Thankfully, it doesn’t seem like the scythemaws are gearing up for anything just yet. My spoderfolk wanted to confirm if the scythemaws were even a thing, so they started baiting the shoreline. It would have been quite a fight if they weren’t prepared, but they were. According to their retelling, the thing was pretty much dead before it even knew it was under attack. And now that they have a corpse to poke and prod at, they seem to be coming to the same conclusion I have: one isn’t too bad, but several could be real bad.

I kinda wish they hadn’t killed one, but all’s well that ends well, I suppose. Despite having killed one without too much effort, it was still the best-case scenario, and Folarn is smart enough to understand that, at least. They’re still going to keep an eye on the swamps, but I don’t think they are expecting to keep scythemaw on the menu.

I think they were considering trying to use the mandibles for the axe, but the shape is all wrong. Maybe they’ll just use them as a trophy, or ask for them to be transmuted to metal for swords. Whatever their plans for them, they’re working on butchering the big beastie and processing the meat. I think smoking it is their best option for now. Salting it might be the classic, but I don’t think we have enough salt.

I’m sure the town has plenty, but even my ratkin have only just normalized trade relations. My spiders still need to officially become dwellers before they can expect to trade in the kind of bulk they’d need to salt the whole scythemaw.

Anyway, I’ve been getting everything ready for Tarl to come visit the sanctum and see my core. Aranya and Yvonne say it’s pretty cool, but they’re kinda biased, heh. I think it’s pretty cool, too, and I’m clearly not biased in the slightest. Mostly, we’ve just been organizing the secret rooms a bit and tidying the place up some.

It’s not exactly a mess, but it is lived in and worked in. The alchemy lab is basically running non-stop, Thing is doing a lot of work in the secret enchanting lab, the war room has expanded quite a bit since I last actually needed it. It used to just be a map on the wall. Now it’s its own entire room, with a model of the town on it, and various other maps on shelves. Poe and Leo have been doing good work.

I still haven’t gotten proper beds for Yvonne and Aranya, but they both enjoy the modified hammocks, so there hasn’t been much of a need. I’d like to stuff a slime into a mattress for them, but we’d need something slime-proof… and two slimes who would be willing to do that. I bet some would volunteer, but even with how mentally slow the slimes are, I think they’ll get pretty bored pretty quickly as mattress stuffing.

Tarl arrives at the gate exactly on time, and I send Teemo to greet him.

“Heya Tarl. Ready to see behind the scenes?”

“Almost, Teemo. First…” Tarl clears his throat and stands straight. “I, Tarl, the Unseen Blade, swear on my honor as a Dungeon Inspector to record only that knowledge which Thedeim deems fit. In no way will I pass on what he wishes to keep secret.”

Impose Gaeas? Y/N?

Oh wow, he’s serious about not betraying my trust with this. For a moment, I consider selecting no. I do trust him, especially after this, but it somehow reminds me of how Telar was acting around me. I might consider him and her to both be my friends, but they do work for someone who doesn’t know me from a hole in the ground. Better to dot my Ts and cross my Is when it comes to the ODA.

Gaeas Imposed

Tarl relaxes a little at that and smiles at Teemo. “Now I’m ready. Most of the official stuff is just busy work, but sometimes a regulation is passed that’s actually a good idea, heh. So, how’re we going to do this?”

“The Boss wants me to shortcut you to the entrance and you can walk in from there.” With that, my Voice jumps to Tarl’s shoulder, and the two are quickly off to the spider lair.

The various spiders all look at the elf warily as he enters reality proper, but don’t stop him as he looks around. “Ah, it is in here somewhere. It’s a good spot to hide the entrance. Even a strong party wouldn’t want to go wandering around in a spider lair when they only know of one entrance. It’s a good way to get trapped.”

He slowly walks around, looking for the entrance on his own. By now, there are a lot of different rocks that are covered in webs and eggs, so the fake rock is hidden well among doppelgangers. Even with his elf-eyes and other senses, he can’t pick out the actual entrance.

“Where’s the entrance? I can feel the core is closer in this room, but I can’t feel the path to it.”

“That’s because the Boss went through a lot of effort to make it hard to find, heh. To your left, four boulders over.”

He follows the instructions, and even staring at the fake rock, he can’t seem to figure out how to get past it. “Is there a switch?”

