Dungeon Life

Harlenss is true to his word, and shows up bright and early at the ratkin enclave. A pretty big portion of the enclave shows up, too, all eager to learn a bit of clotherie from an expert in the field. He looks a little intimidated by the numbers for a moment, but that’s the only hint of weakness he shows the entire time he’s there.

He teaches at the… it’s still weird to call it that, but the open pulpit that Larx usually gives his sermons from. I can see his eyes linger for a few moments on the various murals around by now, but he’s a pro and gives a proper lecture. He even brings groups closer when he demonstrates a particular stitch or cut, repeating for each group so they can have an example to go on.

By the end, he even has the showmanship to present Larx with a warm coat, produced as part of the lecture. He accepts it with grace, of course, and it’s pretty obvious that my ratkin, at least, are satisfied with the lessons. He takes a break just before lunch to, I can only assume, get some lunch, before heading down to the spiderkin enclave to give them their share of lessons.

The turnout there is much larger. Practically everyone who’s not a lobster wrangler shows up, including all three of the triumvirate. Norloke is especially interested in the lessons, and asks a few technical questions that would go right over my head if I still had it. Harlenss, however, gives her succinct answers that satisfy her and earn nods from the other spiderkin.

The practical example from this one is more of a group effort than with the ratkin. Vernew gets voluntold by Norloke to get measured, which she does with only minimal grumbling. She’s definitely not grumbling by the end of the day, though. Harlenss makes one of the legs for a snow suit, and the spiderkin make the others as he continues on to the other pieces.

There’s a ton of buttons and other old-school fasteners involved, too. Getting in and out of the suit is going to be a bit of a thing. I think it might be time to introduce zippers to the world. With Jello being a Smith now, it’s even feasible!

I rub the rough idea on the bond with her, which seems to get her attention, and I work on trying to draw out the design for one. It’s probably not a surprise there’s no zippers here. Maybe someone like the king has them? Without automation, producing them could be a pain, and it’s a weird idea in the first place anyway.

It’s also a lot more complex and precise than most give it credit for. The teeth need to be designed to interlink, but also to disengage easily when the zipper passes. I never had a reason to investigate them before meeting that truck, so the geometry involved is going to have to be made up.

I give it my best shot, but I think the actual design will be on Jello to iterate on. Still, I have a ratling deliver her the basic design, and she gets to work on flexing that new metal affinity of hers. Oh man, I have no idea how to actually secure the teeth to the fabric either. I think it’s some kind of sandwich of tough cloth, but after how little of Harlenss’ lesson I understood, it’s probably for the best if I step back and leave that mystery to probably my dwellers.

And that’s going to have to wait until Teemo gets back. He’ll be on his way soon, now that the adventurers are off to adventure. I’ve done everything I can to help keep them safe. They know more about scouting than I do, so I just have to trust them. From Leo’s reports, nobody has really found anything, aside from a big obvious trail leading deeper. An army of spikey-footed things makes a pretty obvious path, so that’s nice.

Nobody is charging down the trail, though. Just about everyone is checking side passages and tunnels, getting the lay of the land and making sure any forces I send down won’t just get flanked, pincered, and obliterated. The other dungeon is going to have the home field advantage this time, rather than just a hole in the ground. We’re going to need to know as much as possible if we want this to go smoothly.

Speaking of knowing, that seems to be what Aranya is working on. She’s been spending a lot of time in town, and telling me about her day when she comes back to rest. The adventurer’s guild library has a lot of information of battles and dungeons, but it’s not especially organized. The Office of Dungeon Affairs has better information, but she has to jump through a lot of red tape to get access to it.

I’m starting to wonder if she just likes having something to complain about. Not that I mind, she’s fun to listen to.

“So then we both started going over the guild bylaws to see what she can share! I even brought up the info the Southwood is always after, and that was a whole other warren to scout!”

I chuckle as she dramatically leans back in her seat at the little study table, as if I can’t see she has some kind of book to look through from the guild. I chuckle to myself at her theatrics, and she can definitely feel something as my High Priestess, as she looks over to my core and smiles before straightening herself and continuing.

“Apparently, info on specific dungeons isn’t difficult to get ahold of. Dungeons in good standing can even request a full packet like a delver, if they really want it! Southwood is more of a gossip than an actual strategist, though, so it never asked for that.”

She taps the thick tome on the table and smiles. “This is technically that, for a whole lot of dungeons the guild has come across. We abused a few loopholes to get this, too. So, I had to ask for specific dungeons to get detailed info, but I could also ask more vague questions to get there. If I, for example, wanted to know about murderous dungeons, there’s a whole list of them. If I want to know about murderous dungeons that have effectively captured towns, there’s a list for that, too. There are also belligerent dungeons with captured towns, and it’s apparently happened enough that ‘captured town’ is the official term for when a dungeon runs a town in all but the most technical way.”

She smirks and winks at my core. “You’re very close to that now, by the way. Anyhow, this is actually a book with dungeons that have or used to have captured towns, and how the guild deals with them. Telar helpfully suggested I ask about the specific dungeons in the book, and then we could pounce on that loophole. Considering the imminent threat to multiple dungeons in good standing with the guild by an unknown and hostile dungeon, she could let me just borrow the entire book, instead of having to make up a packet with the information.”

She smiles and glances in the direction of the library. “I’m going to let the bees copy it before I return it. They should be able to transcribe it quickly. They’d better, or Honey will have a fit when she gets back.” My red kobold giggles at the idea of my big ol’ nerd bee trying to come to terms with the idea of not getting to keep a copy, and I chuckle as well.

“So, let’s see what we have, hmm?” We spend the rest of the day looking through the book, and I resist the urge to read ahead. Honestly, most of the ‘captured’ towns aren’t in any real trouble. A lot of them are historical accounts of old dungeons that aren’t around anymore, most of them with their enclaves emancipated from the dungeon itself. We actually check the glossary for more details on that.

I don’t know if I’ll ever emancipate my own enclaves. While I’d be happy to let them go and grow on their own, it will plainly be a long time before they’ll want that, if they ever do. It’s a complicated feeling, that, but mostly a happy one. It’s a lot happier than some of the dungeons in the book.

There’s only a couple captured towns currently functioning today, including a trio of towns who have to periodically abandon and rebuild when their local dungeon gets too much mana and sends out a huge expedition. I’m surprised they don’t quarantine it and let it starve, but apparently the mana freed from adventurers killing the expedition kinda settles into the soil and the towns make serious bank farming.

There’s another belligerent one that managed to get its Voice elected mayor of the nearest town. I have no idea why, and the book doesn’t have much in the way of answers. It just says the dungeon has not expanded into the town, and that the crown still gets taxes from the place, so who knows.

There’s a few historical accounts of dungeons using their captured town to go to war with other dungeons, but those records seem really old and don’t offer much in the way of details. Still, it paints a pretty clear, if not very pretty, picture.

Warring with a dungeon with a captured town is messy. Rival dungeons don’t understand or don’t care about the difference between denizens and townsfolk. Offense or defense, dungeons will use them as they see fit. That’s going to make the eventual battle on the more unpleasant end of my expectations, then. How do you sort out an ordinary civilian from a dungeon zealot? Even worse, with the fog of war, how much does that difference really change what happens to them?

Something like that, the only winning move is not to play, but even that’s not an option in this case. My best move may be to set up the chess board, watch my foe’s moves, and be fully prepared to kick the table over and punch them in the mouth. It’ll still be a mess, but hopefully fewer pieces will be lost that way.