Maybe a day after the dweller ceremony for the spiderkin, the scythemaws start leaving the water. It looks like the ones in the underswamps are a bit ahead of the schedule of the ones in the aquifer, or the aquifer ones are a bit slow. Either way: Happening level is raised to It’s.

The spiderkin are as prepared as they can be, and mostly watch the scythemaws from high up the walls and from the ceilings. They’re only in danger if they slip, and I don’t think I’ve ever seen one fall. I’m still nervous about the whole thing, but they’re being diligent and watchful, which is all I can really ask.

The only thing they have on the floors are the lobster ponds, and even those they managed to cover with a few big slabs of stone. I’m pretty sure the tunnel horrors could easily get through, and I even spot a few scratching at the lids, but none put in the effort to actually get in. They can probably smell the lobsters, and don’t really care too much about them. They have cave lobster at home, no need to get at these ones.

Besides, food seems to be on the bottom of the list of their priorities right now. Looks like it is mating season, with a bit of migration thrown in. I can’t say for certain, but it looks like the male and females both have their own competitions. I can’t say definitively which is which, because they all look like big armored lizards with mandibles to me, but I do see two basic sets of behavior going on right now.

One set is settling in and spreading out. The bigger and meaner ones are more or less settling in the middle of the spiderkin village. I think they want to be close-ish to water, but not too close, and the biggest ones are stomping around to settle their nesting area, seems like. I don’t know if the spiderkin will need to run them off or not. I don’t think the scythemaws will be able to cause any trouble, but I also don’t know if they’ll like the village going on overhead. It’s still early, though, so we’ll just have to wait and see how they behave, and if the enclave decides they want the beasties further away.

The other group seems to be the males, and they’re trudging through the various tunnels, fighting and marking the walls. The one in the front seems to be the strongest. First one to the other side gets first pick of the lovely ladies, I suppose. Considering how much fighting is going on, they’ll probably be fighting their prospective mates to find a good match, too.

Their fighting is loud and looks pretty brutal, but I’m not seeing a lot of lasting injuries. I did see what looks like a younger buck manage to snap a scythe off of one of the horrors in front of him in the rough line, but that seems to be about it. The other ones ahead of him have been giving him wary looks, but I think he’s happy in his new place, at least for the moment. We’ll see if he lets success go to his head.

Heh, listen to me. I’m a nature documentary. I’d probably lose my funding for how much I’m interfering in their natural stuff, though. They’re still delvers to me, so I’m going to send at least some stuff to mess with them. Unsurprisingly, they don’t care about my various nodes at all.

They also don’t pay much attention to the living rockslides. I think they just don’t process the little pebble swarms as things they should bite at, and their nature makes it difficult for the denizens to mess with them much. The slimes and oozes are similar, and most of the maws either go around or ignore them.

Stalacsprites have been surprisingly effective, though. They haven’t killed any of them, but the things dropping on them from the roof tends to make the maws vacate the area, which is worth a nice bit of mana. The one thing the maws do pay attention to are the widows and other larger spiders I have to throw at them.

I don’t know if there’s some rivalry or if the maws prey on something spidery in the water or what, but they attack the spiders on sight, if at all possible. I even sent a large group of spiders at them to see what would happen, and they actually banded together to fight them off. I think the pecking order changed a bit from that fight, too.

My testing of the scythemaws aside, the surface is aware of the new danger in the deeps. I’ve been sure to keep the ODA well informed of what’s going on, so delvers know the deeper tunnels and caverns, while not off limits, are a lot more dangerous than usual.

That doesn’t stop all of the delvers, though. There’s more than a few quests to bring back some part or another from a scythemaw, so the more adventurous delvers are weighing their options. Even Yvonne and her party are getting in on the action. They’ve been trying to get Aranya to join them, too, as a more dedicated support role so Aelara can lean more into her offense. So far, everyone is just spying on the big lizards, trying to suss out any weaknesses, or find one injured or sick or something. I’ve been keeping the few healing slimes I have on standby, just in case something happens.

Oddly, Grim has been taking an interest in the whole thing. He still tends to the cemetery and the flower garden there, but he also has been showing up around the delvers who want to take a look at the scythemaws. It feels less like he’s waiting to reap, and more like he’s a butterfly flapping its wings.

I’ve seen him wave an encounter off from one duo of delvers, and they were able to get into a little hiding spot to observe some scythemaws just before the beasties arrived. He’s swept up some sand in one area, spread some in others, and even set a rock at a precarious balance, which tumbled and drew the attention of a maw so a solo delver could slip away before being spotted.

