Khenal

Chapter One-Hundred Sixty-One

Rhonda is the first out of the slime, probably because she’s the least injured of the three.  It’s hard to tell exactly how hurt Rezlar is, but I’d bet Freddie will be out last, thanks to that broken arm.  Rocky helps the goblin out of the slime and back into the ring, where he lifts her hand (and the rest of her, too) to the roar of the crowd!  Rhonda looks pretty confused about that.

“But… we lost?”

Rocky grunts in laughter at that and Lucas chitters, ...

Chapter One-Hundred Sixty

Rezlar is clearly doing his level best to not panic, and I’d say he’s doing a pretty good job of it, all things considered.  The confidence of the others probably helps, as do the few small encounters I send as they do their gathering.  I only send some minor stuff, just enough to be a warm up.  Rocky would be crushed if I tired them out before he could have a real fight.

At least, a fight as real as the ring will allow.  While Rezlar looks like he’s hoping his...

Peek: Miller's Fun

The experienced butler fights himself to keep the smile off his face as he puts the finishing touches on his disguise.  While he's certain he could fool the ordinary guards while wearing a garish jester's outfit, he's having a friendly competition with the veterans.  The Young Master can't pretend to be Larrez all of the time, but Miller can help to sell the identity.

Fooling the veterans will require him to flex skills he hasn't had the chance to use in a while, and they're e...

Chapter One-Hundred Fifty-Nine

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~~Rezlar~~  Larrez

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The young elf noble does his best to ignore the curious glances of his guards as he selects a bunk at the back of the barracks.  While he does have his disguise on, his guards do still need to know where he is, at least when on the grounds, so the veterans are at least read in on the ruse.

When Miller suggested telling even them, Rezlar was against it.  The fewer people who know, t...

Chapter One-Hundred Fifty-Eight

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**Rhonda**

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The goblin hums to herself as she carefully measures out doses of potions into bottles, Lucas dutifully following after to properly cork them.  He likes to put a thin webbing over them as well, enough to ensure the corks stay put, yet not thick enough to interfere when someone actually needs to quickly drink one.  This batch is healing potions, but the two will be working on aqua affinity potions next.<...

Peek: Nova

Heat and pressure, building...

building...

Building...

BUILDING...

Existence.  The newborn scion takes a few moments to try to adjust and take stock.  While the empty mamga tube she's in is fairly simple to understand, things only get more complex from there.  Her fealty is to a dungeon that looks to be very established.  She's well beneath the surface, but she can feel the reach of her new home spans that...

Chapter One-Hundred Fifty-Seven

Another day, another set of delvers.  Today’s set is starting early… and they don’t look much like my typical delvers.  Most of them come in with some variety of armor, or at least a wizard’s robes, but not these ones.  These ones come with what looks to me like forge gear, heavy leather aprons and gloves and such.  The half-dozen or so at least have picks and hammers that they probably know how to swing, but I seriously doubt they can handle my deeper stuff.

Chapter One-Hundred Fifty-Six

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Tarl

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Tarl considers his report, brushing the feather of his quill against his cheek and not minding the ink staining his fingers.  It’s not often he gets to update two dungeon reports at the same time, but he really should understand by now that things simply work differently around Thedeim.

At least the actual contents of the reports aren’t too out of the ordinary, if one ignores the dates.  Viole...

Peek: A Strange Mystery

Experiment log 1: Securing funding is proving... difficult.  When I explain the parameters of my proposed experiment, potential patrons back out, citing a lack of profit potential.  Fah, profit?!  What is the point of money if not to delve the odd mysteries of the world?!

Experiment log 2: A hesitant backer has been secured.  The poultry farmer more wishes for a hand than to support an experiment, but has accepted my proposal to pay me in the resources req...

Chapter One-Hundred Fifty-Five

Berdol and the electric dire rat square off for a few moments, each measuring the other up.  I’m pretty confident the catkin will win without too much trouble, but I still pay attention to see if I can learn anything about how he fights and how his affinity works.

The rat isn’t going to just give him the victory, though, and charges and releases a strong bolt of lightning!  As soon as it starts to move, though, Berdol swiftly changes the position of his floating blades. 2023-05-19 01:29:07 +0000 UTC View Post

Chapter One-Hundred Fifty-Four

With Tarl’s latest inspection out of the way and him certainly writing some kind of report about it, I’m back to working on making my new expansion actually be something useful.  I still need to get my enclave in there, and there’s a fair couple upgrades to do to get access to it.

