Several familiar feet walk through the manor gate, and I couldn’t be happier to see them. Berdol, Olander, and Tarl all look kitted up for a proper inspection, and I’m happy to see it. It’s always fun to get to have a critical eye turned to my stuff, which is probably a weird reaction. But if nobody points out issues, how can I fix them?

Tarl and Olander idly chat as they all walk to the porch, with Berdol going over his notes for specific things to check on. I resist the urge to devour the notes, and instead resolve to take the inspection as it comes. I don’t need any spoilers. Those tempting, tempting spoilers…

Teemo drops from the rafters onto the railing beside the inspectors, with the three smiling as he makes his entrance.

“Teemo!” greets Berdol, with Olander and Tarl echoing him.

“Hey guys! Everyone’s here for the big inspection, eh? I was starting to wonder if you guys forgot about it.”

Tarl chuckles and shakes his head. “Of course not. It’s just that there’s a lot to go over, even with me sneaking a few quick delves to try to get a handle on things. That forest is immense, as is the tree.”

“And a bit strong for the inspector to solo, which is why I’m along,” comments Olander, eyeing the quests.

“That too,” confirms Tarl. “But if I tried to be fully ready, the inspection wouldn’t happen, so I’ll have to rely on Berdol’s notes to check how things are progressing. So, anything new in the manor lately?”

Teemo hums before jumping onto Berdol’s shoulders, not having any qualms about spoiling the fun. It takes him a few seconds to glance over the notes before he speaks. “Not too much, but there are two things you should probably note. The first is pretty simple: the roof is going to be more active for combat than it has been. People interested in the belfry can still walk along the spine of the roof to get there, but anyone looking for some more excitement can venture onto the slope for a fight. Thanks to gravity, we don’t need to worry about delvers losing their footing and falling off the roof to break their neck.”

Berdol nods and notes that. “I hope we can get a good look at the roof. I’ve heard a bit about your new affinity, but I haven’t really had a chance to experience it. I’m still not sure how it differs from kinetic.”

Teemo shrugs. “There’s a big difference, but it’s pretty complicated to get into the details. The other new thing to note would be the Lecture Hall. Boss wants to get into a lot of teaching eventually, letting Thing, Queen, Honey, Coda, and Poppy share their knowledge. He needs to do one other project to really let them do that without me having to constantly translate, but there’s been a few lectures in there. Any nerds are welcome to use it, and they might get the attention of the Boss’s own nerds, but it’ll probably be at least another couple months before it gets regular use.”

Tarl shakes his head, as does Olander, at that information. “Of course you’re planning to spread your insanity like that. Are you going to be giving out the secret to your protection from lifedrinking enchantment? Olander let me look at the belt, and it seemed like quite the breakthrough.”

“Eh, that’ll be more on the antkin to spread. They’re welcome to use the hall, but their enclave is already centered around learning. They know how to make it, so Boss is going to let them enjoy their monopoly while it lasts. It probably won’t be long before other enchanters come to dissect the enchantment and make it work on their own.”

Olander smiles and nods. “It won’t indeed. His Highness has practically had to chain his enchanters to their workstations to keep them from coming here. But they have projects they need to finish, without getting distracted by something new.” The other two agree, and they all grab a simple quest before heading inside.

They casually mow through the encounters, noting and logging the rewards as Teemo watches. “Oh hey, that reminds me. Olander, remember when you delved and basically every last low-level spawn was coming after you?”

Olander smiles at the memory. “I do! Why?”

“Seeing you move made the Boss think of dancing, and he wants to try to set up some kind of rapid-fire fight set to music. Slash is interested, but it’s not much past the concept phase just yet. It’ll probably be set up somewhere in the manor eventually, or maybe in the roots of the tree. Just seeing you here reminded me of it, that's all.”

Olander looks intrigued, even as he casually swipes a dire rat out of the air with his glaive. “Let me know if you need anyone to test it against. His music is invigorating, and having the chance to fight while he plays is quite the privilege.”

