Well, we’re not at Defcon: Oh Crap, at least not yet. Definitely at Defcon: Caution, at least. None of the other tunnels seem to connect to him, but I’m still sending expeditions with my bats to make sure. The hands I found in other tunnels may have been able to sneak past Jello somehow. If I could find a way to sneak in closer to him without him knowing, that’d be great.

I tell Tiny to web the entrance to the maze, and send all my small spider swarms to guard it. I figure the various venoms of the swarm spiders wouldn’t do much to the undead that will surely soon come visit. I’m just glad the big guy fits in the tunnels still. I’m running out of large animals to compare him to.

Healing ants are all tiny-legs on deck down there, though. I want to see if the healing will disrupt them like it does in just about any fiction with undead. The lightning and steel ants are also in the main tunnel entrance, but they’re mostly on standby

Jello is still my primary line of defense down there. As far as I can tell, Neverrest hasn’t found any other paths in yet, either, and he doesn’t have anything that can quite deal with Jello just sitting at the entrance. I figure he’ll eventually move his lich down to do something nasty.

My various birbs are keeping an eye on the surface of the cemetery around the clock. There’s more undead headed underground, but none that are anything especially new. Maybe he figures a bunch of zombies and skeletons will be enough? If I had expanded downward as soon as I could have, he would have been right, too.

But now I have ratlings. Still not very many, but they’re starting to get kinda organized. They like to mine and use the forge/smeltery at night, and though they’re still not very good at it, they at least have some armor and crude swords. They’re probably going to be important for me later, but for now, I still have them mostly just working on filling my little warehouse and armory.

Aranya is often in there, looking to see if anything is particularly good. She even spars with the ratlings sometimes, which helps her and them get better. I don’t know how good they’ll be able to get by the time Neverrest actually attacks, though.

I also have changed the sign on the front door. Now, instead of talking up the maze, it politely informs anyone who reads it that Neverrest has expanded its borders to be adjacent to mine underground, and that any Delvers who would like to help should seek out Aranya, the kobold.

I’m pretty sure the kids are trying to rally the townsfolk, or at least the adventurer’s guild. My birb lookouts say the guards at the gates of the cemetery have increased, which is probably why he’s sending everything underground instead of trying to storm across the surface. He probably doesn’t like his odds of having to fight through the town before even getting to me.

I’ve even sent a few probing slime attacks down the tunnel. They’ve earned me a nice bit of mana, too, but I don’t know how much he gets from killing my puddles. I get a lot more undead than he kills slimes, but from the mana cost and gain, I think it’s about a wash.

Oh, I’ve also officially created a public war room. I might want to work with the townsfolk, but I’m not quite ready to allow them into my secret base just yet. Besides, it’s not like Tiny can fit in there.

It’s the cave next to the little spring, and the ratlings have even slowly been making furniture for it. There’s a rough table, now, and the ratlings are working on chairs, too. I’m kinda reminded of that scene from The Patriot where Mel Gibson fails to make a chair and tosses the latest broken one onto a huge pile of failures. Except my ratlings aren’t smart enough to get mad, I think. They just take the broken chairs to the forge to burn as fuel.

Traffic has slowed considerably since I changed the sign. Some herbalists still come in to get the easy stuff, and a few miners as well, but practically nobody wants to fight anything right now. They probably don’t want to weaken me. I mean, some fighting would still be nice, but I can hardly blame them.

Hey, speak of the Devil, it’s Aelara, Ragnar, and Yvonne! You guys wanna beat some stuff up and train? Hmm, from the way they’re looking at the sign, I think they have something else in mind. I wonder if they got a quest from the office of dungeon affairs? It seems like the kind of thing they’d make a quest for.

Yvone is the first to speak up after looking at the sign. “It really is asking for assistance.”

“Aye,” nods Ragnar, stroking his beard in thought. “And it has a resident for us to talk with, too.”

“Then let us go find this Aranya and see what the dungeon has to say,” finishes Aelara, and the group starts to slowly wander, looking. Teemo, go see if you can guide them to the war room. I’ll have Fluffles get Aranya, and we can see about using the public war room for actual war planning. I miss when I thought I wouldn’t need it for that.

