Chapter Three-Hundred Twenty-One

    While I’m pretty sure Zorro will need a trim if he’s going to pass as a hungry stray, I don’t rush him in getting it. He’s practicing his illusions a lot, so I think it’s only right if I upgrade the spawner and give him not only a bit of a boost from that, but also some more foxes to practice with.No?v(el)B\\jnn

    I still only have the basic foxes, though they did at least come with illusion affinity. It costs a bit extra to set a specific affinity for a spawner, but it wasn’t much to worry about at the time. Upgrading later gets pretty spendy, though. If I were to upgrade either of the rat spawners to have spatial affinity now they’re maxed out, it’d take a big bite out of the tree fund. I think I’ll need to wait before getting anything with spatial affinity.

    Back to the foxes though, the normal model looks like a normal fox, and they mostly deal with either luring illusions, or with flashes and pops to distract. They are definitely not set up for a real fight, and if I specialize them as casters like I expect I will, they’ll still be a mostly support role. Anyhow, let’s spend some mana and get the next tier of fox, before I keep getting distracted with the options.

    Out of the spawner comes a fox with two tails, labeled as a mischief fox. While the normal foxes are probably more suited to be ordinary encounters, maybe around the manor, the mischiefs look like they try to avoid direct fighting at all. They have a lot more magic at their disposal, and I watch as the first one explores the forest until it finds a small pile of coins under a large leaf in the spring section.

    It notes the location before darting off to grab a living vine, dragging it back in its mouth. The vine seems confused, but picks up on the idea as the mischief puts it by the coins and casts an illusion. The coins seem to double in number as the living vine burrows itself down, leaving just a flower above the ground. The mischief works on that, too, making it seem a bit bigger and like it’s trying to hide the coins. Once satisfied, the mischief hides, sticking around to ensure the illusion doesn’t drop.

    I chuckle at the trick, and hope it’ll encourage more mana generation in the area. It seems pretty likely as I watch another mischief put its own spin on the trick, making the coins appear fewer instead. It looks like delvers here will need to either learn to spot illusions, or take a gamble when they spot the bright flowers. The point isn’t in hiding the potential treasure, but rather in making delvers decide if it’s worth rolling the dice.

    I further upgrade the fox spawner a couple times to get a few more mischiefs spawning, but I don’t get near the next variety yet. I want to let them get a bit more used to things before I add more of them. I do nudge Zorro to guide some of the basic foxes to the manor house, where they should make a great addition to the encounters there.

    I’m not done upgrading yet, though. I eye the other spawners in the forest, deciding what to upgrade next. The earth elemental spawner might not be in there, but it doesn’t escape my consideration. The soil elementals are really cool, and I bet they’ll synergize well with my vines as I keep upgrading them, but I think I’ll leave them alone for now.

    And for trying to attack back, neither denizen really has a set shape, so they can weave out of the way of a lot of attacks. I even spot a few vines investigating if there’s enough room for them, too. I think the elemental is full with a single bramble, but I also wouldn’t be surprised if the next elemental spawn will have more room.

    I’m not quite sure what to do with the black bears, though. Maybe I’ll ask Goldilocks to point them toward the cavern layer? They’re a bit weak for the forest, but I think, especially with the added kinetic affinity, they should fit right in with the difficulty curve there.

    I’ll poke her later. For now, I let the different bears explore and look for their niche in the changing forest.

    Lastly, but certainly not leastly, I’m going to upgrade the bee spawner. Olander mentioned armory bees when he came through with Berdol, and those sound really cool to me! It looks like they’re the last spawn before I get the semi-intelligent denizen: Royals. The spawner isn’t giving me much information besides the name yet, but it’s not difficult to guess they’re going to be leading all the other bees in the area. With something like that coordinating them, the armory bees could be a serious threat.

    It also gives me an idea for some more aranea quests, but that’ll be a long ways off. I think I want to max out the snake spawner next. For now, I upgrade the bee spawner enough to get the armory bees, and they spawn in squads, looks like.

    While the rumble bees have specialized limbs, it looks like armory bees have simple graspers and come with their own variety of equipment. This particular squad is infantry and all have polearms. I think they’re too short to technically be halberds, but the heads look right to me. They also have black and yellow armor that seems to be some variety of steel. I dunno how well normal steel will fare against adventurers like Olander, but it’ll probably be better than chitin... and having both is definitely better.

    They stand about four feet tall, though they hover an extra foot off the ground as they organize themselves before flying off in formation. I don’t know what they’re looking for, until they spot one of the living brambles and make a beeline for it. I expect them to just swoop in and relax, but they instead coordinate to pick it up and fly for a cluster of trees that have grown closer together than most. Then they start using the bramble to make their hive.

    The bramble isn’t hurt, and in fact starts to grow little metallic tips on its thorns as the armory bees work. More squads spawn and start gathering brambles, too, and it looks to me like armory is a good name for them. They make their own honey, but it seems to work similar to the metal transmutation elixir, turning whatever they dunk into it into steel. Interestingly, it doesn’t affect the bees themselves. If I had to guess, it doesn’t work on anything alive, with the possible exception of the brambles? Maybe they just feed the honey to it and it works from there?

    However it works, I can already feel Queen wanting to come take a look, and I’m not going to stop her. Honey is coming to investigate, too, so I imagine the two will have the secrets of the armory honey solved before too long. They’re welcome to it. As for myself, I sit back and watch the bees work, as well as the other new denizens. I never expected there to be so much interaction between the denizens, though I probably should have. Most things in a forest interact at least a little over a year. With me having all four seasons at once, is it any surprise they’re getting to it immediately?