Most of my current projects are proceeding nicely. The access tunnel from the caverns up to near the tunnels entrance should be done in a day or two. Sure, I could have just dug a straight line, but that’d hardly be useful as a way up and down. It kinda spirals and loops and wanders, and I’ll probably have Coda and his crew dig out a few rest areas, maybe with some aranea trading/quest posts.

The easy gauntlet and the hard gauntlet aren’t the major draw that the hedge maze is, but the maze is also designed for non-adventurer types. The more physically active people have been enjoying them a lot, though. The easy one has been beaten a couple times now, but nobody has managed to get past the water jar puzzle on the hard one yet. I think they can smell the chest at the end, though. It’s probably going to be an amazing bounty once someone actually gets there.

The spiderkin enclave is also progressing nicely. They’ve been weaving tight baskets to bring in water to their ponds, and are working on figuring out how to get it just the right level of stagnant for the cave lobsters to thrive. They’re also experimenting with some of the plants they’ve found. There’s some kind of tuber that I’m going to call a swamp spud, and the spiderkin seem to actually like it once its cooked. I figure their bars will probably be just about full once they get the ponds running smoothly. No idea how long that will take, though.

One project that’s not going smoothly is trying to convert a mole or gremlin. Leo is starting to get pretty stressed about failing, too. I poke the bond to get him to relax and suggest he focus on the wolves and expeditions for now. The tundra wolves haven’t had a whole lot of guidance, and could use him to help get them into shape. While I want them mostly in the caverns, I also want a couple in the catacombs to be strong encounters, and to mix things up a little for the crystal shield guys. If they only have experience with undead, even with my ones that are resistant to a lot of holy magics, they’ll be unprepared for going out into the world at large. I think.

It’s not like I actually know what threats are out there in the world at large. I can guess, but that’s really all I can do. I could ask, but asking what threats are outside even back on Earth would produce a list that drags the floor.

I’m also going to ask Jello to try to do things a little differently. I think she’s using Fate magic to calm the invaders, but even Teemo can’t get much detail out of her. So I’m going to try to get her to do a bit more Fate stuff. Instead of just grabbing the first mole/gremlin she sees, I want her to wait and grab one that feels right to her. I’m not sure if it’ll work, but the idea had her burbling in what Teemo said was a thoughtful manner, so I guess we’ll see.

My three research scions, Honey, Queen, and Thing, have all started working together more closely. Honey is all for working with the two to learn more, but Thing and Queen hadn’t done a whole lot together. I guess enchanting and alchemy don’t have that much overlap. But that changed when Thing’s work with the quartz started yielding results. He’s still a long way from making pickups, but he has been able to produce a measurable current from quartz, and been able to make a separate piece of quartz vibrate from the signal. I don’t think that’s how it works back home, but then again, there is magic involved. Anyway, once Queen heard about that, she had to come see for herself.

So now all three are comparing notes on basically everything and seeing if they can produce anything else interesting. I think Queen is experimenting with using quartz in the go juice process to try to make a kinetic affinity potion, or maybe a sonic one? Either way, she seems more inspired than usual. Not only does she have some interesting new ideas to play with, but with Violet and the underswamps, there’s a bunch of new reagents for her to try.

Coda is still doing his thing with the digging crew, along with Slash’s help, and my bat scion has been experimenting with a few concepts I was able to squeeze through the bond: harmonic resonance and interference. They’re just fancy words to describe how sonic waves (and basically any wave, pretty sure) can affect each other. They can add together and make quite a bit of force, or they can cancel out, or they can even be aimed to only be stronger at certain points, which has been the major application so far.

He’s been trying to use it to cause weak points in the rock so the ratlings can hit the wall and basically produce a stone block with a single swing. He’s still got a long way to go, but they’re reliably hitting out large chunks of the wall with each swing now, instead of just little pebbles or sand. Slash is also helping out, and I’m wondering if he’ll somehow manage to become a bard or some other sonic class just from helping out Coda. He doesn’t have the affinity yet, but I can already see his earth magic moving more in a wave, rather than just grabbing a chunk of earth and moving it.

