[D'sP] Ally Is Why - Chapter 454

Ally watches as Doyle prepares to create his 20th floor. Despite the tendency of sapients to put significance to round numbers, it was in the end just another floor. What made a floor important is what you do with the floor.

Doyle planned to make it into a boss floor. Which more than any arbitrary number, would make this floor important. At this point, Ally wasn’t even sure exactly how Doyle planned to handle the boss aspect.

Not that he has been keeping it close to his chest or anything. Doyle just tended to get caught in his own mind while planning. Ally pauses.

Doyle had reached the critical point of forming a new floor. Well, critical might be the wrong phrase. It was actually the safest point for a dungeon as their core would sink into the new floor before a connecting gate was formed. There were those who could still get to the core, but that was rare.

Then Ally more felt than saw as the floor flooded out from the core room. She looks over and sees the blue screen for the new floor.

{

Twentieth floor dimensionally anchored

World Energy cap +12,700 [Constitution(127) * 100]

Twentieth floor spending limit set to 146,280 [Previous floor’s limit(132 ,600) + Intelligence(114) * 120]

Monster level cap updated

Quintessence debt paid back by 5

}

And with that, Ally turns her attention to the town. That screen meant the floor was properly formed and now all there is left to do is wait. The floor would take time to grow to full size.

A period of time that would only grow and represented the true limit on high end dungeons and their growth. After all, a bit of sapient sourced energy? That went up linearly? Such a thing would only limit a dungeon who wasn’t being delved by sapients at all.

Ally flipped through her collection of observation windows. Each keyed to follow something of interest. Though this metaphorical stack was only those that had been active over the past day.

While she kept careful track of things, Ally didn’t bother actively checking on people like Ben who hadn’t been to town as of late.

Ally pauses on a screen. This one keyed to Doyle’s very first bag of holding. Of course, she had recently seen this scene as the bag was in the hands of one of the inner circle. In fact, the bag was with a team of them on the 12th floor being used to harvest wheat.

That team was abusing things a little. Jumping to the next floor and back after they clear the easy to find patches. Though this farming did require effort to manage so it was not a toxic habit. Ally still marks it down as something to watch. No need to fall into another “floor six” sort of issue.

Ally eventually felt satisfied that she had looked through the things of interest enough and after a quick skim of various important places, she turned to a different sort of screen.

The system was picky about what sort of services it would provide. After all, there technically isn’t anything preventing it from providing instant communication to everyone in an entire universe. Though, as evidenced by the pigeon coop in town, it very much isn’t.

And yet! Here Ally is with an honest to goodness system’s own blue screen with a chat on it. Not just any chat either! This is her group chat with Moota and Jess.

Ally laughs to herself as she thinks of this. If it wasn’t for the fact that things like messenger pigeons weren’t actually a dead end, she was sure Ace and the others would be hopping mad when they figured out how to unlock system chats.

Ally pauses, should she inform Doyle? Would it do anything? It has gotten better ever since he took his instinct into his own hands. Maybe after the floor is ready to set up?

Ally shakes her head and checks the chat. It isn’t exactly the most active, but that tends to happen when you’re dealing purely with immortal sorts.

{

Moota: eugh! I might be a cow, but so many of my “fellow” alchemists are pigs.

Jess: Stay in your cow form. I always found that sort of thing kept a decent number of the troublesome gods off my back.

Moota: You know that doesn’t work as much as it should.

Jess: I’ve actually found that the younger deities who that doesn’t put off tend to be cool now.

Moota: Hey @Ally, how’s the town doing?

Jess: Also, delay my wolves a bit? I keep asking and my seer friend keeps saying it isn’t time to put down roots on your planet.

}

Ally sighs, those earlier messages were from a couple weeks ago and they still get her dandruff up. Though the new messages were something, she could properly respond to. She has to admit not experiencing much of what they had been talking about. Being the daughter of a Fae Queen tends to shelter a person, even in a Fae court.

{

Ally: The cattle are doing fine. They’re really going deep on the path of having their animals worship a deity instead of the farmer. Seems they like the versatility.

Ally: and @Jess, don’t worry, he has the wolves ready, but seems to have forgotten about it. It almost feels like a running gag at this point.

}

Ally nods to herself, that should do it. Though with uncharacteristic speed, Jess responds right away. Not that things have to take a long time. Deities in general can multitask even better than dungeons, actually splitting off extra minds to take care of things.

Oh sure, it isn’t to where they can manage their faith in their own. But they can manage enough to manage the managers and the more social sorts will keep a mind specifically for chatting.

Though calling them minds or even separate thought streams isn’t exactly right. It is more like they’re doing it all at once. There simply isn’t a good comparison for it.

