Khenal
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Chapter Three-Hundred Forty-One
🕑 Added 2025-03-14 01:52:36 +0000 UTCI don’t like it.
It’s been a couple days, and the thieves guild hasn’t done anything. No, they’ve done something, just not something that makes them look strong, which sets off warning bells for me. I wish we had been able to get a foothold into their headquarters before it happened, but wishing won’t help it now.
A big chunk of the guild left town. Karn says it looks like a schism, but it looked to me like he also felt something’s up. As much as I feel like we need to learn more, I don’t think I can really step up the spying operations right now. I already have bees wandering all over their guild, being nice and obvious. If I send even more bees, it’d definitely tip them off that I’m not buying whatever they’re trying to sell.
I think at this point, it’s better to stay in the dark and let them think I don’t know, instead of confirming it. It’s annoying to be the one in the dark for a change, but I think if I press more right now, it’ll tip them off to how much I actually do know. And with Cappy finally making good headway into their headquarters, I’d rather let them think they have me. If they’re confident, maybe Cappy can hear what they’re up to.
So yeah, half the guild is gone, and the other half doesn’t seem too worried. They even seem to have more money to throw around, if the activity at a few seedy bars is any indication. It makes me think the Earl has paid them for whatever they’re up to. If it was a schism, whichever faction came out on top always has a bit of a celebration of cash and such, but I still feel like something’s off.
“I can only do so big of a sigh for you, Boss,” teases Teemo, and I chuckle as he pulls me from my thoughts. He’s right. Sighing and worrying aren’t going to help, and I have better things to do than just mope and try to guess what the Earl and the guild are going to do. It’s like with the infiltration of Hullbreak: some parts of a plan just need time to develop. And with the Tree of Cycles and the Forest of Four Seasons, I have a lot of things to develop while I let Zorro and Cappy do their jobs.
Constantly looking over their shoulders won’t help me, and won’t make them do their jobs any faster. Patience is what I need, or at least a distraction. Luckily, I have a lot to distract me.
While I’ve been busy trying to thwart the Earl, the delvers are still happily delving. In fact, now that the thieves seem to be backing off, it feels like the casual delvers are trying to make up for lost time.
The manor and yard are always going to be popular, but now the caverns and the crypt complex are getting more attention, too. The weekend warriors are starting to get good enough to brave the harder areas. I would try to serve their needs better with my next expansion, but I have enough on my plate right now. Besides, I think it could be a good niche for Violet to try to fill eventually. She’s still a bit nervous about combat challenges, but with how eager Onyx is to have some fun, I think she’s seriously considering it.
Not any time soon, but I wouldn’t be surprised if her eventual next expansion will be into the aquifer lakes for a medium challenge combat area. I bet she and Hullbreak would have fun working together on some watery denizens.
Hullbreak’s own expansion is going well, too. He’s carving up into the cliffs now, and seems to be playing with the idea of timing something with the tides. He carved a lot under the water, too, so I’m interested to see where he’s going with it. Using water to act as a timer for delvers is a pretty slick idea and could make puzzles or combat more interesting. I’m trying not to poke my nose too into it, but I’m looking forward to what he makes.
But I can’t get too distracted with what my friends are doing and lose track of my own project. There’s actually an interesting issue developing that I’m not sure what the best solution would be. The four seasons have been established long enough that some cracks are starting to show.
In nature, the cycle keeps everything balanced. Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter all keep their balance by taking their turn everywhere. My sections, though, are going to be those seasons forever, or at least as long as I keep them working. Spring is all about waking up, getting started, new growth and so on. But it’s hard to perpetually be waking up. Eventually, you’re going to be fully awake, depending on how much coffee is needed.
Summer, I think, is easier to keep going, same with Winter. Summer is growing, Winter is sleeping. There’s things to keep track of, for sure, but they’re both pretty stable. Fall is like Spring, but in the opposite direction. It’s going to bed, finishing, preparing, a state naturally leading to another one. So what are the options?
Well, one would be to not make them static. I’m already moving a lot of things around, I don’t think it’d be too difficult to slowly move the entire thing around, too. It’d be a big wheel, lazily spinning along and dragging the four seasons with it. The biggest problem is my spawners.
The wolves basically need to be in Winter. If their spawner was in summer, they’d be miserable, and a big part of why I wanted to make the forest was to be able to really lean into the seasons with denizens that excel in each.
The other option is to basically keep doing what I’m doing. Titania has been great at organizing the denizens, and even with her lab and research, Poppy is starting to step into the role of making sure the environment works smoothly. And helping them each, is Goldilocks, and a lot of my resource denizens. The rats are especially helpful with maintenance in general. New shoots are always needing to be moved from Spring into Summer, leaf litter in Fall needs to be moved around to keep Spring and Summer working without too much mana consumption, and so on.
