Chapter Four-Hundred Seventy Four (Patreon)

I’m enjoying myself watching the new arrivals adjust.  The Church of the Crystal Shield has plenty of room for everyone, and while most choose to stay with Torlon and them, there are several who happily accept guest rooms in the cathedral.

It looks to me like the more curious of Order and Laermali’s people, as well as about half of the Raven’s Flock.  I’m not sure if they’re the more curious of the flock, or if they drew lots or something before arriving to decide who’d go where.  Either way, it’s fun watching them all adjust to my weirdness.

The Shieldies are having the easiest time of it, I think.  While everyone is getting their parties organized, what Shield followers aren’t out with their team are out with their fellow paladins and such, exploring the crypts.  It’s enough to tempt me into upgrading my undead again, but I resist for now.  Between the puffball zombies, pitcherplant skellies, and the magus hands, not to mention the lesser spawns, it looking like a good workout without being too stressful.

I could kick it up a notch, but I think the Shield people are using it more as a warm up or cool down, rather than a serious training delve.  They need to get their training with their new large parties, after all.

Not many of Order’s people delve recreationally, and the ones that do seem to be more interested in gathering than fighting.  They still have to do a bit, because this is me we’re talking about, but I’m not exactly forcing them into constant battles while they gather.

Laermali’s people might be the first group to use the lecture hall for more than the irregular classes my scions put on.  The mages love to go out on what looks a lot like a field trip to me, fight a bunch of my denizens, then head to the lecture hall to compare notes.  There’s a lot of dense magical jargon flying around in there, so I get pretty quickly lost.  The nerd squad sometimes listens in, though, and I wonder how long it’ll be before they start participating.

Perhaps most interesting of all is the Flock of the Raven.  They’re happy to poke their beaks into everything, and rather than the kind of somber, dour people I might expect for someone following death, they’re bright and curious about practically everything.

It makes me wonder if they try to let the Raven live vicariously through them.  He’s always busy, so they try to do fun things to pray to him about.  Maybe.  I haven’t exactly asked them.  They’re very interested in three things, so far.

The first are my various bird spawns.  Biluin seemed surprised when Teemo said my ravens don’t have death affinity, and the flock are intensely curious about how that even works.  Some of them act like birdwatchers, looking through spyglasses to observe my winged denizens from afar without disturbing them.

My denizens are smart enough to notice them anyway, but ignore them as they go about their business, grabbing shinies and dropping them off as needed.  From the flock’s reaction, I get the feeling not many bird nodes get specialized for resources like mine.

The more adventurous of the flock head to the tree to challenge the dire ravens and even try to tangle with the raven harpies.  These ones are experienced in field dressing, and so get a lot of materials from them, especially feathers and claws.  The harpies are harder for the flock to deal with, with them getting chased off more than once.  But they still come back to get as many feathers as they can.

The next point of interest for the flock is definitely Grim.  They can absolutely feel his death affinity, and so approached him with a lot of caution at first.  But after watching him go about his duties for a day, they started to relax and even made contact.  Teemo wasn’t there to translate, but it seems to me like things went well.  Grim gave them flowers, and they helped do a bit of tidying up.

From what I can tell, they’re more interested in his affinity than his duties, but I catch more than a few of them looking contemplative as they gaze over the graveyard.  It makes me wonder just how much they consider the aftermath to be part of their own duties.  It seems like not much, but it also seems like they’re reconsidering that approach.

The final point of interest is closer to an obsession, as they try to make contact with my ravenkin.  Not only are they interested in ravenkin that have no death affinity, but they’re also highly interested in the wingcloaks, hence how many feathers they’re gathering from my denizens.

First contact looked like a near disaster to the uninitiated, with lots of raised voices, squawking, and animated posturing.  But for me, after having seen a lot of the ravenkin interaction already, it seems like they’re hitting it off well.  Nobody was reaching for weapons nor for their mana, so everyone was getting along well enough.

