Chapter Seventy-Four

Chapter Seventy-Four

I was a bit surprised to get a notice to be a Mentor, but I accepted it without difficulty. What I had Teemo propose really was a mentorship, more or less, and Violet accepted. So now I have a Protege, which is interesting. I can take a look in on Violets territory, and it seems like any denizens and even dwellers are seen as friendly, so they can wander in and do stuff and generate mana. A couple ratkin have already gone and picked a mushroom or two. Probably looking to expand their options with their mushroom beds? Oh, and while I can leave little suggestions around, or offer quests (like the two that Ive already given), I cant make any decisions.

If I had to guess, Id say that comes with the next option I have. I havent floated the idea to even Teemo just yet, but he probably knows its an option and Aranya probably knows its a thing, too. I could take Violet as a Vassal. Yeah, not really interested in that right now. I have enough on my plate running just my stuff, without having to try to run a second dungeon. I could probably delegate a lot of stuff, but I dunno. Maybe if Violet asks, I might.

But speaking of my own stuff, I think I managed to miss the trio figuring out the water jar puzzle. I guess they finally stopped trying to cheese it and actually used their brains. Or they just started pouring one jar into the other and realized theyd get there if they keep doing that eventually.

Either way, theyre on to the final challenge, and theyre doing about as well as I expected: steady but slow progress. I get a lot of satisfaction listening to them chattering away as they try to figure out the big complex puzzle in their own corridors, and I get a lot of mana from it, too.

This lever do anything for you two? I cant see anything changing here, says Hark. His current section has a bunch of different levers, as well as a slot for something.

Mlynda hums as she moves a peg in the wall along a track. She can see itll eventually be able to come out, once she gets to the end of the track, but theres a lot of hidden blockers between where she has it, and where she wants it to be. I cant tell anything different over here.

I might have something, speaks up Vnarl, his own puzzle involving pressurized pipes and needing to get the pressure just right to get it to spray into a specific hole. These two valves are acting different, I think.

I might actually miss them when theyre gone.

Coda has finished with the surveying, so now its time to actually do some stuff with the caverns! First thing: Slash, please go help Coda and the ratlings with the access tunnel. Thats probably going to take a bit, which is fine. Theres still the normal tunnel to the caverns, I just want to give a more direct route to the largest cavern in there.

This cavern over on the side, though, should be a great spot for my new Enclave! Im a little nervous about making more intelligent people, but it worked well with the ratlings, so I think pitfalls can be avoided and hurdles overcome without too much issue. I designate the enclave.

Interestingly, only about half of the aranea get the progress bars. When I did it for the ratlings, all of them got it. Though, come to think of it, I have a lot more aranea than I did ratlings at the time. The ones with bars are now labeled spiderkin. I guess theyre not suddenly going to become half elf/half spider then.

Much like with the ratlings, the ones with bars start gathering things. It looks like spiderkin are going to be a bit more martial than the ratkin, because they grab a lot of simple spears and a few picks, though they also grab a few things from my couple underground herbalism nodes. Do mushrooms count as herbs?

As they prepare to go to the enclave, I also notice the ones that go are the ones that seemed to have the least to do. The ones with signs and the ones that have been organizing the warehouses and such all seem to be staying. The exception seems to be the one that weaved the sample baskets for the wolves. Im actually surprised none of them managed to convince a wolf to go with them now, actually.

Either way, with an Enclave getting settled in there, I poke Teemo to let Aranya know. She did a great job with the ratkin, so her help would be greatly appreciated with the spiderkin, too.

I think the last thing Ill spend my mana on for the moment is to specialize my slimes. The oozes with their claim for resource specialization have a grip on my curiosity and wont let go. The spawner immediately spits out a copper ooze. Its mostly clear, but it has some green flecks throughout, which are probably oxidized copper? I think the name is a good hint for what itll do, too. Sure enough, the thing oozes its way to the nearest copper vein and does something. Im not sure if its purifying it or adding more copper or what, but the node ticks upwards a tier.

Instead of moving on, the ooze just kinda absorbs into the node, leaving it looking a little wet, but otherwise fine. Maybe itll help deal with gremlins and stuff, too. Between oozes and the stalactsprites, maybe I can get the gremlins to join me just so they dont have to face those terrors to be near my resources. I doubt thatll be all it takes, but a dungeon can hope.