Fluffles and Poe seem to have the tour well in… wing? Yah, they both have wings, that counts. With them focusing on the tour, I focus on working the lava tubes. At the moment, things are at a decent baseline. The interesting fiery herbs are growing well, my wyrms are wyrming through the rock, fire elementals are being devoured at breakneck speeds, and my cinder and crucible ants are doing their things to make the entire area be a candy store for anyone who works with metals.

My tunnelbore ants are carving out various rooms, too, and I start planning out the extra routes and turns I want them to create for the labyrinth. The hedge maze was pretty simple to make, since it’s really only in two dimensions. This labyrinth, though, I want to be fully three dimensional. I might even be able to have Nova and the wyrms occasionally block off certain routes like Tiny does in the hedge maze.

And I can’t forget the traps. I’ve done that enough already. I aim to make up for lost time with the lava labyrinth. I hope to make use of all the main categories of trap that I have access to: mechanical, alchemical, and magical.

The mechanical traps are mostly standard fare: pitfalls, crushing walls, rolling boulders, falling cages and so on, things that can be accomplished with good old physical force. I’ll probably see if Coda can help with them to give a discount, but I think most of his attention will be on the lighthouse. I’m not hurting for mana, so I don’t mind if he works on that instead. I’m planning to use these traps to make the labyrinth really live up to its name.

Pitfalls can land people in different sections, though I might need to upgrade the slime spawner and keep some stationed underneath those particular traps. I don’t need a crushing wall, but moving walls can change the layout, and I could even make sections of floor flip up to become walls and mess with people like that. I’d like to get a surprise express elevator trap going, too, but they’re incredibly expensive for ones that would be safe.

Air jets are an interesting way to move people up, but I don’t like them for safety. Too easy for someone to get hit off-center and just cartwheel into a ceiling. Oh, I could do a combo trap to lift people. Combine a cage with a winch system, and I should be able to move people upwards as well as downward with minimal danger. Well, physical danger. Parties are going to be split and people will be in great danger of being lost. I’ll probably have either Jello or Fluffles patrolling to remove people who are defeated by the labyrinth.

And that’s just for the ones who can still walk around. The magical and alchemical traps are going to be the real way people lose, I expect. Both types focus on various debilitating effects, they just deliver them differently. Most alchemical traps have mechanical triggers, while the magical traps are… well, you get the idea.

I pick out a lot of things like slows, blinds, deafening, numbing, immobilizing, and more. Even though I don’t place them just yet, I check in on Thing and Queen and see them both excitedly working in their labs to prepare what they’ll need. Thing has several books out on his research table as he makes notes for what specific rune arrays he wants to use for the traps, and Queen has her workers swarming her notes as she also prepares and organizes.

I think it’ll be good to give them both a big project like this. It’s been a while since I had anything specific for them to do, and it looks like they’re both eager to put their individual research to the test for this. They both do great work, so I’m not worried at all for how the labyrinth will turn out.

I even upgrade the anthill to get some more tunnelbores, as I’m pretty sure I’m going to need a lot of digging to make this work how I envision it. I resist maxing out the hill just yet, not wanting to adjust to the final variety of ant right now. There’s a lot going to be happening in the tubes, so I should wait until the dust settles a bit before maxing out the hill, let alone assigning the enclave.

Speaking of enclaves, my current ones are being busy little ants, too. The ratkin are happily playing with the new metals, and seeing the efficiencies the new materials give their processing. The limestone flux seems to be working like a charm to give them better yields, and using the coke to fuel the furnaces increases their speed. Even more, they’re working with the spiderkin to produce armor and weapons.

Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

The tarantula spiderkin are getting set up with heavy plate armor and pronged spears, and Folarn has been having them drilling in formation. It looks like they are going to be using their own silken nets with the spears, and are more there to be defense than offense, focusing on being big tough targets and ensnaring foes in the nets.

The smaller, jumping spiderkin are going to be more of the assault troops, or basic infantry? They’re going to be doing damage, darting around. Vernew has her hunters training with razor-sharp short spears, and showing them how to put the entire force of a jump behind the point. It looks like they’ll be carrying many spears each, as that kind of stab attack can easily get them stuck.

While most of my ratkin aren’t very martial, they don’t intend to let my spiderkin have all the glory when we inevitably have to come to blows with that dungeon from the depths. While the spiders are very good in melee, my rats seem to prefer ranged attacks.

Throwing knives are popular enough to start becoming a sport among my ratkin. It looks a lot like darts, but the target is larger and it plays differently. Instead of just trying to get to 301 points, players call their shot. If they make it, they get points. If they miss, they lose points equal to the number they hit. Big numbers are grouped together, so there’s a lot of risk and reward built in.

Unfortunately, throwing knives are not too effective in big battles. Some of the ratkin are sneaky enough to be able to keep the daggers in their hands and slip in to slash at the training dummies, but I think most of the ones intending to participate on the front lines are going to be archers.

Archery isn’t as popular as knives, but the range and power behind them already makes them the preferred weapon for the ratkin hunters. At the moment, they’re using the classic bow design, and I’m wondering if I can share any of the more interesting designs from history.

Like the… I think it’s a Japanese bow that’s taller than the archer, so it has an asymmetrical design. While they look cool, I’m not so sure they’ll be useful in the caves. Recurves would probably be more useful, but are a bit more complicated to design. The bow needs to curve forward near the ends, giving more bow to bend for power, but in a compact space. The problem is, if you don’t get the curves just right, the whole thing can shatter from the forces put on it.

While I’m pretty sure we can manage to get it right, there’s another option: the compound bow. With pulleys, it gives the archer mechanical advantage, letting them use stiffer and stronger arms for the bow. Even better, with the proper shape for the cams of the pulley, holding a shot while aiming is a lot easier, too, as they almost lock in place and help handle some of the tension.

I’m going to need to make one for Yvonne, too. She does great work with her recurve bow, so I can only imagine what she’d manage with a compound. I might be able to do something special for the jumping spiders, too.

Watching them practice, their spears sometimes get stuck in the training targets, which is part of their training: to recognize when it’s stuck and abandon it for a fresh spear from what is basically a spear quiver on their back. The problem is that they can only carry so many spears because of both the weight and the simple size of even a short spear. It gives me two ideas, but I only start scribbling designs for the simpler one. The spears get stuck because of the wide barbed head of the spears. While that design is great for ensuring a kill when hunting, it’s not great for quickly removing. While they could just change to a more leaf-shaped blade for easy in and out, I’m not certain even that will guarantee they won't need some spares.

So my idea is to make the heads easily-swappable. There’s a ton of different designs for quick-change heads to draw inspiration from: from simple snug fitting to more mechanical locking systems, there’s a lot of options. I want something that actually locks in, though. I don’t trust a snug fit to stay in place every time until the wielder wants the head free.

I think I can manage something for that. Lots of folding furniture uses the little rounded sping rods that click into position when in use, and then you just need to press them down to be able to fold it back up. Something like that could work, especially if I use the shape of the barb to help! Well, maybe. More moving parts in a weapon is usually a bad thing, and this design would need to let the head basically unfold and pop off the haft when it gets stuck.

Well, that’s what testing is for! My ratlings aren’t as good at forging as my ratkin are… but I know someone who has access to a better metal crafter than I do. While I’m pretty sure I’ll need to wait for Teemo to get back to be able to try to trade for a metalworks, I don’t mind sharing until I get my own. Besides, I think Legs will like having a challenge.