If I had more mundane stuff, it probably wouldn’t work. But I have a lot of magical things to grow. The fruitbats have been proving their worth, populating the sections with plenty of cool flora, and I think Poppy is experimenting with magically adapting the trees to fit better in their seasons, too. The denizens are settling into their seasonal niches well, and I’m getting enough mana that I can start upgrading some more, even with me making payments back into the ally pool. I’m probably going to leave the plant spawner alone for a bit, because I want to give it spatial affinity before I upgrade it. I’m also getting tempted to give the snake spawner the last push to get ready for another enclave, maybe even with the birds and the bees, too. That’d be a big project, though, and definitely one to tackle after I have the forest properly situated.
That doesn’t mean I can’t lay the groundwork at least a bit. The bees and snakes not only have the lair upgrade, but only have one more denizen type to go until they’re maxed. My birds don’t have a lair yet, and are a full denizen behind, too! I eye the costs and what I have to spend, and it looks like it won’t be too bad. I could wait until after my Sanctum goes public, but I should be fine to upgrade them now.
I start with the lair, moving the spawner from atop the manor and into the canopy of the Tree of Cycles. Caws echo as the spawn rate increases dramatically, and I can feel gratitude and satisfaction from Poe especially. Not only will he be better able to keep an eye on the surroundings, but if he needs to smack around some of the Earl’s people, he’ll have that many more birds to do it with.
He’s also going to get a new variety to go with the new numbers. While there’s a lot of options, I’m leaning toward the simple one of bigger birds. I lock in the new upgrade and watch the new dire raven hatch. It doesn’t come out all gooey and nightmarish like a normal baby bird, probably because it’s an adult.
A normal raven is around a foot, maybe a foot and a half tall. Poe is a good six feet, though posture can make him look taller or shorter. The dire ravens come in at about the halfway point, almost four feet tall. They also look a lot meaner than the other birds, and even meaner than most of my other denizens.
I probably should have expected it, I even saw it in the description, but reading and seeing are two different things. They even have death affinity, which is a little scary. I don’t think they’re going to be doing like Grim did to that scythemaw and just turning their foes off, but I do think they’ll be foes the stronger delvers will need to be careful around.
They have huge wings and oversized talons, as well as piercing glares. The last I don’t think is actually anything they can attack with, but they do look pretty intimidating. Which makes the almost childlike curiosity I feel from it all the more amusing. From what I can tell, mentally, they’re similar to what would usually be the last denizen from a spawner. They do say corvids are smart. While I get a good look at my new denizen, I feel Poe call for it to give its first expedition.
Poe also has a new report for me, and I think he’s happy to have the new, bigger birds to send out. At the edge of what he can cover, he just got a report of a lot of armed and armored elves walking down the road. Most are on foot, with a few on horseback, as well as several large wagons of supplies. There’s a lot more detail than usual, I guess the ravens really like the shiny armor and colorful banners and flags.
I pat Poe though the bond, hoping he can encourage the expeditions to maybe learn heraldry. It’s not needed here, but it could be useful in the future. Not all marching armies will be waving the banner of Horlon, the current king.
Comments
Ben Bass
TYFTC! Good to see the King’s men are on the way, and I like the idea of the dire raven’s learning heraldry, non-magical covids are very smart, so who knows what the upper limit for these are.
Mommy Khaos
Except that completely ignores the reason why rail is steel. Steel on steel (steel wheels on steel rail) has extremely low friction, which allows for easy movement of literally thousands of tons. You and some buddies could push a fully loaded train car weighing over 100 tons with relative ease, because the friction is so low. It's why trains have sand onboard, it's to spray at the wheels to increase friction during wheel slip. Tires on asphalt have a friction coefficient of 0.01 to 0.035, whilst steel wheels on steel rails have a friction coefficient of 0.001 to 0.002. Stone on stone, or steel on stone is going to have not only an extremely rough finish, but also have a very high friction coefficient. We've been using steel on steel for over 200 years for a reason.
Jerry A
With magic i see no reason why not to use stone instead of metal for the rail, so light rail would be no big expense.
mly85lc
Well before even that there's also point that MC is now part of category's off "gods" as whole -sure young and weak god but god- and there is mortal power that is trying get hold off boht he's production power and ablity expanding boht as dungeon and as faith..
Mommy Khaos
The first railroads were narrow gauge for use inside mines. They eventually expanded out of the mines themselves to help transport the ores to nearby facilities, typically by horse, mule, or donkey. Steam trains took a while before they got anywhere near reliable enough to be used to pull freight, and the benefits of using rail could easily be utilized by animal or even human powered carts (good ole pushing and pulling)
Ch W
I like dire ravens and I've just learned of their existence now. The juxtaposition of resting evil face and childlike mind with deadly?deathly? skill set is gonna be interesting. I'm still anticipating the new invader, they've gotta be bigger than boring beetles and come from the sky, right?
Ch W
Is the bat spawner giving out "do not max" vibes? It's interesting to see Thedeim plan for future enclaves and the bats don't get mentioned. If we should find out that the bat denizens have subconsciously been flooding the dungeon emphatic bonds with let's call it a majority No vote, that'd be pretty cool to see play out.
