[D'sP] The Cheating - Chapter 463

Doyle turns his full attention towards the raid boss, ‘You need to stop that.’

The Matriarch goat obviously ignores this.

Doyle focused a bit harder, ‘I can tell you understand me. Don’t force me to stop you.’

Ignored again.

Doyle shakes his core, ‘I’ll give you to the count of three.’

‘One’

‘Two’

‘Three’

Doyle sighs, ‘Well, you forced my hand.’

The goat is about to smash into another kobold when a portal pops open right in front of the goat. Said portal deposits the goat back in the center where the mess started.

Of course, the goat immediately charges towards another kobold.

Well, she tries.

Doyle had considered the classic portal trap. That thing where one portal was right over the other. Except he tossed that. After all, the boss goat had movement options while in the air. So instead, Doyle went for the more direct option.

As the goat is in the middle of a charge, Doyle grabs her and the air around her, freezing it in place. After all, while he can’t do it while delvers are around, nothing says he can’t directly manipulate stuff when they aren’t. This leaves the goat mid-charge, frozen in place.

Doyle, ‘Okay, now that I presumably have your attention. We need to resolve this. I’m going to set you down and you’re going to stay there while I talk.’

He sets her down and releases his hold. The raid boss, however, does not stand still, instead making a break for it so Doyle grabs her again. ‘No, no, no. That’s your first strike. Stay here. You can move around, but don’t just make a run for it.’

And Doyle releases her again. For a moment, it seems she might be following his orders, but as he is about to say something, the Matriarch bolts again.

So Doyle easily grabs her again. ‘This is your second warning. I know this is all new to you, but I also know you aren’t clueless. Your instincts might not be expecting it, but I am the dungeon and I am awake. You should be able to feel that my voice is the same as my influence. Now I’m setting you down, but if you try and run a third time, I’m going to use other methods to keep you here.’

As soon as he puts her down, the Matriarch begins to pace around. Though she doesn’t seem to be running. 

Doyle nods to himself, ‘Okay. Now, I understand you do not want that fence there. It doesn’t have to be. However, that doesn’t mean you get to destroy stuff willy—’

And she makes another run for it. Though this time away from where the kobolds are.

Doyle sighs, ‘I could put up a cage you couldn’t escape.’ And he pulls up rock in front of her into a cage with the way back fully open and a small opening she makes it through a bit to the side so she can’t just charge through. ‘But I won’t, as that would be rude. So please consider that I’ve been nice to you so far.’

She ignores this and even ignores the easy way through, instead trying to continue straight ahead, trying to bash through with a Spiral Blast. Of course, it isn’t going to be that easy. While Doyle can’t exactly make things truly impossible to destroy, especially when delvers are around, he is more than capable of locking a bit of stone in place.

In fact, he could have done it with paper or even air. Using stone was simply to make it visible and obviously tougher than not to the raid boss. Which the raid boss either did not believe or figured their own strength was enough to bash on through.

That was not the case.

The Spiral Blast shattered on stone that didn’t even move in the slightest, followed soon by the Matriarch’s horns. Which also fail to budge the stone.

Doyle chuckles, ‘I didn’t have to leave the back open. There didn’t have to be a way forward. More than that, I know you aren’t actually all that bothered by the fence or this cage.’

The raid boss chuffs and walks through the opening just to the side, a bit unsteady, but also unwilling to stop.

Doyle, ‘I get it, you do have some instincts, likely about being free and able to go where you want. But being a dungeon boss isn’t as simple as dumping those instincts on you. They’re there, but overridden by the dungeon boss instinct package, as it were. Which is why you can understand me perfectly fine. While telepathy might spackle over some holes in communication, it doesn’t handle the massive hole that is a complete lack of experience with a concept.’

The goat chuffs again as her legs steady, and she begins to run.

Doyle sighs, ‘Beyond a simple cage, you already know I’m capable of something you can’t even think of how to beat. Or, I guess maybe you don’t? I did use a normal portal like this’, and he pops up a portal in front of her that drops her right back where they started. ‘Which at least seems beatable. After all, it is a portal. However, let me show you what I’m capable of.’

She is running again, this time slightly slower so as to not run into another portal. Except to her confusion, she runs right back to where things started. She paces around, not having sensed a portal this time. Then she ran again, only to end up back there even faster.

Doyle, ‘Can’t sense anything? That’s because there isn’t anything too sense. I’m not actively manipulating anything. I’ve simply moved around space so that all directions lead back to where you are. You can run in a straight line, but you’ll always pass through here, over and over. And you won’t even notice.

