Dungeon Life

Olander and Tula have a nice little delve together, and I mostly let them do it without me constantly hovering. Tarl can sense when I’m focused on him, so I don’t doubt Olander can, too. They visit the antkin, where Tula talks nerd with the enchanter caste, and Olander gets to see the progress being made on the composite armor. He’s deeply interested in it, of course, but even offering his advice doesn’t keep him distracted from Tula for too long.

In the end, he trades a few recipes to get Tula a slate with the theory behind the enchantment, though it’s general enough that I don’t think she could reproduce it on her own. Honestly, I think the theory might be over her head, but with how happy she is to get it, she’s probably looking forward to learning enough to understand it.

Once they head home, I ask Teemo to pen an invitation to Rezlar to talk tomorrow. Ordinarily, he’d just pop over and ask directly, but it's fun sometimes to break out the fancy parchment and deliver a letter via raven to Rezlar. Poe gives the birb directions to wait for a reply, which comes around sunset.

Teemo and I look over the letter together. “Looks like he’ll be here late in the morning, and he wants to bring Freddie, Rhonda, and the spiders. Looks like the reveal went off without a hitch.” My Voice smiles at the letter, and I agree.

Good for them. They’re all good friends, and with how important Freddie is to the Shield, and how Rhonda’s class is making waves, I don’t think even his dad can raise a stink about any perceived difference in social class. Or maybe he can. I’ve never dealt with nobles, Rezlar doesn’t count, but they can apparently be absolutely obsessed with status.

“You think the Earl is like that?”

Hmm… I don’t have a lot to go on just yet, but I get the feeling he doesn’t really see anyone as being on his level. Noble scion or orphan, all he cares about is what they can do for him.

Teemo considers that before shrugging. “From what little bits we know of Rezlar’s upbringing and how the crown apparently doesn’t really like him, he’s probably power hungry and smart about it, yeah. Tensions about blood can be real easy to play on for some people.”

Yerp. Can you ask Leo, Poe, and Zorro to get me a better map of the roads nearby? I don’t exactly expect the Earl to try to siege the town, but if I wanted to be sneaky about messing with things, I’d do it out on the roads, not within sight of Fourdock.

Teemo nods at that. “I’ll see if Hullbreak can do the same with the sea. I’m sure he’s keeping an eye on things out there, but probably more for invaders than delver issues. I’ll also check if Violet’s heard anything. The Earl probably hasn’t done much, if anything, yet, but there’s no harm in checking.”

Sounds good. I want to be at least a little prepared for the meeting with Rezlar tomorrow. In fact, invite at least Onyx to come attend. We might be able to figure out something to let the First Mate come, too. Violet has an outlet to the sea, and with a bit of your spatial fun, Hullbreak’s Voice should fit just about anywhere. We might need to flood a couple passages… ask Coda if it’s viable, yeah?

Teemo laughs and gives me a mocking salute. “You’re the boss, Boss. With the First Mate’s water affinity, it’ll probably be a lot less messy at least. We’ll see if we can improvise something.”

The night is pretty busy with prep, but it looks like we’ll be able to let the First Mate attend, too. We have to dig out a pretty large pool underneath the public war room, but that plus a hatch means Hullbreak can finally participate in affairs on land. He still seems a bit reluctant to do so, but he’s not required to say anything. I mostly just want to include him and not let him be a sea hermit.

Violet and Onyx, on the other hand, are incredibly excited, even if my protege can’t really understand everything that’s going on. That’s what a good Voice is for. The room is all set, and it looks like my enclaves intend to have a presence for this meeting, too. Aranya doesn’t even pretend that she didn’t tell them, and honestly, I can’t even be mad. Someone potentially doing a power play on Fourdock will definitely impact them, so my enclaves should have a say in what’s happening.

Thankfully, not every single leader for the enclaves is here. Just Larx, Folarn, and Ed. The antkin Headmaster looks a bit out of his league, but Larx and Folarn encourage him that they felt the same way for their first diplomatic meeting, too.