When Teemo squeaks at the trio, it seems even Yvone didn’t know he was there, and they all take a defensive posture. I think they can all tell he’s much more than a simple rat. When he squeaks again and starts walking towards the basement, they look confused. A third squeak and a look over his shoulder, and they seem to get the hint to follow.

“Creepy…” mutters Ragnar, and the other two nod their agreement, but all three follow Teemo. With Aranya, it’s much simpler. She’s down in the warehouse, trying to get the ratlings to organize things a bit. They vaguely listen to her, but I think they’re more interested in just getting resources in there, rather than making it easier to actually use what’s been gathered.

She turns to Fluffles when he hisses at her. “I’m trying to get them to organize! This place is a disaster!” He just hisses a few more times to get her to follow, and she reluctantly does. I wonder if she thinks she’s in trouble.

She seems confused when he leads her to the war room, and her confusion seems to mount when Teemo enters, followed by the trio of delvers. Aelara is the first to speak up.

“Ah… Aranya, I presume?” The kobold slowly nods.

“Yeeesss… who are you?” she asks, trying to puzzle out why I’ve sent some delvers to talk to her… or sent her to talk to some delvers.

“I am Aelara, and this is Ragnar, and Yvone,” she answers, motioning to the dwarf and birblady in turn. “And… well, the Dungeoneering Guild wanted us to investigate what’s going on, and it seems your Dungeon wants the same.”

“The sign said to talk to Aranya,” adds Ragnar, and my little kobold sighs.

“So that’s what it wanted…” she mutters to herself, before gathering her thoughts and pointing at the map on the table. “Well, the Fallen Sanctuary you call Neverrest has made contact with my Sanctuary, and it’s not friendly. Currently, much of the Sanctuary's resources are being spent to ensure the tunnels are secure.”

As she speaks, I zoom the map to the tunnels, and everyone can see my various forces in the main tunnel entrance, and the occasional zombie or skeleton scout trying to get past Jello. I then move the view of the map towards the war room, and Tiny approaching. The party is stunned at the size of the spider walking into the meeting, and confused as he simply moves to the side. He’s clearly part of the meeting now, even if he’s unlikely to be doing much talking.

I get Teemo to squeak and have Fluffles tap the map again to get their attention, as I do more shenanigans with it. I zoom out a bit, showing both my forces and the war room, then draw a few lines. My forces push into the tunnel, while the line representing the group heads up the stairs and out the front gate. I follow the line on its path towards Neverrest, having it go through the gate and beeline for the Sanctum in the crypt.

The party exchanges uncertain looks, and Yvone is the first to speak up. “I… I don’t think we’re qualified for this,” she says, and Aelara follows up.

“Yes, Neverrest is very strong and absolutely murderous. We’d be utterly outclassed in there,” says the elf with a bit of regret in her voice. Ragnar, though, doesn’t look as demoralized.

“We may nae be able to delve in there, but the guild has stronger parties. We c’n tell the Dungeoneers what we’ve learned, and try ta get the strongest in the guild t’ help.”

This time, Aranya speaks up. “The Sanctuary seems to want to help as well, and from what I’ve learned, only the Sanctuary can truly rid us of the Fallen One. Not only does it seem to want to send several of its scions to aid what delvers will go, but there are also alchemical ants that I’m sure it will send to aid, as well. I’ve seen them heal wounds.”

The three look surprised at that. “Healing… ants?” says Yvone, finding the concept beyond strange.

Aranya nods. “I know it sounds strange, but I’ve seen them in action.” The party of delvers still doesn’t look too convinced, but any help against Neverrest is good help. Aelara speaks up once again.

“Then we’ll go deliver the information to the guilds, and hopefully get stronger adventurers to come.” The four all look at the map again, and can see the numbers of undead slowly increasing as Neverrest continues to test my defenses.

“And quickly, I hope. I don’t think it will take its time in attacking.”