While I wait for Leo and Honey to respawn, there are at least some things I should do. For one: I should gather my peoples for a meeting. Somewhere around noon tomorrow sounds good. Aranya and Yvonne are obvious to invite, as well as Tarl. My High Priestess and the Inspector both know way more about dungeons than I do, and my favorite birb deserves to have her opinion heard on any risks I’m taking.

The Spiderkin Triumverate and Larx also should hear what’s going on. They’ve all been preparing to fight Aranya’s old dungeon, but we still haven’t found any actual leads on it yet. While I’m kinda tempted to not tell them about the Harbinger and its dungeon, it wouldn’t really help my dwellers. They’ll find out eventually, and either immediately jump in to try to make up for lost time, or think they did something to make me think they don’t deserve to fight. If they want to join the fight, I won’t stop them. It’d probably be good practice for them anyway.

I’ll also need to invite Rezlar. I don’t know if he has many resources to directly offer for this fight, but I’ll probably need his help to convince people to delve a bit more. I need to spend on a lot of upgrades if I want to bring this fight to the Harbinger’s home.

And speaking of, I can’t ignore my own home. It’s easy to forget my projects here with the distraction of the Southwood’s troubles. I only really have three ongoing right now, with one just about ready for the public.

While I’ve been focusing more on the north, Queen and Thing have been working hard on the labyrinth. Coda’s been working, too, but he’s a bit more focused on the lighthouse. Still, he’s gotten the main mechanical parts of the maze working. That, combined with the magical and alchemical fun, means the lava labyrinth is just about ready for business! I’m sure Rezlar will be happy to talk to the miners and whatnot and give them the official Thedeim go-ahead to run around in the new playground.

And with that project mostly ready, it’ll free Coda to focus a bit more on the lighthouse. The first floor is more or less complete, so now Hullbreak needs to decide what to actually do with it. At the moment, it’s mostly an open floor, though there are several rings of arches to keep it stable. If the water dungeon doesn’t have any ideas, I’ll probably suggest to him to make the first floor a miniature maze. It doesn’t have the massive footprint of my hedge maze, but there should still be room to put in some winding hallways and intersections, sprinkled with a few chests and encounters.

And the final project: to get a metalworks. I’m not really surprised that Fluffles isn’t that into it. He gave it a proper try, but it just doesn’t resonate with him. Even Nova gave it a try, but I think, if she’s going to get into any crafting, she’ll prefer actual forgework. But the real surprise is that Jello seems to be quite enjoying it. The last few days, when I could spare a couple minutes to check, I’d generally find her in Violet’s metalworks, working away with Legs on the spearheads.

She hasn’t gotten a title yet, because I don’t have access to the new room yet, but I’m pretty confident she’ll manage it. I’m glad for her. After the whole mole/gremlin thing, I was a little worried she might take the failure to heart, but I shouldn’t have worried. She’s just not the type to worry about that kind of thing. Still, I’m glad she’ll have a real success under her belt, have something to show for all that optimism.

So… that puts all three of my main projects well on the road to completion. Even helping arm my dwellers is going well. Should I try to come up with another something? It only takes a quick glance around for me to see I probably shouldn’t. There’s not a whole lot of room for a major project right now. I could expand, but I don’t know if I want to try to juggle all the fun new stuff along with the ongoing problem of the Harbinger and its dungeon.

I should probably just wait. If I’m lucky, it’ll stay in its hole once it respawns, or try to subsume some other dungeon. Or maybe that wouldn’t be lucky at all. I wouldn’t want it to get even stronger.

No, I should expect it to try to come back, and I should also expect to be able to track down its dungeon relatively quickly. I mean, my wolves will have a pretty good scent trail to follow. I’ll just want to make sure the scouts don’t get spotted. A hand or two should be able to keep them hidden, even in the tunnels. And once we get the general area discovered, the wyrms and rockslides can blend in better and get me some of that tasty, tasty intel.

And speaking of tasty intel: it looks like Leo and Honey are about ready to respawn. I ask Teemo to get them to the war room once they’re ready, and we can all get on the same page, and figure out what to do next.

Leo

Teeth, darkness, pain, relief…

Life

Leo gasps as his eyes open, safe and sound back in the wolf den. The relief of escaping that monstrosity of a scion is quickly crushed by the realization that it still lives! He staggers to his paws, eyes wide as he tries to warn his Alpha.

“Easy there, Leo.”

“But that thing-”

“It’s fine,” reiterates Teemo. “Rocky literally tore it apart, shattered it, and burned what was left to ash. The Southwood and Thediem both are fine.”

