There’s just something different about watching the kids delve, but not delve me. It’s also really difficult to not backseat Hullbreak as he works on challenging them, but not too much. But if I just give him the answer, he’ll never figure it out on his own.

The kids are after a ton of that kelp, too. I’d probably challenge them a little harder for how much they’re taking, but Hullbreak also wants to get the kelp harvested, it’s a bit shaggy right now. I guess I can’t fault him for taking it a bit easier so he can get a proper trim. I go easier on delvers sometimes too, if a node is past due to be gathered. It kinda chafes, if that makes any sense.

Besides, he’s not just giving it away. He doubled the crabs at the third patch, and doubled again at the fourth. The third patch went pretty smoothly, but the kids got a bit banged up at the fourth. Eight crabs is probably their sweet spot. He doubled it again for the fifth, and the kids decided they had plenty of kelp for now. Probably a good idea for them to head home anyway, their little boat rested pretty low in the water once they all piled back into it.

I’m looking forward to Staiven processing that kelp into the fancy water potions, too. Mine only let someone breathe, but things like temperature and pressure can still be dangers. It wasn’t too much of a concern in summer, but with winter making itself at home, most delvers are content to fish instead of take a swim.

Speaking of making oneself at home: Rocky and the other denizens have arrived at the Southwood! My goofball boxer spent practically half of the journey making everything sound like farts, even the rockslides! He shifted to a more dignified persona once they got close, and the Stag showed more than a little concern at the apparent lich joining the fun. I would say the fears were eased once Rocky started using his kinetic mastery to help dig trenches and even clear snow, but that’d be a lie. However the Stag feels about Rocky, he’s been polite, and I can feel Rocky resisting the urge to rip a big wet one, or at least sound like it.

I dread the day he gets some kind of stink or poison affinity.

I can feel him tinkering with wind and lightning, too. Ordinarily, I’d expect him to figure out wind first, since it’s pretty easy for him to observe and suss it out, but there are also some lightning enhanced denizens in the big pile of reinforcements, so it’s probably a toss up as to which he’ll actually embrace first.

Leo and Honey have been working hard the last couple days, too, to get all the new troops settled and integrated. They’ve been able to properly reinforce most of the northern border, and with the skeletons and zombies, they’ve been able to build some actual defenses in the big stretch of flat area. It looks like they’re still going to use the illusion stuff to make it look less defended, but with the reinforcements, ‘less defended’ still means ‘decently defended.’

I’d be feeling more confident if it weren’t for the fact that the invaders seem to have all but vanished. What few the scouts find and kill all seem to be scouting parties as well. I don’t like it, and neither does Leo. It smells to both of us like whatever is controlling these things is preparing for something. There’s one potential bit of good news, or maybe it’s just trying to find a silver lining to a dark cloud.

Leo’s own scouts have started vanishing. I can find their respawn timers, but I don’t think they get to keep much, if any, information from a failed scouting trip. The good part of that is they’re all vanishing around a specific area. Honey has it listed as section H-14, which is pretty far out. Right now, Leo is using some of the more subtle denizens to try to scout, but that’s going to take a bit longer to get them into position. Rockslides are great at hiding in plain sight, and the wyrms can stay under the ground, but the slides can’t report back very quickly, and the wyrms have to come up to take a look around.

Well, mostly. They can sense vibrations under the surface, but can only give a vague idea of what’s actually happening up there. They can tell if something is heavier, or at least steps heavier, or if there’s a lot of things, but Leo really wants more than that. Still, some intel is better than none. He has the slides slowly making their way deeper into the Green Sea, and using the wyrms to bring info back, as well as a few other wyrms to try to get at least a vague idea of the numbers in that section.

None of the wyrms have found much yet, which is starting to get concerning. If there’s something else up there killing the scouts, this could get even more complicated.

Elsewhere

The Harbinger lets its mind wander as it follows the tide of least, trying to figure out what could be slowing their advance. The first slow was an oddity of the surface: it is cold. It is very cold. If it didn’t know any better, it’d worry some ice affinity dungeon was already aware and trying to stop them. But as it got closer to the surface, it could feel no signs of the kind of mana that would require.

It’s hardly any wonder life flourishes so deep, if that kind of cold is common on the surface.

The second thing to slow the throngs of the least would be the great number of trees. They are different from the large fungi of the deeps, taller and more resilient. While they keep much of the drifting ice away from the ground, they do nothing to hinder the cold. They do however, hinder movement, as well as vision, with their simple presence. It had ordered the least to simply destroy the obstacles, but the trees are slow to fall and great in number. It would take the full lifetime of a least to remove each tree, and though the least are legion, so too are the trees. Paths will be cut, but clearing the surface entirely will simply take too long to be worth it.

The worst slow, however, is the new slowing force. The surface dungeon was steadily falling to the hordes of least, and then it suddenly wasn’t. Even worse, it forced the least back! That was ultimately what drew the Harbringer to journey to the surface. Its new master wishes to feast on the dungeon as soon as possible, and even its true master would want to know what could have happened to counter the least so effectively.

They may be the least creations, but they are still His, and so should not be something easily stopped. Even worse, as it traveled the long way towards the surface, it was able to start receiving the reports of what was stopping the least: wolves.

Wolves, of all things, were devastating the least?! The incredulity only lessened slightly when further scouting revealed them to be tundra wolves, wolves with ice affinity. While the least certainly do not handle cold particularly well, a simple affinity advantage should not have resulted in such a turning of the tides.

More reports, and closer to the surface, the Harbinger has some understanding. The least are not smart. They are designed to kill, not to think. Even basic tactics are generally beyond them, unless explicitly spelled out. It has always been simpler to make more of them, and just bury a foe in the least. With its presence so near, it can give them more instruction.

No more raids, for now. Scout and learn, leave most of the least in torpor, expand the entrance and make a space for them to lay dormant far enough away from the freezing surface. The Harbinger must know more of this foe, so it can be certain of victory. Once it knows how and where to strike, it will be a simple matter to wake the sleeping least and turn them loose. It will be a simple matter of finding the tipping point, of finding how many least it will take to drown the foe. And if it takes too long to get enough to do it, perhaps it can get some lessers. The Maw is gaining mana at a steady rate, and it would not take much temptation of the sweetness of the surface to get it to invest further into the spawner.

Its tentacles undulate in wicked glee, and its own greedy maw slavers at the thought of what a lesser would do to some wolves. Yes… even a single lesser should be more than enough to handle the tundra wolves.