It had been a while since the settlement of Kat's territory, but exactly how long was impossible to determine. The primary reason for this was of course the lack of any point of reference such as a day/night cycle, but Arc had a solution for that - or so he thought.
One of the fungi growing in the spawning pit formed tubes which hardened when dried, and another had thin, rubbery, elastic caps that were perfect for sealing an end or a joint. Both came in a wide variety of sizes as well.
It also turned out that minion mucus was a strong, clear-drying adhesive.
With these materials, and a few others besides, Arc was able to build a water clock in Kat's room. Because it fed off the crack in the wall, it never needed refilling, and bone marbles counted the 'hours' (for lack of a better term).
Arc personally sat and watched it to be sure of its accuracy, but sometimes when he left and came back, the clock had recorded a different time than he felt it should have.
Of course, normally Arc would assume that he'd merely been mistaken, but according to Kat there was actually something to it. Time wasn't a fixed constant in a dungeon, although usually any distortion was slight and even measuring it took power.
Power. That was another concept which was hard to pin down. Arc was, of course, very determined to understand what Kat needed to survive and grow, but unfortunately for Kat everything was instinctual. It also didn't help that there weren't proper words to describe what she experienced.
It took many sessions of roundabout questioning, but Arc eventually came to know this much:
Most importantly, Power was not a form of energy. It was not fuel to be expended to produce a desired result. The physical definition of power (in other words the rate at which energy is expended) was closer, but the most accurate term Kat could come up with was {Realistic Uncertainty}. (Existential, observational, causal, and other vague philosophical terms were also applicable, proving accuracy does not imply precision.)
Basically, Power meant things happening with no better explanation than "Power did it". As far as Arc was concerned, this confirmed that Power was effectively the same thing as magic.
But unlike some forms of so-called magic, Power was inherently non-quantifiable. This meant that its effects were potentially infinite, but of course the odds of something big happening from a small amount of Power were extremely low. But since Power effectively messes with probability in the first place...
As far as Arc could tell, the existence of Power spat in the face of the scientific process, which required the same conditions to produce the same results (at least on average) in order to function. But apparently this wasn't so bad, because the limiting factor of Power was long-term observation.
This was about the limit of what could be gleamed through Kat. Arc wasn't even able to clearly determine how Kat's power was depleted, but apparently it was restored whenever the minions did stuff. She had also said it came in a near-infinite variety of 'flavors', each of which was more useful for a specific thing.
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As for more 'concrete' affairs, the minion population had exploded. There were at least two dozen now; most looked the same, so Arc couldn't count. Kat had said there were merely 'enough', and implied it was another Power-related thing. Minions may hatch from fungal pods in the spawning pit, but as long as their exact number was uncertain, Power could be used to make more.
Pantimus had assumed the position of 'Chief', with the Pantaloons as his enforcers. Rocky was the shaman, and Scrooge was a combination treasurer/secret police chief. The minion tribe's activities primarily focused around hunting rats, thieving expeditions to the surface, and 'remodeling' the tunnels.
One such remodeling effort had been undertaken in the tunnel where Arc had originally found Kat. The walls had already been stripped of bricks by the efforts from before their awakening, but after the judicious application of rat-blood-and-minion-spit runes, various crystals began to grow in clusters throughout the room.
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There were several varieties, but the primary resembled pale amethyst. The minions broke off long enough crystals and pounded them with rocks in mixtures of ash, char, and yet more mucus to make their flint-like tool heads. The method was mysterious; no matter what Arc tried, he couldn't replicate it himself. Apparently, it was an instinctive use of Power.
Another construction project had been establishing Rat Dens throughout the tunnels. The minions had taken a liking to rat meat, rat hide cured was good for a variety of things, rat bones were used for tools and accessories, and even the offal was thrown into the spawning pit. So the minions hunted rats a lot, naturally leading to a downturn in the rat population.
Then one day, Rocky led a procession of minions to Kat's shrine. Behind them was dragged a live rat, bound and gagged. It was impressively large, bigger than even the one which attacked on the first day, and Arc tried not to think about how they'd managed to trap it.
The huge rat was placed inside the shrine, and the laborers prostrated behind its writhing form. Rocky kneeled and addressed Kat, whom Arc was holding aloft for them. "Beastwild makeslave For Master." He used some of the more formal (and more coherent) vocabulary the minions reserved for addressing one much higher than them in status.
Kat glowed and scanned the beast. {Lifeform identified as rat. Mutations: dire, giant. Classifications: creature, monster, mob, basic. Attempting to contract...} The rat gained an aura of dark green. After a while, it sopped struggling against its bounds.
{Contract successful. Yay! Kat has her first mob!} Kat's voice seemed to switch from dull to cuteness overload at the drop of a hat, sometimes. Rocky freed the rat, but it didn't attack or flee, instead calmly following him away. Later Arc noticed more large rats in the area, but they never attacked minions unless provoked.
The Rat Dens were small warrens dug into the sides of tunnels. Presumably there were female rats brooding inside them, but due to Power they were effectively infinite rat spawners as long as nobody pried. Many of their entrances seemed easily collapsible, but Arc decided not to try and improve them lest he mess up the magic which allowed them to function.
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Arc's main work for the past few weeks (give or take) had been improving Kat's shrine. First he'd focused on expanding the space with a pick-like minion tool. The tailings were carried off by the other minions. Kat liked the natural cave feeling, so after the horizontal expansion was done she had Arc make marks on the walls, and used Power to make them look natural.
Kat needed a place to rest when Arc wasn't carrying her around, and apparently she liked being under flowing water, so Arc chipped away a pocket in the wall where the crack was. In the process he increased the water's flow slightly, and when Kat was in residence her glow added to the carving's beauty.
As for the water, Arc had found better ways to deal with it than simply letting it run across the floor. He had, with great difficulty, coerced some minions into dragging in a boulder from the crystal cavern section. On top of this he put a pewter basin he'd 'borrowed' from a minion who'd in turn snatched it from the surface.
The basin was set up to catch the water issuing from the rock face, and its overflow was drawn off through fungal half pipes (refilling the water clock along the way). There wasn't enough of it left over for anything else useful, but Arc had considered a decorative water wheel or something... Right now he lacked the materials.
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The minions may have liked to laze around a lot, but they didn't seem to require sleep; however, Arc was an exception. He made a small burrow attached to Kat's shrine to sleep in, with a flat rock he could use the hide the entrance. Thanks to Kat's power the camouflage was perfect, and he successfully avoided being forced to participate in most of the 'religious ceremonies'.
However, lacking any long-term goals, Arc eventually ran out of things to do. And so he decided to go about solving a mystery: namely, that of Kat's Origin.