Peek: Violet

The young dungeon wonders if life is usually this eventful.  She didn't get to experience very much time before her mentor showed up, and showed her how complicated existence can be.

At first, her mentor terrified her.  Even that rat scion of his could have easily subsumed her for him, but he didn't want to do that, which was one of the first strange things.  Being offered his mentorship was perhaps the second.

Thankfully, he doesn't seem to demand too much of her.  She has to pay some of her mana, but she's gotten so much out of the deal already.  She's met delvers, and learned they are not simply threats, but can be opportunities to get even more mana.  She's learned about nodes and her little cave bunnies.  When Thediem told her she should specialize her mushrooms to help the rabbits, she didn't even know that was an option!

She knew scions were an option, but they just felt so expensive to get.  With the delvers making regular small trips to visit, though, she's had easily enough to keep her two new scions going.  Thedeim even had advice for how to work with them, too: give them a task, but don't order them, and don't order them on the specifics of doing that task.

She's asked the Voice about that, and he just smiled.  "I think it helps us grow better, and it costs less mana, too.  It might take a bit longer to get the job done, and it might get done in strange ways, but it's been working for the Boss, so I'm not going to knock it."

So she tried it.  Her centipede, she asked to keep her core safe.  He's definitely her most battle-ready scion, though that's not saying much right now.  She'll upgrade him as she get the chance.  Her mushroom, she asked to try to get information of the outside.  She had no idea how the scion would manage that, but the scion seemed to accept the task without complaint.

She just needs to see what's out there.  So she's been upgrading her mushroom scion and her spawner, but they still haven't developed anything like legs.  She's starting to wonder if the centipedes are hoarding them.

Yet her mushroom scion surprised her with his ingenuity.  While Thedeim has suggested she get a war room and run expeditions, she doesn't have a very good place for it still, and it's more mana than she wants to spend right now anyway.  But her mushroom scion has simply been spreading his mycelia slowly beyond her borders!

He constantly giving her updates of the outside now, which helps ease her mind.  Her mentor has been nervous about some looming threat, and once her scion described them to her, she became very glad for the doors Thedeim gave her recently.  She doesn't know if they'd be able to harm her core somehow, but neither her nor her mentor want to risk it.

Which is why she was especially nervous when her mentor's favored party came up with a plan to try to hunt one, using her as the battleground.  She's pretty sure it was the first time she resisted a request from her mentor, even if it was only implied to be from him, through the party.

Instead of anger, she got understanding, and an explanation of the plan in more detail.  She was still nervous about it, and offered what help she could with her scion's patch of puffballs, and allowed them to try.  She's pretty sure if she had refused, they would have tried somewhere else.  She'd rather they didn't try at all... but she also didn't like the idea of them going outside and getting hurt where she couldn't even offer the puffballs.

The fight itself was as terrifying as it was brief, but the flood of mana from the slain tunnel horror was worth it.  It also made her wonder why her mentor doesn't just kill all the horrors, or all the delvers?  They're worth a lot of mana.  After thinking a little, though, she comes to the obvious answer: after killing them, they don't give any more mana.  And she doesn't really like the idea of fighting and killing, now that she's seen it within her own borders.  Her denizens handle it well enough, and her bunnies respawn, too, but she's starting to think the delvers don't.

If she just wipes them out, she'd run out of mana... and wouldn't get any friends, either.  She really does like the two green delvers, and the quiet ratkin that come to get some of the bunnies, and she even likes the more rambunctious favored party of her mentor.  They make a mess, but they've been helping her, too.

Maybe when she gets the chance to expand again, she can get some nodes to help them in return.  That seems to be how her mentor deals with delvers, for the most part, though he does have very strong denizens and scions.  Will she ever get that strong?  She doubts she can... and she's uncertain if she even wants to.  She likes the idea of delvers hunting her bunnies and using what other nodes she gets, rather than fighting.

Existence can be frighting with how eventful it is.  Maybe she can keep herself safe by giving delvers a quiet place to not have to worry about things happening?  If they protect her, she'd be able to focus on her bunnies and new nodes, which sounds good to her.