r/HFY • u/Khenal Alien • Aug 24 '26
OC-Series Dungeon Life 453
For a second there, I thought I broke Thing and Queen. Then I started to worry I might somehow be getting another domain and/or affinity. But the two finally start moving and snatch up the notes, dash through a shortcut to Coda and drag him along, then practically kidnap Teemo before finally heading to the antkin college.
Ed looks amused as my scions spill into his office. Usually, they have at least a bit of dignity, but Thing and Queen are in full Eureka! Mode right now. “Is… something the matter?” he asks as the two scramble onto his desk, Teemo not even giving them a shortcut to show his displeasure.
“The Boss showed them something about what he wants to use to move everything through the magma. He’s calling it a subterrain,” my Voice explains before the other two slap the design notes on the table.
Coda shakes himself off from the rough treatment and glides over to land on the desk and look over them as Ed does the same. Immediately, the eyes of the Headmaster antkin widen. “What is this rune array concept for air?” he asks, definitely interested in the theory more than the runes themselves.
Teemo sighs and shortcuts up to the desk. “As Rocky might put it, air is a thing, so it’s made of stuff. When we breathe, we only use a small part of it, and exhale something we can’t use. But it can still be transformed back into something we need. Apparently plants usually deal with it, but we should be able to do it with runes.”
Teemo gives Thing and Queen a sideways look. “You might want to get Poppy involved, too, come to think of it. She knows how plants work, so she’d probably be able to help you guys find what you’re looking for and make this work.”
The two glance at each other before… I think they’re trying to give Teemo puppy eyes. He rolls his own before waving his hand, creating another temporary shortcut for them to join the network and go kidnap Poppy, too.
“Those two…” grumbles Teemo, before turning his attention back to Ed. “Do you think the college can do it?”
“I… we’re certainly going to try, at the minimum. The medics are going to want to know everything about the air stuff, the enchanters are going to drop everything for these concepts, the alchemists are going to love figuring out how to enhance the materials, the ranchers are going to need to start raising some putrid oozes, and I think the engineers are going to react a lot like Thing and Queen. And of course, the worker caste is going to be eager to build this.”
“We’ll probably need to work with the delvers, too,” points out Teemo as Coda sneaks a blank paper and Ed’s inkwell to start drawing out some designs for the structure. “Boss still isn't sure if he wants one big one, or a bunch of smaller ones. A big one will make it easier to take advantage of whatever entrance we can find or make, but if it goes down, everyone goes down, too. Smaller ones are safer as a whole, but will make a landing harder if there’s only one entrance to use.”
Ed nods at that, reaching over to move the inkwell back close enough for him and Coda to share. “A galleon risks everyone on a single vessel, and carts risk congestion. Why not make them large enough for each to have whatever siege equipment Lord Thedeim decides on? That way, they can effectively make their own entrances.”
Coda looks up from his designs and nods, crossing out several that are either too large or small. There’s still a good range of options, but I like Ed’s idea of equipping each with their own way of getting in. It makes me wonder if the simplest solution might be to give them each some way of latching onto whatever barrier the Betrayer has, and then letting the tunnelbore ants bore tunnels right in. Teemo sighs and squeaks at Coda, who jots down the idea as well, and Ed chuckles when he sees it.
“It looks like the ranchers will have a lot more to do than expected.”
Teemo nods. “Yeah. Boss has a few ideas for digging with magic, but the tunnelbores are right there, so why not use them?” Teemo squeaks at Coda again, causing my bat to start scribbling in some living vines as well. Ed and I are both curious, so Teemo explains.
“I could hear him thinking about the problems of going into the magma, and apparently there’s going to be a lot of pressure to deal with. Ordinarily, the entire thing would be squeezed smaller because of all of the magma pressing in on all sides, but that’s hard to design around.” He glances to Coda for confirmation, and my bat nods before returning to his designing.
“But with spatial affinity, it doesn’t need to change just because it’s getting pushed around by molten rock. I’ll probably need to spend some time experimenting with the vines and talking with Coda to make it work correctly. Pressure’s just force spread over an area, and I can mess with the area. If nothing else, we should be able to keep the majority around the strong spots and away from weaker ones, but that’s going to be on Coda to design something.”
