Chapter Eight: A New Project

Chapter Eight: A New Project

Ah, everything went right with the move! I even learned exactly what the go-juice actually does! Well, almost everything went right. Let me explain. My ants started moving my core through the tunnels and towards the crack in the wall, when a mole finally found the core! I tell you, at that scale, moles are terrifying!

The Queen, though, quickly rallied the troops to fend off the invader, and the little soldiers started zapping it! Lightning ants! Isnt that cool?! Anyway, I only had about a dozen lightning majors, but with them and the normal majors, and the Queen directing them in the fight, the mole barely even got to touch my core.

It took a tiny bit of my mana before they could push it back, and the affront of it touching my core seemed to send them into a frenzy. The lightning majors are all dead now, but that mole is also very very dead. Queen got the ants moving the core the rest of the way, and Teemo soon got ahold of the orb, and Queen, with Fluffles watching over them all.

With the mole incursion making me cautious, Teemo led everyone through a secret passage and into the crawl spaces in my walls. He wasnt taking any chances, which I definitely appreciated. It seemed like the various invaders could all sense the core was vulnerable, even if they didnt know where it was. Ive never seen the invaders number that high! It feels like every hand, foot, talon, wing, claw and tail was on the ground to repel them, and I cant help but be a bit proud of my denizens.

Thanks to the secret paths, my core was quickly placed in the new Secret Sanctum, safe behind layers and layers of thick spider silk and packed dirt, as well as the stone and mortar of the chimney itself. My raven Scion even set his nest on top of the chimney, with various spiders actually protecting the opening from various insects. All in all, a very successful relocation, and I signal the all clear.L1tLagoon witnessed the first publication of this chapter on Ñøv€l--B1n.

Everyone goes back to their normal doings, and I ping Tiny to head outside. I have an idea for what to do with all that free real estate, and Ill need his help. I also set my bats to be fruitbats. I want to make me some agriculture, and is there any more cultured agri than a hedge maze?

The dire rats will be playing annoyances, stealing stuff from the Delvers as they spot them. I wonder if the Delvers will consider the area even more dangerous than the house. HP are a lot easier to replace than stuff sometimes. Im not too worried, though. I think challenge translates to reward levels, for the Delvers and for me. Its a weird and different challenge, but one I hope will pan out.

And if it doesnt, well Ill have more herbs and things to experiment with in my lab. Ive tried a few other combinations, but so far, the Bottled Lightning (despite not being in a bottle) is my only success. I get the feeling that I dont want to mix everything one to one, but I dont think I have much other option at the moment. Id need a bigger lab to upgrade it, but I want to keep it secret. I think that will have to wait until I expand downward a bit and can get into stone.

I have upgraded my library a bit, and moved it into the wall not far from the chimney. Its not the most efficient as far as working with my lab, but its secret and a bit bigger, giving me a full piece of paper to work with now! It might not sound like much, but Ive been able to keep track of each combination Ive tried in the lab

Speaking of the lab, Queen has started to produce a specialized worker for in there. Ive been calling them alchemists, because thats basically what theyre doing. Theyve been slowly producing more bottled lightning for use in the rest of me. I actually want to get the basement swarm of spiders to be venomous and lightning powered! Thatll be quite a boss fight! Itll also take a lot of bottled lightning to accomplish. I like that it seems permanent, but its a pretty significant dose to achieve.

The lack of Delvers still has me concerned, though. The maze is still growing, and while the fruitbats are occupied, other flavors of bat are just kinda milling around. Sure, some help look for moles, but the number of snakes is starting to increase now that I have enough ravens to handle the gulls. I focus in on one of the normal bats, wondering what I should do with it. Theres not a whole lot of stuff to do at night, after all.

Oh hey. Thats a new option.