Chapter Four-Hundred Forty (Patreon)

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Aranya

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The red kobold watches everyone as they busy themselves around the Hold.  Public baths aren’t a new concept, yet Lord Thedeim has his own spin to put on them.  Being open air is an interesting take, though some of the ratkin and antkin are looking over plans to enclose part or all of the baths when winter comes.  She doesn’t have much expertise to offer, aside from suggesting keeping things simple.

At the moment, that means many structural pillars are being set around and within the baths, though what structure may use them is still in debate.  Even if they decide to leave them fully open, the pillars will be good for plants to climb or for people to relax against.

The antkin workers are still working out the precise details of how to heat the incoming water.  The pipework is being installed as she watches, but the heating is still debated.  Should they simply use mundane fire and heat the water like that?  Maybe magma would be better?  The ranching caste of antkin insist that taming a few drakes would be the best way forward, and they can be fed firewood to simply lounge around the pipes.

Aranya is a fan of ordinary fire, though she does like the idea of using some of Lord Thedeim’s denizens for easier heating.  She already hopes to see a few of his healing slimes either on rotating expeditions, or properly tamed and on standby for simple sprains and aches.  The army and the miners both would be eager to help.

And the army is eager to help, all of them clearly wanting a good soak and clean after being in the field for so long.  They’re good about following orders, which makes sense, though she’s surprised how willing they are to follow the direction of Lord Thedeim’s enclaves and worshipers.

Not that she nor the priesthood are complaining.  His message of improvement and love resonate with the military, and more than a few have started following Him.  She smiles toward His core near the tree, imagining Him trying not to think too hard about gaining even more followers.  For a deity that doesn’t really want to be worshipped, He’s gaining quite the loyal base.

And if the quiet rumors going around are correct, they might need military people and more, soon.  Rezlar’s vision has been kept quiet, but he’s not the only one to witness the core.  His was probably the clearest, but several of the people on the unveiling day had visions of some unseen assailant attacking Lord Thedeim and the town.  It was consistent enough to encourage even the dwellers to delve to help prepare.  They may not earn Him any mana, but they can craft and train to prepare for whatever is coming.

It even has the priesthood working on formalizing a path toward paladinhood.  They’re still not sure if they should try to emulate Lord Thedeim Himself with their vows, or if they should focus on a scion to emulate.  Many of her own spells are inspired by the scions, after all, so they’re certainly linked.  She likes the idea, even if some argue that it’d make for far too many different varieties of paladin for Lord Thedeim.

She thinks it’d be fitting if a lot of His paladins aren’t even combatants, though it may be better to organize ones who would emulate scions like Honey and Thing as scribes instead of paladins.  Either way, it is something to consider more when there isn’t a looming shadow over everything.

Though the forces of the Betrayer are shrouded in legend, another Harbinger is probably the least that it could throw at them, and so everyone prepares to handle a threat of that magnitude, at minimum.

It’s easier said than done, unfortunately.

The kobolds and other Maw refugees know the basic strengths of the Harbinger, as well as one of its most difficult abilities to defend against: its ability to interrupt team attacks.  Mental attacks can be prepared for, with the antkin enchanters working tirelessly to produce protections, but interrupting combination abilities will make it much more difficult to fight.

Everyone knows that combining effort into a singular attack makes it much stronger than the individual contributions, allowing a coordinated group to deal with threats a single person couldn’t.  They’re still working out ways to deal with something like that, but it’s going slowly.

It makes her suspicious of Rocky coming to help.  He can and has defeated a Harbinger before, so seeing him somewhere while she and the priesthood are trying to subtly prepare… it feels like the zombie knows more than he lets on.

Still, she’ll not begrudge another pair of hands for the work, and she certainly won’t do something silly like ask him to leave somewhere a Harbinger might attack.  She could even be seeing things that aren’t there.  But her affinity tells her she’s not far off the mark, just as it tells her to not pay too much attention, oddly enough.