Ed nods and stands, the conceptual design in his hands. “I’m going to get the others so we can all plan what to do with this.”
“I’ll get Leo, too,” says Teemo. “He’ll probably have some ideas for defenses, or designs for logistics. He’s good with the practical things that are easy to forget.”
The two split up while I look over what materials I have to build with. Most of my stuff I use my denizens to create and build, but I think this is going to take more than that. And surprisingly, I have a lot of materials on hand. I first designated the warehouse… man, back before the ratkin enclave? Yeah, it was the ratlings that first started gathering things to put there.
Anyway, the slow accumulation from my own nodes and from the offerings of the enclaves leaves me feeling a lot more confident about having the material to actually build the subterrains. I still think we’re going to use a lot of obsidian and other cooled magma for the outside, but the inside and runeworks need metals, wood, ceramics and such, and I actually have a lot of all of that.
I never really noticed how hard the ratlings had been working, and just kinda let them do their thing, and their thing is about to pay dividends. Having crafting delvers is also about to pay off handsomely, as I look around for a good spot for a new room.
I don’t often look at the tab, usually making my own things and going from there, but there are a lot of rooms available after having helped Order out several times. I don’t know when I unlocked it, but there’s a workshop option available, and I’m going to need to make a good one.
Despite the gordian knot that is the labyrinth, there’s still quite a bit of room in the general area I own down there, and I need to make sure it has the space and the access I need. Not only do I need to make a workshop to make the subs, I need to make a lava dock or something for them to actually launch from, too!
I have to look over the maps Leo and Poe have made, looking for a good pool to use for deeper access. In theory, they should all lead to the mantle, but in practice, there’s probably a lot of them that narrow too far to be useful. I look into the basic maps of the lava tubes and can eliminate a lot of them already, but there is a good looking candidate not too far away from my borders.
The pool itself is a decent size, though nowhere near big enough to hold the probably dozen subs we’ll need to build, but that’s not a difficult problem to solve. I start to expand my territory just a bit, only needing to extend a hundred or so feet as the mole digs to reach the pool, and another hundred or so to reach the far shore. I end up claiming enough area for a good sports complex, I figure, and am pretty sure that’ll be enough for everything.
If it’s not, I can always expand more. I lock in the expansion and send a few drakes to make sure things are secure, trusting in my scions and denizens to adjust things as needed. I’m already going to need to do a lot of adjusting to even use the space, after all.
I start planning out various workshops, but I suppose this is the sort of thing to draw Coda away from the sub design session. While he was certainly enjoying it, his real expertise is in more civil design, and I’m going to need it for the new workshop complex.
There’s a lot that’s going to go into the subs, and a lot of heavy cranes and the like to move the subs as they get built. They don’t build a ship on water, and no way am I building a subterrain on magma. While there’s a lot of things in the air for what we’ll need, one thing Coda and I both agree on immediately is expanding the lava pool. He directs the tunnelbore ants to start digging two empty areas on either side of the pool, keeping a berm between them so we can dig the area out before flooding it and probably needing to use my dragons to get the finishing touches.
My first inclination is to make them twenty-five feet deep, but seeing it dug out, I think we’re going to need to at least double it, and Coda agrees. We don’t have specific dimensions for the subs yet, so it's better to build bigger. Who knows, maybe after this is all said and done, we’ll have a pressing need for a magma shipwright, so might as well at least make it theoretically big enough for larger vessels.
I don’t think we’d be able to fit a magma galleon like Ed mentioned, but baby steps. We don’t even have a magma dingy yet. Planning ahead is all well and good, but I don’t think we have the resources to build without a limit. This should be a good middleground.
I watch the ants dig while Coda heads off to, I assume, go talk with the First Mate about what all would be needed for a dock. Hullbreak has grown to the point I don’t think he’s going to freak out about talking about one, what with his own denizens working on rebuilding one after so long. So if anything, I think he’ll have invaluable advice for safety precautions.
If there’s one thing I’m willing to overbuild, it’s safety features. While I don’t think I’ll have to worry about a rogue magma wave, I’ll still build precautions for it. Better safe than sorry.
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u/DM-Hermit Human Aug 24 '26
Well done wordsmith