Chapter Two-Hundred Forty-Two |
The problem of a bladed weapon helps distract me until Teemo gets here. At least I have a good idea for a sharp weapon that’s not metallic, even if we’ll only really have a supply of it after the fighting: the blade limbs of the least monsters. If I had thought of it earlier, we could have harvested them from the battlefield outside the Southwood, but they’ve long since dispersed into mana at this point. But a properly field dressed limb with a durability enchantment would probably make a perfect short sword.
Or maybe a pick. Hard to say. Either way, Teemo’s back, and there’s not really time to let him relax. At least he knows my plans, so it’s not like I’m blindsiding him with work. No matter how much he jokingly complains.
“You’re a slave driver, Boss. Poor Teemo, making shortcuts, then no moment of rest before he has to go meet with people. Poor Teemo.” His grin and tone give away the game, but it’s fun to play along.
Yes, Evil Thedeim! I shall work my Voice to the bone! No rest for you!
“Oh cruel fate! To be the Voice of such a dungeon!”
We go back and forth a few times until Teemo pops into the ODA and does an Igor impersonation. “Tarl! The Master needs your brain!” he exclaims, dragging one of his feet.
The elf just gives my Voice a confused look from his desk. It looks like he’s planning out his inspections for the spring. “Teemo? Are you alright?”
My Voice bursts into laughter and nods, taking a few seconds to gather himself enough to reply. “Yeah, I’m fine! Me and the Boss are just joking around, though we really do need your brain for this. We’ve got a list of the denizens the Maw should have, so the Boss wants to know if there’s any easy weaknesses, or special synergies we need to keep in mind.”
Tarl looks over to Telar at her desk, who perks up at the mention of a list, and she pulls out a scroll. She uncaps her inkwell and readies her pen, then locks her focus onto hopefully her favorite rat. “I’ll make an official note of it. I’ve been preparing a dossier on this Maw, even if it’s going to soon be subsumed. The Guild will want the information regardless.”
Tarl groans at that, but doesn’t otherwise interrupt as Telar scribbles. Teemo lets her catch up before continuing.
“It only has a scion from the fey spawners, as well as the Harbinger. Want to guess what the scion is, Tarl?”
“A redcap,” he answers with no hesitation. “Probably its Voice, too. That many spawners means it should have upgraded by now.”
Teemo nods at that. “Yep, a redcap and it’s the Voice, according to the two refugees we found. It’s maxed out the spawners, too, so it had an elf and dwarf enclave, but they got emancipated?” he asks, looking to Tarl for a bit more information on that. Telar is still scribbling, so Tarl indulges my and Teemo’s curiosities.
“Emancipating enclaves is more common for older dungeons out in the wilderness. Having an enclave gives a dungeon good bonuses and can more easily let it develop its territory, but an emancipated enclave allows for more mana generation. When still an enclave, the dwellers are usually a net neutral on mana and resources. But once emancipated and technically fully independent, they can generate mana for the dungeon by ordinary delving.”
Teemo snorts. “Technically independent is right. They’re independent in name only, especially with the Maw’s clergy practically running the town.”
Tarl and Telar both nod, with the latter pausing her scribbling to give her opinion. “Dungeon worship is quite common among dwellers and the recently-emancipated, letting dungeons get mana both from the worship and from the delving. I’ve heard some inspectors say it’s only a short-term gain, with people often moving away after a couple generations if the dungeon treats them poorly.”
“I mean, they’re not wrong about that. But it’s a pretty good mana boost, as far as we can tell, and just because dungeons can live for generations, doesn’t mean many actually do,” supplements Tarl. “Like with Thedeim’s own dwellers. With how he treats them, I doubt they’d leave of their own accord. The only real argument against him emancipating them is political. The Principalities would want to claim them as beastkin, the Kingdom would want to claim them because they’re in our territory, and the Holds might even try to claim them as being below the surface. It’d be a pretty weak claim, but they could try it. As long as Thedeim doesn’t need more mana income, there’s no need to emancipate them directly into a big political mess like that.”
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Teemo and I both chuckle at that. The idea of giving my dwellers true freedom has crossed my mind, but the political ramifications have kept the idea deep in the fridge, not even close to on the backburner. “Yeah, the Boss is aware. Not about the dwarves maybe making a claim, but about the big mess it’d cause, politically. He’s got ideas for cleaning up a lot of messes, but politics is not one of them.”
Smirks are shared before Telar taps the scroll with a finger. “You said you had the list of denizens?”
