Well, you’ve got a lair and a… follower, so why not learn more about them?

Your immediate first thought is to take Jitter and try to find Ratty, to persuade her to at least come back to the relative semi-safety of what was now your lair, but you decide to wait. You want to give Ratty some time to cool off and wait, and not make her feel like you’re pressuring her or harassing her. Not too long—these tunnels were too dangerous for anyone of your levels, even someone as strong as Ratty, to go it alone—but right now she needs to not see you. Instead, you decide to examine your options for the catacomb chamber. You pull up the shiny new menu for Lair Actions and give them a read.

Land claimed by Mael “Milky” Lochan
Claim Type: Monster Lair
Land Type: [Ondell_Catacomb_Chamber.0.4.03_Location_07]
Resources detected:
Stone Bricks x10
Strange Meat (Raw) (x11)
Small Bone (x4)
Jagged Tooth (x5)
[Add resources to stockpile? Y/N]

Natural Features:
Stone Resource Node x2
Water Source

You add the bricks to the “stockpile”, whatever that is. Oh—wait, there’s a submenu for it, so that’s handy; it shows every resource you have in the stockpile, which looks like everything you've taken out of your personal inventories… although you can also clearly see the bricks, meat, and rat detritus all nicely stacked and piled in a corner of the room, so maybe not too handy. The water source isn’t immediately apparent to you, as one of the reasons you chose this room in the first place was that it looked comparatively dry; maybe you needed to access that a different way?

You flip through to another submenu labelled Construct, and are met with a pop-up.

Warning: construction options currently limited! Unrefined land type [Ondell_Catacomb_Chamber.0.4.03_Location_07] must be remodelled into a Lair Type in order to unlock many of the features of the Keeps and Settlements 1.0.0.0.0.2 update!

Remodel into Lair [10 Stone (Any), 2 Ore (Any)]
Access Resource Node: Water [Tool with Digging 1/Mining 1/Tunneling 1]
Access Resource Node: Stone
Relocate Stockpile
Repair Door: [5 Wood (Any), 10 Nails]
[Expand Furniture Construction Menu?]

You decline to expand the furniture construction menu, for the simple reason that it’s likely to be very long and there’s not a chance in hell you can build any of it. Instead, you press “Access Resource Node: Stone” once, and suddenly you jump as a section of wall with particularly crumbling stone seems to highlight itself in your mind. Reflexively you close the menu, and see that Jitter’s reacted the same way as you. “Wh-what the h-hell is that?”

“It’s, uh… a construction site, I guess.” You move towards the section of the wall, and not seeing any other options, you reach forward and touch it. Instantly, the highlight goes away, and instead you see a pop-up.

Resource Node:
Common, Stone
Drops: ????, ????

Okay. You guessed that since there was already a damaged wall here, there was nothing you needed to actually do to access the node. You reach out and touch it again, and… nothing. Huh. you smack your hand against it, trying to see if more **** would activate the node—and it seems so! A small pop-up blips up from the wall where your hand hit it.

Skill level, -50%. No Tools, -95%. Total Harvest Speed: 10%
Harvesting [????], 3% complete

Wow. If that’s how things are going, this is going to take forever. Although maybe… maybe if you hit it harder…

One pained yelp later, and nursing a set of scraped knuckles, you deem the testing of your theory concluded. Given the node went from 3% harvested to 8% harvested, it looks like it’s possible, but also not worth it.

“That was so fucking s-s-stupid of you.” Jitter says, although with concern in his voice; he had been by your side almost before you yelled.
“Yeah… ouch… damnation and destruction, not gonna do that again. Fuck."
Jitter snickers. “What w-were you even t-trying to do? Mine the wall with your bare h-h-hands? We’d need to be m-moles or s-something.”
“You’re not wrong. Either we should find some moles or find some tools.”

You quickly go over the basics of what you can do with the lair to Jitter. “Hmm. M-maybe try moving the st-stockpile.” he suggests, and you do so, outlining a spot on the other side of the room for the stockpile. Immediately the new location highlights itself, but everything in the old stockpile remains where it was. “Wait, is it broken? It didn’t… oh you gotta be kidding me, we have to physically move the stockpile?” you complain.