Lots of insults and such were flying, but that’s just how the pecking order is established.  It’s plain they want to know how to make the cloaks, just as it’s plain my ravenkin have no intention of revealing the secret until after the competition.  Air superiority is an advantage they are loath to give up, even if it needs gravity affinity to work.

That doesn’t keep the flock from trying to butter my enclave up with shinies and other offers of trade, though.  My ravenkin resist for now, but I know the allure of shiny coins can only be resisted so long.  They’re already making plans for a sort of bazaar, though they’re having more fun arguing about where to put it than how to actually run it for now.  Their bars may only need the ceremony to complete, but they're still technically denizens, so proper money is only so useful to them right now.

Doesn’t mean they can’t argue about it.  It just means the arguments won’t really be settled until after Aranya returns.

Something that might not be so far off.  They’re pretty deep into the Green Sea by now, deep enough that it might be more accurate to call it the White Sea.  Interestingly, I’m pretty sure they’re still not in anything remotely close to tundra.  It’s not barren expanses of snow, but rather still the gigantic conifers with deep snowbanks.  There’s also a lot of critters around.

They look almost like denizens to me, enough that I wonder if there’s a surface dungeon around.  The lazy mana is also slightly more active, but there’s no people around to influence it.  But mana might not actually need people to keep it from fully stagnating.

Normal stuff would not be this lively.  Normal trees wouldn’t even exist in this kind of cold, I’m pretty sure.  So if they’re not normal, they’re probably using mana.  And if they’re using mana… maybe they’re similar to the scythemaws.  Yvonne and Vernew are still successfully hunting down rabbits and the occasional deer or elk or something, and though they’re not as mean as the scythemaws, something has to be slowly nudging the mana along.

Either way, Yvonne seems to have a heading to lead everyone toward.  Rocky can sometimes catch glimpses in the flows of something influencing the movement, like a big rock in the middle of a stream creating disturbances in the flow.

Pul can’t see the mana, but he can see the look in Yvonne’s eyes as she leads everyone, though he waits until it’s time to settle down to camp before he says anything.

“Did you find a snarl?”

The scions perk up at that, even as Ragnar and Aelara nod to themselves.  I don’t know if they can feel the change in the mana, or if they can feel the change in Yvonne, but they’ve been out together enough times to recognize when she’s on the trail of something.

Aranya and Vernew also perk up, each interested in their own way to hear the news.

“I can see signs of one,” Yvonne admits as she hammers tent stakes into the permafrost.  “A large one, considering I can feel it, but we haven’t had to deal with stagnation creatures yet.  We may be fortunate, though.  The local wildlife are attuned to mana, and may either be fighting the stagnation directly, or keeping it contained by their mere presence.  It may be a good idea to have Vernew and I scout ahead to get a better idea of the situation.”

“Or perhaps scout for a more robust campsite,” suggests Aranya.  “Here will be good for a night, but if we need to prepare over a few days to assault a snarl, we may wish to seek better shelter.”

“Or create it,” comments Aelara, planting her staff into the ground.  Rocky can see her feeling through the earth, gauging if it would be worthwhile to fortify this spot.  “Water could be more available, but with the snow, I think we’ll have plenty to melt, and plenty of wood to burn to keep warm.”

All eyes turn to Yvonne for her expert opinion, as she takes the time to consider the question properly.  “I think we can get another day or two closer before we need to create a basecamp.  I can feel the snarl’s influence, but it still feels a long way off.  It might be especially large or dangerous, or it may simply be that I’m looking through a clear sky, instead of trying to peer through clouds.  Either way, we’ll know more in a day or two.”

Everyone nods at that and resumes setting up camp, with Pul even helping out Vernew with her tent.  My small spiderkin has her full winter kit on, so she shouldn’t be too cold, but trying to hammer in stakes with thick gloves isn’t easy.  My scions tend to the perimeter, ensuring that nothing tries to make a meal of any of my friends.

Wild animals can be just as dangerous as invaders, if not more so.  Nobody’s going to call a scythemaw a pushover, and if the local wildlife are attuned enough to mana to count as delvers like those are, they could be just as dangerous.