I took a breath. Metaphorically.
The Altar room felt weird. It was a church built in the name of another Core except it was in my territory. The Ecclesiast achievement implied that worship could somehow be turned into mana. Specifically from creatures with souls. My Mist-walker Dire Hare didn't have the Soul Affinity, but I wasn't sure if that was a requirement. I also didn't know if the Mana would come in the form of Mana Pearls or some other form, and if it would show up at the Altar or go straight to the object of worship, in this case Lucian.
Investigating slightly showed that the Altar had a whole menu much like the Variant Monster window. There were a number of options regarding the object of worship that were modifiable but it was all locked in kind of like how certain options for the Variant Monster were inaccessible due to my lack of the requisite Affinity. There was also a note attached which was filled with a decent amount of text in a language I couldn't understand except just as I was about to give up trying to work out what it said one of the symbols converted to a recognizable letter 'c'. After a bit another set of symbols converted to a letter 'f' and it was clear that by just concentrating on the bit of writing it would eventually translate itself. The issue was that it looked like that would take a fair bit of time. Time I wasn't sure I had to spend.
The vitapygmy seemed reasonably cowed for now and I felt like it was about time to secure the rest of the dungeon. If I'm not careful one of these unoccupied rooms might become a home to another core like me. I felt safe leaving just the Volpertinger and a pair of dire hare behind to keep the Altar room secured and sent the others out to continue my conquest. Firstly to deal with the constant buzz that the Fleshborn Progenitors were causing by rolling around in my territory.
Intruder Arrived! Live and don't Die! Kill to become
Intruder Arrived! Live and don't Die! Kill to become
Intruder Arrived! Live and don't Die! Kill to become
I could kill the cooing purring green meatballs, but that felt a bit to much like doing what someone else wanted. Nobody tells Sean McLeod what to do but me. Or at least that's what I like to tell myself. I decided to shift them back over to the odd pasture chamber to get them out of the way and proceeded to capture it. There had to be a reason they had them all stashed in there. I had my hare clear out the opposing Domain and pinged back that I had conquered a room. Upon checking my chamber options I seemed to have picked up an new chamber type, in addition to the Grange, chamber that this apparently was.
Chamber become Describe Altar Worship Trove Treasure Habitation Houses Grange Livestock Rookery Intruders Sand Pit Combat
I wondered what the Rookery was or how it worked. The Descriptions were exceedingly unhelpful. The grange seemed to read the Fleshborn as livestock but I didn't really understand how I could use that. Did they reproduce? Did they lay eggs? I guess time would tell, I just wish there was a guide book for this stuff, preferably one that could tell me in plain English what everything did.
I sent one hare to the next closest chamber and sent another to the empty chamber on the far side of Lucians' territory. This way I shored up my territory and he would be well and truly encircled. I didn't want the vitapygmy tunneling around the Altar room and potentially coming at me from a direction I wasn't expecting.
It was mainly just waiting since there was nothing down here trying to prevent me from claiming the rest of the dungeon. I had a hare peek up the entrance shaft and the sounds of the human camp had died down. It sounded like they had left, but I didn't want to risk drawing any unwanted attention just yet and decided to leave the Delvers well enough alone for now.
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The first of the pair of null chambers I was working on was successfully captured and I got an achievement I wasn't expecting. Another tier of Well Thief. I guess that explained the little stars under the things. I continued collecting the empty chambers and after three more I wound up collecting a second achievement in the same set. Rounding up the last three did not land me with a third but I wonder what new Options I got this time.
Congratulations Achievement become
Well Burglar [https://i.imgur.com/AUJVHzc.png]
Well Burglar
Congratulations Achievement become
Well Brigand [https://i.imgur.com/XRUYJ6t.png]
Well Brigand
Achievements Effect Well Burglar [https://i.imgur.com/AUJVHzc.png] Option to combine Mana Pearls into material generators Well Brigand [https://i.imgur.com/XRUYJ6t.png] Mana Wells provide Enriched Water
Ok, what? Those were words for sure but their meaning eluded me. I checked the water in my Mana Wells with my Domain and it did indeed show up as Enriched Water. It took me a bit to realize what was different beyond the new name. The water glowed slightly. Not enough to light up the room but in the pitch black interior of most chambers it was very slightly luminescent.
On combining Mana Pearls I couldn't make heads or tails of it. I got a hare to fish a couple out of my mana Well and try to squish them together physically and they just rubbed against each other like the glowing marbles they appeared to be. I then tried combining a pair of them with my not-hand like I would to empower a chamber or cast a spell but that didn't do anything. It did feel like the right direction though and I was simply lacking the critical mass of mana to get the reaction to take hold.
I had secured most of the dungeon now and the changes were immediate. A thin layer of mist began to coat the ground of the tunnels. The Null chambers each had their own little cloud banks though they seemed to be random in their structure rather then the misty fog bank for the Habitation Chamber, or the miniature simulated weather patterns around my Core. The Grange and Altar rooms received a thin misting similar to the tunnels but they didn't seem to take on any cloud aspects beyond that. This was probably due to the rooms not being formed using Cloud Mana.
With that I had filled out my map and had come to the conclusion that none of the chambers seemed to have been built with defense in mind. This probably wasn't Lucians' or the vitapygmys fault seeing how little of the dungeon they controlled even though they had been here longer then me. My money was on the strange blue guy since he seemed like the original resident. I didn't know why he was just a blue ghost man puttering around the place. Maybe he took a swim in that sea of mana that's just out of sight and couldn't find his way back like I almost did.
Map Map [https://i.imgur.com/AO8ixL8.png]
In any case I probably needed to think about a proper remodel of this place especially if the Delvers were going to come back loaded for bear. Basic labyrinthine halls and collapsed tunnels would only go so far against an attacker that knew what they were doing. I was pretty sure any team of Delvers planning to take on a Fleshborn Behemoth would definitely fit under that category.
I had a lot to prepare for.