I think pretty much everyone is eager to return home, but we also know things could just collapse if we all just leave. There’s a lot of little things to hammer down before letting the Silverveiners take the reins back.

Tarl is going to be staying, since there’s not really anyone else around who is experienced with new dungeons. I think he did a pretty good job with me, so I’m not worried about the little dungeon going nuts, especially with the Southwood mentoring it. I’ve started thinking of the little guy as Vanta, because I think it’s cool. Teemo let it slip to the Stag, who asked the dungeon if it liked that name. I think it’s still deciding. I’ll probably still call it Vanta, even if only as a nickname, but we’ll have to see.

For now, its borders are still expanding, and Tarl expects it to solidify and stabilize at the size of the chamber there. In related news, Silvervein has learned of it. It seems like there were still a few devoted Maw followers who assumed it was the Maw’s reincarnation, but between Tarl and the Stag, any issues were dealt with before any of my scions could even get on the scene. I think Vanta is confused about the hubbub, but I’ll leave it to the Southwood to decide when and what to tell it. He asked my opinion, and I could only suggest trying to dumb it down as much as possible. Bad people exist just as much as good people do. Try to help the good and stop the bad. Yeah, nuance is gone in that, but Vanta is too young to understand nuance right now. It might be too young to understand good and bad in all but the most basic of ways, even.

Still, while Silvervein is nervous about a new dungeon, especially one where Vanta is, they’re willing to trust us all on this one. I think it’s in no small part to Unsil and Kennith working to help get people back on track. The Crystal Shield guys make rebuilding look easy, especially with Kennith handling the building of their new civic structure. The Shielders give hope for right now, and Kennith gives hope that things will be normal again soon, even if it’s a new kind of normal. I think Unsil is going to be sticking around for at least a while. He’s gotten a lot of converts to the Shield, which isn’t especially surprising. He’s a great example of a paladin, and I hope Freddie has been able to learn from him.

Kennith is always busy, but even when he’s dragging his feet in exhaustion, he has a satisfied smile on his face. Between meeting with Queen and Honey, with Teemo interpreting, and meeting with the burgeoning town council, he hardly has any time to sleep. It makes me wonder if I can make a stronger tea, or somehow get ahold of coffee. Even with my new options to spend mana, I don’t see anything too promising yet. Still a bit of honey from Honey’s bees helps him keep going long enough to make it to a bed to pass out most of the time.

Aranya is pretty busy, too, along with Vernew. The Shield wasn’t the only one to get converts, which is still a strange thing to think about. The two, along with my other dwellers still here, are doing their best to help rebuild and encourage people, and it even looks like a few of my dwellers will be staying here to form a little satellite church. I even peek in and check on the afterlife for my fallen dwellers, and they’re getting along great. They laugh and talk while they work, they argue over designs and what’s the best way to make something, and take the time to relax and just enjoy existence together.

I think I want to introduce some kind of challenge or even hostile mobs or something, but for now, I’m not going to shake things up too much. Change keeps things interesting, but I don’t want to make things overwhelming. Maybe once the workshop is more established, I’ll introduce some more complex resources that will require them to overcome something. For now, I think all my fallen dwellers want peace more than excitement.

As for making challenges for those still living, I still need to figure out what to do with all the mana from the Harbinger. Teemo manages to get a few minutes to ask the Stag about it, and he flatly refuses a simple 25% split across the board. He said he would not take so much of the gains, and even after I point out how much he gave for Murphy’s Law, he only capitulates to accepting twice what he paid in raw mana. I am able to badger him into accepting paying the cost for a scion or two out of the ally pool, but that’s as far as he’s willing to go.

Though Hullbreak and Violet don’t exactly have Voices here to participate, I know they can get the gist of the negotiations through the bond, and I get the feeling they are going to want similar terms as the Southwood. I’d happily pay them more, but I think twice their contribution and a couple purchases from the ally pool is as far as they’ll be willing to go. For Hullbreak, I’ll definitely suggest he expand to try to claim a beach, or even some rocky cliffs; anything that will let delvers stay dry while still giving him mana. My suggestion for Violet is also easy, even if I don’t know if she qualifies for one yet: get a Voice. She could probably also stand to expand again, but considering how much a Voice is compared to her mana pool, I doubt she’ll accept both. She could probably use her college fund for an expansion, if she wants it. Or maybe for her Voice?

