With the challenge done and settled, and Aranya relaxing, I can take some time to go over what else has been happening. It’s not like everything else stops just because I’m distracted with something else.

It’s looking like the scythemaws are finally starting to pack it up and head home. Poe says the expeditions down there have been seeing them laying and burying the eggs. I’m pretty sure I saw a documentary once that alligators (crocodiles?) do basically the same thing. I think they tend to put the eggs closer to water, though? If I had to guess, I think gators are the better parents, but I probably shouldn’t count the monsters before they hatch.

Once a nest is buried, the male seems to head back towards whichever body of water he came from, but the lady is sticking around for a bit more. Probably to make sure nobody decides to dig her eggs up. The fact that she also goes and stomps a few other divots around to be fake nests also lends credence to that. I’m definitely going to try to dig some up later, but that can wait. The spots just need to be marked on the map, and we can get at them at our leisure. Well, I assume. They probably will hatch well after the maws have to head home.

While it’s nice to have that distraction winding down, there’s still the issue of the kids’ classes, and of course Hullbreak Harbor. I got a boatload of mana from them getting their classes, but I’m not sure what to spend it on. I’m thinking I’ll just hang onto it for now, no matter how weird it feels to have a big pile of it just sitting there. But I want to have some to be able to spend on whatever surprises Hullbreak manages to spring.

Leo’s FOB is looking a lot more secure, and with the sun down, I even send Coda and a few ratlings to give it the finishing touches that Leo needs. The wolf is doing a great job organizing things, too. He practically has the entire underwater dungeon mapped out now. As suspected, the enclave seems to be around his core. Leo isn’t 100% certain on that, but we haven’t been able to find it yet, so the places it could hide are pretty few.

He’s also found a shipwreck that seems to be of serious importance. It might be where the core is, but my gut says it’s in the enclave. Still, the fact that the shark scion seems to constantly patrol around it tells me there’s something important in there. The slimes are working on getting a better look inside, but even from outside, they’ve spotted a merman in there.

I wonder if he’s an important Resident like Aranya and Yvonne are for me? If he is, spying on him could be a great way to get information. Still, we have to take it slow so nobody notices the slimes slipping in.

It also looks like Hullbreak is building up his forces under the waves, so I’m going to be slowing the flow of undead now. I think I’ve been giving him too much, and I really don’t want him to be able to build up his strength. Besides, if I let the stream start to slow, I can build up my standing army. The risk is that he’ll attack the beachhead, though, if he senses weakness. I don’t know how something like that would go, either. I don’t think he’ll be able to just crush the forces there, but it won’t be trivial to hold it while also keeping up the charade. Hmm… that does give me an idea, though.

See, if he attacks the beachhead, he’s going to expect to see at least one of my scions. I don’t know exactly how much he knows about Neverrest’s scions, but I should probably assume he knows about the skeleton and the lich. Even if he doesn’t, mimicking them would still make it look like the kind of thing Neverrest would have.

But Grim will never pass for the skeleton scion, and none of my other skeletons or other scions will, either. Nobody has the kind of armor he’d have, and all my skeletons only have two arms. Tiny could pretend, but nobody is going to buy that.

But I do think I can have someone pretend to be the lich: Rocky. He’ll need a completely different outfit, but his mastery of several affinities should make him a very believable lich. He doesn’t even need to breathe, so he can easily enter the water to help fight off whatever might need him.

It’ll take a little bit to get him ready for that role, though. First, I should probably make sure he’s willing to pretend and to put on some other stuff besides his boxing gear. I take a few moments to track him down, and find he’s not in the usual places I’d see him training.

Instead, he’s in the enchanting lab, looking like he’s having a talk with Thing. Curious, I poke Teemo to go check it out and ask him, and my Voice is happy to go look.

When Teemo exits a shortcut in the lab, Rocky seems to stiffen slightly, and Teemo raises an eyebrow at that.

“You ok, Rocky?”

He shifts slightly towards a defensive stance for a few moments, before he lets his arms drop and his head hang a bit. He doesn’t seem to have replied, though, and soon Thing signs some.

Teemo nods as my enchanter finishes. “Ah, ok. Thing says Rocky is trying to figure out how to fix the hole in his fundamentals.”

Uh… what? He’s far and away the scion that’s been doing the best at expanding his affinities.

“Yeah, but he says that’s just fancy moves. Rhonda was able to, as he put it ‘break his stance’ with the magic and completely throw him off balance. So he’s asking Thing to help him with that,” explains Teemo. Rocky slowly stands up straight, maybe expecting to be told to stop bothering Thing, but I’m not going to shoot down his attempts to improve his style.

How goes the work on the pick ups? I ask, and Teemo dutifully repeats, then dutifully translates. “He says he’s had a breakthrough. The coils were a bit too uniform and the soundwaves really were canceling each other out. He’s tuning them to be better, but he says they’re actually working now!”

Awesome! Alright Rocky, You can help Thing with his stuff in here and get some better work on your magic fundamentals. That actually plays into something else I’d like you to do, too.

Teemo relays, and Rocky looks confused. My voice just chuckles at his reply.

“He says ‘Watchya need, Coach?’”

I’m going to need you to be able to pretend to be a lich. You’ll have to be ready to toss off the gloves and toss on a robe, in case Hullbreak actually attacks the beachhead.

Rocky looks at his gloves like he’s forgotten he has hands under there, then looks to Teemo and gives a grunt.

Teemo smiles as he speaks. “He wants to know if he can keep the mouthguard.”

Hah! That shouldn’t be a problem. Oh, I’ll need Thing to make him some fancy enchanted stuff, too, to help sell the trick. It’ll probably help Rocky with solidifying his control, too, if he helps.

They both seem to like that idea, and Thing helps Rocky get his gloves off for the first time in… ever? It doesn’t seem like his hands are any worse for having been in boxing gloves for so long, but it’s difficult to tell with a zombie. He flexes his fingers for a few moments before he does a few practice jabs, and I wonder if this is like him taking his limiters off… or maybe removing the training wheels?

While he gets used to bare air on his rotten skin, Thing seems curious about the gloves themselves. He gives them a few testing pokes before he struggles to crawl into one! I watch as he manages to sit back on his wrist, fully encased in thick glove. He hops a couple times before falling off the table. He hits the floor with a muffled plap, and I can only assume he can’t see while in it. Probably not surprising, but… how does he see?

He quickly wriggles himself out of the glove and telekinetically tosses it against a wall, much to the amusement of Rocky, Teemo, and myself. Rocky might be willing to fake being a lich, but I don’t think Thing will be signing up to pretend to be a boxer any time soon.