“...yes?” Jitter looks at you like you’re somewhere between stupid and crazy
“...okay, I guess that makes sense. But I guess it’s a good thing I found that out now, before we had like shelves of stuff to move.” Given how little is in your stockpile, it’s no trouble at all to get it re-arranged. “Okay, that sums up just about everything I can do with the lair… maybe there’s some new stuff I can do with the microboss status.” you say, pulling up the menu again. “It looks like the way I get new stuff is by “fame”, which is anything that means people know about me or us. We have a little bit of it, but not much, and I’m not really looking to get any more right now.” As you say that, you’re surprised to see your fame has actually increased, and you expand the list again.

Fame: 36
Recent Activity:
Got a minion! +21 (expanded)
Got a minion! +10
Got a minor minion! +1
Convinced someone to join your faction! +5
First minion bonus! +5

Okay, well… that was interesting. It really felt like you should get less fame from someone you knew so well joining you, but you weren’t complaining. 36 Fame… that meant you could assign a minion role, designate a lieutenant, upgrade a minion role, or upgrade your Demagogue ability. Upgrading a minion role was out of scope, as was making a lieutenant, but you had enough points to both buy a level of Demagogue and give Jitter a role.

You explain the gist of it to Jitter, and he nods. “Th-that makes s-sense. I d-dunno what role I c-c-could fill, but it might h-help. And D-Demagogue sounds fancy.”

It does sound fancy. Plus you know it means something like “persuasive person”, and you could really use all the persuasiveness you can get if you’re gonna get Ratty to come back and also maybe not be mad at you. You press the selection, and immediately feel no different—but the option has changed.

Demagogue (Class/Lair Environment Ability) [1/10]: 50 Fame
Your rhetorical skill and passionate convictions have started to draw others towards you. Bonus to CHA-based personal interactions, and there is a possibility some thinking creatures aware of you may spontaneously request to join your Faction.

Okay. Okay, that was… that was good, right? You were more persuasive, but it sounded like it was just that. You didn’t have freaky mind powers or anything—you’re not sure you would trust yourself with freaky mind powers. Next, you turn to the role menu.

Designate Minion Role:
Select minion: [Joska “Jitter” Andone, Type (Follower)]

He’s the only option, although it looks like you’ll have a scroll wheel there once you have more than one follower to select.

Designating minion role for [Joska “Jitter” Andone] for faction [A0.0.5.5_faction_monpol_beggar_dynamic]

Beggar: This minion is involved in panhandling, wheedling, and other forms of mendication. Small bonus to Charisma and Manipulation interactions of a financial nature with non-hostile Merciful-alignment PCs and NPCs.
Thief: This minion is a shadow in the night, liberating the goods of others into more desirable hands. Small bonus to actions using Stealth or Larceny. Failure in Stealth or Larceny actions will spread faction awareness but negatively impact faction reputation.
Gossip: This minion is hard at work by idly chatting with anyone who will listen. Bonus to Fame and faction awareness gathered from interactions with PCs and NPCs. -10% speed to actions taken while interacting with a PC or NPC
Conman: This minion is busy trying to misdirect others with their wits. Bonus to social interactions using Manipulation. Failure in Manipulation interactions will spread faction awareness but negatively impact faction reputation.

[Available Minion Roles will change with circumstances as part of the Dynamic Faction System]

Hmm. You’re not loving the “you are poor and also criminals” theme going on with your possible choices. It’s true, sure, but this is really just rubbing it in your face. More to the point, however, none of them seem particularly useful at the precise moment—especially not the ones that might raise your awareness. But you should check with Jitter before doing anything.

“Huh, t-that’s… ya know, that’s all pret-t-ty much what I d-did already…” he says after you explain the various roles to him. “The b-bonuses might be nice if i-it was business as usual, but we n-need to hide. Maybe we should wait and see if they ch-change?”
“Yeah, that’s what I was thinking,” you agree, “but I wanted to get your opinion on it. Then we’ll save the fame, and if we wind up needing an edge on one of those things later, we can deal with it.”

Well, now you know some of the basics. You’ve only dipped your little toe into microbossery, and you’ve done barely anything with the lair, but at least you have an idea of where to start from here. The only things left on your agenda for the moment are to (a) try to find, then persuade Ratty to join you, and (b) get two units of Metal Ore to start remodeling your lair.