Dungeon Life 419

Everyone seems pretty eager to get started, so I leave them to it and head back to normal reality. I think it’s time to shift to full wartime production.

I’m tempted to abandon most of the projects and just start upgrading my spawners, but I think that’d be a big mistake. Just having more dragons, constructs, and dinos running around won’t really do much. In fact, without space for them to roam, it’ll interfere with my mana production. I wonder how many dungeons upgrade too far as a reaction and end up starving?

So, if I need a place to put new spawns, I need to double down on the floating spheres. New area means new place for denizens, means new challenges for delvers, means even more mana to be able to really kick things into high gear once we know what’s up.

I might need to upgrade the dragon spawner into a lair, but I don’t even want to think about how much that’ll cost. With the ally pool, I could probably do it right now, but that’s the same problem as upgrading too far, just in a different direction. Once the spheres are online, I’ll have the mana to upgrade, I hope.

I also need to finalize the design for the composite armor. We need to get it standardized and mass-produced asap. I can’t have it still in the prototype phase by the time we track down the Betrayer. Thing’s going to be sad he can’t get the floating runes in the resin to work, but we’re out of time for chasing perfection.

I nudge Teemo as I turn my attention to Thing’s lab, and am surprised to see not only my enchanter scion, but one of Violet’s, too. Her putrid ooze scion is there with Thing, and despite her type, she’s (I think she’s a she?) very clean. I get a bit of an obsessive maid vibe from her. She’s watching Thing as he goes over a few basic enchanting things, and Teemo soon pops in to explain.

“Violet wanted to help, and with the sewers basically clean now, Slimy has the spare time to learn enchanting. Violet said she was hoping her affinity might help somehow.”

I watch Slimy and Thing as I consider that. Decay is an interesting affinity, to be sure. It’s easy to think of fetid swamps and deadly diseases, but it’s also how things get cleaned up. The new mayor of Silvervein even has the affinity, and he uses it to make cheese!

For armor, decay seems best suited to ablative protection, the sort of things that are designed to break so whatever they’re protecting stays safe. They have the problem of needing to be repaired, but with the new repair runes, that might not be as big a deal.

I mentally feel a loose string, and decide to pull it, letting my mind wander down the path of production, instead of only the magical concept. Decay manufacturing? Lots of parts are made by milling away what’s not needed, but I don’t think I’d call that decay.

I pause as I think of a process that I would call linked to decay: etching. I don’t mean the kind used to put a name somewhere, or to really bring out the detail of a damascus pattern in a blade. No, I mean the sort that makes circuit boards.

The theory is simple: get a really thin sheet of copper, or whatever you want to use for the circuit, and then draw out the whole complex board on it with something that won’t easily erode. Then dunk it in acid to get rid of what you don’t need, and after, clean off what you used to draw the circuit. It saves a ton of time, because you can basically just print the board on the sheet, instead of trying to run every tiny little wire and connection.

And if you get really fancy, you can start layering the etched pieces for even more circuit density. Or in our case: more rune density.

Teemo!

My Voice winces as the idea is translated, and whistles as he understands what I want. “Will that even work, Boss?”

Ask Thing, but I don’t see why not. The big working runes will probably need to be done the classic way, but I think a lot of the runes he uses can be etched instead of carved. And we’ll need Slimy’s help to test.

Thing and Slimy both look at Teemo, wondering what we’re talking about, so he explains. “Boss thinks he just solved the rune density problem, but he needs you two to test it. And probably Jello. Thing, take a few good types of metal for runes down to Jello, and get her to make sheets as thin as possible. Queen or Poppy should have some adhesive, maybe the resin, so we can stick it to something that won’t interfere with the runes.”

Thing manages to look confused and starts signing.

“I know, but trust me. Slimy, are you able to dissolve metals?”