“Right right. The weird spawner has least and maybe lessers. The Boss thinks they’ll probably go into normals or standards, before greaters and greatest, but that’s just names. We have no idea what anything beyond the least would look like. The fey are needleslinks, bladesprites, bolties, bladesprite swarms, pricklethorns, and thinlinks. For the elementals there are living caltrops, lodewisps, rust elementals, sliverstorms, iron maidens, and forgemasters.”
Tarl whistles at the list as Telar jots it down. “Those are some ugly denizens. The bladesprites and sliverstorms work similarly to deny movement, and will both be very dangerous when combined with the caltrops. You’re going to need some good area attacks to deal with those. Try to minimize the amount of metal your dwellers bring to the battlefield. Only the lodewisps and the forgemasters can really turn metal back against you, but the sliverstorms can tear up any metal they get ahold of and make the swarm bigger.
“I wouldn’t imagine they’ll want to use the lodewisps too much, though. They’re very good at controlling nearby metal, but they don’t discriminate between friend and foe. They can act a lot like a sliverstorm if they get the chance, but with all the other metal denizens, you can probably just not worry too much about them. The rust elementals are going to be the biggest threat to anyone using metal, though. The elementals are pretty weak on their own, but they can relieve someone of their armor and weapon really quickly, and then they’re vulnerable to attacks from the others. They’ll probably be on the front lines, hoping to devastate anyone wearing armor, then either fall in battle or retreat to make room for the fighters.
“The iron maidens will be ambushers, not actual fighters. They’ll be guarding any side passages, hoping to pick off scouts and other sneaky attacks. I’d expect them to mostly be in the dungeon itself. The real nastiness will come from the last three working together.”
Tarl leans back in his chair, folding his arms as he thinks. “Pricklethorns, thinlinks, and forgemasters. Those are going to be nasty. Pricklethorns like to grapple and are tough to take down quickly. Usually, grapplers would make it difficult for others to help fight, but thinlinks have enough control over their chains to be able to do just that, no matter how hectic the melee gets. And forgemasters will be buffing them both, as well as tossing around offensive magics, too.
“An overwhelming magic attack would be the best option, but that’s easier said than done. In a tight tunnel… I think the main priority will be to not let the front line descend into anarchy from the pricklethorns. That’s also a lot easier to say than to do, though.”
Tarl looks thoughtful, trying to puzzle out a solution, before Teemo gives our rough plan for the fights. “For our denizens, we’re going to use as many basilisks as possible to try to deal with the caltrops, sprites, and storms. We’ll also be able to use the wyrms to get around them if we need to, and they can play their own havoc with the enemy lines of the prickles, thinlinks, and foregemasters. Arcane hands can bring some magical pain to bear, too, to try to keep things in our favor.
“For the dwellers… they’re swapping away from metal right now, and the Boss is working on replacements. I dunno what the adventurers are doing, but I’m sure they all have some kind of plan, at least if they’re going. Against the area denial denizens, they’ll still be waiting on the basilisks to clear them out, and against the enemy denizen parties… they’ll probably rely heavily on using silk to ensnare what they can and hopefully keep the fights from getting too messy.”
Tarl nods to himself at that. “That sounds workable, though I’d suggest trying to keep as many adventuring groups handy as possible to help deal with area denial. Basilisks are good and strong, but they’re still obvious targets. Having adventurers supplement them will make progress a lot smoother.”
“Then we’ll pass that along. I think Karn is our next stop. The adventurers are going to be needed soon, so the Boss would like to get a headcount.”
“I’ll work with Telar to get a primer on those denizens written, then. Metal affinity dungeons are pretty rare, so I doubt many of them have had the pleasure of fighting those particular monsters before. We’ll still need to charge them, but it shouldn’t dent anyone’s coin bag.” Tarl looks a little uncomfortable about that, so Telar speaks up.
“It’s against Guild policy to give information for free, but with your contribution and the situation, we can put the payment for your information towards that. And speaking of Guild policy… can we purchase any additional information about the Maw, once this is over? Even subsumed dungeon information can be valuable to the Guild.”
Teemo echos my smirk as he nods. “I think we can do that. Honey will probably write an entire encyclopedia on the thing by the time we’re done.”
Tarl looks indifferent to that answer, but Telar looks a bit conflicted. I’d say she’s trying to decide if the boost to her prestige in the guild will be worth trying to organize that much information, which only makes me laugh harder. As if Honey’s standards aren’t stricter than the Guild’s.
