I was a bit surprised to get a notice to be a Mentor, but I accepted it without difficulty. What I had Teemo propose really was a mentorship, more or less, and Violet accepted. So now I have a Protege, which is interesting. I can take a look in on Violet’s territory, and it seems like any denizens and even dwellers are seen as friendly, so they can wander in and do stuff and generate mana. A couple ratkin have already gone and picked a mushroom or two. Probably looking to expand their options with their mushroom beds? Oh, and while I can leave little suggestions around, or offer quests (like the two that I’ve already given), I can’t make any decisions.

If I had to guess, I’d say that comes with the next option I have. I haven’t floated the idea to even Teemo just yet, but he probably knows it’s an option… and Aranya probably knows it’s a thing, too. I could take Violet as a Vassal. Yeah, not really interested in that right now. I have enough on my plate running just my stuff, without having to try to run a second dungeon. I could probably delegate a lot of stuff, but I dunno. Maybe if Violet asks, I might.

But speaking of my own stuff, I think I managed to miss the trio figuring out the water jar puzzle. I guess they finally stopped trying to cheese it and actually used their brains. Or they just started pouring one jar into the other and realized they’d get there if they keep doing that eventually.

Either way, they’re on to the final challenge, and they’re doing about as well as I expected: steady but slow progress. I get a lot of satisfaction listening to them chattering away as they try to figure out the big complex puzzle in their own corridors, and I get a lot of mana from it, too.

“This lever do anything for you two? I can’t see anything changing here,” says Hark. His current section has a bunch of different levers, as well as a slot for something.

Mlynda hums as she moves a peg in the wall along a track. She can see it’ll eventually be able to come out, once she gets to the end of the track, but there’s a lot of hidden blockers between where she has it, and where she wants it to be. “I can’t tell anything different over here.”

“I might have something,” speaks up Vnarl, his own puzzle involving pressurized pipes and needing to get the pressure just right to get it to spray into a specific hole. “These two valves are acting different, I think.”

I might actually miss them when they’re gone.

Leo wont, but I don’t blame him. I get a flash of loathing from him whenever he sees the halfling in the group, but he’s a good Warden and hasn’t been sabotaging their efforts, which I’m glad for. He’s also been busy with Jello trying to convert a mole

They’ve managed to calm a couple down enough so they stop braining themselves trying to escape, but something in what Jello does seems to pull all the fight out of them or something. As far as I can tell, they all just want to be let go once they’re out of Jello. Leo’s getting a bit frustrated, but I do my best to encourage him. There’s plenty of moles to try.

I also have him try with a couple gremlins, just to see if maybe moles are just weird. The gremlins dash themselves against the walls if they don’t get purified by Jello first, and also just want to be let go after. Maybe I need to try a different approach? Getting them calmed down feels like the proper first step, so now I need to figure out something to make them want to work for me. I need some incentive, but I have no idea what to offer moles or gremlins. I could try to bribe the gremlins with ore or gems or something, but that doesn’t feel quite right. I don’t think I need to pay any of my other denizens? Maybe a little mana, I dunno.

I think I might have something to tempt the moles with, though. If they like digging, I can offer them the metal transmutation on their claws, which should let them even dig through the stone. I bounce the idea off the empathic bond with Leo, and he seems to approve, which is great.

Especially since Queen should be able to make bigger batches of stuff now. The lab is nicely expanded, so all she needs is something to be able to store the stuff. The ratlings have managed to make glass in the forge, too. It’s ugly and lumpy, but still seems to be glass. At the very least, dipping it in some of the metal transmutation doesn’t change it, so it’s good enough for me. I spend a bit of mana to get a couple aranea to come help, and they get the test barrel up on some webbing, and should be able to rotate it easily as the ratlings pour the molten glass inside.

They have to work in batches, but they have everything set up so that the previous section shouldn’t be fully set before the next section gets poured. If they do it right, the entire inside should get a single coating of glass. I hope.

They start to work, and the forge fills with smoke. It’s a delicate balance to keep the wood from just burning out of control without cooling it so quickly that the glass just shatters. I tell them to keep pouring water on the outside and just let the inside char. I don’t want water inside, because that will definitely shatter the glass. I probably should have asked Rocky to come and try to help, come to think of it, but it’s a bit too late now.

It’s smokey, dirty, hot, dangerous work, but it seems to be successful! I let my denizens take a break and ask Queen to inspect the barrel to make sure it’s still sealed. Once she gives it the go-ahead, she can get down to some serious alchemy.

Coda has finished with the surveying, so now it’s time to actually do some stuff with the caverns! First thing: Slash, please go help Coda and the ratlings with the access tunnel. That’s probably going to take a bit, which is fine. There’s still the normal tunnel to the caverns, I just want to give a more direct route to the largest cavern in there.

This cavern over on the side, though, should be a great spot for my new Enclave! I’m a little nervous about making more intelligent people, but it worked well with the ratlings, so I think pitfalls can be avoided and hurdles overcome without too much issue. I designate the enclave.

Interestingly, only about half of the aranea get the progress bars. When I did it for the ratlings, all of them got it. Though, come to think of it, I have a lot more aranea than I did ratlings at the time. The ones with bars are now labeled spiderkin. I guess they’re not suddenly going to become half elf/half spider then.

Much like with the ratlings, the ones with bars start gathering things. It looks like spiderkin are going to be a bit more martial than the ratkin, because they grab a lot of simple spears and a few picks, though they also grab a few things from my couple underground herbalism nodes. Do mushrooms count as herbs?

As they prepare to go to the enclave, I also notice the ones that go are the ones that seemed to have the least to do. The ones with signs and the ones that have been organizing the warehouses and such all seem to be staying. The exception seems to be the one that weaved the sample baskets for the wolves. I’m actually surprised none of them managed to convince a wolf to go with them now, actually.

Either way, with an Enclave getting settled in there, I poke Teemo to let Aranya know. She did a great job with the ratkin, so her help would be greatly appreciated with the spiderkin, too.

I think the last thing I’ll spend my mana on for the moment is to specialize my slimes. The oozes with their claim for resource specialization have a grip on my curiosity and won’t let go. The spawner immediately spits out a copper ooze. It’s mostly clear, but it has some green flecks throughout, which are probably oxidized copper? I think the name is a good hint for what it’ll do, too. Sure enough, the thing oozes its way to the nearest copper vein and does… something. I’m not sure if it’s purifying it or adding more copper or what, but the node ticks upwards a tier.

Instead of moving on, the ooze just kinda absorbs into the node, leaving it looking a little wet, but otherwise fine. Maybe it’ll help deal with gremlins and stuff, too. Between oozes and the stalactsprites, maybe I can get the gremlins to join me just so they don’t have to face those terrors to be near my resources. I doubt that’ll be all it takes, but a dungeon can hope.