Teemo

He has to admit, he’s missed doing this kind of work. He certainly doesn’t dislike being the Boss’ Voice. In fact, he very much enjoys getting to talk to the delvers and to listen to the Boss’ crazy ideas. Being able to talk to Aranya and especially Yvonne is an amazing privilege, too. He enjoys the warmth of thinking of those two for a few moments before putting the thoughts aside for now. If he dwells on them, he’ll start to think of what they’re doing in the Deeps and start worrying.

He could also easily worry about all the stuff going on back home. Because of course the Boss expanded while Teemo was busy! Even with him giving Teemo some time and mental space to focus on scouting, Teemo can still hear when he’s thinking aloud to himself.

Teemo’s not the only one trying not to worry about the party exploring the Deeps, even if it takes a bit more than scouting to keep the Boss’ mind off it. He’s kinda surprised he’s going for an ant enclave before a snake one, but then again, he’s not wrong about there not really being a good place for a snake enclave right now. It’ll probably be his spring project, though.

Unless they end up needing to deal with that deep dungeon in the spring. No, no thinking about that. Energy spent worrying is energy not spent actually doing something!

Besides, he really should focus on his actual work. These last couple days have been putting his Scout title to the test, and he’s been getting a lot of levels from it. Quick little shortcuts in the Boss’ domain are one thing, but these huge ones outside are something else entirely. Those small ones were practically effortless. Even the one through the woods towards Hullbreak was a breeze compared to these!

The Boss wanted him to make them as long and as short as possible, which sounded weird to him at first. After a little thought, it became obvious what he meant: cover lots of distance outside with minimal distance inside. He does his best not to think too hard about how that works, remembering the crazy math abominations that start using not only bits of the alphabet, but other symbols that make his head hurt just thinking about them.

He’ll take the Boss’ word on the specifics for how they work. Having math never helped him with making his other shortcuts, so he doubts it’ll help with these. No, experience will be his teacher for this, and experience is definitely what he’s getting. With a lot of his shortcuts back home, especially his early ones, they were mostly just more direct routes, being shorter in distance simply because nobody would have to walk around all the stuff in the way.

But then he started being able to make them even shorter, just feeling and following his Scout title and his spatial affinity. After working with Thing and the bag of holding, he’s been able to make them even shorter. His shortcuts are only about half as long inside as the distance traveled outside, and he can feel he can do even better.

He’s even been able to start creating what he thinks of as camps, expanding a space without it needing to actually lead anywhere. Doing that for the outposts has been exhausting, but also enlightening. Some of the outposts were pretty simple to expand into camps, like the one under a bramble bush. Even though he could see daylight through the brambles, he had no problem expanding the space to be more comfortable for the wolves and other denizens on expedition. On the other hand, the collapsed cabin was incredibly difficult for him to expand.

He’s pretty sure it’s because of how easily a space is defined. A small clear patch under some brambles is pretty easy to grasp in his mind, but a cabin missing most of the roof and with some partially-collapsed walls was harder for him to wrap his head around. He managed it, but only just. The denizens stationed there are going to try to repair the cabin for him to try again, but it will be slow to progress, if it’s even possible without Coda’s help.

Teemo smiles as he thinks of the bat scion. It’s almost like he’s trying to make up for lost time with helping the Boss. And while, sure, helping the Boss is on the bat scion’s mind, Teemo is pretty sure he’s just reveling in flexing his title. It just feels right to be making the shortcuts and camps. It must be the same for Coda, especially since he has some of Thedeim’s crazy stuff to work with for building. Even with his aversion to math, Teemo is still sometimes drawn to try to muscle through it anyway. He only needs to look as far as Rocky to know that having some of the Boss’ knowledge can let a scion do crazy things with their title and affinities.

And speaking of title, he’ll probably have to lean on being the Voice soon. He’s not just making the shortcuts because they’re fun. The Boss intends to help the Southwood with them, and send winter wolves soon, and other stuff once spring rolls around. Part of Teemo thinks the Boss should just subsume or vassalize the Southwood, but he ignores that part.

Sure, the mana windfall would be nice, but the Boss seems like he’d prefer a competent ally who can handle themselves, rather than to try to hog all the power for himself. It’s been how he runs everything so far. Besides, even with the shortcuts, the Southwood is a bit far away to be the Boss’ vassal.

The reports of the Southwood’s Voice also make Teemo pretty sure the forest dungeon wouldn’t go for it anyway. Leo and Honey have been patiently waiting at the last outpost for Teemo to arrive and officially get negotiations underway. The Southwood is aware of them, but hasn’t bothered trying to talk with them much. That’s probably a good sign, at least. If the dungeon was feeling pressured, it’d probably immediately try to get them to help without waiting for Teemo. That it’s keeping polite distance makes Teemo confident they’ll be able to go on the attack after the snow melts, or maybe even earlier. That white stag would probably like that, since it seems pretty stuck up to Teemo, but Leo seems to think he’s pretty strong, so maybe it’s even warranted.

He’s pretty sure Rocky could kick his ass, though. He might not have been there to see him fight the kids, but the Boss has been loudly thinking about it enough for Teemo to wonder if the zombie could even give Fluffles a run for his money.

He pauses as he thinks about that. Did those two ever keep working on expanding affinities? He’s pretty sure Fluffles picked up wind and storm at least from dealing with Hullbreak’s desperate stunt, but he hasn’t really paid much attention to their sparring since. Rocky has to have picked up a few more affinities by now too, right?

He shakes his head and continues on the shortcut, trying not to think about what Rocky has managed with his affinities. Of course, his brain betrays him and focuses on his own efforts to expand his affinities. He stamps down the feeling of shame with his lack of progress on that front, defending himself with the fact he finally understands what the Boss was talking about with him potentially getting fire or ice affinity. Making the camps, the temperature inside would always dip dramatically when he’d expand an area. He even tried to shrink an area, and felt it warm up. He just can’t manage to wrap his head around the why. Sure, the Boss has shown him some math for it, but that’s just not how Teemo thinks.

He has been noticing something strange when working with space outside of his shortcuts, though. There’s some kind of resistance to what he’s doing, and it’s not constant. Rocky’s assertion that stuff is made of stuff seems to relate to it, since he feels a lot less of the resistance when expanding space that’s just in the middle of the air. But getting close to things, especially getting close to the ground, makes the resistance feel a lot stronger.

He’ll probably need to ask Thedeim about it once he’s back. He could ask now, but one: Teemo is a bit busy, and two: it’d probably be easier for the Boss to understand if Teemo can demonstrate it within his borders. Besides, he wants to get a better feel for the resistance on his own, before he asks for help with it. He can feel some tickle in the back of his mind, like the Boss has probably mentioned something similar before, but he can’t connect the dots to it just yet.

He’s not worried, though. He’s a Scout, and a proper Scout is all about connecting dots, no matter if they’re on a map or not.