“Over twelve…” says Vnarl, peg in hand at what looks to be the final puzzle for the gauntlet. Each previous room gave part of the solution, and now they just need to decipher the clues and put the pegs in the correct hole. The only problem is that the final chambers are all covered in holes. Still, I think they’ve managed it.

“Up five,” says Mlynda, confident in her answer. I’m still surprised at how much they’ve all grown just from the gauntlet. Then again, growth is the whole point of the place, so that’s a great success.

“Back seven?” says Hark, and all three place their pegs. They’ve tried this several times before, and on a failure, they get washed back out to the start. They all flinch at the click once the pegs are inserted, but instead of a wall of water, the doors open.

The three cautiously head through, and Hark is the first to speak. “Did we do it? Are we free?”

“That depends. Did you learn your lesson?” All three jump at the sound of Teemo, but at least none of them try to attack.

“What do you mean?” demands Vnarl, before he remembers how well provoking my scions went last time. Mlynda elbows him and he looks abashed at his response, so at least they’re still trying.

Teemo just grins at their antics. “Yeah, I think you have. Next time, don’t go assuming things about a new dungeon. Not all of them are as nice as Thedeim.”

All three look wary at the revelation of my name. “Wait… it has a name?” asks Mlynda incredulously, and Teemo just laughs.

“Of course he has a name! You three could have learned it earlier, if you had just asked!”

The three exchange looks that say they all just dodged a bullet. It seems like dungeons with names are not ones to trifle with, and probably have harsher punishments for those who draw their ire.

After a few moments of appreciating life, Hark speaks up. “So we’re free to go?”

“Yep. Thedeim isn’t banning you from the place, either, though he does suggest you take the time to learn the rules before you try delving again. Oh, and probably go get some gear. He’s not giving it back.”

The three slump slightly at that, but don’t argue. Vnarl straightens up slightly before addressing Teemo again. “Then… we’ll take our leave. Please give Dungeon Thedeim our gratitude for his mercy.”

The other two murmur similar before the group heads off towards the exit from the tunnels, and the front gate beyond. I think that went pretty well. What do you think, Teemo?

“Yeah, I think you’ve actually managed to beat some sense into them,” says my Voice, nodding. “Need anything else?”

Not right now, no. You can get back to making shortcuts or doing whatever. It seems like he’s leaning more towards whatever and he hops into a shortcut that leads towards Violet. She’s done the two quests I gave her, and seems to be pondering which way to expand. For the moment, my only advice for her is to not expand in a direction that doesn’t have an obvious path. She’s deep enough that she probably wouldn’t make the kind of quake that I did, but going deeper just yet feels dangerous, and going up will only make further upward expansions more likely to produce a dangerous earthquake.

For now, she seems to be happy to just upgrade her mushrooms and centipedes, and her little animal node. Yeah, animal node. She has a little… cave bunny node or something? The things are adorable and fluffy and apparently pretty dang tasty. The ratkin like to hunt one or two on their way back from the deeper tunnels, which seems to suit Violet just fine.

She’s even specialized her mushrooms into some resource spec. It’s called Nutritious Hyphae, which seems to make the mushroom patches produce little fungus balls, and the cave bunnies love them. With a stable source of food, the bunny population would be spiraling out of control if the ratkin weren’t keeping their numbers manageable.

Spawner and node upgrades aside, she’s saving the bulk of her mana to see if Coda’s surveying will give her a discount on expansion. To be fair, I’m looking forward to seeing that that idea pans out, too. He’s currently out on Expedition right now, surveying what will probably be Violet’s next expansion. The caves kinda west-down have a lot of water in them, looking a lot like small lakes and large ponds, along with shores.

He’s been staying away from the water, happy to survey via sonar from well above the surface. He hasn’t seen anything leave the water yet, but he’s not taking chances, especially since some of those shapes and sizes hint at scythemaws. I might actually let Honey send a few expeditions to try to learn about the life in there, but I’ll probably need something to give the bees either water or wind affinity to get an actual look under the water.

If that is where scythemaws come from, why was one chasing Aranya? If that’s not where they come from, where do they actually come from? I’ve seen a couple signs that I think are from scythemaws, but nothing looks especially fresh. I dunno. I rub Honey’s bond with the idea to study them and she looks to be all for it. The smaller gathering expeditions have been going great, so I think she’s been looking for some bigger research to tackle. Learning more about what seems to be the apex predator in the deeps can only be a good thing.

I also rub Queen with the idea for something to grant either air or water affinity, and she also seems happy for a bit of direction. She’s been dutifully experimenting with the expanded setup, as well as producing more of the three alchemy things we have available: Bottled Lightning, Liquid Steel, and Healing Essence. We had basically stopped production of the latter, once the healing ants got up to a good population. I want to get a bit more, though, and see if I can make a healing slime. I feel like the ants are good for more minor stuff, but a healing slime would be like a portable sci-fi healing pod. I don’t even need Queen to run the numbers to know it’s going to take a ton of the stuff to make even a single healing slime, but I’m not worried. Slow and steady wins the race. Besides, she has her ants working on constantly expanding the lab now, thanks to the ratlings taking most of the digging duties elsewhere.

Speaking of elsewhere, the Spiderkin Enclave is shaping up nicely. The bars are about halfway full now, and it seems like everyone is mostly the shape they’re going to be. Aranya has been working with their apparent leader, Folarn, who used to be the aranea who made the sample baskets for the wolves. She’s the largest of the tarantula spiderkin, and has actually made a large axe for herself, rather than the simple spears the others prefer.

She’s pretty no-nonsense, and has shot down a couple of Aranya’s suggestions for how to do things. But the ones she does take into consideration get her full attention until they’re complete. Take fishing, for example. The watery caverns outside my borders are more swampy than the ones outside Violet, which actually makes net fishing a nightmare. After just a couple attempts, Folarn put the kibosh to the idea.

I had Teemo explain to them the idea of a basket fish trap, though, and that seemed to get their attention, especially after Aranya explained the basics of aquaculture. I’m pretty sure there’s a book on that up in the library, too. Folarn didn’t seem to like the idea much, but allowed a couple traps to be made as a pilot.

The traps worked like a charm, and they caught a bunch of lobsters. Well, probably not technically lobsters, but they’re way too big for me to call a crawdad. They have more of a mottled gray shell, instead of the mottled brown that most lobsters have, and turn a bright blue when cooked.

And the spiderkin love them. As bottom-feeders, they should be pretty easy to care for, too. Aranya is currently helping them dig out some ponds to keep them in, while some of the other spiderkin are gathering various plants and other stuff from the swamps. Teemo’s warned them about potential scythemaws, but none of them look too worried about it. They’re not exactly ignoring the warning, but they’re confident and cautious enough to not let something like that scare them off. Not when there’s tasty cave lobsters to domesticate.