Sluice and Sweeper weren't as fireproof as the Flamers, so he kept them back along with Don and M.C.P. The Flamers were right in the thick of it. This would have been a big help except the thermal slimes enjoyed the heat and kept encouraging the fire along.
Just as the golems managed to stomp and tear out the worst of a hotspot, the Flamers would helpfully set it all alight again. Stew was having trouble expressing himself to them in a way they understood.
"No! Stop. No fire!" The slimes just replied with enthusiastic confusion as if he was praising them. It occurred to him that these slimes weren't as smart as Sluice for some reason.
He didn't want to be responsible for burning down half of the forest, but he was running out of options. The crackle had grown into a low roaring sound, and where there had been whisps of smoke, now the billowing clouds of it were as thick as fog. It hid the sun and sky so well that it felt like dusk.
Maybe there was some way to use the Flamers to make a backfire? He had no idea how that worked, so it would probably just make things worse if he tried. There had to be something more he could do.
These were thermal slimes. Maybe he was just using the wrong concepts to explain things?
He tried "Not hot." But that didn't seem to make any difference. "Cold. Let it cool off. Let it get cold."
That had an immediate effect, but it wasn't what he expected.
Every one of the slimes suddenly turned pale blue and grew so cold that ice began to form on the golems carrying them. The temperature change was so sudden that two of the golems developed serious cracks. Still, that was better than setting more fires.
On a hunch, he had a golem toss Flamer 1 into the hottest part of the fire.
"Go! Eat that fire! Make it cold!" Stew projected to the slime.
Flamer 1 burbled back cheerfully and crawled up the most involved part of a tree, spreading itself in a thin sheet that smothered the flames while absorbing an incredible amount of heat. An icy mist began to spread out from the slime that was paler than the smoke. Everywhere the blue mist touched, the fire snuffed out immediately, and frost formed.
Stew wondered if the haze was some kind of magic or if there was that much moisture in the air. He had the other golems toss their slime companions, aiming at the other hotspots, then sent B-1 to poke at a branch on the first tree. The branch shattered at the golem's touch. The wood was well charred, so, at first, Stew thought it might just be burned through, but when he next prodded a branch still covered in green leaves it shattered too with a glassy tinkle.
A clear liquid was beginning to drip from the slime. It smoked as it fell, evaporating before it hit the ground. Stew watched the drops and it all began to make sense. He remembered a chemistry class and a thermos full of liquid nitrogen. Ms. Graves had dipped a rose in the thermos and shattered it against the counter, just like the leaves had shattered on the frozen branch.
With the help of the thermal slimes, the flames were soon extinguished. He spent another few minutes using the slimes and well-placed stomps to put out any remaining embers. It helped that golem vision seemed to be as good at sensing heat as it was at sensing mana.
It took longer to find a way to convince the slimes that lukewarm could be fun too, but he finally got them back into a non-lethal temperature range. He sent word back to Femur that they had the fire out and turned toward home, his mind full of new ideas for level two.
Meanwhile, the others were gathered around the delver's camp, resting and treating small nicks and cuts from the battle. No one seemed seriously injured, although Eira looked like she could use a good week's sleep.
He moved his focus to Femur and asked a question that had been bothering him since he had seen the bandits approach. "Just who are these people, Lithel, Sella, their friends? How did you end up with them?"
Raek looked up from a dagger he was cleaning and oiling. "We hired them on after our company had to…" he glanced to Ba'Rush and they shared a look. "Our former band had to rest for a while. Lithel's band was a bunch of Aquitani Gauls like Lithel and Sella. Mostly human since the Fae tribe they're from had exiled them."
"Their people thought they might be untrustworthy," Ba'Rush said with mock seriousness.
"Yes, a well-founded concern as we've seen," Raek continued. "But this bunch, the new bunch they were with just now, those weren't Aquitani." He shared that look again with Ba'Rush. Neither one of them smiled.
"Helvetii." Ba'Rush said it the way someone might say "Cancer."
"If Lithel and Sella weren't already working for the Helvetii, it seems like they are now, and they will be telling them about this place." Rake looked to Garrik and then to Femur. "We may not have long before they come back with a large force. Your patron's abilities are impressive, but are you prepared for a besieging army?" He patted a medallion pinned to his sleeve. "I need to update Theus anyway. We need to talk about our options."
"We should let our friends know too," Ba'Rush added. "If Merlin and the Helvetti send a large enough force, they may find them. They'll be vulnerable."
"Who are your friends?" Stew asked. "And who is Theus? Why do you need to update him?"
