[D'sP] Settling Down - Chapter 465

Doyle and his newest boss still don’t see completely eye to eye. However, the goat matriarch decides the situation isn’t too bad and settles in. This was a Big Thing for the dungeon.

Because the dungeon was settling. Ally didn’t notice at first and Doyle was in the middle of it so a bit oblivious.

A couple weeks passed and the raid boss found that her daily activities didn’t really change much. So she accepted her place and life went on.

Soul, Body, and Mind

Specialty, Finesse, and Power

It didn’t have to be this way. Every dungeon core developed in their own way. Some manage to settle into things within five floors and their first boss. Others? Well, maybe they would have settled eventually, maybe not.

Doyle unintentionally built up a pretty strong base for himself.

Then Ally noticed. There wasn’t anything physically or magically different. It all came down to the conceptual side of things. A side of things she is not all that knowledgeable about.

Oh, she knows the basics. Kind of hard not to when your mom is a Fae Queen, ruler of a court. As with many of the higher end side of things, the role revolves almost more around the concept of said role than anything else. To be a Fae Queen requires you to be a Fae Queen. However, you get there, either you fit into the role or you don’t last.

Ally checks a few things, looks up some info, and prompts the system to see if it has any handy tutorial screens left she can shake out of it. There isn’t, but she tried, which is worth something in and of itself.

She turns to Doyle, ‘Hey Doyle. A thing happened.’

Doyle turned away from his work on the stone sphere and brought his attention back to his core room. ‘Hmm? Something happen in town?’

Ally shakes her head, ‘Nah, though it seems something happened in the dungeon that slipped past us.’

Doyle, ‘Huh? Wouldn’t the system have warned us about something important enough to not wait for our next round up meeting?’

Ally shrugs, ‘Bring it up with the system. Though I guess I can sort of see why it works like this. After all, it didn’t warn us about your bottleneck either.’

Doyle groans, ‘Lay on me, what else have I been restricted from doing? Has the system decided I shouldn’t be allowed any more floors or some such?’

Ally laughs, ‘That’s a fair reaction, but no. Rather, I meant it as more of a “natural growth” sort of situation. Sort of like how the system won’t tell a human when they’ve become an adult. Though in this case, the differences can be a bit more obvious.’

Doyle, ‘If it is so obvious, why haven’t I noticed it?’

Ally, ‘If a person suddenly had the muscle memory of a boxer, but never attempts to box, how would they know?’

Doyle, ‘Well, eventually something would come up that would tip them off.’

Ally nods, ‘And I noticed something to tip me off.’

Doyle, ‘Fair enough. So, what happened?’

Ally smiles, ‘You have settled as a dungeon.’

Doyle shakes his core, ‘Yeah, that means absolutely nothing to me.’

Ally, ‘Well for starters, the next floor you make will have a natural jump in energy density. This won’t change anything statistically, though the delvers will have an even harder time digging into places you don’t want them to.

‘More importantly though, having settled you’ll have developed a quirk. Nothing that you couldn’t have technically developed in some other manner, but the effect will be more pervasive.’

Doyle, ‘As far as the town is concerned, I’m already quite the “quirky” dungeon. Whether it’s my energy well path or how varied my dungeon is. So you have some examples? Because I assume I’ll have to figure it out myself.’

Ally smiles, ‘Why of course! Can’t make things too easy on you. Though it shouldn’t be hard to figure out. As for examples? I have a few, even if it isn’t always the easiest to figure out. After all, the information all comes from dungeon Fae who have noticed their dungeon settling and then noticed a change.

‘Anyway, a common one is for a beast-type dungeon to develop free pack leaders. This is more of a passive change as research has shown that when put in a large enough group, the leader of said group will channel power from the rest and pseudo-evolve.

‘The leader won’t pick up new traits or anything and if the dungeon breaks up the group, they’ll return to their normal form. Also, the dungeon doesn’t get a pattern for them. Which is fair. After all, if they did get a pattern? Well, then you just need to spawn a new group of that form and grab a new pattern from their leader. Rinse and repeat till perfection within that level and species.’

Doyle, ‘How is it more pervasive than a path? That honestly sounds exactly like a path.’

Ally shakes her head, ‘You missed the important part. It works with Any monster when put in a large enough group. Not just beasts or regular monsters. Not just within a group of the same sort of monsters. Any monsters in a group.

‘Your kobold goatherds would be the ones improved. And guess what? It also works on bosses. Which is very, very rare. Simple stat buffs? Oh sure, that will go through. But even if a path does not specifically say it doesn’t work on a boss? Safe to assume that if it causes some temporary inherent change, it won’t work on a boss.’

Doyle, ‘Oh.

‘Okay, yeah, I see what you mean. Anyway, do you have examples that would be closer to what I might find?’

