Trying to be quiet is weird for me. I don’t have anything that can make noise. I might be able to manage something if I tried to mess around with my mana flows, but that seems incredibly dangerous for not a lot of benefit. Quiet is the wrong word, but stealthy feels like an even weirder one to use, so I’m going with quiet.
I want to be quiet because I want to see how the new potion brewing method works, but I also don’t want to be noticed and make my dwellers nervous. I’m told I’m pretty obvious when I’m focused somewhere. Tarl and Aranya might not be the best ones to use as the bar to clear for me trying to be subtle, but if I can keep from distracting them, I should be good to watch without everyone feeling me looming over their shoulders.
When they’re delving, it’s not that big a deal. They have bigger things to worry about than me watching. But in a lab where they need to be careful and precise with everything? Feeling me watching can really throw them off. So far, I have a basic solution, but I feel like I’m constantly giving the antkin the side-eye as they work. And it’s only a solution until they notice, and then they really notice, just like with a normal person noticing someone giving them side eye.
So clearly I need a better solution, one that doesn’t make my antkin and other dwellers paranoid about me scrutinizing them. Because I really want to get a better look at what they’re doing, but every time I try, they stop like I just caught them doing something bad.
In fact, I’m being so disruptive that the whole lab has put their stuff down, killed the fires, and are discussing if this method is something they should just abandon. So much for me trying to be subtle. Teemo, if you’d please?
My Voice slides off my core, where he’s taken to lounging on when there’s nothing else needed, and slips through a shortcut to land on one of the lab tables, without even changing from his relaxed pose.
“Boss isn’t trying to tell you guys to stop,” he bluntly says, smiling as the conversation immediately dies. He gets to his feet before continuing. “You guys are doing interesting things to the mana flow, and he wants to get a closer look at it. But every time he does, you guys notice and stop.”
They all look embarrassed, but Teemo smiles. “It’s not your guys’ fault Boss isn’t subtle. Believe it or not, that was him trying to be subtle.”
I’m as subtle as a brick to the head, huh?
“Kinda, yeah. The more you focus, the harder you are to ignore, and you were really focused on those mana flows.”
“Lord Thedeim really isn’t upset about us altering the mana flows?” asks one of the alchemists, and Teemo shakes his head.
“Nah, he’s fine with it. Staiven was spot on with his river analogy. As long as you’re not pulling out the metaphorical shovels to shift the banks, Boss will be fine.”
The antkin look equal parts relieved and nervous about the explicit permission, and I bet they can still feel me paying attention to the room, too. Still, they don’t really have any excuses to stop anymore, so they set a bit of magma for heat and get back to work. I try to keep my focus wandering as they work, not singling any of them out and trying to get them used to me looking around. They’re all sorting out their ingredients and getting the water back to temperature, so I have time to wander.
The ingredients don’t really stick out to me, even once processed into powders and such, but once they start brewing the potions, the boring dusts, powders, and pieces try to draw my attention like a flame for a moth. Me watching all of them at once feels really weird if I think about it, but thankfully, the reaction of the mana is too interesting to make me wonder how my vision and processing sight and other senses work.
The cauldrons are almost magnetic for the flowing mana, and I can see little strands of the flow shifting to dip through the brews, like dye in water showing a change in the dynamics of a shape. It looks like Old Staiven’s theory was a good one, as I can see the agitated mana being swept into the flows and processed, earning me a trickle of mana as I do what a dungeon is supposed to.
I can also see which alchemists have their formulations and techniques right, and who doesn’t. The ones that have it right are giving me pretty clean mana, where the other ones are making a bit of a magical mess. It’s even more mana for me, but I don’t think those particular potions are going to be especially potent, if they work at all.
Love this novel? Read it on Royal Road to ensure the author gets credit.
I spend… more time looking at the mana flow than I thought, as by the time the antkin stop, I realize they’ve each made several batches and they’re getting ready to head to bed. While they head out, I turn my attention to my own flows, wondering if messing with them might be useful after all.
As far as efficiency goes, I’m not sure I can do much over what has naturally formed. I get a feel for just how much mana I process, and it’s weird to think I started as just a little chip of a gem in a dusty cupboard of an abandoned manor. But, like a factory game, I’ve built and built and the sheer scale of it all can be difficult to wrap my head around.