"He's our tutor and mentor," Eira said. "Garrik and mine. He hired Raek."
"So you work for this Theus?" Femur asked on his own.
"We're colleagues. We share some common interests and sometimes work together."
"You're spies," Garrik said with a sour expression. "I don't know how I didn't see it before. If my father knew he would–"
"Your father knows where Theus' loyalties lie, and mine," Raek responded lightly, not even looking up.
Garrik gripped his sword and tensed. "Careful. My father is loyal to Rome."
Raek smiled with a wrinkled brow as if Garrik were a toddler who had said something unintentionally funny. "Of course, your father is loyal to Rome! But he's a good senator and makes sure to build diplomatic back channels and special relationships. That's how things get done. I will be updating him also. We may need his support before this is all said and done, and Rome's legions can be here faster than the Golden Fleet or the Barges Of The Sun."
"You want to bring the legions here?" Eira frowned. "Out of the pot and into the flames."
Garrik reached out to put a hand on her shoulder but drew it back. "I could talk to my father. He could send Gaius. They're good friends, and he owes my father."
The golems and thermal slimes arrived then, and everyone got to their feet. The golems were covered in soot but whole. They marched in unison right up the steps and into the dungeon. The delvers watched them in silence. Each of their faces said they were deep in thought.
Stew had more questions now than he had started with, and he was about to ask them, but Eira spoke first.
She turned to Cecil rather than Femur. "Tell the dungeon I'm ready to talk about our bargain. It has delivered on its promise."
Stew spoke directly through Cecil. "As we discussed, five years as my minion. I will give you a core, a level to manage, and the ability to respawn after any defeat." Stew thought for a moment. "But I need contracts from both you and your grandmother, individually."
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They talked more about terms while Eira's zombies milled around aimlessly. The other delvers didn't seem concerned by them. so Stew ignored them.
His attention was split between that conversation and transferring his golems back to the fifth floor. He put Femur's office back on the second level. It looked a little strange through the wide entrance and columns, so he changed it around to just a stone bench and some torches. Then he put a large stone door over the entrance to Femur's cavern. He had some ideas for that too, but wanted to talk to Femur first. It might be good to have more goblins for the first level, but he wasn't sure how to pay them. Maybe that was something Big John could help with that [Prospecting] special ability, assuming it was anything like it sounded.
Stew left Femur and Cecil to negotiate for a bit and checked in with the mining golems. With all of his attention on the fighting golems, he had left the miners standing in front of a raw workface on the fifth floor for almost a day and a half. When he checked in, M.U.L.E. had become so bored that the slime had taken to stretching itself into a convincing imitation of a snake so that it could climb around the frozen golems like its own personal playground.
Stew realized the difficulty of keeping up with all of the different parts of the dungeon was just going to get worse. In fact, he was already forgetting to restart the arena and the golem harvester pit. He felt so scattered. He needed a checklist, some sort of task management. Maybe he would get Cecil or Femur some paper and pens to start keeping lists. In fact, he could…
Stop. Just stop. He wanted to think, just breathe, even if breathing was impossible. He felt a little like he had when he first awakened, trapped and confused, unable to move. There was an army coming, an army. He took a moment and counted to twenty.
First things first. He created a new golem, naming it "Mining Controller 1." He set the new golem to drive the mining golems to mine more stone, all except Big John. He opened Big John's menu and looked at the [Prospecting] option.
[Special ability: Prospect (20 Mana)]
[The Prospect ability enables the Mining Golem to detect and classify various types of minerals and ores present in the underground environment. It can unlock valuable mundane and arcane resources with remarkable accuracy. Likelihood and value of discoveries increase with Mining Golem level.]
That did sound useful and twenty mana wasn't a very expensive cost to find out if it was worth doing. He selected it.
The golem turned in place until it faced the wall.
[Your monster, Big John, has found something!]
[Stone Quarry discovered]
Great job, big guy. Yes, yes we're digging up rocks right here.
He added Big John back to mining. Maybe it would get more interesting when the golem leveled up. His attention focused briefly on the wall and he was surprised to see it now had a System tag.
[Stone Quarry (level 1) - This quarry will yield 100 [Stone] per day.]
Sorry Big John, looks like I was a little too hasty. This is… interesting.
It wasn't much stone compared to digging out rooms, but it did mean he could just set the miners to work in a particular place each day, and it had a level. Maybe it would get better too.
He let Mining Controller 1 take over while he had M.U.L.E. assimilate some stone to become a Stone Slime, which was something else he had forgotten to do. Then he left them to work while he checked in on M.C.P. and Don.
