I’ll admit: elf guy shook me up with his cryptic parting words. Well, at least it seems to confirm that my core and my Sanctum are important. Definitely keeping it Secret for now. Some of his other words also make me curious. He mentioned other rooms. Other rooms like what? If they’re anything like the Sanctum, I’ll probably want to keep them secret, too. And, if they’re anything like the Sanctum, the ‘room’ can be tiny.

I set my queen to digging out a few extra chambers for me, and to keep expanding the Sanctum. The Core is about a golfball now, so I can’t get complacent with the chamber it’s in. I wouldn’t want it to get stuck. It actually doesn’t take long for the first chamber to be finished, and when I focus on it, I see a couple interesting options: Library and Lab.

How’s that supposed to work? Well, no time like the present. I designate the first chamber as a Library, and it pops up as a Secret Library. Cool. A small scrap of paper also appears in my library. I focus in on it as I wonder what it does.

What’s this?

Oh. It’s like a little notepad. Uh… erase? Ah, good, that worked. I don’t exactly have enough paper to just go putting useless questions like that on it. The second chamber is about finished now, too, so I designate it as a Lab, and sure enough, it’s now my Secret Lab. No papers appear in it, though. How do I make it work, then? I poke around with it a bit, though I don’t get anything to pop up. Until an ant wanders through with a bit of mushroom in her mandibles. Combine, eh? Well, that has all sorts of interesting implications. I tell the queen to send a few workers to get some of the herbs from the patch and a bit of the spell spores, because I think it’s experimenting time!

No, wait… it’s visitor time. Oh hey, it’s the kids. They’re looking better now, too. Rhonda has a simple little robe on and a wand that doesn’t still have bark on it. Freddie has some clothes that look similar to denim on, and a little wooden shield to go with his club. It still has bark on it, but it’s a bit thicker and has a decent knot on the business end. Seems like a good upgrade in gear to me.

This time, interestingly enough, it’s Freddie who seems uncertain about being here. “Really, Rhonda? That’s what you want as a familiar?”

“Well… no, actually.” Freddie seems to relax at her reply, at least until she continues. “That was a Scion, so I can’t make that my familiar. But there might be a different big spider like that to tame.” Freddie visibly shudders at the idea of taming a spider, and I’m curious. A familiar? Interesting. I have been getting a decent number of odd larger spiders recently.

“So… how do we go about taming one, then? Beat it up and nurse it back to health?” Rhonda looks aghast at the idea. “What? No! I have to befriend it!”

“How do you befriend a spider?” Freddie asks incredulously, and Rhonda looks a bit bashful. “I’m, uh… not sure. Old Staiven has a bunch of books on familiars, but he says he believes in learning on the job.” Freddie doesn’t look very impressed about her mentor, and Rhonda can’t help but speak up to defend him. “He didn’t send me out with nothing, though! He said I should find out what my familiar wants, and provide it.”

“Then what’s a spider want, besides to crawl on people’s faces while they’re trying to sleep?” asks Freddie, shuddering once again. Rhonda just giggles. “Well… food and safety, I guess? But these aren’t just normal spiders here. They also want to guard their dungeon.”

“But if they’re your familiar, won’t they not be able to stay here to guard the dungeon?”

“Um… kinda. But I had an idea for that!”

“The bucket?”

“The bucket!” she exclaims with joy, brandishing a wooden bucket with a small plank over the top.

“So how’s that help the spider defend the dungeon?”

“We’ll just catch some invaders, then feed them to a spider!”

“Without feeding us to the spiders, too,” Freddie deadpans. Rhonda simply smiles and nods, and he rolls his eyes before continuing. “OK, so what’s an invader? Uh… us?”

She shakes her head. “No, we’re delvers. We’re kinda supposed to be here. Invaders want the core. Old Staiven said with a new dungeon, mice are probably the biggest invaders.”

“We saw rats, though. Those’re bigger.”

“Those are denizens, they’re also supposed to be there. Let’s try to catch a mouse out here, then try to find a big spider to feed!” Huh, that’s interesting. I set my crows to leave the kids alone and observe, giving them a chance to catch something.

“Hey, what about this big bug, instead?” asks Freddie, holding up a large hissing roach in his hand. Rhonda recoils a bit before steeling herself. “That’d… probably work?” With that, she removes the plank, and Freddie plops it in the bucket.