I mentally shake my head and focus in on one flow, then focus in further. Seeing the alchemists adjust the flows gave me an idea, and I wonder if it’s actually possible. The idea of fighting the Betrayer on its home turf has been percolating in the back of my mind.
With Neverrest, it had solid mana flows. The Southwood had barely a trickle before I helped him. Violet’s flows are small in absolute size, but healthy and strong. But the flows in the Maw were… wrong. I remember the knot of stagnation that was apparently at the heart of the Harbinger spawner, and I’m all but positive that was the Betrayer’s handiwork.
Is it somehow working with stagnation instead of flowing mana? If it is, would forcing it to move be a way to harm it, or would that supercharge it? With the allied delvers counting as my own denizens, the Betrayer shouldn’t get any mana from what they do, but the agitated mana from them actually doing what they do will still be there. Would the Betrayer be able to somehow drain it to get more power? Or would it disrupt the stagnation and weaken it even further?
It’s a bit of a big question to not know the answer to before launching an assault. But if I can get a better handle on mana, maybe I can get a reasonable guess. So I watch how the agitated mana of all the people around gets smoothed out, the excess energy going into my metaphorical pockets. Not too difficult to understand. What I understand a lot less is how the stagnant mana gets convinced to start flowing.
I follow the path of my mana flows before walking into the sliding glass door that is my border. I can feel a lot of motion outside, but despite me walking into it, the demarcation is pretty clear, and I can’t sense much at all outside.
So… expedition time, I guess? I almost just grab the nearest denizen to send them out, but there’s two things wrong with that. One, I’d be messing with the system Poe and Leo have, and I’d hate to step on their toes. The other is, even if I didn’t mess with their work, I can’t actually see through my denizens when they’re outside. I need a scion.
“Want me to go, Boss?” asks Teemo, sitting at the edge of Fall in the Forest of Four Seasons, looking out.
I mean, I won’t stop you, but I think you’ll be out for a while. I need to get a better look at stagnation, and judging by the flows, there’s not a whole lot of that still around nearby.
Teemo snorts at the understatement. “Between us and the Rangers, there’s not a lot, no. With Hulbreak’s dwellers exploring the oceans, even the seas aren’t really a place for stagnation to hide. I bet Violet will be trying to do the same thing underground eventually, too.”
So where can we go? The Green Sea is supposed to be pretty remote, right? Maybe we can head there to get a closer look at some stagnation.
Teemo hums at the idea. “Probably…”
We should invite some of the others along, too. Onyx would love to test herself against some proper stagnation, and I bet the Quartermaster wouldn’t mind stretching his wings, either. I don’t know if the Southwood can spare the Stag or the Bear, but we can ask. Vanta’s probably still too young to have a scion to send, too. Should we invite Aranya, Yvonne, Ragnar, and Aelara?
“I bet they’d love it. We’ll need to go pretty deep if you want to get a look at a knot or something, though. I’m pretty sure the Rangers just finished clearing as much of the Green Sea as they can of knots and such. Should we invite Rezlar, Rhonda, Freddie, and Pul, too?”
I’d like to, but I think this’ll be a pretty long one. We can’t just pull the mayor away for that long, and Rhonda and Freddie have their studies and training to do. Maybe Pul, though? I am kinda technically his mentor in his class.
“Which scions?” Teemo asks, and I take a few seconds to consider.
Not you. I think I need you here to be my Voice. Doppler should be able to translate roughly for me to the others, at least. Honey will sulk for a month if I don’t let her go. If Onyx is going, I should let Rocky go, too. She’ll want to train, and he’ll be more than happy to help her with that. With the two of them, along with the delvers, I don’t think sending any other fighters will really change the odds much if they encounter something crazy out there.
“How about Leo?”
I know he’d like to go with Honey, but I might need him here to coordinate the recon on the Betrayer, once we get a location. Poe and Zorro might be able to handle it without him, but I’ll put it to the three of them to know what we’ll actually need for it. If we can spare him, I don’t have a problem with it.
Teemo nods and slips through another shortcut as I keep my focus at the border, and try to mess with my flows a bit. It feels like trying to thread a needle while wearing oven mitts, but I get the feeling it’ll be important to learn more about manipulating the flows directly. I get the feeling that dealing with the Betrayer is going to require I know more about mana than I do right now.