The two controllers now had twice as many golems to manage, but neither seemed to be overly taxed by the chore. He set them back to running the mana core farming and golem training, wondering what their maximum capacity might be.
Then he remembered to check back with the goblin, the skeleton, and the necromancer.
"And just what kind of research requires a firstborn?" Eira said, leaning down until her face was level with Femur's. From Cecil's vantage, Stew could see that she was gathering the fingers of her right hand, whether to punch Femur or curse him was hard to tell.
Stew borrowed Cecil's voice again. "Hold on. I thought we talked about this last time."
"We didn't?" Femur said with a puzzled expression.
One more thing to remember to do. "No firstborn, no weight in gold, no half your holdings," Stew said, rubbing Cecil's eye sockets. "Just your services as a level boss for the term, your allegiance, and your support in defense will be sufficient."
"See," Garrik said. "I told you to wait until his Patron returned."
Stew made the changes to the same contract he had been improving each time and shared it with her, but found he couldn't share it with the grandmother. "Do we have a deal? With both of you?"
"I need assurances that you won't just turn me over to the Legion when they arrive," Eira said.
"They won't have any reason to bother you. As far as I'm concerned the dungeon killed all the bandits." Raek said. "I believe that is what we all saw, isn't it?"
Garrik and Ba'Rush nodded.
Eira sighed and accepted the contract.
"I'll need a contract from both of you." Stew gestured at the locket.
Eira nodded and touched it with her left hand. Her face changed immediately, growing more serious and wary. "Let me see that." The elder Lady Briar took a long time reading through the contract but eventually accepted it too. "It looks fair, but if you betray us, I'll find a way to grind you into a glittering paste."
"Ah get off it." Femur snorted. "You evil inanimate objects need to learn to get along."
"You are a vile little man." Lady Briar glared, but there was a twinkle in her eye. "But since we are colleagues now, do you happen to keep any toadstool wine around?"
Her shoulders hunched and her head shook as Eira retook control. "You will not pour some goblin concoction down my throat. Remember this is my body!"
"When you're ready, come to the second floor and we'll start on your level," Stew said with Cecil's voice, as he swapped the thermal slimes down a level. He would keep Femur on the first floor, put the Briars on the second, and have the thermal slimes on the third, in between them and Bossy's level, and even more importantly, between the necromancers and his core on the fifth. Not that he didn't trust them, but he didn't trust them.
He mentally checked his nonexistent to-do list. That was everything, right? It still felt like he was forgetting something. He had levels and, apparently, an army to build, and was anxious to get to it, but something kept nagging at his mind. He turned his attention to the slime level and tried not to think about it in hopes something would remind of whatever it was later.
He had just learned that setting the thermal slimes to train like the golems had the interesting effect of turning the third floor into a wind tunnel when a notification reminded him of at least one of the other things he had been forgetting.
[The Big Red Button Is Fully Charged]
And exactly one second later because he hadn't thought about setting a limit for Drinking Bird's button pushing.
[Big Red Button Pressed - All minions and monsters will spawn at 100% higher level for the next five minutes.]
And one second after that.
[Button Bonus 0.001%]
Stew switched his attention to M.C.P. and watched the mana core processing pit.
The first round of golems smashed went in as mostly level 2 fighters, although he spotted two level 3s from the B group that had gained extra experience in the fight in the forest.
They shattered and respawned.
[Fighting Golem - Level 4]
[Fighting Golem - Level 6]
[Fighting Golem - Level 6]
And again.
[Fighting Golem - Level 8]
[Fighting Golem - Level 10]
[Fighting Golem - Level 10]
Maybe level 10 was some kind of cap?
[Fighting Golem - Level 10]
[Fighting Golem - Level 10]
[Fighting Golem - Level 10]
[Max monster level for Category 2 Core]
Level 10 wasn't bad, and he knew what he had to do to raise his category. It looked like he could check "build an army" off his list too, or would be able to soon enough. Right after he got those levels built. He let the golems go on training just in case they were learning skills beyond just leveling.
"Cecil, I need you to grab some papyrus and pens from the first floor and meet me on the second. I want you to take notes."
"I do not see any of those things on the first floor." After a moment, he added, "Femur says you removed them."
"Make a note of that too. We need to get more organized. Bossy, how's your memory?"
"Eternal and flawless."
"Even better. Start a list. We need to finish levels one, two and three. I need to build an army and maybe some steam-powered siege weapons, those would be good. Also did someone say something about 'Merlin?' "