I mentally shrug and leave them to their hunting, because I can also sense my two reagents are in the lab now. I even have a use for the scrap of paper in the library! Let me see… Ochredill and Spell Spore

Ochredill + Spell Spore = ?

Perfect. Hey, ants. Come chew these two things up and mush them together. I’m amazing at science. A couple worker ants come to do my bidding, and they’re soon chewing and mushing. It’s taking a while though, so I go see what the kids are up to.

I never expected a bucket of roaches and mice to be so easily identifiable by the sound, but it is. The kids look pretty proud of themselves, too. “So, we have spider treats. What’s the next step?” asks Freddie, seeming a bit more at ease. Kid seems the type to prefer doing than just talking, but at least he’s smart enough to know to follow a plan.

“Well… now we go inside and look for big spiders, and see if any of them are tameable.” Freddie still doesn’t like the quest, but he’s not backing down, good lad. “Well, let’s go then.” He leads the way back to my porch and heads inside, casting a weary look at my various denizens. I have them stand down, despite the big bucket of invaders they have, and the two start looking around.

“What kind of spider are we looking for, anyway?”

“I think I want some kind of hunting spider. Weavers are cool, but I don’t want to have to deal with webs everywhere.”

“So how do we find one of those?”

“Well… they’ll be hunting, I guess?” A hunter, eh? Well, the best laid plans of mice and men, as they say. Sure, I have a couple large wolfspiders wandering around, about the size of a hand. Those’re probably exactly what she wants. But that bucket also gives me an idea to make their quest a bit harder.

Don’t look at me like that. I’m still a dungeon, not a supermarket. Or a pet store. I send one of my wolfspiders to scurry through the room to get their attention. Then I send a couple more. They’re kids, not the elf guy. I can’t expect them to spot everything. Freddie actually is the one to spot the 5th spider I send through. “Like that one?”

“Yes! Don't lose it!” Rhonda says with excitement and dashes after the spider. They both try to be quiet, but have you ever heard a kid be fast? They can be fast or quiet, not both. Still, I get them to the kitchen, where my little trap is set for them. I do have a couple wolfspiders milling about, mostly because they hadn’t wandered out after I had sent them yet.

The real fun is up on the ceiling. Adorable little newbies haven’t learned the importance of looking up yet. Rhonda hands Freddie the bucket, who puts his club away to take. Kid has a good mentor. If you have to choose between a weapon or your shield, take the shield. Rhonda removes the plank and levitates out a roach, and tries to coax one of the wolfspiders to come eat it. Freddie is keeping a look out, but I don’t think the kid has a great spot check, you know?

On the ceiling, my little traps prepare themselves. Ogre-faced Spiders are cool. They have the usual eight eyes, but two of them are huge. Probably because they don’t make normal webs and don’t do the normal hunting like wolfspiders. They make nets. And they need those eyes to aim those nets.

While Freddie is looking away from the bucket, and Rhonda is distracted, one of the spiders descends, opens her net… and plucks a mouse from the bucket without being noticed. She returns to the ceiling and quickly enjoys her meal, before preparing another net.

“Come on… tasty invader to eat!” tries Rhonda, having little luck feeding the spiders.

“Maybe they prefer the mice?” suggests Freddie, even as another mouse is plucked from the bucket without him noticing. Rhonda sighs and returns to the bucket, tossing the roach back in and levitating out a mouse. “I hope so,” she says, sounding worried that her plan won’t work.

I know the wolfspiders do prefer the mice, but the ogres don’t really care either way. The two young delvers return their focus to the wolfspiders, while another net plucks out a few roaches. The wolfspiders immediately notice the mouse, and the nearest one prepares to pounce. “There you g-Eep!”

I guess she wasn’t prepared for them to move quite that quickly. Probably fortunate for her that she was levitating the thing. The mouse is dispatched with a crunch and quickly eaten, and I can actually see a little bar over the spider's head starting to fill.

“It’s working! Quick give…” her excited face turns to one of confusion then concern as she turns back towards Freddie. Sitting on the bucket for stability, her dragline keeping her weight off it, one of the ogre-faced spiders is staring at Rhonda as she chews on a mouse.

“Freddie…” says Rhonda, not wanting to startle her friend. I, however, can see the little taming bar fill, and silently laugh as it looks like Freddie gets a notice.

“Taming complete? Wha-AAAHHH!” His outburst scatters the wolfspiders as he backs away from the bucket and his new tame. She simply holds the bucket now, and reaches a leg in to pluck out a roach to eat as she watches her new master and his party member.