Peek: Follow Your Nose (Patreon)

The small mole scion fusses about with his large model with the help of Cappy. When he first started this project, he wasn't sure it would work at all, but with it nearing completion, he feels he will have made a significant contribution to Mistress Violet. It has been a project long in the making.

It started when he was sent to the meeting where the Mentor explained what was happening so far away. He has to admit, he didn't pay too much attention to what was said, partially because it seemed too far away to impact the Mistress, and partially because he was enthralled by the models and maps of the war room.

Since then, he has been taking every chance he could to explore, to go on expedition. Cappy was happy to give him direction, and would even nestle spores in his fur to disperse along the way. He's not sure how the fungal scion works, but he gets a lot of information from the spores, so Nose was happy to do it.

His first major project was to the aquifer lakes. The earth there is difficult to dig through, either being dense enough to resist water, or saturated with it and prone to flooding. If it were just up to him, he would have moved on quickly to a new area to explore, but the Mistress was interested in the scythemaws. While he personally never noticed anything especially interesting, Cappy was very pleased with what he could learn, so Nose can't rightly call it a failure.

In fact, the need to keep information accurate is what sparked the idea for the model. With his earth affinity, it's easy to shape. The main problem is that Mistress Violet doesn't have a war room, and isn't certain about spending her mana to create one. But having one would make organizing the information so much simpler! Eventually, he decided to follow a bit of advice from the Mentor's scion Jello: if it's needed, just do it.

So he did. He found a pocket where the Mistress' territory intruded well into the rock, and started building a model of the surroundings. And quickly hit a snag. It was a lot more difficult to make an accurate model than it looked! He could get moderately close, but the inconsistencies nagged at him.

At least until Cappy pointed out another of the Mentor's scions who may be able to help. The bat scion, Coda, had drawn a small thing that was being built very large! If he can go from a small to a large thing, surely he can give advice for how to go the other way!

The meeting was brief, as the scion was very busy, but he explained how to scale things up or down. Measurements would be needed, but once they are had, they're easy to scale! Nose worked with Cappy and even Legs, the latter to form a measure cable, and the former to use that to measure the vast distances.

The entire aquifer lake section had to be remade from the beginning, but he and Cappy both learned much from it. After that, he started mapping out the tunnels, and Cappy would occasionally check their accuracy against the maps the ratkin make.

Next, he tried to dig deeper and check the volcanic areas, but the heat quickly made him look for a different place to explore. The obvious next location was up, and Nose sometimes wonders why he didn't try to go up sooner. Fourdock is interesting to explore, and sometimes he likes to nestle underneath the delver's guild and just listen.

In fact, listening in is what lead to the latest section of the model, and Nose and Cappy both are hopeful that Mistress Violet will be able to make great use of it. It's no secret that detailed information will give a discount on an expansion, and with what the delvers were saying, and what Nose and Cappy have been mapping out, it could be perfect for the Mistress!

She will need to officially designate the war room, and select the expansion as well, but after the Mentor has been so generous with the spoils from the fighting so far away, she should be able to afford it. She also may be able to afford a Voice!

As interesting as that possibility is, Nose refocuses on his task, wanting to get the last section of the model just right. He can feel a title right at the tip of his nostrils, he just needs to focus. The basic form of the area is comfortably regular, but he also needs to mark the small details as well as he can. He just needs to finish the outlet to the sea... there!

He sits back and smiles as his new Explorer title settles on him, a title for a scion who not only manages expeditions, but goes out to see the new wonders personally. While he's pretty sure the delvers don't consider this section to be a wonder, he knows the Mistress does. A sewer is not exactly glorious, but according to the guild of delvers, a sewer dungeon can be valuable to a city, enough to be actively protected. With the Mistress' decay affinity, she should be able to make a lot of mana from it, too.

He can feel her attention and happiness at the model and his title, and interest in the vague concept of his plan, as well as her intention to check with the Mentor before making any moves. Nose would probably just do it if he were the core, but the Mistress must be more cautious than he would be. He can respawn if he makes a mistake, but she has to live with any problems. Better to wait and check with the Mentor. This kind of advice is his job, after all.