She wants to know what’s going on, but if she needed to know, she’s confident Lord Thedeim would tell her.  Instead, she should focus on the baths and the preparation.  While the heating is still being argued, the surface for the baths is already decided: reinforced obsidian and quartz.  She’d love to see some more orange involved, but obsidian and quartz are simply easiest to source on such short notice, with Queen and Thing providing the latter, and the antkin making the former.

She makes her way to the tileworks, though it’s really just a lot of people sitting on whatever’s available, making simple shapes with their chosen medium.  The antkin have their magma affinity, so are able to produce obsidian without too much trouble, and pass it on to the craftspeople to cut and shape into different tiles.

Geometric shapes are the clear choice, both for ease of production, and ease of use by inlayers to make mosaics.  If they had more time, they might be able to produce detailed depictions, but the plan for now is to make geometric designs.  She nods at the crafters as they work, with only a few noticing her and nodding back.  She’s tried a bit of carving and shaping, and it’s clear she has no talent for it.  She’s much better at inlaying, in her opinion, and so soon heads to the dug out baths to see what she’ll eventually have to work with.  At the moment, it’s still dirt with a few pipes laid around, but the basic shape is there, waiting for the concrete to be poured, and the wooden contours installed, to ensure it doesn’t just all rest in the bottom and accomplish nothing.  The inlaying will come last with a different layer for the tiles to be set into.

She takes a seat, doodling in the dirt with a claw as she considers designs for her section.  Squares and triangles will allow for her to effectively draw thick, flowing lines.  That could do something interesting.  She may be able to make a portrait after all, maybe of Poppy?  Vines shouldn’t be difficult to depict, right?

She continues to run a claw through the dirt, the soil forcing her to keep the design simple, which will make it easier to recreate in tiles, later.

“Never too old to play in the dirt,” comes a voice from behind her, and she smiles over her shoulder at Larx.

“It’s actually very good for planning a mosaic.  If it’s too detailed for dirt, it’ll be too detailed to lay out in tiles,” she explains as he slowly lowers himself to sit beside her.

The ratkin elder looks at her work.  “Poppy?  She’s a good scion to depict here, too.  Do you think any of the others will get their likenesses inlaid here?”

“It’s possible.  There’s a lot of room for some larger projects in decoration.  Maybe the less experienced can work on making borders, either along the lip, or between other scions.”

Larx nods.  “Maybe, maybe.  I’ll be helping with some of the plants.  The birdkin dropped off quite a variety of seeds, and everyone is scrambling to see what treasures they’ve given us.”

“I should visit them soon.  Maybe you, Folarn, and Ed could join me, too?  I understand their bars are currently stuck, and I think it might be from their lack of metalworking.”

Larx nods sagely.  “Forging up in a tree would be difficult, at best.  We’d be happy to assist them, but our forges would probably light the whole canopy on fire.”

Ayanra nods and sighs.  “Probably.  The spiderkin have smaller forges and have enough silk around to have some fire standards… but I don’t know if that’d be enough.”

“Do you think the antkin may have something else?”

Aranya chuckles.  “I hope so.  I know they like to use magma forges, which would be even more bothersome than your foundry, but the enchanters might be able to come up with something.”

Larx hums in thought, stroking his beard.  “Would they be able to get around needing smithing at all?  I’m sure magically reinforced wood would work just as well as metal.”

“Maybe, but I don’t think their affinities really play into that.  I think we may need to ask Lord Thedeim for something.  Either a way to replace metalworking entirely, or some way to heat and work metal without burning down the tree and the town both.”

Larx smiles at the ridiculousness of the thought.  “Heat metal without burning?  I’d call it impossible, but we’ve both seen Him do the impossible without even realizing.  Heh, like His plan for floating spheres for the delvers to run around on.  Only He could come up with something like that, let alone actually implement it.”

Aranya smiles.  “I’ll definitely ask Him after we finish with the baths.  Perhaps He’ll have something to gain Himself another new affinity,” she jokes as she stands, and offers Larx a hand up.  He gratefully takes it as he laughs.

“Don’t give Him ideas!”