Chapter Two-Hundred Seventy-One

The feeling of Teemo’s concern pulls me out of my exploration of my menus, and once I realize what has him feeling like that, I understand.

A new dungeon?

“Welcome to the fun, Boss.  Yeah.”

You, Yvonne, and Tarl had a kid?  I didn’t even know Yvonne was pregnant!

Teemo does his best to give me a flat look.  “That’s not how it works, and you know it, Boss.”

Yeah, I know.  But it’s fun to joke.  You know just how many more I have ready to go, but we should probably figure out what to do before I make more gags at your expense.

Tarl and Yvonne eye Teemo, with Berdol scribbling whatever notes he can come up with.  Yvonne speaks up before my favorite dungeon inspector can.  “Thediem has noticed, then?”

“Yeah, and he’s mostly done making jokes about the situation now.  So… what do we do?”

“Can he just take it as another protege?” asks Berdol, and I’m pretty doubtful.  It seemed like the system was pretty adamant about me only having one at a time.  Still, the fast tracking might have given me room for another?

Release Protege?  Y/N?

Nope.

“Looks like he’s still stuck with just one, and he’s not ready to turn Violet loose yet.”

Tarl nods at that.  “I’ve only ever heard of dungeons having one at a time, but you never know with Thedeim.”  He taps his foot as he eyes the holes in the wall and floor, the little denizens swarming to keep any invaders at bay.  “I’ll probably need to stay here and keep an eye on it, and write a report of my own for Telar, too.  The theory of dungeons forming from an interaction between mana states has been long accepted, but I don’t know if anyone else has ever actually witnessed it!  The way it went was different from the theory, but I don’t know if that’s how they always go, or if that’s just how this one in specific went.”

Tarl starts muttering to his stone about mana flows and whatnot, giving the others a chance to add their opinion, which Yvonne leaps on.  “So… what do we do about it?  Should you just subsume it, then?”

Teemo shakes his head and relays my reply.  “That’s being a bit hasty, especially if Tarl is going to be here to try to help guide it.  The Boss also has an idea to help it along, too.  I just need to go find the Stag.  The Boss can’t take another protege, but the Southwood doesn’t have one.  He can ask the Boss for any advice if he wants it, too.”

“Do you know where the Stag is?” asks my birdwoman Resident, and Teemo shakes his head.

“Not right this moment, but I doubt he’ll be difficult to track down.  It’s not like there’s two elk stags with crystalline antlers wandering around here.  Anyone want to come help me look for him?”

Tarl speaks up from his stone.  “Actually, if Yvonne doesn’t mind, I’d like her help with a few small pieces of training for the nascent dungeon.  It will be helpful for it to learn to recognize a delving party and understand a proper delve can give it a lot of mana, even with the loss of a few denizens.”

Yvonne smiles.  “I was hoping to just stay and observe, but I’d be happy to help the hatchling along.”

Teemo nods and prepares a shortcut.  “Then you two have fun being its parents.  I’m gonna go find it an uncle to care for it more directly.”  The looks on their faces has both of us laughing as Teemo head back to Silvervein proper, and our mood doesn’t fade as he asks around for the Stag.

He’s not hard to track down, as suspected, and Teemo finds him in the underground equivalent of a park, relaxing atop some long moss, with pale dwarven and elven children milling around him.  Getting closer, Teemo and I can hear the peaceful chiming of his antlers as the children play, running around and generally being kids.  A few are leaning against him, doodling in the moss or looking like they’re going to take a short nap.

“You never said you were good with kids, Stag!” accuses Teemo with a smile as he nears, drawing the attention of the more sedate children.  The other scion chuckles and shakes his head, more contented chimes coming from his antlers.

“I don’t believe I’ve ever interacted with them before.  It’s easier to understand how protective parents can be, now.  They’re so innocent, so curious, even with how harsh things down here seemed to be.”

“Did their parents dump them on you?”

The Stag shakes his head once more.  “No, at least not specifically.  I found this place and decided to relax, only to discover that the various parents of these children told them to go out and play, and this is their preferred spot.  They gathered around and asked questions, before deciding to play their games instead.  The most curious ones are napping, else I would expect they’d have questions for you, too.”

Teemo smirks at that.  “I bet.  So, have you learned what the Southwood wanted you to, about Silvervein?”

“Yes, or at least enough to understand he won’t need to dramatically change anything within his territory to accommodate their needs.  Some metal or stone nodes would not go amiss, but he expects they will be very interested in harvesting food from him.”

Teemo nods at that as a dwarven lad with a stubbly beard flops himself over the Stag’s back, and asks a question.  “Why’re you so small?”

My Voice smirks.  “Because I’m a rat!”

“But you talk!  That means you’re a Voice like the Stag, right?  He said he’s so big because he’s a Voice!”

Teemo chuckles at that.  “I’m Thedeim’s Voice.  I’m so small because he doesn’t do a lot of things most people say he should.”