‘I could leave you like this, you know? Just make it so delvers portal in when they want to challenge you. The portals simply need to be set so that you can’t use them.

‘Now, I’ll be the first to admit that I’m not the best at social situations. Chances are, Ally will have things to say after this on better ways I could have done this. But there is one thing I know. Getting you to do my bidding via threats is not only asking for trouble, but a bad way to start a relationship.

‘So, here’s how things are going to go. I’m going to let you roam. The delvers aren’t all that close to reaching here, so we have some time. You will be able to wander around and see what there is to see of the floor, which I know that you know is a limited space you can’t leave and that this knowledge does not bother you. 

‘During this time, you will easily see that nothing on the floor can threaten you. Maybe if all the kobolds gathered together? But that isn’t what they’re going to do because that isn’t part of their orders. They’ll mostly stay on the three flats, with a few going out to place traps.

‘Yes, they will fight you if you mess with the cyclone goats they’re taking care of. That is a natural response as shown by the fact you did the same thing. Except you don’t actually care about the goats themselves.

‘I can see it on you. You recognized that they weren’t like you and maybe even a bit less than normal goats. They’re just normal dungeon monsters and lack the spark of even a regular animal. What you cared about was forcing others to recognize them as your herd, no matter how substandard they are.

‘And I could make them your herd. Snap my non-existent fingers, boom, they would all be yours. I might even do this with that original group you took over since that is going to be where you’ll fight the delvers. The rest of them, though?

‘They’ll go through the motions as the kobolds do as well. One side pretending to follow orders and the other pretending to give orders, instead just dancing around like puppets. Because they’re dungeon monsters. And you’re a dungeon boss. You’re more than a monster, you're a Person! With a capital “P”. A Goat and not a goat while you’re surrounded by facsimiles that almost don’t even count as goats.

‘So take your time. Even if the delvers do get here quickly, I’ll simply make sure you end up back here when they’re about to arrive and be able to defend against them.’

The raid boss turns away and snorts.

Doyle chuckles, ‘Don’t try that on me. You might be rebelling, but you’re still a dungeon boss, a Raid Boss at that! Your instincts will force you to defend the dungeon. There is no question about it. This is a truth carved into your very soul and path.

‘You might be able to choose how you go about it, but you can’t not. The second I portal you back here and you feel the presence of a delver, we both know it will change things. And you know what? I kind of want to work things out between us before it gets to that point.

‘You have a soul. You aren’t some mindless automaton and I want to us to at least get along. Because that’s going to be the easiest way forward for us as I plan to be around for a Long time and you’re coming with. A fact neither of us really have much of a choice over at the moment.

‘So go ahead, roam. I’ve undone the space warping. You can now explore the entire floor. Have fun!’ And with that, Doyle shut up. He realized he had been monologuing a bit like Ally would and could understand where it came from.

After all, she was trained to handle an unawakened core. A thing which could understand, but not talk back. In fact, if anything, an unawakened dungeon core was less responsive than a new dungeon boss.

So you sort of just fell into info dumping. You had things to tell them and so you do and then you keep going. Well, Doyle also suspects that Ally simply has a penchant for such things in the first place, but this was a polite way to explain it besides blatantly pointing it out.

Doyle turns to Ally, ‘Welp, now all we can do is wait.’

Ally smiles, ‘Which, given the fact the floor is already ramping up the time differential, might not take that long for us.’

Doyle nods, ‘There is that. Though even then, it might take a bunch of real time. Goats aren’t quite as culturally connected to stubbornness as a mule, but they aren’t exactly Not known for it.’

Ally sighs, ‘Maybe you should have gone for another animal.’

Doyle shakes his core, ‘I know goats. If I was really that worried, I could have just went with kobolds all the way down. Maybe a myconid thrown in occasionally for spice. Though I must admit, I had basically forgotten that a boss could ignore my orders like that.’

Ally shrugs, ‘Comes with the territory. If something has a soul, you can’t control it like that, even in universes where stuff like mind control aren’t a universal taboo. They just get around it through deals and controlling everything but the soul. After all, if you’re only puppeting their body, you aren’t actually touching the soul.

‘Though most popular will always be the slay and replace. Whether it’s a mundane spy or a doppelganger, things are a lot easier when you take direct control. Oaths and binding deals simply provide too much of a chance that the person either decides the consequences are worth breaking or they find a loophole.

‘They really only work when the person seeks them out, which is the whole deal with devils. Admittedly, the Fae make a ton of binding deals, but we’re looking forward to people breaking them or finding a loophole. Kind of a species-wide pastime.’

I'm Going To Cheat - Chapter 462

So The Traps Work - Chapter 464