I’m already seeing some activity in the tubes, which is encouraging.  My ratkin are in the middle of a small mining and gathering expedition.  They’re all pretty happy, talking about h...

Peek: Larx

Wakefullness comes slowly, though it isn't resisted.  The elder of Lord Thedeim's ratkin enjoys his bed, but he also enjoys having an active day.  The transition would be easier if he could figure out some way to make the world outside his blanket as warm as the one inside, yet he faces the first challenge of the day with little hesitation.

If it's the most difficult trial of his day, he will have had a very nice day indeed.

He takes a simple breakfast of a large mushroo...

Chapter One-Hundred Fifty-Three

Just because there’s technically no snow on the ground right this moment, doesn’t mean it’s not cold outside.  Early delvers are pretty sparse, mostly just the miners with their escort heading down the access shaft.  There’s a few on the ground and in the manor, but not much else.  The catacombs are mostly empty right now, too.  I think most of the Shield people are turning their focus on more spiritual than physical pursuits with winter here.

There is one bi...

Chapter One-Hundred Fifty-Two

I mostly watch Nova wander around as night falls, letting Teemo make some shortcuts to help keep himself distracted from worrying.  I’d tell him to not worry, if it wouldn’t make me a gigantic hypocrite.  I know the group can handle themselves, but that doesn’t stop my mind from spitting out horrifying what-ifs

Better to have something to do, especially if it’s something that will help them with their mission.  It’s a bit of a tangential help, but the ratlings h...

Peek: Job Satisfaction

The ashen elf wonders how he came to this point.  He ponders as he gathers the chalice and wine bottle from his victim's night stand, replacing them with untainted ones from his bag.  His employer will want proof, and it's supposed to look as though the rotund noble simply died in his sleep.  It's not that far from the truth.  He just needed a little... help, that's all.

When he first tried his hands at this profession, it was just a grand way to make coin.  Eve...

Chapter One-Hundred Fifty-One

In hindsight, in my eagerness to get an enclave and so a project to keep me busy, I may have forgotten that an expansion gets me more than just a bigger sandbox.  I blame how long it’s been since I expanded.  Totally a good excuse, right?

Well, this is why I drill into Violet the need to have plenty of extra mana before expanding.  Before I get into the new stuff, I focus a bit on my fire ants, first.  The basic ones aren’t all that impressive, but I have easily ...

Chapter One-Hundred Fifty

So, I’m looking at the map for the stuff beyond my borders, above and below the ground, and… I think I have my timescales messed up.  Below the surface, I was expecting to be tripping over Aranya’s old dungeon fairly quickly, or at least finding some trace of it with the long scouts.  But so far, they’ve not seen hide nor hair of the thing.

It’s making me wonder if I could expands underground and maybe set up a third enclave after all.

Above the surface, I’ve...

Peek: The Shatterer

Deep in a vault in the Dungeoneer's Guild Headquarters, there lays a maul, as real as me standing here!  It is no ordinary vault.  Behind inches of steel and stone, designed to withstand not only an onslaught from an archmage, but the scryings of the same, the vault is designed to impregnable to almost all.  The enchantment to open the vault is only partially known, the five individuals privy to it only know part of the enchantment.  Even the enchantment is shrouded in mys...

Chapter One-Hundred Forty-Nine

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Coda

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The Architect scion finds it difficult to focus, despite how excited he is!  Probably because of how excited he is, honestly.  The Foreman’s idea, this concrete, the very concept sings to his soul!  The kinds of things he could create with it..

The bat shakes his head, refusing to get too far ahead of himself.  He and the others have only just started, and there is so much...

Chapter One-Hundred Forty-Eight

I don’t know how they declare winter officially here, but I’m willing to call it with the first snow in town, which started about an hour before dawn.  It’s not a very heavy snow, nor is it really sticking, but it’s there, so I’m counting it.  And with winter officially-by-me here, it’s time to make sure I’m all adjusted for it, and to make sure the other plans will be able to handle it.

Under the ground, it’s like winter doesn’t even exist.  It’s not ...

Peek: Ragnar

"Ach, he's got yer mother's beard."

