Chapter One-Hundred Seventy-Five

Chapter One-Hundred Seventy-Five

Im not sure if I could be more proud of Coda than I am right now. I was kinda confused at first why he has artificer instead of engineer, but its not too difficult to guess why: engineers are fully mundane, artificers use magic. At least thats what my current theory is.

I really like his design for the tension archway, too. Its pretty complex, but the shape tickles the engineer part of my mind for both how effective I think itll be, and just how cool it looks. Its almost a shame the web will be fully encased in concrete, but thats just how it goes sometimes. Some of the best designs are only obvious to the people who get to take a peek at how it was all put together.

Coda and Jello soon go their separate ways, with my bat looking pretty energized to build a more proper prototype than the one inside Jello, and my Purifier making her slow way towards Violet. It can be difficult to tell what Jello is thinking, even more than my other scions, but I think she really liked being a part of the design process with Coda, so she seems to be looking very forward to looking around the metalworks.

I nudge Fluffles to see if he wants to join her, since he didnt reject the possibility earlier, and he soon uncoils from what I think was a bit of meditation and flaps his way towards my protege. I take the opportunity to take a closer look at the metalworks.

As it is right now, its fairly small. Violet has been having her gremlins and moles digging into the walls of her expansion area, and she put her metalworks inside one of the walls. Its technically a secret metalworks, though the entrance is fairly obvious. The reason it still gets to be secret is that the entrance is a lot smaller than even the smallest delvers can fit through. They could probably reach an arm inside, but whos crazy enough to go sticking their arm into a random mole hole in a dungeon, no matter how friendly the dungeon is?

Legs is pretty long by now, but hes still easily able to slip in, and I dont think Fluffles will have any issues, either. Jello will have no problem at all. While she seems to prefer being a cube, she has no problem taking whatever shape is needed to get somewhere.

A mechanical engineer can just say the ground isnt going to move, and design thusly, mostly because they can design the moving parts to move relative to the ground. A civil engineer needs to make sure the ground actually doesnt move. Everyone knows not to build a house on sand, but civil engineers need to know what patches of ground might be secret sand co-conspirators. Ground can settle a lot if youre not careful, and can make a house act more like the leaning tower than most might be comfortable with.

The other thing is drainage. Even a gentle drizzle puts out a lot of water over the area of a house, and that water doesnt just vanish. Its easy to think of water erosion as a slow thing, because it is slow for rocks and such, but it can be shockingly quick for even seriously-compacted dirt. Do the drainage wrong, and the water might like to flow down and around the foundation, shifting the surrounding dirt away and now the foundation isnt actually supported, and the house is the leaning tower again.

Thankfully, Im pretty sure that kind of erosion wont be too much of a problem. I dont know how well the concrete will last against pounding waves, but at least those same waves have the tendency to wash away all those tricky dirt and sand patches before some enterprising dungeon decides to build a lighthouse/combat area. A Fighthouse, maybe. I should probably let Hullbreak actually name the thing.

Speaking of Hullbreak, Im getting a bit more and more proud of him, too. The progress is still slow, but he had his first combat encounter with delvers just the other day, and it seemed to go smoothly. A group came to see what was the hubbub on the seagull island, and decided to have a crack at some of the crabs.

Hullbreak had all but one scatter, and the delvers dispatched it pretty quickly. He then nervously sent out two more, and they were also pretty quickly dispatched. I was watching the entire time, interested to see what he would do, and was doing my best to not butt in and tell him what to send. He needs to learn, not just be told what to do. I couldnt help but smile when I felt a question through the bond, if four crabs and a couple gulls would be too much, and I told him it should be fine.

The delvers were actually pressed from that attack, but seemed satisfied, if a bit banged up, after it, and soon got back into their boat. Hullbreaks reaction to the fight was very interesting, too. I could feel him worrying about the delvers like he worries about his merfolk dwellers, and I even had to gently persuade him to not call the attack off when one of the frontliners took a claw punch to the face.

I think its good progress. Its good he sees the delvers as something besides a threat, and maybe being able to see them get a little banged up and be no worse for wear will help him with his dwellers. Hes still a bit paranoid about their protection, but with them starting to thrive properly and mostly take care of themselves, I think hes learning to trust them with their own safety. Its still a long process, and I can feel him chewing his metaphorical fingernails when the merfolk head out past his perception, but hes improving. Just them farming and hunting outside his borders used to send him into almost a panic, so doing the equivalent of nervous pacing is a big step up.