Chapter Two-Hundred Sixty-Nine

Once Teemo gets to Queen and Honey, they promptly kick him out of the hospital and tell him to go bother Leo.  The two of us probably should have expected them to want to dig around in the invaders and extract as much information as possible, so we have a good chuckle as Teemo heads to where Leo is.

He’s using what was the scouting base, before we launched the attack, as his command center for now.  His current focus is  on scouting the local area for other potential hostiles.  While it seems like the Maw kept things pretty clean around here, at least as far as potential hostiles go, nobody wants to be caught by surprise by something sneaky.  I’ll eventually have to pull back everyone, so we need to be sure Silvervein can handle whatever threats might wander in.

Honestly, it’s basically busywork for Leo, but it does keep him occupied.  Even better, with his scouts still coming and going, he has a good idea of where Tarl and Berdol are.  They’re investigating what they think is the remains of the spawner for the Harbinger and its ilk, though the scouts don’t have much extra information.  But with a location, it’s not difficult for Teemo to head over and have a chat directly with them.

He takes a bit of a scenic route there, the two of us poking around a bit to try to get our own sense for how the Maw built his territory.  Big, mean, and ugly as the dungeon was, it was undeniably successful.  I’m hardly going to go eating people, but I might be able to glean a few interesting ideas.  Even just seeing what an ‘average’ successful dungeon builds like could be good to know.

While I have to guess a lot, considering all the denizens, traps, nodes, and such are gone, the indistinct picture the information is painting isn’t looking all that interesting.  Where I tend towards open yet distinct areas, it feels like the Maw mostly just had a single theme to its territory.  There are a few distinct sections, like the kobold enclave and quite a few kitchen areas, but it was mostly a complex series of rough-hewn stone rooms.

In fact, after getting a better look through Teemo’s eyes, I’m pretty sure the temple complex was based off the design, just a bit more organized and more skillfully worked.  I’m pretty sure we even find where a spawner was, but I don’t know if it was a fey or elemental spawner.  It looks like a pile of slag or maybe forge scale, but I don’t know what differences there would be between a fey or elemental spawner, or if those differences would even be apparent in this destroyed state.

When we eventually find Tarl and Berdol, it’s not difficult to understand why they think this is the abomination spawner.  The whole area feels unsettling, and the group of holes in the wall only add to it.  They’re hauntingly uniform and disturbingly dark, enough to make me wish I could remember what the term is for the fear of holes.

The two dungeoneers are examining the holes, and jump a bit when Teemo speaks up.  “So, you think those creepy holes are the remains of the Harbinger’s spawner?”

Tarl glances back at the holes before nodding.  “I wouldn’t stake my reputation on specifically that, but there was definitely something here.  An unknown spawner is the simplest explanation right now.”

“Can you tell anything about it?  I found what the Boss and I are pretty sure was a different spawner on the way, but aside from it being something metal, we don’t know if it’s fey or elemental.”

“The elemental ones will look like a collapsed forge, while the fey will be a heap of scrap.  With this, though… there’s not a lot of information to be had.  The most powerful spawn available will usually have the greatest impact on the spawner.  That’s why the elemental spawners look like dilapidated forges; forgemasters were the strongest spawn,” explains the elf.

Berdol nods and waves his floating clipboard.  “We examined those first, and they looked almost exactly like the diagrams from the book.  These holes could be from a cluster of nodes, but…”

He trails off and Tarl picks back up.  “If the Maw had nodes that would leave behind neat holes like this, we should have seen some.  These are the only ones we’ve found this whole time.  We haven’t been here long enough for me to say definitively, but I seriously doubt they were part of nodes.”

Teemo nods and peeks down a hole while I try not to imagine some horror reaching out and snatching him up.  “So what can you say about these things?”

“It wasn’t metal affinity, for starters,” declares Tarl with a tone of certainty.  “That’s strange, but not impossible.  Scions will inherit a dungeon’s affinity, but spawners don’t always.  The lingering unease points towards mental affinity for it, which would be in line with the Harbinger.”

“And the creepy holes,” adds Berdol.  “We saw a couple of the invaders, and they look wrong somehow.  Even without them having the same holes as the spawner, I’d bet they’re related.”

Teemo leans back and looks around.  “The mana here also feels weird.  It feels thin in most of the territory, but here it’s…”

He trails off as I take a look at the mana flow.  It takes me a few seconds to realize why it looks so weird.

Teemo squints as he confirms what I’m seeing, even though it doesn’t make much sense.  “The mana’s wrong because it’s not moving.”

Berdol looks confused, but Tarl looks concerned.  “Are you certain?”

Teemo looks around a few more seconds before nodding.  “Yeah.  It’s slowly flowing in the territory I came through, but it’s completely still around these holes.”

“But… that’s not how dungeons work, right?” asks Berdol.

Tarl nods with a deep frown.  “It’s not how they’re supposed to work, no.”

Supposed to?

“How are they supposed to work, anyway?  I know the Boss does a good job as a dungeon, but that’s mostly because he just focuses on keeping delvers busy.”

Tarl chuckles and motions at Berdol, letting his apprentice solidify his knowledge by teaching.  The catkin just looks confused at the question for a moment, before shaking his head.