A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

Hmm… see, this is why I want to talk with them about the mana. Hullbreak and Violet both will probably have tons of options to spend on, and though I’ll leave the final decision with them, I’m not going to blow off the responsibility of taking care of my vassal and my protege.

I’m also not going to shirk in my own development. Poe is running extra expeditions to the forest past the cemetery, and Coda is already planning where to install a fresh set of gates to lead outside. We’ve just been climbing a makeshift staircase over the wall! It’s time for a serious, long-term solution, because I want to expand out that way.

There’s plenty of woodland before the surrounding mountains start making an earnest climb for the heavens, so I should have plenty of space to build out there to my heart’s content. With more detailed expeditions, I get a nice discount on the expansion. And if Rezlar builds the planned emergency Hold in the mountains, it’ll be easier to provide some kind of covert way for them to still delve even if the town is forced to evacuate there. I’ll probably need to expand underground to really do that, but the forest is still in the right direction to make that easier.

I think the hardest decision will be to figure out what kind of scale to build in. The Manor is pretty big for a building, but it’s still basically a house. The hedge maze is pretty big compared to that, but the tunnels have way more floor space, and the caverns have more again! The lava labyrinth is even larger, too! Do I keep scaling up, or do I try to compact things? The price isn’t really a problem, but I don’t want to buy a square mile only for maybe a dozen people to get regular use out of it.

I can squeeze a lot of use out of not a lot of space, thanks to Teemo, too. I want to achieve a bit of a dungeon crawl by having clearings connected by winding trails, which would traditionally take up a lot of space to be used for the winding paths between the rooms. But with Teemo’s help, I could basically make longcuts and place the clearings a lot closer together, using the space more efficiently.

I’ll run the idea by him once he gets back home and talks with Violet and Hullbreak. There’s tons of forest out there, and I have plenty of mana to buy and use the space normally. If I want to do spatial shenanigans, it’ll take more of Teemo’s time, and he’ll need to maintain it, too. I keep him pretty busy already just with talking to people and making what long shortcuts he’s already done. I wouldn’t want to take the rest of his time for something I have the resources to handle without bothering him.

I also need to consider what spawners and spawns I want to use for the forest. I think I can move the wolf spawner after I expand and finally give them a proper place to run around, instead of trying to have quiet encounters at the back of the graveyard. The weaker wolves will still be mostly for expeditions I think, but they can also be used in encounters basically in the entire forest. The later wolves are a shoe-in for winter

I also want to buy the foxes and bears from the Southwood. I think the foxes would be a good fit for the fall section, and the bears might be good for winter? Or maybe summer, since the wolves will be well suited for the winter. For spring, I have two ideas. One is to move some of my green undead in and give people besides the Shield followers a good chance to play with them. The other is to get a fey spawner. I’m pretty sure I could even give them life affinity, which would be incredibly fitting.

I also could use a plant spawner, or maybe even several, depending on how much space I actually use.

Hmm… that gives me an idea. For a long time, I’ve had the option to expand upward, but I never tried it. After the earthquake from me expanding down, I didn’t want to risk accidentally destroying Fourdock with something going up. Best case, The manor could expand up in a crazy mishmash maze of a tower. Worst case, a real hurricane settles overtop Fourdock and I’m supposed to build on the cloud.

But out in the forest, there’s a lot less chance for a catastrophe. It’s wild woodland, nobody is going to really be inconvenienced if a chunk of it decides it wants to float now. But I think the option for an upward expansion in the middle of a forest is a pretty obvious one: a huge tree. It’d even give me a good place to set a final boss: right in the canopy, or even deep in the roots! The branches will even give me extra space to work with!

While I don’t want to count my chickens before they hatch, I can feel my Fate affinity resonating with the idea. I don’t plan specifically for a tree as I start making sketches in my secret library, but I do make sure to leave a space in the center of the seasons for an upward expansion. Even if it’s something more volatile, it’ll still make a cool centerpiece for the forest of four seasons.