Dungeon Life-Chapter Four-Hundred Thirty-Seven

Everyone’s busy, and that includes me! I’ve been upgrading spawners just to keep up with the delving activity! I haven’t tripped over the threshold for any new spawns yet, but there’s a few that are on the cusp. I’ve been holding back because I want to do the raid fight, and then introduce new denizens for more fun.

The raid itself is going swimmingly. Fluffles is going to be the first, and the arena is just about ready for him. The plant denizens have been practicing hooking and releasing, and Fluffles has been working with Teemo and Rocky to be able to practice where the delvers can’t see, and to have someone strong enough to practice against.

And the raid isn’t all I’ve been preparing for. I’ve been helping out as I can with the baths outside the Hold, too. Though to be honest, there’s not a lot for me to actually do. The antkin have been using their tamed tunnelbores to dig out the area, the ratkin have been working on infrastructure along with the spiderkin, and even the burgeoning birdkin enclave has been dropping off seeds and seedlings for plants to grow around it. I don’t have bamboo for a proper Japanese onsen-style setup, but we can still get a bunch of cool plants to provide atmosphere and privacy.

My priesthood has been organizing everything, and I wouldn’t be surprised if they end up running it once the inaugural party is finished. It won’t be able to be a true part of the Hold, since it’s on the surface, but I can’t imagine people ignoring the chance to have a nice hot bath. It’ll be sure to encourage people to come up to the Hold and keep it at least semi-occupied when not in emergency use, which will help to ensure it’ll actually be ready if we have emergency use for it, too.

Honestly, all I’ve been doing for the baths is to have a few guardian patrols in the area, and even that’s not needed with the military and some of the enclave units. It’s a strange feeling to see a project like that going up and knowing they have it handled. I want to play with the new toy, but I should probably keep my own projects in mind, unless I want them to delay, or even worse: fail.

The new birdkin enclave is the project I definitely can’t let fail, and though they’re stuck in their progress right now, they don’t seem too upset about it. I think they’ve collectively decided to shelve how to govern themselves for the time being, and are more working to make sure they have shelter, clothing, and food secured.

In the early stages of progress, they were still very much raven harpies, and I think still could rely heavily on me for what they needed, even with the efforts at their nests and golem gardens. But with the bars at about half, the physical changes are standing out more and more, and I think they’re having some mental changes, too.

Nothing bad, especially with the physical changes. Not that the harpies are ugly, but they are definitely creepy without even trying. They also used to prefer to be solitary, rather than flocking together like they’ll have to for the enclave. They’ve straightened in their posture and their necks have shortened, letting them climb out of the uncanny valley and into awkward teenager proportions. Their talons and wings are going through a lot of changes, too.

Ordinary raven harpies have big old stompers with quite a bit of dexterity, and wicked claws to boot. Also, like basically anything else that can fly, they have surprisingly large wings. With the change toward birdkin instead of harpies, their wings are shortening drastically, and their feet are getting a lot smaller and a lot less sharp. They can still fly, but I’m pretty sure they’re using more and more of their gravity affinity to achieve it.

Hopefully, they’ll be able to keep their flight even after becoming proper birdkin. I’ve never seen Yvonne even attempt to fly, and I’d be surprised if she could. She still has long feathers on her arms, but they are almost always folded back against her skin, making her arms look a bit bigger than they are. Or maybe just camouflaging her muscles. You don’t get to be a target archer with noodle arms, let alone an adventuring Ranger.

Yvonne’s beak is a lot smaller than my birdkin, but I think it’s because she’s clearly a hawk or maybe a falcon of some kind. It kinda makes me wonder if there are toucankin and just how big their beaks would be. Or pelicankin.

Anyway, in accordance with their changing bodies, they’re working on clothes, and the different season factions have their own styles. The Summer ones like loose and light clothes, making them look like bellydancers. They’re still refining their skill, but loose shawls, simple chest wraps, and baggy pants are all the rage, and they wouldn’t be ravenkin without a heaping helping of shinies to bring the whole ensemble together.

Spring and Fall like to dress in layers they can easily remove or put on, as the temperature requires. Their base layer is a lot more robust than Summer, with the fabric looking like they’re using some of the mycelia denim the ratkin make. They like to dye them in bright colors, and it makes me wonder if I should introduce the concept of tie-dying through Teemo.

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I don’t know if I want hippy birds, but I have to imagine they’d like the bright colors and patterns they can produce. Spring and Fall are still working out exactly how they want to incorporate shinies. Where Summer likes strings of beads, the Spring and Fall birds look like they like metallic thread. Summer silk is thin enough for the rough thread to chafe a bit, but with the thicker base layer, Spring and Fall have room to weave it in without problems. They also really like anklets.