“No wonder you guys are always calling him weird.  I thought he was kinda weird before, but I get it now.  Uh, anyway… while there are a lot of mana affinities, there are basically three mana states: turbulent, lamellar, and stagnant.  Turbulent mana is… basically mana after someone uses it.  It’s excited and energetic, chaotic, and can make it difficult to keep using.  Stagnant mana is still, and though it’s pretty easy for people to use, it also makes wild monsters and invaders.”  He pauses and looks at Tarl.

“I haven’t been shown how that works just yet, though.”

Tarl shrugs.  “There’s a lot of theories on the specifics, but stagnant mana seems to almost crystalize into invaders and other nasty things, like salt crystalizes from brine.”

Berdol flips his papers to note that down, before picking up where he left off from.  “Lamellar flows smoothly, and it's what dungeons do.  They calm down the turbulent mana, and energize the stagnant to get it moving.”

Teemo frowns at that and looks back to the holes.  “So, if dungeons are all about lamellar flow… what’s stagnant mana doing here?”

“That’s what has me worried.”

No wonder Order wanted the Harbinger.

“What do you mean, Boss?”

The Harbinger, the least, and lessers all seemed to have glitches in them, or at least in the status we could identify.  What if the errors aren’t just in the display?  If they’re somehow inverting how a dungeon is supposed to work, it’d explain why Order was so keen to get the Harbinger, and to get whatever other information we can give Kennith.

Teemo’s eyes widen at that, before he focuses back on the two Dungeoneers, who look interested in him explaining.  “Boss thinks the Harbinger and its spawner were somehow making stagnant mana.”

Berdol looks confused again, and Tarl looks like he doesn’t like what he’s hearing, but can’t offer much rebuttal.  “I hope he’s wrong, but that’s what things are pointing towards.  I already miss the days when Thedeim was the weirdest dungeon I’ve dealt with.”

Teemo chuckles at that.  “Can you two get as much information as you can, and give a copy to Kennith?”

“Who’s Kennith?” asks Berdol, flipping through his notes as if they might hold the answer.

“He’s the priest of Order who came to get the Harbinger.  The Boss got a quest to hand it over in exchange for a bunch of mana and Fast Tracking, whatever that is.”

Oh yeah!  With all the mana, I forgot that was a thing!  I start poking through my options as Tarl replies.

“Fast Tracking?”

Teemo nods.  “Yeah.  It said it would accelerate things gained for dungeon age, but didn’t say what they are.”

Tarl and Berdol both look confused for a few moments, before Tarl smacks his forehead.  “Right, it’s easy to forget Thedeim isn’t even a year old yet!  Considering what he’s managed, I thought he had the enhanced control already.”

“Enhanced control?” asks Teemo as I pay more attention.  I can tell there’s differences, but I’m not quite sure what they actually mean just yet.

Tarl nods.  “It seems to be limitations on what a dungeon can do at first, to help young dungeons keep away from making huge mistakes.  Rooms are severely limited, expansion options are predefined, and even spawners and their placement are already decided.”

That helps explain why my expansion option is asking me to define an area, instead of just giving me a selection to choose from.  I also notice a few more rooms, but they don’t immediately catch my attention considering my expanded spawner options.

“For normal dungeons, they seem to get access to another room roughly each year.  They also seem to get the ability to place additional spawners after five years, and after ten, their expansions become more focused.”

I play around with spawners and expansions, not actually purchasing anything, but seeing how they differ.  One obvious change is how much cheaper expansions seem now.

“Why are the expansions cheaper now?  The Boss is toying around with the options now, but it looks like even if he designates a section he could have expanded into before, there’s a pretty big discount.”

Tarl nods.  “That’s because they don’t come with spawners anymore.  The first couple expansions come with two, to help get a dungeon on its feet.  Very few dungeons expand enough to start getting single spawners until after they unlock the ability to create their own.  After a decade, expansions don’t include a spawner at all, allowing for more freedom to customize an expansion, but also more opportunity to make a mistake.  If Violet, for example, were to be able to expand without also getting spawners, she could suddenly have huge swaths of territory she can’t actually do anything with.  With so much area but no spawners, she could be vulnerable.

“But an experienced dungeon will already have a plan for an expansion, even if they don’t have the mana to fully realize it immediately.  They can expand and place a spawner or two, and use the new area to increase their income and pay for the rest of whatever the dungeon wants to do.”

Cool.  That should make the forest of four seasons a lot easier to plan for!  I won’t have to hope I get appropriate spawners for it, at least.   Can just buy what I want.  I can probably even get a good discount if I trade for some of the Southwood’s denizens and make them scions.  Oh, and I’ll need to trade for the climate control feature, too.

I hear Teemo chuckle as I prepare to dig into more planning for it.  “Welp, we’ve lost the Boss to his new toys.  He’s not buying anything yet, I think he wants to talk to the other dungeons first.  Hey Boss!  Anything you need done, before you go planning?”

Hmm?  Oh, uh… just to make sure Kennith gets the information he needs from everyone.  If the Harbinger really is an agent of someone messing with the system, I want to give Order all the help we can.

Teemo nods.  “Got it, Boss.  Try not to have too much fun, yeah?”

I hum at him in reply as I start looking at my options and let the possibilities carry me away.