Ally ticks off a few examples. ‘Dungeon terrain becomes harder for delvers to modify. Not likely as you allow them to mine, but still possible since you’ve worked against them doing so in a fight. Faster increase in floor size. Which would pop up since you like to use every single bit of the floor. More than a few examples of further effects to punish people who enter the dungeon with too many people.

‘Though if I had to guess? Your quirk is going to be related to spatial manipulation. I’d first try poking at an existing portal as you haven’t done much with them as of late and then move on from there.’

Doyle, ‘Okay, but first, why does this happen at all? It’s not a path and it isn’t some magical dungeon puberty. And “settled”? What does that even mean in this context?’

Ally, ‘Settled is the word used because the way to detect it is to sense for the world energy flowing through your dungeon to have done exactly that, settle. If you compare the dungeon world energy to outside, you’ll find the power is flowing through your dungeon like a calm river.

‘Technically, this is when the two should synchronize and match up, but you have a double whammy preventing that. Firstly, you’re a portal dungeon and so won’t ever perfectly match. Though second and more important is the fact that this is a new integrated world and your world is still growing in power. Kind of hard to match up with the outside when said outside is also turbulent.

‘And this all leads into the “why”. A dungeon settles when it has become stable enough. It could be after you have enough floors. Maybe it was because of gaining your third boss. There’s a possibility that what mattered for you was raw volume over all your floors.

‘However, whatever caused it is simply the final straw. That last Jenga piece being taken out that causes everything to fall into place. Honestly? I’d compare it to the very apocalypse that caused this whole “magic” mess here in this universe to begin with.

‘When first formed, a dungeon by necessity is in a higher state of energy. By settling, that extra power went from maintaining your state and was funneled into a new direction. Thus why the change is so pervasive.’

Doyle, ‘Okay, but this feels like it came out of nowhere.’

Ally nods, ‘I can see how it seems like that. Mostly because it did.’ She shrugs, ‘It isn’t like you can do anything to speed up the matter so it isn’t taught.’

Doyle sighs, ‘Well, help me keep track of things as I poke around.’

And so the pair spend the next couple hours poking around Doyle’s various abilities and creations. All while Doyle announced each year and the results.

‘Fresh intent carving, same as always.’

‘Stretched space, same; connected space, same; looped space, same. Oh hey, apparently I can pinch space and make a pseudo bag of holding which can’t leave the floor.’

‘Can’t grow or shrink the size of floor portals.’

‘Expansion of the floors haven’t changed and my ability to push said expansion stays the same.’

‘Making portals might be easier?’

Ally looks up, ‘This is the fifth time we’ve come across something that might be different. How sure are you of this?’

Doyle shakes his core, ‘Not very, bit more than the last.’

Ally checks her notes, ‘Ah yes, more than feeling it might have been easier to spawn in monsters. A thing you hadn’t done personally on any scale except for in creating the new floor.’

Doyle, ‘Well, I was testing that side of things after going through a bunch of stuff with the farm zones. Anyway, this one feels like a significant difference. If there is a difference.’

Ally, ‘Yes, IF. Though let me check. Hmm.’

She flips through her notes. ‘Okay, we did a bit of minor testing on the gates to begin with. Ability to make multiple exits and entrances to a floor. Ability to remove the stabilization you added. Ability to skip floors as long as there is still a path to your core on every floor.

‘That one was interesting to find, though likely a system-based restriction. No secret floor that delvers can’t ever get to. Which I’m sure has some specific reason for existing, even if I didn’t find it.’

Doyle, ‘I can think of a few reasons to prevent that. Stuff like a hidden floor overpopulating and causing a dungeon break. After all, a floor being left alone at the bottom of the dungeon is one thing. Energy takes time to filter down to there and isn’t really going to allow a population boom of fully realized monsters. The second floor of the dungeon? Even with weaker monsters, that could cause a problem.’

Ally nods, ‘Okay, that is certainly one way of abusing such a cut-off floor. Anyway, try poking around with the portals some more. The actual portals and not just when you paste two sections of space together.’

Doyle begins to poke his portals a bit more aggressively. Stretching them in ways that hadn’t been tried yet.

‘They have a size limit, but the actual shape seems less constrained than previously. Still needs stabilization engraving to not get that static-y border.’

‘Shape constrained by the general rule of needing a path to my core. Can’t just squeeze it flat so no one can get through.’

‘Okay, You can squeeze a gate flat, you just need an alternate route. Shape is unlimited as long as another path exists.’

Over the next day, the two of them poke and prod at the gates. While there were other hopeful changes that could be chased down, this one felt right. Which could mean nothing, but for a change like this, Ally figured some leaning on instinctual reactions wasn’t out of line.

In the end though, the thing that held them back was simply a matter of not looking in the right place. Like looking for something in one direction, when it is actually right behind you. Thankfully, Doyle and Ally managed to find the answer the next day and all it took was for Doyle to start throwing the gates around in frustration.

So The Traps Work - Chapter 464

End Of A Joke - Chapter 466