Right around the time I think fancier people would be having brunch, Rezlar steps into my territory with his usual entourage, with the addition of Freddie, Rhonda, Fiona, and Lucas. He and Miller bid his guards to delve while they go to the meeting, and Teemo personally escorts them all to the public war room so we can get this party started.

“Alright, quick introductions to make sure everyone’s on the same page. We have Rezlar, Miller, Freddie, Rhonda, Lucas, Fiona, Ed, Larx, Folarn, Aranya, Onyx, and The First Mate. If you don’t know I’m Teemo, you might want to talk to a healer,” he jokes as everyone gets settled, and takes his own spot at the table before continuing. “I think it’s on you to start us off, Rezlar. All we know so far is that an Earl is coming, and that he’s probably not going to be as cooperative as most of our other visitors.”

Rezlar chuckles ruefully at that and nods. “That’s an understatement. Earl Paulte Heindarl Bulifinor Magnamtir if'Gofnar wants to become a Duke, maybe even marry his way into the line of succession somewhere, so he’s been working on a lot of plans. I don’t know them specifically, but he’ll practically be forced to monopolize Your output if he wants to keep those dreams alive.”

All gathered frown as he explains. “He’s been slowly monopolizing certain herbal imports from the orcish nomads, and positioning himself to be a prime investor in an upstart mythril mine in the dwarven Holds. Between Your herbalism and mining nodes, you could topple his plans without even meaning to. He’s going to come here and try to flex his power as Earl to levy significant taxes and probably found or sponsor his own gathering and mining parties to get as much as he can, trying to muscle out any competition along the way.”

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“I think he’s going to have a rude awakening,” snorts Onyx, and Rezlar smirks at that.

“Probably, but he’s also used to getting his way. He’s probably monopolized more than a few dungeons, so he knows what he’s doing. Unfortunately for him, Lord Thedeim isn’t like other dungeons.”

“How do we discourage him?” asks Folarn, looking thoughtful. “Your kingdom probably wouldn’t appreciate if we just remove him, so what do we do?”

Rezlar nods. “Attacking him directly would be a bad idea, at least at the start. Doing something like that unprovoked would probably force the Crown to lean on the Dungeoneers to classify Lord Thedeim as belligerent, possibly even murderous. You’ll probably be forced to be reactive instead of proactive when dealing with him.”

“What about you?” asks Ed. “You are his underling. Won’t you be forced to do as he says?”

Rezlar sighs, though he perks up from the encouraging looks from his friends. “I’ll have to play politic with him for as long as I can. Even if we were at the same status, I don’t think I could stop him, but I should be able to delay and hinder him by citing chain-of-command and throwing every last regulation I can in his way. Ordinarily, an Earl would just plow through that kind of tactic, but with Olander here, he’ll have to play by the rules or risk the attention of the Crown.” ṚàΝȱΒËŞ

“Why isn’t he here, then?” asks Aranya, noting the inspector’s distinct absence.

“Politics again,” answers Larx, who lets Rezlar explain.

“He has the right of it. If he were here, my father would learn about it, and could claim bias or even a conspiracy to harm him from the Crown itself. Olander staying away from any meetings gives him deniability and makes it a lot harder for the Earl to raise any sort of fuss.”

“When’s he supposed to get here?” asks Teemo.

“In about a week and a half.”

Teemo smiles at that news, and an idea it gives me. “Sounds like good timing to maybe put him on the back foot.”

Rezlar looks interested at that. “Oh?”

“Yeah. That’s just about when the Boss expects to be able to grow the tree. I don’t care how confident your dad is, he’s going to second guess his plans at that kind of show of power, especially if the townsfolk don’t seem all that worried or surprised about it.”

Rezlar chews that over as Onyx speaks up. “Does he have the mana for it?”

“He should. He technically could do it now, but he’ll need a lot more to be able to place and upgrade the spawners for it, too.”

“I think the Admiral might be underestimating how much those spawners will cost,” speaks up the First Mate, with Onyx looking worried. Teemo doesn’t look too concerned, though.

