Khenal
patreon
Chapter One-Hundred Fourty
🕑 Added 2023-03-28 01:16:15 +0000 UTCUnfortunately, it’s easier to want to get down to business than to actually get down to business. The biggest hurdle is that I know even less than I did about Hullbreak when I started. At least I knew where Hullbreak was! So… time to do what I can. The most I can do directly is ask Poe to focus the underground expeditions out past the underswamps. If I want to kick that dungeon’s butt, I need to find it, first.
The other thing I can do is to make sure the home front is well and secure, which means making sure Violet and Hullbreak can support themselves. Violet is fine on that, technically. She doesn’t have many delvers, but she also doesn’t have much in the way of expenses. With me sending quests for delvers for her, she should be getting a lot more mana now, too. I can also feel her shuffling closer to expanding, so I poke Teemo to go visit and see if she has any questions or wants any guidance for her first expansion.
Thankfully, it looks like the mood has lightened significantly in the meeting, my dwellers doing their best to reassure my High Priestess, who reassures them in kind as she can feel me moving. They’ve moved on to the more idle chatter between friends, which lets Teemo slip out without making much of a fuss.
“What’s up, Boss?”
Heya Teemo. Can you go check on Violet? I think she’s about to expand, and I’d like to be able to answer any questions or worries she has.
“Like with the scythemaw eggs?” he asks with a cheeky grin, before slipping through a shortcut.
Har har. Like with help with whatever new spawners she gets, and with whatever the eggs do.
“You still think they won’t cause any problems?” asks my Voice, letting his sarcasm fall by the wayside.
Yeah. I get the feeling they won’t do much at all. I think, worst case, they’ll count as delvers who aren’t doing very much.
“Any idea for how to help them hatch?”
Mostly to just leave them alone. I’d probably suggest she keep an eye on the temperature and humidity, and probably mana, too, but try not to interfere with anything. The maws have been doing this long enough to know how to make it work, right?
Teemo shrugs. “I guess?”
It’s not like either of us has any better idea. It’s not too much longer before Teemo exits the shortcut, and then it’s just a little further until he can slip into Violet’s area.
“Heya Violet! How’d you like that boss fight?” He listens for a few seconds, before relaying her opinion. “Sounds like it wasn’t as scary as she thought it would be, and she kinda wants to have a scion she could use for fights like that.”
Oh yeah? Which one is she thinking to use for that?
“Hmm… she says she wants a new scion for it. She likes Legs as her guardian, and Cappy for information.”
Nice, she’s named them? I can feel my happiness at the thought filtering through the bond, and Teemo smiles.
“She says she’s glad you like the names. So yeah, she plans to expand and get a new scion or two. Do you have any advice for her before she does?”
Nothing specific, no. Just to take a moment to take it all in before she spends more mana on various upgrades. She has enough to cover expanding as well as some upgrades to things, yeah?
Teemo nods. “Yep. Sounds like she’s as ready as she’s going to be. Go ahead, Violet.”
A couple beats later, I feel her territory expand, rapidly claiming the entire small cavern outside her door. A few more seconds pass before I get a notification as her mentor, giving me a basic list of what she’s gained. What I see has me interested, too.
“She says she can make mining nodes now, and she picked up a pair of spawners. Wait, really?” He listens to her reply while I nod to myself.
She got moles and shadow spirits, and I can see the spirits can upgrade to gremlins for practically a song.
“Yeah. That’s… probably not a coincidence.” I can feel some concern through the bond, so I pat it to reassure her. “Nah, you didn’t do anything wrong, Violet. It just seems like one of the Boss’ experiments wasn’t going as badly as he thought,” he finishes with a grin. I don’t dignify him with a response as I instead take a closer look at my protege’s new spawners.
Looks like the gremlins are a resource specialization, which could be good for her mining nodes. The moles also have a mining specialization, but I can’t get too much detail. It’s probably more efficient to just go with the gremlins for the resources, and decide on what to do with the moles later.
