“I like to take more detailed notes, so I don’t forget anything,” counters Berdol on the defensive.

Teemo eases up a bit and smiles.  “Fair enough.  You wouldn’t believe the notes the Boss takes sometimes to try to not forget something.  Then he forgets where he put the note, or even that he made it in the first place, and makes a fresh one.”

Hey!

Berdol cheers up at that, while Olander still seems a bit confused by a dungeon having banter with an inspector.

A shadow passes over the group as the First Mate appears, smiling at the good-natured ribbing.  “The Admiral seems like he has so many things bouncing around the hold of his mind, I’m surprised he hasn’t capsized.  Still, it works.  The Captain is doing better as his vassal than he has in a long time.”

Teemo grins and nods.  “That’s why he has all us scions, to keep things stable!  I can’t imagine what would happen if he tried to do all this on his own.”

Neither can I.

Teemo’s cheeky smile falters and the First Mate laughs as I turn the tables on him.

“No fair agreeing with me, Boss!  How am I supposed to talk smack now?”

You’re not.

Teemo sputters for a few moments while I do my best to grin at him, before he changes the subject.  “Anyway, you wanted to tag along for the inspection?”

The First Mate bobs up and down in the water in a sharky nod.  “I do.  The Captain also invites the inspector to his Sanctum once he’s done.”  Her eyes manage to twinkle with mischief as she glances at Teemo.  “I suppose you can come, too.”

“No respect…” gripes Teemo for a few moments before he can’t hold the charade any longer, and bursts out with a laugh.  “Alright, enough shenanigans!  Berdol has an inspection to do, he doesn’t need color commentary from us in the peanut gallery.  That includes you, Boss.”

Hey!

“I’ll clam up and let you guys get to it.  I’ll let you know if anything interesting happens, Boss.  It feels like Rocky is trying to get your attention.”

I curiously turn my attention to Rocky, and Teemo’s right.  Rocky is right outside the crack that hides the shadow spirit spawner, and it looks like Onyx’ progress bar is about finished filling.  Time to hear what my protege has to say!