Aerowarrier
That’s the guard battalion that’ll be training in TheDiem I bet. I’m sure they’ll end up sending a naval crew at some point to get some experience in Hullbreak as well. The Earl is gonna have fun with this lol
Presten
I remember reading that rail develops when the amout of volume and regular use reach a critical point, ie, industrialization and or mass manufacturing. We're talking moderate sized cities of the 1700 hundreds
Juno Tubolino
Horlon's forces arrive to the dungeon, armed to the teeth, still expecting a vicious fight within. Every soldier present is dumbatruck when they realize they're looking at a slightly more hazardous amusement park. They're passed by a couple teenagers and 4 dockworkers who are delving Thediem over their weekend.
Lord-Siver
Thank you for the meal! It was as delicious as always! The earl: *gets ready to throw some shit at TheDM* The King's army: "Hey we are here to get some delving in TheDM and set up a training grounds so expect a batallion of the king's armee to be here PERMANENTLY!" The earl: *surprised Pikachu face*
Ethan Barrow
TFTC!! Ah, it's the local soldiers who wanted to delve to get better experience that the king mentioned previously. I look forward to some people getting wrecked by the new birbs
Mommy Khaos
I also wonder how long it's gonna be until we get things like railroads (even without trains it'd be a good idea for there to be narrow gauge rail in the underground to help with carts. Slap some oxen or just some strong helpers and they'll be able to pull/push many many more carts than normal). Also muzzle loaders, both rifle and cannon. I still think that the ratkin would make great rifleman, and the ants could make quick work of forming teams to work cannons and mortars.
Mommy Khaos
Fourdock two years earlier was a small trading port with a homicidal dungeon and anither that just told everyone to fuck off Fourdock now is home to a literal God, 3 dungeons, and now there's an Earl trying to take over right as a contingent of the King's Army has shown up for training and one of the King's most trusted advisors is currently stationed there to keep an eye on things. I give it less than a year before the King himself pays it a visit.
Mommy Khaos
I wonder how long it's gonna be until the King himself visits Thedeim, especially if the Pantheon is formed. Actually that would be the final trick up the sleeve if Thedeim needs it, form the Pantheon and see if Order would give the King a quest or mission to help protect it. It really all depends on whether or not the Earl finds out that he's fucking around with a literal god.
Mommy Khaos
I don't think the capital would move, but fourdock is definitely going to be both one of, if not the largest, trading ports. It's also gonna be a major theological and educational centers of the kingdom. Gotta remember that even though NYC is the biggest city in NY, the capital is still Albany.
mly85lc
As a nick name it's endearing. But as officals name on organization that server and training fighters and mage for adventurers it could get negative conettions.
mly85lc
Or he could just but place a rotaatio... say every even week a 3 days continuous rotaatio before moving back normal. And skeleton gardens keeping them fuctions in means time.
LinaBoeckwurm
My first thought was that maybe we're going to move the Capital to Fourdock at the end of this arc! But I think we're a bit too early in the growth cycle for that.... But I wouldn't exclude that happening in the future XD
Friendly Human
I think this just hit critical mass. Horlon's emissary would immediately seek out Olander. The King has his reports. The herald will then seek out the Earl, Rezlar, and Thedeim to assess the situation. This mob movie is about to get smoked out of the water like a fish in a barrel. The giant ravens take both the brass and the fish.
Herakilla
Thanks for the chapter!
Black Esper
But there are more full time adventurers in the Slim Chance. It would be a good official name for the part-timers though 😊
caleb williams
And hopefully soon we'll see the eral's reaction to the soliders
Tsume Eiranis
The parts be moving! Thank you for the chapter
Pete Magnuson
Name-dropping the king (if that's new info) seems like a worrying sign for how the political arc is going to spiral. I'm sure everything will be fine and a cornered Earl won't do anything drastic
Virus Twilight
I believe that he going to Swap Spring and autumn. For the solution of them stagnating make them in the state of go waking up and pull them right back to sleep constantlySwap Spring and autumn. For the solution of them stagnating, make them in the state of go waking up and pulling right back to sleep constantly.😏
Sonata Fauns
The term is amazing and I hope it gets added as the official name of the Slim-Chance guild
Matthew Frasier
It's more of a joke. Think about your last sigh you did while it's obvious your sighing you can be more dramatic about it and draw more attention. In this case Teemo is joking with him to loosen up and stop stressing about all the things the earl is trying to do.
Devin Durham
Oooh the army is here! So excited to meet some new characters, and right at a very interesting time too. I wonder how this new development will affect all the plots and schemes 🤔
Samuel
thanks for the chapter! “I can only do so big of a sigh for you, Boss,” so now he got to deal with elfs too hmm great just what he needs something else to deal with why also dealing with the earl, also what dose this sentence mean “I can only do so big of a sigh for you, Boss,” I am super tired and reading this before I got to bed so I am sorry if this dose make sense but that dose not make alot of sense to me, I am sorry for bring it up though I saw in other comments that you wanted this sort of thing brought up or at less I think I did if that is someone else sorry about that like I said super tired and it might be someone else I am thinking of
Durphymcbob
Thanks for the chapter! Weekend warriors I love that term, i hope teemo lets it slip out to the guild i think the resurve members wwhould like that term