Teemo nods as they continue, easily fighting their way to the Lecture Hall, which stands empty at the moment, though some of Teemo’s illustrations for gravity are still on the boards. Berdol copies them down, looking like he has no idea what he’s looking at, but diligently taking his notes as they go. The attic boss fight is over in a blink, with checking and logging the reward taking longer than earning it. On the roof, they quickly start testing the slope, having fun with how strange it feels to have down be slanted so severely. They run around, slide, jump, dive, and otherwise test how robust the gravity is, and soon give it the ODA seal of approval.

Berdol checks the notes and nods before they all three hop off the edge, each having their own ways of mitigating the fall. Berdol wears enough daggers he can easily slow himself, Olander has his kinetic affinity, and Tarl is nimble enough to hop down the trees that Hark got bounced off of, so long ago.

“Anything new in the yard?” asks Tarl, looking around. Teemo shakes his head.

“Not really. The encounters are a bit more varied, with the basic spawns from some of the forest making an appearance, but no new attractions. Same with the maze, though a few people have started seeking Tiny to get a reading for their fate. I’ve offered to be there to translate for him, but the big lug says it works better if they have to figure it out on their own.”

The three inspectors nod as Berdol makes a few checks on the paper, and it takes them only a few minutes to verify for themselves. Tarl observes the maze from the top while Olander and Berdol check a few encounters, and they soon agree the yard and maze are both pretty much unchanged.

“Tunnels?” asks Berdol, with Teemo shrugging.

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“If anything, they’re getting fewer attractions. The gauntlets are still available, but the tunnels themselves are kinda getting streamlined to make it easier for people to get places. That’s partially because of a lot of the crafters, and the enclaves. There’s still scattered nodes and the encounters there, but the tunnels are mostly to get around. Ratkin, spiderkin, and antkin all have their own routes to the surface from their enclaves, and the routes to the labyrinth and the caverns are kept mostly clear so people can get to those places and earn the Boss some good mana.”

“Anything in the caverns?” asks Tarl. “I remember the arcsnakes you were testing a while back.”

“You have the quarry and the iron vein, yeah?” asks Teemo, with Berdol checking his notes and nodding. “The arcsnakes are probably going to be more in summer in the Forest. With how much mining gets done now, the encounters in the caverns have been toned down a bit. They still need to keep an escort, and the snakes will make the occasional appearance, but fighting just isn’t really the point of the caverns anymore. That’s partially why the Boss wanted to make the Forest. He’s been doing a lot of non-combat fun, and had left the warriors behind.”

As with the yard, the three quickly spread out and confirm how the tunnels are doing, and soon meet up outside the arena. “Are you going to shorten the distance with the tunnels?” suggests Tarl, making my Voice consider that.

“I probably should, yeah. It’d make it easier for the delvers to know if they’re on the right path, and probably let the Boss sprinkle in a few more gemstone and other nodes like that. Not the highest priority, but I can chip away at it in my spare time.”

As if I let you have any spare time.

“Don’t I know it.” He grins before gesturing at the arena entrance, complete with the new seats and vendor stalls. There’s no scheduled challenges today, so things are pretty slow, but there’s still a few delvers taking the opportunity to fight a few of my stronger denizens in small exhibition matches.

“Rocky’s arena is doing great. After Olander’s fight, people like to come down and see if anything’s going on. Rocky still accepts challengers, of course, but I think the other delvers are trying to prepare themselves better after seeing you two go at it.”

Tarl pouts. “I can’t believe I missed the fight. I remember when Rocky was still figuring out fire affinity, and now he’s going toe to toe with the Inspector to the Crown!”

Olander chuckles. “I need to make sure to keep up with my own training, too. He’s not going to let me get away without a rematch forever.” He squints as he looks over the arena. “Where is he, by the way?”

“Doing his own training. He wants to get his new gravity affinity up to par with the rest of his kit before he challenges you again,” explains my Voice.

Olander grins. “I look forward to it! It’s not often I get to see an unfamiliar affinity. If he gets as good with it as with his others, I may disappoint him and lose too quickly!” He looks excited at the prospect, making me and Teemo both shake our heads. Battle junkies.

“Anyway, let’s check out the labyrinth next, then you guys can look into the crypt complex before checking in on the Forest of Four Seasons,” suggests Teemo, earning Tarl’s nod.

“Works for me. I don’t think I’ve seen too much of it yet, so I’m looking forward to it.”