Teemo relays that, and Violet quickly takes the discounted upgrade. We all watch as a gremlin almost flows out of a crack in a wall like smoke, before moving to one of the nodes, looks like tin or something? Either way, the gremlin picks with its claws at the rock, leaving the metal ore behind, and I can even see it somehow adding to the metal there.
I take a closer look at the gremlin, and see why. Huh, looks like they picked up metal and earth affinities. That’s cool.
Teemo speaks up, drawing me from my examinations. “Hey Boss, Violet wants to know if she should make scions, and if she should make any of them fighters.”
I take a quick glance at her mana flow, and give Teemo the go-ahead. It’s a good idea to get scions, but what kind of fighters does she want?”
Teemo snorts when Violet gives him her reply. “She says she wants something like what you have, heh.”
Well… I think she’ll need to do some more prep before she can manage someone like Rocky or the Jakob’s Ladder snake. She should probably make a few basic rooms before trying to specialize her new scions. Her mushroom scion will probably make a good marshal, so she should make a war room for a map.
I take a few moments to see what rooms she has available, before continuing. “I don’t see alchemy or enchanting labs… but she has access to a metalworks, which could be interesting. If she wants to pull some kind of surprise, that’s probably her best bet.
Oh! Speaking of surprises…
I trail off as I focus on one of the scythemaw nests, and see something surprising, but not shocking. The nests each count as a very small enclave, with the eggs counting as denizens. Violet notices, too, and I can feel worry dripping through the bond, until Teemo speaks up.
“Hey, easy there, Violet. You’ll be fine, they’re still just eggs. Just keep an eye on them, don’t bother them, and they should hatch and head out for the water. The Boss says the maws know the best way to let them grow, so try to just not disturb them, ok?”
I can tell she’s still nervous about the eggs, but the little pep talk from Teemo seems to keep her from doing anything rash.
“Any advice for how to organize her new denizens?”
Well… I’d leave the moles mostly alone for now, maybe a couple upgrades to make them stronger, but don’t specialize them just yet. Moles and centipedes are probably good to send on expeditions, but make sure she keeps enough at home to deal with whatever new invader she has. She might actually see wild gremlins, so she might want to upgrade her centipedes to be able to deal with them, come to think of it.
For her new scions… I’d suggest giving them both turns in running the metalworks, see which one likes it better. Whoever doesn’t like it, she can try to see if it likes to fight. If it still doesn’t feel quite right, let it focus on dealing with invaders and helping out wherever it can. Some of my scions I had a good idea of what to do with them, and some of them took a while, like Coda. Poor bat was kinda just flapping in the wind for a while.
Teemo relays that, and I’m happy to see Violet not just implementing everything I said. She’s her own dungeon, I’m just giving her advice to avoid pitfalls. For the moment, it looks like she’s getting those rooms I suggested, and getting Cappy to organize a few expeditions.
I lean back and idly watch her work as I think. It’s definitely not a coincidence she got spawners for the two things I’ve been trying to gain. Were the ones we released just hunkering down in here, waiting for her to expand and join her? Is that even how it works? I could try to experiment with other invaders… but the only other one that comes from down here are those dire mosquitoes. I feel like having those as a spawner would traumatize Violet even more than a scythemaw spawner!
I’ll let Jello know she’s kind of succeeded with the mole/gremlin stuff, though I doubt that’ll get her to stop. I don’t think I’d want her to, either. If she can pacify them and they go to Violet, that’s perfectly fine by me. I’ll probably ask Violet if I can have one of each once I do my own next expansion. For now, though, I’ll just let her get used to the new stuff she has to deal with.
Violet is making strides… now it’s Hullbreak’s turn. I’m going to need to ask Tarl to do an inspection. That’s probably going to be difficult for everyone… but it still needs to be done.
Comments
SciGuy75
Looking like Violet could really spark some industry! Excited to see her grow her personality and hear her voice someday.
Berncave
Hmm violet is mini thedium which is great while I've been wondering if hullbreak is still in a positive mindset from watching their domain prosper.