Leo takes a minute or two to get his panic back under control, though he finds it much more difficult to control his shame at his defeat. He can’t even think of anything he could have done differently. That monster was utterly beyond him. Even with Honey’s help, the weight of its focus was…

The wolf shudders and tucks his tail, before feeling a weight land on his head and scratch his ear.

“Hey, none of that. You’re home safe, and the Boss isn’t upset. If you’re ready, he wants you and Honey to tell him what happened, and then we’ll all decide what to do next.”

Leo does his best to stifle the whimper rising in his throat, and nods without speaking.

“Hey I mean it when I say the Boss isn’t upset with you, Leo. He was able to watch the battle through the eyes of you guys, and he’s got nothing but good things to say about your tactics and movements. Once you two give your reports, he’s gonna want to hear your recommendations for what directions to take a few spawners, to make sure we have what we’ll need to field a formidable army the next time we fight.”

The number of absurdities in what the Voice just said are… well absurd. The wolf is so thrown off, he can only echo the last of what he just heard. “The next time?”

Leo can feel him nod. “Yeah, the next time. That thing was definitely a scion, which means it has a dungeon to respawn in. It also probably has more spawners than just the weird leach-heads. So get that tactical brain in gear, because the Boss needs it.”

Leo is feeling a lot less secure in his so-called tactical mind than the Voice and Alpha are, but if they still want his input, he refuses to let it be anything but his best. He takes a moment to focus himself, then lets Teemo lead him to the library as he thinks.

What could he have done better, with what he had? He goes over the battle in his mind, looking for mistakes. While he certainly wouldn’t call it flawless, there are few glaring mistakes he can think of. The biggest one was letting his forces get surrounded. The trenches were designed to be able to push back an assault from the single entrance, but he can’t assume an enemy will only attack from the position he knows about.

He’ll need to redesign the defensive positions the tunnelbore ants can dig, to ensure being encircled like that won’t force a desperate gambit like charging the enemy commander to buy the denizens time to dig out a fresh escape route. Yes… his major mistakes were in getting surrounded, and in dying. He’ll need to try to join in on the spars that Fluffles likes to organize, before heading back out to the lines.

He might have to settle for sparring with Rocky instead, depending on how quickly he needs to get back.

He’s drawn from his thoughts as he enters the library and finds Honey simply sitting on the checkout desk, looking introspective.

“How’re you holding up, Honey?” asks the Voice, and Honey jerks at the sound, before giving a timid dance of apology.

“Nothing to be worried about. Respawning can be a bit disorienting, especially after a battle with stakes. Believe me, I know,” speaks Teemo with gentle encouragement. Honey’s reply is still a bit distracted and uncertain.

“The battle went fine. Rocky obliterated that Harbinger, and thanks to the quick thinking of getting the denizens into the holes, it wasn’t too big of a deal to clean up the rest of the invaders. Are you up for a debrief? The Boss wants to hear your guys’ take on the whole thing, and then your advice on how to upgrade some of his spawners. He has a few ideas, but he wants to make sure he’s reading the tactical situation right first.”

Honey dances an affirmative, looking a little more confident by the end, and then the three slip through a shortcut to the secret war room. Leo can’t help but tuck his tail and show his belly when Teemo asks him to report, but the gentle warmth through the bond gives truth to the Voice’s claims. The Alpha isn’t here to lay blame or punishments. Mistakes will be acknowledged so they can be fixed.

Even with Teemo’s warning, it’s still a bit of a shock when he asks for Leo and Honey’s opinions on what spawners to upgrade. Leo leans towards upgrading the earth elemental spawner to produce some bruisers, but has to admit the dragon spawner will probably produce something at least as tough. The idea of a stealthy path for the elementals is intriguing, too. The rockslides are excellent scouts even with their poor mobility. If the spawner can produce something stealthy and quick, it could be just what Leo needs to direct the forces of his Alpha properly.

He’s also more inclined to leave the hands be, at least for now. If it comes to another large clash, the Alpha wants Slash to be there to bolster the army, so having further effects from the hands is less of a priority.

Leo’s recommendation is to upgrade the dragon spawner and see what it produces after wyrms. While he’s certainly willing to spend the time to go through the apparent multitude of options with the earth elemental spawner, the wyrms and slides are very good scouts already. The biggest gap in the Alpha’s forces are in heavy units that can operate in a wide variety of environments. The only place Leo can think that the wyrms can’t work in would be underwater, but they’ve already dealt with a hostile in that situation.

Leo gets the feeling this new enemy dungeon will not be so reasonable as to surrender like Hullbreak did.