I was confused at first, but I think he’s using his fate affinity to help delvers. He’s got death affinity, too, so he can probably tell if things would go poorly for the surface delvers. It’s like watching a final destination movie, but the coincidences are keeping people from dying, rather than killing them in convoluted ways.

He gets a thumbs up from me for it, and I think he can feel my appreciation through the bond, too. He’s stoic and hard to read from the outside, but the sense of accomplishment I get back lets me know he gets the idea.

Violet is taking the whole thing really well, too. She’s saved up quite a bit of mana and could expand at any time, but I’ve been encouraging her to wait to see how this plays out before she tries that just yet. She has her two scions now, too. They’re both still pretty weak, but she has them. For now, they’re mostly staying in her Sanctum with her core. I’ve pointed out she could start working on making one strong like Tiny, but she doesn’t seem to be too worried about that.

Her mushroom scion is pretty interesting, though. It looks to have knowledge affinity, and has been slowly spreading beyond Violet’s borders. Right now, it’s more focused on keeping an eye on the aquifer maws than anything else, which is fair. Aranya, Yvonne, Aelara, and Ragnar have been using the little dungeon as a bit of a forward observation base, coordinating with Teemo to help them get in and out.

He hasn’t made any shortcuts from me to Violet yet, because I want to make sure she has room to grow. There are a few in the unclaimed tunnels, but only big enough for Teemo to use, nothing bigger. They’re a lot easier to hide in my territory, and I don’t want to go accidentally making problems for Violet when she expands and suddenly finds all kinds of security breaches in her new area. Still, Teemo is a Scout, so this kind of thing is right up his alley.

Aranya is actually having fun with the delvers, too, quietly and carefully observing the maws as more and more slowly fill the tunnels.

“I kinae believe ye’ outran one a those, Aranya,” says Ragnar as they all relax behind the doors, and my kobold smiles at that.

“It wasn’t for very long. By the time I stumbled into Thedeim’s Sanctuary, I was on the brink of exhaustion,” she points out.

“It must have been incredibly hungry to chase you all the way to his territory,” says Yvonne as she goes over the observations they’ve made so far. “It looks like they mostly prefer to hunt in the water.”

I give Teemo my own theory on the matter, and he relays it. “Maybe it was wanting to fatten up for the migration? They don’t seem too interested in eating right now, so maybe they need to eat a lot beforehand?”

Yvonne hums at that and adds it to the notes. “It’s possible, and would explain some of their behavior. We need more information to know for sure.”

The elven woman speaks up. “Luckily there are people willing to pay for that kind of information. So little is known of the horrors, we could claim they sprout little wings and disintegrate into butterflies, and there’d be little evidence to contradict it,” she says with a smile, and they all laugh at the idea.

“I’m most curious to see if they lay eggs or give live birth. If they lay, we might be able to try to domesticate them. Can you imagine having one as a mount?” asks Yvonne. Only Ragnar seems to like the idea.

“Och, that’d be a sight, aye. Th’ best mounts in Homehold’re jus’ diremoles. They’re nae very indimatin’, though.”

Aelara giggles at that and nods. “I’ve seen them before. Those star noses are somehow hideous and adorable at the same time, and their little beady eyes always look more lost and innocent than what should be on a mount bred for war.”

“Aye, but they’re still th’ best option. But if we c’n get scythemaws fer Homehold, we’d be bloody rich!”

“Don’t go counting your tunnel horrors before they hatch,” points out Aranya with a smile. “They seem pretty troublesome. They might not take to domestication.”

Ragnar shrugs and Yvonne speaks once more. “We’ll just have to see. I think a lot of parties are getting close to trying to kill one, and then we’ll have a better idea of how they work.”

“Are we close, too?” asks Aelara, and everyone looks at Yvonne and her notes. My birb Resident considers the question before answering.

“Maybe. If we can get Violet to help, it might be even easier. We could try to lure one in here, separate it from the rest, and then only have to deal with one, instead of however many might take notice out in the open.”

“It’d also get her quite a bit of mana if it dies in here, too,” points out my little kobold, and the others look like they like the idea.

“Violet?” asks Teemo, to get her attention. “Would you be willing to let them lure a scythemaw in here and kill it? You should get a lot of mana once it’s dead.”

Violet seems more nervous about that idea, but she doesn’t reject it out of hand. “She’s not saying no, but I think she’d like us to have a more concrete plan before trying.”

“Aye, so would I,” agrees Ragnar. “Jus’ ‘cuz I’m th’ shield, dinnae mean I want more dents 'n I have t’ take.” They all agree on that, and get down to brass tacks with planning.