"Such a wee treasure!"

"Have ye' decided a name?"

"Aye.  Ragnar, after m' grandpappy."

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"Tha' all ya got?" wheezes the battered young dwarf, not giving an inch to the bullies.  He can take it,  but he doesn't think his younger brother can.  The bullies look about finished, too, holding their bruised hands and wondering just who got the worse of this beating.

The leader prepares ...

Chapter One-Hundred Forty-Seven

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Honey

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The bee scion sighs and takes flight, unable to fight the twitchy feeling she has.  It’s nothing she can do anything about, which is probably the worst thing about it.  If it was something in her reach, some detail she needs to fill Leo in on, she could do it and be done with it.  But no, this is something beyond her reach right now.

The Emperor is sharing knowledge with the others, and she’s not there to witn...

Chapter One-Hundred Forty-Six

The next couple days see a sharp increase in delvers.  I think it’s a bit of a combination of them wanting to get in some more quality delving before winter really sets in, and of Rezlar’s quests being put out.  It also helps that people are checking out Hullbreak now, too.  For the moment, people seem content to mostly fish.  There’s been a few people diving in to get at the nodes, but it’s getting pretty dang cold to want to get soaked and then have a long boat r...

Peek: Mariculture

Not far from the Memorial, the merfolk gather.  Practically the entire enclave is here, though not all of them are especially excited about it.  Thankfully, the Tidecaller has given his blessing for Yendo to speak to everyone, so most everyone came to at least hear.  The High Priest doesn't give his approval to just anything, after all.  People murmur, chatting to each other as they try to guess what Yendo might have to say, or just catching up on gossip in general.

...

Chapter One-Hundred Forty-Five

When someone asks if you’re a god, you say yes, right?  Not to argue with Winston’s wisdom, but there’s some valuable context to keep in mind.  If you’re staring down a 7-foot tall freakshow flanked by monster dogs and a weird extra-dimensional pyramid/staircase behind them, probably a good time to build yourself up, maybe avoid having to fight a giant mascot.

But when you’re sitting at someone’s table, someone who is a bit prone to overreacting, maybe go with some...

Chapter One-Hundred Forty-Four

At least there’s not much more inspection to do after that.  The merfolk show Tarl to the kelp thicket and he simply notes that the thicket is to be avoided, and is happy to leave it at that.  Teemo doesn’t manage to get back by the time Tarl is ready to leave, so the First Mate sees him off instead.  He gives Hullbreak a tentative reclassification as a cooperative dungeon, and assures the First Mate the info packet will be full of warnings and directions.  I think mos...

Peek: Legs

The centipede scion thinks to himself as he rests, coiled around Violet's core.  She has tasked him to be her Guardian, and he is honored to do his duty.  He just wishes it was more consistent.  Much of his time is spent doing very little, though at least Cappy is able to keep him company and talk about the outside.  Most of what Cappy has to say is about the tunnel horrors, but even talking about those is more interesting than just sitting there.

Most of the rest of...

Chapter One-Hundred Fourty-Three

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**Tarl**

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As he takes the small dinghy out towards Hullbreak, his thoughts return, as they always do, to the day his mentor died.  The day Hullbreak went mad.

However, much as his mind would like to wander down those dark paths, it’s difficult to get a proper brood going.  For starters, Teemo is with him this time, and the Voice is enjoying the speed the small boat makes across the waves, thanks to the enchantmen...

Chapter One-Hundred Fourty-Two

Watching through Teemo’s eyes as the First Mate takes him around Hullbreak really helps put things in perspective, which makes sense, now that I think about it.  Most of Hullbreak is still a work in progress, but we do identify something that he should probably work on himself: the location of his core.

Riding the First Mate, it’s not difficult for Teemo to spot the various merfolk around the kelp thicket that hides the small cave with Hullbreak’s core inside.  “He tol...

Peek: The Origin of the Raven?

Settle down, everyone.  Yes, I'm late, which is a bit fitting considering the subject of today's theology lecture: The Raven.  While technically in the Golden Wings pantheon, every known deity seems to acknowledge the Raven as the ruler of death, though this does not mean the ruler of the dead.  Each pantheon has their own claim to that, yet the Raven has his place in delivering the deceased to whatever afterlife they have coming.

So why a Raven?  Why not some other ...