Teemo, on the other hand, isn’t having any luck at all with expanding his magic. He’s making so little progress that I think we’re going to have to do some experiments to see just how things work. It feels like I’m missing something on a fundamental level in trying to explain pressure, volume, and temperature to him. Hopefully a few experiments will clarify things.

On the other end of the spectrum is Rocky. He’s kinda becoming a beast. He’s got that ice affinity now, officially, and I’m pretty sure he’d been going easy on Rhonda and Freddie for a while, too. I’m going to try go have Teemo explain some new concepts to him and see if I can’t get him to have kinetic affinity and maybe lightning… maybe sonic? I don’t know if it’d be easier for him to take the concept of kinetic and apply the vibrations of heat to get to sonic, or get him to make the energy bob and weave into the waves of the electromagnetic spectrum. Or maybe I should have him focus on the heat part of fire to more or less distill the idea of electromagnetic waves out of thermal radiation. I dunno, I’m gonna have Teemo talk to him soon.

One scion that has hit a bit of a wall in basically all magic has been Fluffles, though. He’s basically stopped casting things. I’m pretty sure he’s obsessing about efficiency and not wasting my mana, but if he’s my Contuit, I want him to be a magical powerhouse. And he’s going to need practice for that.

So I poke Teemo, Rocky, and Fluffles to meet up in the caverns for some practice and maybe a few experiments. Teemo gets there first, of course, and perches on a blunted stalagmite to wait for the other two. Rocky elects to not take a shortcut, yet he still gets here before Fluffles, who seems to want to slink in and avoid notice as much as possible.

Yeah, that’s not happening. Teemo, would you ask Fluffles why he’s acting so skittish?

“Hey, Fluffles. You ok?”

My wingnoodle hisses and Teemo doesn’t even bother to translate before he answers. “That doesn’t answer the question. Come on, Fluffles. You’re making the Boss worry.”

Fluffle’s head shoots up at that, before he deflates and starts to explain.

“He says he’s sorry for wasting your mana?”

Tell him to waste more.

Fluffles starts to object to that, but I have Teemo just talk through him. “The Boss needs you to practice, Fluffles. You’re his Conduit. If I’m his mouth to speak, you’re his hands to smack someone who needs it. You need to practice. If you’re worried about wasting mana, he says to get used to efficiency. That’s partially why he has Rocky here, too.”

My zombie scion stops idly chewing his mouthguard and focuses on the two before him as Teemo nods. “Yeah, you too, Rocky. Thedeim says you’ve surprised him with your progress with getting the ice affinity, and he wants you two to practice together and spar to learn.”

My Voice looks at Fluffles as I start to explain what I want him to do. “For starters, Fluffles: smash that rock there.” Fluffles looks a bit uncertain about that but does as asked, producing a loud crack and a spark of heat from the kinetic impact he puts on the rock. Rocky seems to notice the spark of fire, and I can feel his rotten brain trundling along, trying to figure out how that happened.

“Thedeim says the sound and the heat are inefficiencies. The kinetic energy gets wasted into sound and heat. So he has three things he wants you to do, Fluffles. Firstly; learn to reduce those. Translate the kinetic force directly into movement, without wasting any on heat or excess sound. Second: expand your affinity. You’ve seen how kinetic can create fire and sonic affinities, so learn to harness them directly. And thirdly: spar with Rocky and teach him about kinetics. You’ve both seen how kinetics and fire can be related. The Boss says he can give some technical details later, if you guys end up needing it.”

The rat looks to Rocky and continues. “You, Rocky, should listen to Fluffles and learn about kinetics, and hopefully sonic as well. And once Fluffles picks up fire, teach him how to translate that into ice, too.”

The two nod, and start to talk and demonstrate to each other. Fluffles is looking relieved, too. I guess the thought of wasting my mana was a big weight on his proverbial shoulders. But now he not only has my blessing to use a lot more mana than he was, he also gets to teach and spar with someone who can give him a run for his money.

And if this works out, I’ll probably bring in Slash to practice with them, too. If he really can translate sonic from his earth affinity, he might be able to teach them how to work backwards from sonic into earth. It’s not like I have any other ideas for how to get from the various scientific aspects into the more arcane ones.