{

Jess: Here’s hoping things work out. Anyway, we both know that if he has a running gag, it’s going to be the tree thing.

}

Ally snorts, Doyle didn’t mention it often, but she could tell the lack of trees bothered him.

Ally browses a couple other chats she is in, but there’s nothing new in the one with her mother. Which makes sense. If they’re going to talk, her mother prefers to actually talk.

The other chat she shies away from. It’s the general dungeon Fae chat. And yes, dungeon Fae do end up living as long as their dungeons does. However, many of the Fae that go into the program aren’t inherently immortal to begin with.

Which makes the chat a lot more active than she prefers. Honestly, she felt lucky with Doyle. Most of the mortals turned dungeon tended to be, and it wasn’t fair for her to think of it like this, chatty. And it isn’t fair because they’re just talking as much as a normal mortal.

Well, this chat was full of a similar situation, but from the other side. Oh sure, the system makes sure that those granted immortality via dungeon nonsense age into the right mindset. But since this system is against mind control, and Ally glares at the air, such changes tend to be gradual and effected through what is basically therapy.

Though by the end, most settle down. Or not and Ally soft blocks them so they can still message her directly if they need to, but she doesn’t have to see their chatter.

At least it is better than those who stumble into immortality through some method that doesn’t provide the needed support. There’s a reason beings like liches have a reputation for going off the deep end with age. People born mortal tend to break a little if they suddenly don’t have a time limit. Just having a limit seems to stabilize them, even if said limit is hilariously long.

Ally is about to check on something else when she notices the floor has finished with its rapid expansion. Doyle was likely about to start the set up. She wasn’t even certain if he realized it, but Doyle tended to automatically apply some things to each new floor.

Then it starts.

The space around the edge fills with stone. Not all at once, in fact while Ally doesn’t pay too much attention, a significant portion of time had certainly passed before it was complete. Though part of that was because it was being spawned compressed. Not quite dungeon wall dense, but it was more than needed.

Then again, Ally figured that some mages up top who focused on earth could swim through regular stone faster than a bird can fly. So maybe the dense stone wasn’t a bad plan?

Whatever the case, the inner space soon filled with air. While the perfect void that his floors started as didn’t affect a dungeon, he preferred to not deal with it. So air it was.

Ally, ‘So, what’s the plan for the scenery?’

Doyle, who had paused for the moment takes another to think before answering. ‘Well, the last few floors formed a sort of chain. Forest to canyon to plateau and now I want some setting that takes advantage of the whole air theme.’

Ally nods, ‘And you don’t want just another mountain.’

Doyle sighs, ‘Except that would fit pretty well.’

Ally, ‘Well, there are a ton of different kinds of mountains.’

Doyle, ‘True, and I need something for the windbreakers to do. I’m sure the void kobolds can handle steep mountain sides, but the axebeaks? I’m not certain.’

Ally nods, ‘Which removes my suggestion of a cliff face that has to be climbed down.’

Doyle shakes his core, ‘That would be dangerous or too easy depending. One slip and they’re dead or at the end of the floor? Nah.’

They sit there in silence as they consider various things.

Doyle’s core brightens for a moment. ‘But that doesn’t mean I can’t include a down slope! They climbed up onto a plateau, so it wouldn’t be out of place for them to have to climb down. Though instead of a climb, they’re just walking down a slope. While high ground is nice to have, that is for defending.

‘Hmm, yeah, a slope down and the kobolds can have a camp on some sort of outcropping. But what about the axebeaks? Hmm, hmm, they can, hmm, circle around?

‘Or rather, if they are along the top of the “plateau”, then delvers can choose to fight them or not. If they aren’t killed though, the axebeaks can charge down at them during the boss fight.’

And with that, Doyle goes quiet as he focuses in. Ally shakes her head and laughs. She had watched this happen more than a few times and while he had gotten better at including her, this state of extreme focus really sucked him in.

Ally turns back to watching the town. If he needed her or managed to pull himself out enough to ask for assistance, she wasn’t hard to find. Besides, it was more exciting to help once he had the floor roughed out. Right now, Doyle was just designing things in his head while filling in some stone.

Oh! Ally noticed that Ace had actually left the town proper. Sure, he was still within Doyle’s influence, having just gone over to the raccoonkin compound, but it was rare for him to leave the walls. Not because of safety or anything. There’s just always something that needs his attention. Not like he needs to be traveling around for diplomacy.

Ace had very much set up things, so if people wanted an in person meeting, that meant coming here. A fact Ally could appreciate as it meant she’d be getting a look at all the movers and shakers of the community and eventually the world. After all, this was the home of this planet’s main Adventurers Guild office. Once things connect up, that alone will give the town quite a bit of political sway.

Faux Double Dash - Chapter 453

The Setup For 20 - Chapter 455