While I can think of quite a few of my scions to boost, and even have a few ideas for titles for them, I decide to leave it alone with just Teemo for now. I want to make sure there’s no unexpected side-effects, and to let Order see how the system handles my new iconoclast.
It probably won’t break everything, but best to let it settle for a bit before really going nuts. Besides, while I do think the titles will be a huge help once we assault the Betrayer, they’re only theoretically a way to get more mana until then. And I have a much simpler way to get more mana.
It looks like the antkin traded the details for the anti-lifedrinking enchantment for the recipe for the new mana potion, and they’re eagerly brewing at an industrial scale. Or trying to. It looks like they're having some troubles with it, but I'm sure they'll figure that out quickly. My enclaves are going to be delving hard soon, so I should make sure I’m ready for them.
And by me being ready, I mean at least one sphere being ready. Slash, Coda, and Poppy have been quietly working on the first one for a while now, and I think we finally have a fully armed and operational death st- er, delving sphere. World Fruit? Orbiting… Adventure… Orb…?
I set aside the name for now and pay for an expansion, channeling the resting sphere into the change and watching eagerly as it steadily rises into the air. The three scions in charge fuss over it the entire time, with Coda identifying weaknesses, Rocky shoring them up, and Poppy orchestrating the spatial vines to give the big orb even more area, and ensure nobody is going to be able to fall off.
While they tend to that, I start marking out herbalism nodes on the surface, and mining nodes in the interior. I even give the neglected slime spawner an upgrade to up the spawn rate of my slimes so they can help maintain the nodes. The bats I don’t mess with, trusting them to get to their duties once it gets dark outside.
As for spawns, I can’t resist adding my compies and poppers, though they need Sue and Doppler respectively to parse them into small swarms. They both come out of their spawners in very large groups, and while I’m not opposed to letting them intermingle and merge when they don’t have much else to do, I need to make sure they don’t automatically overwhelm the mid-tier delvers.
I set the compies to swarm the surface and the poppers inside, along with a few soil elementals for the compies, and a couple wyrms to accompany the poppers. I’m sure Goldilocks will be along to fine-tune things, but I’m confident the first sphere will have the challenge I want, while also providing the mid-tier node spots the civilian classes are going to want.
The last thing is to figure out how people are going to get there. I can’t exactly just build a ladder up to the small planetoid orbiting the Tree of Cycles. I’ll need Teemo to make a couple shortcuts, but from where?
One at the end of the Gauntlet wouldn’t be bad. It’ll probably throttle the volume a bit, but it’s not going to be the only way there, so it shouldn’t be too bad. And it’ll make me a bit more mana, too. I’ll nestle one into the caverns, too. The miners already like to go there, so giving them access to more of the same inside the sphere would be a good way to lessen the density and allow for better delves.
And… I think I’ll put one outside the Labyrinth, too, leading to the surface of the sphere. That should give plenty of space to get to it. The Gauntlet entrance will probably be for the people trying to push themselves, as it’s not too difficult to get from the manor entrance to the Gauntlet. The other two entrances are already in mid-tier areas, so should be the more usual progression.
Before I forget, I make sure to guide some of my rats and ravens to the sphere as well, adding a few chests for them to keep stocked. I get Goldilocks’ attention for the chests, and I can feel her already calculating what sorts of minibosses to put toward guarding them.
Support the author by searching for the original publication of this novel.
That done, I take the time to check in on the ravenkin, the four representatives still locked in debate. Right now, they’re arguing about how to settle ties. With the four seasons, they’ll always have an even number of people to decide policy. There’s even been a few suggestions for government shot down because of the ties, so I guess they’ve decided to tackle that before figuring out anything else.
They argue about if everything should just be a simple majority, and instead make it so only unanimous decisions would be enacted. On the one hand, it’s not much more than would be needed for a majority. They’d need three of four for a majority, so why not require unanimous approval?
Well, they can hold grudges, for one. Even if not these four in specific, there will be birbs that vote no just to spite someone, and no amount of generous offers will sway them. So that idea’s no good.
Next is to try to get a bunch of representatives from each season, so there’ll be a lower chance to make a tie, and make it so they need to argue around a tie if it happens. Not a bad idea in theory, but at that point, they might as well just have the entire enclave show up, and they all know how messy it was just to get them four selected.
The next suggestion is to have the four priests break ties, but that just brings up the situation where the priests deadlock, too. They could potentially default to Aranya breaking the priestly tie, but they don’t want to go bringing her in to settle things. They need a way of settling it themselves.
Maybe a tie is a pass, then? Then the problem isn’t fixed, just a problem in a different direction. They’d need three to be against something for it to fail, so all kinds of unfair policies could be imposed!
Should they ask the enclave as a whole to elect a tiebreaker? While having someone to break ties would be great, that someone would still have their seasonal ties, wouldn't they? For the whole time they hold that position, one season would have an advantage over the others! Sure, they wouldn’t always side with their seasonal representative, but they surely would more often than with the others, right?
Sivart, the representative for Spring grumbles as the four of them try to think of ways around the problem. “Maybe we should just draw lots to break a tie…” The others consider that for a moment before shaking their heads, not even bothering to argue against what clearly wasn’t a serious suggestion.
Though Enara looks thoughtful for a moment. “What if we choose the person to break the tie by drawing lots?”
The others give her confused looks, so she continues. “What if we just randomly pick someone from the enclave to be the tie breaker for a day? We might not even have any ties that day, so it’d be difficult for anyone to press the seasonal advantage. And they wouldn’t be there long enough for anyone to try to influence, either.”
“Hmm… I like it,” says Leinad, the fall representative. “It’s not perfect, one season will get a small advantage, but it’s not like each season thinks as one. We all had a lot of arguing to get here, so I’m sure we each know some of our constituents who would vote against us for spite, too.”
The others all chuckle, each thinking of a few people who would absolutely do just that.
“I don’t like it,” says Sivart. “But I support it. We wouldn’t be relying on anyone outside to settle our issues, which is important. While I appreciate Lord Thedeim’s advice, I think He made us an enclave so we can learn to fly on our own.”
They all look to Asereth, who just looks tired. “I’m not convinced, but I’m even less convinced that we’ll come up with anything better before we all die of old age.” They all cheer, even Aserath giving a weak squawk, for finally settling one of their major matters. As Enara writes it down, with the others quibbling over a few minor details, I check out their little constitution.
So far, it’s pretty simple. Each season will send a representative, the representatives will argue to make policy, majority rules. Ties are now decided by the breaker, who will be chosen via lots when it’s time to actually work on governance. Each season mostly gets to do what they want, though each has certain obligations to the others, like helping with food, crafts, and whatever the seasons specialize in.
I think they could do a lot worse, though I wonder if I should be impressed or concerned. On the one hand, they don’t seem inclined to impose taxes. On the other… they’ve kinda invented jury duty. I’m not sure how I should feel about that.