They take a meandering route to the Labyrinth, letting them check on the other nodes in the tunnels before coming to the entrance, complete with processing areas and Jello’s workshop. She burbles at them in greetings as she works on another forge puzzle, twisting steel into bizarre shapes that interlock just so, making them difficult to take apart.

“You guys have her metal affinity logged?” asks Teemo, which Berdol shakes his head to.

“Doesn’t look like, no. She’s taken to forgework then?”

Teemo nods as Jello sets aside the toy to work on making some damanascus honeycomb for the composite armor project. Thing has been having a field day cramming the armor with enchantment after enchantment. It’d be utterly impractical for mass production, but for making some cool loot, or things to give to friends to keep them safe, it’ll be hard to find better armor than the things my scions are playing with.

“She likes making those twisty little puzzles, as well as working on armor parts for Thing to play with.”

“How’s the armor coming along?” asks Tarl. “I remember seeing a few of your dwellers with some of it, but that looks… a lot more complex.”

“It’s still a work in progress. It’ll last a good couple delves, but they tend to come apart under regular use. It’ll take a harder hit than most metal armor, but it’s almost impossible to properly repair, where metal armor is pretty easy to fix.”

Olander nods as he watches Jello work, curious how the thin folded metal could hold up to any hit. “I wonder if I could earn some for my next fight with Rocky. He was pretty thorough in ruining the temper on my old suit, so having armor that’s a bit more disposable might be nice. Especially if it can take hits better.”

I like the sound of that. Sounds like a good stress test, and it’ll give Thing and the others a good benchmark to aim for. Right now, they’re aiming for generic ‘strong’, but taking hits from Rocky is an actual goal to aim for.

“We’ll work something out, definitely. The Boss likes the idea of testing against Rocky, and if you’re going to fight anyway, might as well, right?”

“Of course! So long as your other scions are confident it won’t crumble under a single blow.”

Teemo laughs. “I don’t know how confident they are with the current design, but with the goal of standing up to Rocky, they’ll be putting their all into it, don’t you worry. Anyway, how about the labyrinth itself?”

The three are eager to explore, and so quickly set off into my wonderful maze. The idle chatter is gone as they go, with the average level of my denizens in here being high enough that they need to pay attention. Berdol has some troubles with the wyrms, but with Olander and Tarl along, it’s nothing they can’t all handle. They meander, with Tarl spotting and disabling the various traps as they go. I’d think the traps were too easy, if it weren’t for how many other delving parties I’ve seen get defeated by them. Tarl’s just good at finding and dealing with them. Even Olander looks impressed, though he keeps it to himself as they go deeper.

They swing through the melting pot area, and wipe out a nest of crucible ants to claim a damanascus hill, which seems to signal their completion of the area. Olander leads them out and through the antkin enclave while Tarl muses on the layout of the labyrinth.

“It’s a good challenge, a good mix of fighting and traps. I bet a lot of delvers learned the hard way that they can’t just trip any trap and deal with it. I like how the layout can change, though the detailed map ruins the challenge a bit.”

Teemo shrugs. “Then the delvers need to be able to read a complex map in a hectic situation. Boss is looking to completely revamp the whole maze once things settle down, though.”

“Oh?” asks Berdol, poised to take some notes on the future plans.

“Oh yeah. He’s got spatial affinity for the living vines now, so he can do some more complex compression and expansion. Combined with gravity and… well, imagine a big plate of spaghetti, and give each noodle a small sheath of air around it. Now walk along the noodles, seeing the other routes as you go. Boss wants to do something similar for the labyrinth in the future. The design looks like pure madness, but Boss and Coda both are looking forward to building it.”

Tarl shakes his head. “Because that huge tree wasn’t enough for him?”

Teemo grins. “Just you wait until you actually get to have a look at it. The twisting branches and vines are going to be a faint shadow to the labyrinth once it’s upgraded.”

“I can’t wait. For now, what’s next on our list, Berdol?”

The catkin looks at the notes and nods to himself before answering. “The crypt complex, then the Forest of Four Seasons and the Tree of Cycles.”

Tarl smiles. “Then let’s get to it. With names like that, I have high hopes.”