Chapter One-Hundred Thirty

Alright, so: what first?  I really want to get delving doing with Hullbreak, but I really should give him a bit more time before I start trying to give quests to fish in there.  It’d probably be a good idea to let Tarl inspect before I try that anyhow.

Violet is probably a good place to start.  All I need to do to encourage her to expand is to give her a quest to do it.  While my income isn’t as out ahead of my expenses as I’d prefer, I still have plenty saved up to pass a quest through the bond.  I can feel her taking her time to examine and consider what she should do with it, and leave her to it.  I’m not trying to shove her out of the nest, I just want to give her the little nudge she needs to do a bit more.

I also tell the aranea to start occasionally giving a quest to do something in Violet: hunt a rabbit, pluck a mushroom, something like that.  With the maws done, delvers should be able to delve her properly, without needing to worry about getting eaten.

Next up… get Rocky’s ring made.  I had been putting it off to try to get the flooring just right, but the whole thing seems like it’s more complex than I expected.  Or maybe I’m overthinking it.  What if boxing rings really are just a wooden floor with a thick cloth over it?  At least the turnbuckles and ropes shouldn’t be too difficult to make.  I spend a little time drawing up some basic plans, before giving them to Coda.  It’s not quite in his wheelhouse, but he seems to like building stuff, and his ratlings are only getting more and more sure in their craft.  Most of their craft was digging and carving, but there’s still the smithing ones he can get help from, so I’m not too worried.

Now, the snake spawner.  I haven’t been paying it the attention it deserves, even with my Conduit calling it home.  I have normal little bitey snakes, venomous little bitey snakes, bigger venomous bitey snakes, and spitting cobras that are not technically cobras… I think.  I specialized them for venom a while ago, and looking at it closer, it seems to be a variety of magic specialization.  So whatever else I get will probably be things you don’t want to bite you, and maybe things that will be able to cast actual stuff at you, too.

Welp, might as well spend the mana and see what we get!  I pour the required amount into the spawner, and watch with excitement as I wait for what it’ll make!  And it makes… two snakes at once?  That’s it?  More spawn speed?  Not the worst upgrade but… oh, I’m wrong.  That’s a single snake, two heads.  They(?) look around a little before taking a shortcut down towards the cavern layer, and I take a moment to get a better look at what they are.

A Twinsnake.  Fair enough, I suppose.  That’s an interesting little critter, and I think they is the right term, since each head apparently has a different job.  It’s like someone stapled a classic fighter to a classic wizard.  And made them both snakes.  One head has kinetic affinity and the other has poison affinity.  I wonder if they differentiate between venom and poison affinities here?  I hope not.  If you’re venomous, it’s bad when you bite someone.  If you’re poisonous, it’s bad if someone bites you, and it seems like the kinetic head is all about avoiding that.

I watch as they stalk a small swarm of dire mosquitoes, and am glad to see the ‘poison’ head is definitely able to be offensive with its affinity.  The kinetic head can be a bit offensive, too, as it starts telekinetically grabbing and smashing the invaders.  The poison head launches little poison projectiles… venom projectiles?  I feel like the distinction falls apart a bit when the nasty stuff is being thrown around.  Whatever the technical term, the doublenoodle has no trouble dealing with the small swarm, so I’m calling it a win.

I watch my new denizens as they start to spread out in my domain, enjoying the new little bit of weirdness they bring.

____________

**Karn**

____________

The thin orc can’t help but smile as he slips into the Mayor’s manor after sunset.  Used to be, if he was doing this, he was going to be taking as many valuables as he could unreasonably hold.  This time, though, he hopes to drop something off, and maybe even leave with something valuable that he can’t actually hold.

A good deal can be worth… well a good deal, after all, and is a lot harder to stuff in a bag and sell to a fence.  Those candlesticks are tempting, though.  He resists his rusty urges as he slips through the estate.  The guards are trying, bless them, but a rogue who has survived to be able to retire is way above their pay grade.

He finds the young lord in his chambers, looking like a student who has gotten behind.  Except, instead of books surrounding him, it’s letters, scrolls, and whatever else the people could send to show their ire.  Long auburn hair is looking frazzled and frayed, either from the stress itself, or from the young elf trying to tear it out.  Mysterious blue eyes are looking shallow and unfocused, the angry words hardly able to make the journey from the page to his mind with those as their portal.  Expensive silks are rumpled, pale skin is even paler, and ink stains manicured hands.  The lad is an adult, if only just, and clearly has no idea how to handle the mess that Thedeim has accidentally given him.