Teemo laughs. “Nope! Just pick it up!”

Tarl gives Teemo a suspicious look, but moves to do as told. As soon as he touches the edge of the ‘rock’, he realizes something is up. It only takes him a few more moments to lift the silk and see the passage beyond. He replaces it and looks closer, and eventually gives a low whistle of respect.

“Fully-mundane camouflage? Well… not fully, but no illusions or anything. The only magic is to make the mana flow around the rock and entrance like they were mundane stone. Very subtle.” He nods in approval before ducking through the cloth, and making sure it’s properly in place, before he takes in the small hallway.

I’ve had to expand the secret base quite a bit since I first made it. It used to open practically right into the sanctum, but now it’s a decently-long hallway. It’s pretty plain, too. Maybe I should see if the ants or ratlings want to try carving something in the walls?

The first arched doorway leads to the alchemy lab, on the left. Tarl peeks inside, then steps inside once he sees there’s room to. Ants cover practically every surface that’s not covered in alchemy. It’s quite the scene of organized chaos. He doesn’t go and look at the various stuff going on though. He’s probably not an alchemist. He, instead, walks over to the barrels and cautiously peers into them.

“What are these?” he asks, looking confused at the contents.

“The yellow is go juice, or bottled lightning. That’s how we get lightning affinity on the denizens. The Boss is considering trying to give it to Slash, too.”

“A lightning bard?” asks the elf, an eyebrow raised, before chuckling. “Not the strangest thing he’s done. And the other two?”

“The metallic stuff is liquid steel. It transmutes stuff to metal. We’re not quite sure if it grants a metal affinity, or just transmutes. A couple ants tried to drink it… and it didn't go so well for them. So we’re only dipping things into it for now. And the red barrel isn’t blood, it’s healing essence. That’s how the Boss made the healing ants, and he’s working on healing slimes, too.”

“Is it granting life affinity, then?”

“We don’t think so, but we haven’t had enough of it to do much testing until recently. Queen’s been inspired by something with quartz, so that’s been her main focus for new stuff.”

“How much does Thedeim want others to know about his alchemy progress?”

“As little as possible. Old Staiven has a sample of the go juice, so you can probably record whatever you know about that one, but the others should be kept a bit closer to the vest. Especially the transmutation elixir. Queen was inspired by something the Boss told her about how reality works to make that one.”

Tarl’s eyes widen at that, but he just nods instead of asking questions. “I’ll leave the metal one out of the report fully. The bottled lightning and life essence are not too far out of what dungeons with access to alchemy have produced.”

He pulls out a notebook instead of his rock, and a charcoal stick, and jots down a few quick notes, before returning to the hall and going through the first door on the right: The Secret Enchanting Lab.

Honestly, the crystal array in the public lab is still better, but the one in here is cheaper and easier to replace when something explodes. Which has happened several times. Tarl runs a hand over some of the scorch marks as Thing watches... or does whatever he does to sense things.

“What made these marks?”

“Failed experiments in countering lifedrain. Thing blew three arrays before accepting he can’t just pick them apart like with a lot of other enchants. At least he knows what to look for in ones he can’t do that with now.”

Thing slumps slightly at the retelling of his failures, and Tarl just chuckles. “At least he learned from his mistakes. I’ve had enchanters flat out tell me some enchantment is impossible even after tripping over the same magical trap a dozen times.”

His mirth falters a bit as he sees his bag of holding next to a chalkboard with the runes sketched out. “Is that my bag of holding?”

“It was, but it’s ours now, heh,” says Teemo with a smile, and Tarl soon smiles at the situation as well.

“What are you doing with it?”

“We’re trying to figure out the spatial magics that make it work. And Thing is trying to teach it to me. The Boss says something about how a bag of holding works will let me expand my affinities.”

“Like Rocky?”

“Yep. Probably don’t let that tidbit out either.”

Tarl just nods and absently takes a few more notes, mostly about the secret lab being used for research into countering lifedrinking. “Well, take good care of that bag. It cost me a lot. I liked that bag…” Teemo laughs as they exit and take the stairs at the end of the hall down, leading to the secret war room.

“That’s a detailed model,” says the inspector simply, and Teemo nods. “Yeah, Poe’s been working his tail feathers off to get the details for this right. There’s also a bunch of maps for further out and down in the various drawers.”