Winter is making sure to not be slouches, either. They prefer wool over denim, and their preferred accessories are scarves and fancy hats. They tend more toward bright colors for their scarves, rather than any metallic thread or shiny beads. The thread can make a scarf feel a bit stiff, and beads kinda hurt if you just toss the scarf around your neck and get smacked in the face.

So they save all that for their hats, and put on everything else they can think of there, too. And they love to play with different styles. There’s plenty of the local styles to be seen, but I also see a few attempts at baseball caps and cowboy hats. They’re still crude for now, but I bet they’ll have them mastered by the time the bars fill up.

And though they’re all doing their own fashion, the factions are working together when it comes to making food. Spring, Summer, and Fall are all working on their soil golem gardens, herding them around, figuring out the best spots for them to ‘graze’ or whatever. Winter, on the other hand, seems to be focused on the rat farms. I guess the cold makes it less likely for the rats to escape, though the birbs are still working on perfecting their rat enclosures.

Metal or glass will keep them from chewing through, but they don’t have any infrastructure for smithing right now, and that goes double for glassmaking. It makes me wonder if the bars are stuck for that, instead of their government. Unfortunately, unlike a governing solution, I don’t have much idea for how to help them smith while up in the tree.

I can see them relying on magic instead of weapons, and not needing metal for that, but they’ll probably still want things like nails, silverware, and other metallic crafts. They might be able to get by with wood instead, but I dunno. Just another thing for them to need to figure out.

Besides the raid, the birbs, and the baths, I have one last project to keep up on: the Betrayer. I still don’t have any leads on how to fight it, but there is one detail in the kobold legend that suggests something to be aware of. In the legend, the First Sanctuary was drained by an unknown thing, presumed to be some kind of sneaky scion.

So if I’m forced to wait for it to strike first, I should make sure my core is safe, as are the cores of my friends. The one I’m least worried about is Violet. Her Sanctum is still secret, and though no longer hidden inside a spatial pocket Teemo made for her, it’s still in the ceiling and just this side of inaccessible . I can’t imagine anything managing to sneak in there without Legs, her centipede scion and Guardian, noticing.

Hullbreak is a little more open, but water already poses a challenge, not to mention all the merfolk around his core. Just a little extra vigilance, not to mention his new microplesiosaurs swimming about, and I think he’s pretty safe, too.

Southwood might be a little vulnerable, but he’s also further away, so he might not even be a target because of that. On the other hand, the Harbinger went after him, so who knows. Still, he has a ton of territory to hide in, and a little warning will keep the Stag nearby to ensure nothing happens.

Vanta could be in danger, but he’s even further from me, and young enough to not really be a threat or a tempting target, I’d imagine. Still, I wouldn’t want to leave the little guy out in the cold. Maybe I should ask the Southwood to have his Bear go babysit him for now, instead of the Stag? I rub the idea on the bond, but a lot less gets through that than the bond with my scions. I’ll need Teemo to relay any complex info, but I think the Southwood is picking up what I’m putting down. A vague sense of potential danger for him and Vanta is enough for him to start making his own preparations, and I’m sure he’ll do well by them both.

Which leaves me. I’ve got my evacuation tunnel to whisk me away to under Tiny’s maze, and Sue has taken it upon herself to guard my core while it's on display in the cathedral. She’s not quite a Guardian yet, but I don’t think it’ll take her long to get there. She’s also a big hit with my followers, who I think are starting to organize my own brand of paladins. They’re still a long ways off from making vows and such, but I think Sue and Tiny are both pretty good inspirations for protection.

But the best protection is early detection. The entire ally group is stepping up our expedition efforts, sniffing out traces of the Betrayer. We only have the Harbinger and the least and lessers to go off of, but the unsettling vibes were easy enough to feel, and to pass on to the others to be aware of.

The only one in the group that isn’t sending out more expeditions is Vanta, but he’s still too young to do stuff like that. His worm scion might have the will, but Vanta just doesn’t have the denizens for long-range reconnaissance. Leo, Poe, and Zorro are coordinating with Violet’s mole scion, Nose, as well as Hullbreak’s albatross Quartermaster to ensure we have everything covered in our area. Southwood’s Bear has been keeping up with expeditions, too, and has gotten his own Marshal title, so Southwood and Vanta should be covered, also.

The coverage makes me happy, but I’m still concerned that we haven’t spotted anything just yet. And with that stagnation bear that Mlynda brought in the other day to tame a winter wolf, there’s definitely room for strong things to hide. There’s a lot of room outside, surface and below, and only so many denizens to patrol it.

All we can do is hope that, if we are missing anything, it’s not too much. With all our expeditions, there’s only so many forces that can potentially be hiding. With luck, anything slipping through our net will be too small to make a difference, or spotted too far away for it to catch us by surprise.