Karn nods to himself as he sees the lad.  Someone that deep will take any rope to get out of it, even if they have to wrap it around their own throat.  Luckily for the young lord if’Gofnar, Karn is there to offer an actual lifeline.  He considers how to best approach him, and attempts some unsubtle subtlety.  He quietly paces around the room, looking for a loose board, and finds one without too much effort.

The noble elf slumps as he hears the sound, and speaks as he stands.  “What should I do, Mill…” he stops as he sees Karn standing there, the orc's hands behind his back.  “...you’re not Miller.”

Karn chuckles and shakes his head.  “No, I’m not.  I also know it’s not something that actually inspires confidence, but I’m also not here to hurt you.  I’m actually here to help.”

The elf just falls back into his chair, and gestures listlessly at the pile of angry correspondences.  “I don’t think I need an assassin for any of them, thank you.”

Karn laughs and shakes his head.  “I’m not an assassin.  I never was.  I always preferred burglary to assassination.  Always sat easier on my conscience to make off with a few trinkets than a life.”

“...is that what you’re here for, then?  Come to pick over the corpse before the other vultures can swoop in?” asks the young noble elf bitterly.  Karn shakes his head and pulls the fat rolled scrollcase from behind his back, the result of the long meeting in Thedeim’s war room.

“Actually, I’m here to help, to salvage the mess and save you a lot of face amongst the townspeople,” he says as he holds it out for the beleaguered elf to take.  The mayor just stares for a few seconds, before reaching out to accept the scroll.

“That’d be a trick.  What’s the price for me to only have my name dragged through the mud, instead of being disowned?” he asks with a sigh.

“I’m not here to offer to pull you out of the mess with a noose lad… lord Rezlar,” Karn corrects himself.  The elf before him might be battered and beaten in the political sense, but there’s no point in adding insult to injury.

He just rolls his eyes at Karn’s informality, and opens the case, to look over the papers therein.  His defeated attitude chips and frays as he quickly skims the papers, and he looks at Karn with respect and a spark of hope.

“Is… is the dungeon actually on board with this?”

Karn nods.  “Thedeim is.  He is fully willing to apologize and pretend plans had been in the works, and you just needed funding from the kingdom at large to implement.  His rapid development has put you in an awkward spot, but also gives you an opportunity.”

The elf starts looking more uncertain, now that his future is not certainly ruined, and looks back at the papers.  “Yes… that’s in the draft of a speech for me to give, too.  But… why?  Why not try to oust me and prepare Fourdock to be taken as an enclave?”

Karn shrugs.  “Because he doesn’t want to.  Politics, at large, seems to repulse him.”

Lord Rezlar sighs at that.  “At least he gets a choice in it,” he states quietly, before speaking up a bit.  “But what do you get out of it?”

Karn grins like a teacher whose student has aced a test.  “I get a stable town for my adventurers to recuperate in, and a stable dungeon for them to delve… three stable dungeons for them to delve, in fact.”

The Lord Mayor considers that for a few seconds, before his face lights up.  “Ah, Miller!  There you are!”

Karn’s blood runs cold as he hears a polite voice from behind him.  “I was making tea for the Young Master and his guest.”  A silver tray with two steaming cups of tea make themselves known in his periphery, supported by a spotless white glove.  It’s attached to an immaculate black sleeve, which is in turn supported by an older elf with gray skin and short slicked white hair.  If there was a butler affinity dungeon, this elf would be its scion and Voice.

“Sir’s is the cup nearest him,” offers Miller, and Karn slowly accepts it.  He doesn’t drink as the elf moves to offer Lord Rezlar his own cup.

“Ah, thank you, Miller.  My friend here, uh…”

“Karn,” fills in the orc, still trying to process what’s going on.  There was nobody else in the room.  As the young lord starts to explain to Miller what Karns proposal is, Karn absently takes a sip of the tea, and locks up again.  He knows this blend.  He knows the spicy honey in it.  It’s his own blend that he dabbles with, something more for energy than taste.  The spicy honey is the only thing he’s found that makes it palatable.

Miller meets Karns eyes and his mouth tilts upward just a hair as Karn swallows his sip heavily.  Those guards aren’t the only ones in here trying to deal with something outside their pay grade.