Tarl opens a couple drawers and glances inside. “Nothing too out of the ordinary in here, seems like.”

“Leo’s working on getting more detail for the other maps, too. The Boss wants to know what’s living out there, instead of just the topography.”

“Makes sense. I’ve seen some dungeons have huge complexes for their war rooms, with little enchanted figurines for particular people of interest to walk around and keep up to date in real time.”

“That’s kinda creepy.”

“I’m actually surprised you don’t have something like that for Freddie and Rhonda. And me.”

Teemo laughs again. “The Boss doesn’t need to keep that close an eye on everyone! Besides, it’s not like he can react quickly enough for that to make much difference.”

Across from the war room is the… apartments, I suppose? There’s a dining area, cooking area, the secret library is in there too, as well as the sleeping quarters behind one last set of doors. Tarl looks over the books for a few moments before nodding.

“Neverrest’s books, and a few notebooks I can’t read?”

“Heh, that’s the Boss’ writing. He says he can read it, and Honey and Queen can make it out, but I can only tell what it says because I’m his Voice. Boss has terrible handwriting.”

Tarl just slowly nods at that, then looks at the last doors. “That’s the sanctum?”

Teemo nods. “And Aranya and Yvonne’s rooms. The Boss offered them both separate rooms, but they both like sleeping close to his core.”

Tarl nods at that as he heads for the doors. “That’s pretty normal. Residents have a closer bond to their dungeon than anything except the scions.” As he opens the doors, he can see the truth of his statement. Yvonne and Aranya both stand just inside the Sanctum, wearing their spidersilk clothing and their scythmaw swords at their hips.

“Inspector,” says Yvonne with a slight nod of her head, and he nods slightly at her in return.

“You will not harm our Sanctuary?” says Aranya with full seriousness, and the elf nods once more.

“He’s taken a gaeas to only record what Thedeim will let him. It’s alright,” reassures my Voice, and the two share a look before stepping aside to let him in. Yvonne breaks from the pomp and circumstance first.

“You’re our first visitor to the core, Tarl. We had to come up with some kind of ceremony or honor guard.”

“Maybe I should get a staff or something like Larx has…” ponders Aranya as she thinks about their duties to guard my core.

“Nah, the sword and silk looks good. Maybe a necklace or a little tiara or something to show off your high priestesslyness?” suggests Teemo. Yvonne sniggers at that, and Aranya smiles, though it becomes contemplative as she chews on the idea.

Tarl, for his part, it looking at the thick silk curtain keeping my core from sight. “Do I just walk past it, or…”

I cut off Teemo before he can joke about how looking directly at my core would melt his face or something. He sulks a little before speaking. “You can just pull it aside. It parts in the middle. We put the curtain in to make it easier to sleep near.”

My Residents let him open the curtain to my core, revealing my… kinda boringness, in my opinion. Maybe I’m just used to looking at it. My core sits in… kind of a giant egg cup. I’m over a yard across now, my sphere slowly swirling with various shades of orange. There are layers to the swirls, as well as little sparkles. I think I look like an over-filled spherical lava lamp that ate a glitterbomb.

Tarl just stares for about a minute, before shaking himself and speaking up. “Core is an orange sphere with swirling depths. Close to four feet in diameter, approximately. Emits soft light to match the movements inside. Rests in receptacle.” He looks to Teemo to see if he has any objections to him writing that down, and I don’t mind if he records that. So he does.

“So, what’s the core theory thing say about the Boss?”

“Hmm?”

“You said there’s theories about how core shape and stuff determines things about the dungeon. What’s Thedeim’s core say about him?”

The elf shrugs. “I don’t put much stock in the theory. I’ve seen a lot of cores, and at best, it gives vague guidelines about how a dungeon is and will progress. It’s a lot easier and more reliable to get to know the dungeon, rather than trying to look at the core and guess.”

“Aw, that’s boring,” says Teemo, and my Residents agree. Tarl just chuckles.

“That’s most of Dungeoneer work, really. Anyway, I should get out of your hair and get to bed. Late night inspections aren’t the worst of my duties, but I still have to get up at a decent time and report back to Telar.”

Teemo nods. “I’ll get you back to the gates in a jiffy,” he declares and points the way from Tarl’s shoulder. The elf gives my core one last look before going, his expression unreadable.