bookandnovel Chapter Two-Hundred Seventy-Three
Chapter Two-Hundred Seventy-Three
Chapter Two-Hundred Seventy-Three
As easy as it is to focus on a shiny new expansion, I can’t go forgetting everything else I've built up. As my friends and denizens make their way back home, I take the time to ensure I haven’t let anything fall apart while I was distracted with the Maw.
The Manor is still running like a dream, with encounters designed for newer delvers. I think I’ve raised the average level of Fourdock quite a bit since I’ve come here, since it seems like even the dedicated craftspeople don’t have too much trouble with the Manor encounters. It’s a little tempting to try to mix things up, maybe make the attic encounter tougher or even add in a rooftop boss before they can get to the belfry garden, but I don’t think it’s really needed. The encounters are my easiest, but the loot there is also the simplest. Besides, it still makes me a tidy sum of mana.
Similarly, the manor grounds are pretty easy, with the Hedgemaze being the standout attraction for the area. While I’ve opened up a bit of it for more lumber nodes, I might absorb it into the maze again once I expand into the forest. I’ll have plenty of room for lumber nodes out there. On the other hand, I could leave the industrial lumber production to the Southwood. I’m pretty sure he has those kinds of nodes, and with the shortcut getting shorter every time Teemo travels it, people should have a pretty easy time going there to stock up.
The tunnels underneath the Manor might could use some love, now I look at them. They’re not really a maze, but they’re also not exactly simple to navigate. While I have the two challenge Gauntlets in there to help draw delvers, the tunnels are really more to get people to other sections, rather than being their own place for encounters. I have a lot of stronger spiders, snakes, and sometimes bats to fight down there, as well as some metal and gem nodes, but with the caverns and the lava labyrinth, I should try to brainstorm some better ways to use the space.
I wonder if I could dig out classrooms or something? Thing, Honey, Queen, and Coda all have pretty big brains, and I don't doubt that people would love to learn from them. I have a lecture hall room from the fast tracking, along with a few other ones I don’t know what to do with yet like a kitchen and a gallery. The main problem with them teaching is that they’d need Teemo to interpret... right? Considering I’d be using a lecture hall instead of a normal room for it, maybe it will actually let them lecture? Who knows. I’ll let that one percolate for a bit more before I try it. The tunnels do their job well enough for now, and it’s not like basically having an underground roadway to my other sections is a bad thing.
The caverns are another section where things are fairly simple, but I don’t plan to change much with them, at least for now. The huge caverns have plenty of room for stronger encounters, not to mention my limestone quarry. I might put in a couple ore veins instead of just the scattered nodes, too. The tunnels have nodes, but the caverns should be able to support mining on a more industrial rather than individual scale. I’ll float the idea to Rezlar once Teemo gets home. After the disruption the nodes in the labyrinth made, I want to make sure I don’t go crashing the steel market or something with a rich iron vein.
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The traps are working out as I hoped, but I don’t want to make solving the labyrinth as simple as a good fire resist potion. I wonder if I could get my twinsnakes in here, possibly with a couple winter wolves to help regulate the heat. Cold-blooded critters need help to warm up, but they also need help to cool down. I wouldn’t want my noodles to cook before they can play with the delvers.
I’ll probably need to upgrade the snake spawner to get enough numbers for the twinsnakes, though. And I’ll need Queen to get settled back into her lab at home if I want to give them the metal scales and lightning affinity, too. Yeah, lightning, fire, and ice should be a good mix to lower the chances of delvers cheesing things. There’s probably a more general elemental resist potion they could take, but I’d expect the effects on each element to be diminished versus a single specialized potion. I just need to make sure the puppers and the sneks can operate down there without too much trouble.
Oh, I could also upgrade the earth elemental spawner for some more fun things to fight in there! Some of the spawns already frequent it, but more variety will definitely be better.
I spend a little mana to move a couple groups of snakes and wolves there as a test, before turning my eyes to a currently-empty section of the labyrinth. I’ve been wanting to do this one for a while now, too. My ant spawner is maxed out, and the siren song of a new enclave has been in the background since before the fight with the Maw. Like my spider and rat spawners, the final spawn straddles the gap between denizen and delver. They’re smarter and have manipulators, and the final denizen for my ants are the magmyrm.
They did a great job as my own version of the red cross during the battle with the Maw, and I’m looking forward to establishing an enclave and seeing what an antkin looks like, or whatever the technical term is. I’ll wait until they get back home, though. If the past is any indication, when I designate an enclave, a portion of the final spawn will get progress bars and get to work making their home. I don’t know exactly how much they remember from being my denizens, but I want to reward my hard workers as much as I can. I want to make sure they have the chance to become the first generation of my ant dwellers.
I think I’ll set the groundwork for the forest of four seasons, then designate the ant enclave. My other two enclaves grew up with me working on projects, too, so I don’t think that will harm their development. They’ll also have my ratkin and spiderkin to help them along, not to mention Aranya. There’s no worry about them being neglected, even with a big project going on. In fact, if my ratkin and spiderkin are any indication, having a project is likely to help inspire them for their own ambitions.
Imagining my established enclaves working together with Aranya to guide the new one gives me a good feeling about the whole thing.