“He’s been pretty good with his pricing so far,” he points out, but the First Mate is insistent.

“He’s used to dealing with flat areas. That kind of volume is going to cost a lot to populate, even for the Admiral. Trust me, watching the Captain fill even the shallow harbor with enough denizens to make it not feel lifeless was a great teacher for how much it’ll take. Even if he could blanket the current forest with enough denizens for the delvers to walk across, it’ll still feel sparse once the tree is up and they all spread out.”

I frown at that as I go over my numbers, and start to worry she knows what she’s talking about. Even in a place like the labyrinth or the tunnels, places with a lot of verticality, I can still work with simple square footage and plan the density from there. With the forest, it feels about right for density right now, and I had been planning to roughly double the spawns once the tree goes up. But… the more I look at it, the more I think I’m vastly underestimating how much mana I’ll need to fill the place in, or to even make it not feel like a ghost town.

“But he has an easy solution to get things started,” comments the First Mate, looking satisfied now that I’m getting a better understanding for just how much the upward expansion is going to increase the delveable area.

“What’s that?” asks Teemo for me, because I don’t see much. Maybe run some more expedition matches? A rematch between Olander and Rocky would certainly bring in the delvers, but it hasn’t been long enough for much to change the expected outcome.

“The ally pool,” points out Onyx. “This sounds like a different kind of emergency than usual, but putting this Earl on the defensive sounds pretty important.”

“Let’s not get too hasty,” interjects Teemo. “We can still do the tree and add what we can with what the Boss has available at the time. It doesn’t need to be running full tilt immediately.”

“You’ve gotta raise your flag proud and high, Admiral. He’ll soon see an empty display for what it is. If you want to make him think twice, he needs to think you can drop a proper expansion like that whenever you want.”

Miller nods and speaks up. “She’s quite right. Were he only a passing threat, he might be cowed and move on, but the Earl cannot let Fourdock go. Any displays will need to be genuine, not a farce.”

Teemo sighs for me. “Alright, fine. Do you think getting the tree up and properly populated would force him to rethink his plans for the Boss, Rezlar?”

The elf nods. “I do. He’s not the most experienced delver, but he should know what dungeons are usually capable of. With Your age and an expansion like that, he’ll be forced to change his plans, and hopefully give me more time to delay.”

“Alright, then we’ll dip into the ally fund to pay for the spawners. If he does bring along delvers to try to implement his plan, they’ll just be more mana to be able to pay it off. Do you need any help with the political side of things, Rezlar?”

He starts to shake his head, before pausing and looking at the enclave leaders. “Actually… can I impose on the enclaves? Relations with enclaves are notoriously tenuous yet lucrative. If you string him along, while still being rather direct with me, it will give me a lot more leverage to remain in power, especially if you can delay him.”

Larx smiles at that. “I think we can manage that. Especially the antkin. Feign some bureaucratic bloat and force his people to spend more time walking around than talking, and I think you could cost him a lot of time.”

Ed’s mandibles twitch in a smile at that idea. “I’ll talk it over with the Deans, but I think they’ll be happy to give them plenty of exercise.”

Folarn nods. “The spiderkin can do similar, though we don’t have as many leaders for them to juggle.”

“Then I think we have a plan,” declares Teemo, to the nods of everyone. “Now we just have to hope he gets the hint and leaves on his own, instead of forcing us to make him.”

Rezlar nods, looking optimistic. “He won’t back down easily, and if he does, he’ll hold a grudge for the rest of his life, but I think we can weather that storm. With any luck, I’ll be able to convince him that leaving Fourdock to prosper in its own way will only help his ambitions. There are worse ways to angle for a Dukedom than to have someplace like Fourdock to point at as one of his example townships.”

Freddie and Rhonda look a little sour at the idea of the Earl getting to take any credit for Fourdock, but the older people in the room nod in understanding. Sometimes the best way to make someone take the L is to let them think they have a W.

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