The new day brings a new delver, and thankfully not of the scythemaw variety. It feels weird to have the old ratkin delving, but it sure looks like that’s what Old Staiven is planning to do. Looks like he’s warming up by checking the herbs in the back yard first.

“What’s your secret…” he grumbles to himself as he gathers quite a bit of ochredill, and I mentally smile at that with equal parts humor and relief. Looks like the master alchemist wasn’t able to recreate the bottled lightning, despite knowing what it’s made of. I wonder if it’s a magic thing, a dungeon thing, a me thing, or a Queen thing? Either way, I might be able to start giving small vials of it away as rewards occasionally. Even if he can’t recreate it, and I don’t think he tried to drink it, it seems like the kind of thing to be a rare reward at most.

The aged ratkin looks over at the maze for a few long seconds, before shaking his head and turning back to the house. I wonder if he doesn’t like his chances against Tiny, or if he wants to do something different from the gnome. Either way, he pauses on my porch to look at the notice board and the various hanging signs for quests.

“Such a strange dungeon,” he says to himself as he takes his time to read the notices and consider the quests.

Hey Teemo, mind asking him what’s up?

My Voice has no problem with that, and soon the rat pops out of a shortcut near Old Staiven.

“Rhonda’s teacher, right?”

The ratkin looks confused for a moment before smiling and looking at Teemo. “I had forgotten the dungeon had a Voice. I was a bit more interested in the leftover traps from Neverrest than in socializing last time.”

Teemo smiles at that. “Thing really appreciated the help with those, too. He’s gotten a lot better with the runework, as well.”

“I should think so. He seemed a rather focused hand. Has he had any breakthroughs with lifedrinking?”

My Voice deflates a little and shakes his head. “Not really. He’s learned a lot about taking enchants apart from studying it, but no real progress on easily nullifying it.”

“I hope he’s not too hard on himself. Countless mages, clerics, artificers, and more have tried to find a counter to that foul enchantment, but none have succeeded.”

“Heh, but none of them have the Boss giving them weird ideas to try for it.”

Staiven laughs at that. “Those weird ideas are partially why I’m here, actually. I’m out of that lightning essence tincture, and was hoping to get more, and maybe get a look at whatever other alchemical oddities I might be able to get my hands on.”

I dunno if I’m willing to give him access to the liquid metal or the healing essence, and I’m definitely not ready to let him into the secret alchemy lab, but if Queen wants to talk shop with him, that’d be fine.

“Thedeim isn’t sure how much to give you access to just yet, but Queen can compare notes with you. It’ll be a bit before she’s ready, though. She’s working on a thing right now. Maybe in an hour or two?”

“That should be fine. I was going to see how dull my edge has gotten by doing a bit of delving anyway. I still need to get some spell spores, too,” says the ratkin with a nod. He reaches up and takes the quest to kill a widow, and nods to himself. “This should be a good way to stretch my legs. My venom stocks are a bit low…”

Teemo looks a bit uncertain about the elderly ratkin fighting something like one of my widows, but I get the feeling it won’t be out of his ability to handle. “Do you want a tour, or to just explore on your own?”

Old Staiven smiles at the rat. “Thanks for the offer, but I think I’ll explore on my own. If I’m going to take the time of a scion, I’d rather it be of the Alchemist, no offense. And I should do a bit of delving to help pay for that time.”

With that, he heads inside, and Teemo returns to working with Thing. Their progress on the bag of holding is going slow, but steady. They both have a lot of other things they’re busy with anyway, and the affinity expansion is definitely more of a long-term project.

I go ahead and keep an eye on Staiven as he explores the manor and deals with the denizens therein. They’re all used enough to delvers that they start slow and ramp up from there, though the alchemist is more than a match for the spawns in the house. I could have them all converge on him at once, but that’s hardly fair. And I’m pretty sure he’d deal with them all at once with an actual alchemical thing, instead of just bonking things with his staff.

I bet he has some kinetic affinity on it, too. Even Freddie would be jealous of some of the distance he gets on my various rats, snakes, and whatnot. He drinks a bottle of lightning resist before heading up to deal with the attic boss, and I let him have fun with an electric spider swarm. He seems to actually have fun with it, too. He runs around, swinging his staff and avoiding the worst of the attacks as he sprinkles some dust around, which seems to be some kind of contact poison. It must only work on spiders or something, because he doesn’t seem concerned at all about getting it on himself. Maybe he’s already taken an antidote?

Either way, he’s soon dispatched the boss and looted the chest, and continues up onto the roof. Poe peers at him from his nest near the chimney as he approaches. The ratkin holds his hands up as he gets closer.