The child looks hopeful as he responds.  “Does that mean he doesn’t eat his veggies?”

I laugh as Teemo gives my reply.  “He does!  But he also likes them.”

The dwarven child sticks out his tongue in disgust.  “That’s not how that’s supposed to work!”

“Exactly!”  Confusion plays across the child’s face before he shrugs and slides off the Stag to rejoin in whatever game of chase or tag they’re all up to, letting Teemo return his attention to the other scion.  “So… do you want one?”

The Stag gives me Voice a look of concern and confusion.  “I believe the city at large would object to that.”

Teemo waves it off like it’s not a big deal.  “I don’t mean one of these kids.  I don’t know if you could feel it from here, but a new dungeon just appeared in the Maw’s old territory.  The Boss can’t take a second protege… so does the Southwood want one?”

The Stag stares at him for several long seconds, before his ears twitch.  He blinks at what he hears, before realizing he should say something.  “Uh… my Lord is interested, but wishes to know more.”

“Then you should probably come take a look.”

The Stag nods and gently prods the dozing kids with his antlers to wake them up, and a few already don’t want him to go, even after only knowing him for maybe an hour.  Still, he needs to go, and the awoken kids organize their own game as he slips through a shortcut with Teemo.

“Is there anything my Lord should know about this nascent dungeon?”

Teemo shrugs from atop the Stag’s head.  “Probably, but we don’t know too much about it.  The little guy seems pretty healthy so far, but the circumstances of its birth are a bit concerning.”

“What do you mean?”

“The Maw had somehow broken a spawner so that it made or maybe worked with stagnant mana.  Yvonne said it made a stagnation snarl, something usually only found deep in stagnant mana areas, but she knew how to take apart since that’s basically what Rangers do.  Anyhow, she unraveled it, and the combination of that stagnant mana, the turbulence from her, Tarl and Berdol, and possibly even a bit of lamellar from me reacted and condensed a little chip of a dungeon core made of jet.  We fought off the initial invaders while the little thing took refuge in a hole in the floor, and now I think it’s just trying to get its bearings.”

The Stag hums at that as he thinks, his ear flicking occasionally as the Southwood voices his opinion.  “That there was stagnant mana is concerning, but if the nascent dungeon is shaping the flows properly, my Lord doesn’t see any reason to be concerned.  What spawners does it have?”

“Worms and constructs, and it’s shadow affinity.”

The Stag nods as they near the exit, and soon he gets to lay eyes on the young dungeon himself.  Tarl, Yvonne, and Berdol are carefully picking off a few denizens, and I watch as several of the defenders sally forth from the numbers milling around the holes, clearly engaging them deliberately.  The delvers don’t even use any skills to deal with the attack, before moving back from the holes to let the dungeon consider what it should do.

Tarl waves at the two scions as the groups meet.  “So, what do you think, Stag?”

The Stag looks around with a measuring eye, before nodding.  “The flows are poor, but already improving.  Teemo told me of what you all found, and my Lord believes the new dungeon is performing normally, without any untoward strangeness.”

The inspector nods at that.  “That’s what I think, too.  I’m glad to have a second opinion.  Are you going to make it a protege?”

The Stag looks a bit uncertain, but still nods.  “My Lord wishes to offer it the opportunity, yes.”

“Don’t let us stop you, then,” replies Yvonne, stepping to the side to give the Stag an easier path.  He nods at the group as he passes by, and Teemo hops off his head so he can greet the new little dungeon as he sees fit.

When he enters the territory, the denizens all go still, even as the Stag lays down just barely inside its area of control.  “Hello, little one.  I represent the Southwood, a powerful dungeon far from here… or not so far from here, thanks to the shortcuts.”

A slightly larger worm exits a hole and crawls out where it can easily be seen, though it doesn’t make the long trek to where the Stag is.  The Southwood’s scion tilts his head as he listens.  “Where are the protectors?  They are safe.  They are… my friends.  They asked me to help protect you, too.”

The worm wiggles more and the Stag shakes his head.  “They cannot always be here, and they don’t have the ability to properly guide you.  But my Lord can, if you will allow him.  He would like to take you as his protege, to guide and nurture you until you can protect not only yourself, but possibly even others, as well.”

The worm slowly undulates before I feel the dungeon accept the offer.  While I don’t get any notice or anything like that, I can feel the cautious little presence be added to my allies, just like how Violet counts at one because of being my protege.

The Stag smiles and stands, giving the worm a formal bow.  “Thank you.  For now, simply grow, young one, and be vigilant for any nodes you can spawn.  You will probably get stone, gems, or metals.  They will draw new invaders, so be prepared to repel them, but the delvers will also be drawn to them, and so generate mana for you.”

The worm wiggles back to the hole as the Stag steps back, a peaceful smile on his face.  I wonder if the Southwood was also a bit lonely, way out here?  If he was, I don’t think he is any more.