“I’m in no rush to make the same mistake that one party did. I just want to see if I can get a few cast off feathers,” he explains as he slowly moves forward. I can feel Poe asking what to do, but I leave him without an answer for now. He awkwardly watches as Staiven pulls a few feathers from the nest and gives my Martial a respectful nod, before turning towards the belfry.

Oh, don’t be like that, Poe. It was only awkward because you made it awkward. Heh, watch how Jello interacts with people if you want to get better at it.

Staiven looks around the various planters, taking samples here and there, but not taking any seeds. A few of the bats watch him as he works, and he speaks to them. “I never could get the hang of actually growing herbs. Always was easier to go gather from the wild, or pay adventurers to do it for me. I should come back again, some time. So few adventurers know how to properly handle so many herbs.”

He looks out over the yard as he finishes gathering, watching the delvers fighting and gathering, and soon eyes the cave in the yard. His gaze flicks up to the bats and he speaks again. “What do you think? Should I take that cave, or try the basement?” The fruitbat just yawns and wraps itself in its wings in reply.

“I imagine you take the cave, rather than go through the house, hmm? I’ll try that, I think.” He nods to himself as the bat nods off, and he heads back through the house and out to the yard, then down to the yard cave. He meets a group of miners getting ready to head in, and chats a bit with them.

“Where would I most easily find a widow?” he asks the leader after some small talk, and the elf shrugs.

“You could just come with us for a bit. There’s an access tunnel that goes down to the caverns, which is where we want to mine. There’s a branch that leads off to the spider lair from there, so you should be able to spot one without too much difficulty.”

“I think I’ll do just that, thank you.” He joins their party and they head deeper, fighting my various spawns in the tunnels. They go fairly slowly, but Old Staiven doesn’t seem to mind. I bet he gets a lot of his metals from these guys… or if not these guys, whoever these guys sell the ore to.

They part ways as the tunnel splits, with the miners going deeper and Staiven looking down the winding tunnel that leads to my spider lair. He takes a few minutes to prepare himself, and even ties a few bits of leather to his staff. I can see they’re some kind of rune or something, but I don’t know what they actually do. I could ask Thing, but I don’t want to interrupt them… and I kinda want to be surprised.

Staiven takes his time creeping down the tunnel, hoping to have some element of surprise on his side, or at least to not get the attention of more than one. Luckily for him, there’s only one in the tunnel right now anyway. They spot each other at the same time, and each freezes for a moment, before they both spring into action.

The widow scurries up a wall and soon along the ceiling, hoping to use height to her advantage, but the ratkin tracks her without fail. He points his staff and shouts to send a beam of yellow magic at her. “Fumble!”

The widow immediately loses her footing, but manages to stick the landing and keep coming at him along the floor for a few moments, before she tosses a line of silk at him. He dodges out of the way and it hits the wall, before the spider pulls on it and uses the force to propel herself at him.

“Woah!” he exclaims and gets his staff in the way of her fangs. “Repulse!” he shouts and sends her backward before she can overpower him. He follows the motion with a whirl of his staff, one of the tied-on runes flashing. “Blizzard!”

Wind and snow buffet the spider, forcing her to hunker down and giving the delver time to breathe and pull out a flask. He lets the blizzard end as he throws the flask, and swings his staff in an arc as a familiar attack shoots from it. “Wind blade!”

The widow dodges the blade, but that puts her in the perfect position for the flask. It gets split by the blade, and spills oil over the large spider. She doesn’t have any issues with her footing as she warily circles Old Staiven, looking for an opening. He pulls out a pouch and tosses it against the top of the tunnel, sending little pink particles around.

The spider flinches back from the movement, but after a few moments, she resumes her circling. It doesn’t take long for it to become clear something is weird about the particles, as her motions become sluggish and her stance uncertain. That’s all Staiven needs to finish the fight with the old classic.

“Fireball!” The impact sends the spider onto her back, and the oil ensures he quickly gets his experience. “Snuff!” he shouts and leans on his staff as the fire poofs out, leaving a crispy outside on the widow, but I don’t think much heat actually transferred too deeply inside. It better not have, if he wants the venom he said he was after.

“Huff… whew! Never seen them jump like that before,” he says to himself as he catches his breath, then walks to the dead widow. “And, if I did it right…” he says as he leans his staff against the wall and grabs her fangs, then carefully pulls. He grins as they slide out easily, along with a bit of the mandible and the venom sack. “Perfect! Cook them just right, and the venom sacks will slide right out.” He smiles before chuckling at himself and gathering his staff. I guess he’s gotten pretty used to Rhonda being around to learn stuff.

It’ll be a nice change of pace for him, I imagine, to be able to talk with someone who can teach him a thing or two. Queen is done preparing the solution that should grow the quartz pickups, so the two can talk shop in the public lab soon.