[D'sP] So Many Goats Go Flying - Chapter 452

Doyle was focusing on one of the visiting teams hitting the tenth floor when his attention was torn away. It was happening.

Up on the 15th floor, a goat is changing. Ooh, nevermind. It was changing, then got dashed against the ground.

Doyle shakes his core, this is maybe the third time. Worse, he couldn’t make the wind weaker as they didn’t change with the weaker wind.

Ally laughs, ‘Got another one? Well, they’re happening more often. Eventually, the goat will either finish and you get the pattern or they’ll survive.’

Doyle, ‘Sigh, it will get there and once it does!’

Ally nods, ‘We can start on the 20th floor.’

Doyle, ‘And a new boss.’

Ally, ‘Which you haven’t even called me into. It’s obvious to me that you aren’t going for another kobolds boss. Which is kind of odd as far as dungeons go, but we’re already strange.

‘Good thing we’re on a newly integrated world. Not only do they not realize how odd you are, but later it will justify us being off to people from other planets. It isn’t 100% or even often, but the strangest dungeons do tend to come from integrations.’

Doyle, ‘Are there more like me?’

Ally shrugs, ‘I doubt it, though it is possible some of that comes from people turning themselves into a core and getting settled on new worlds by the system.

‘Though I will admit, with Flisle being in charge of some of this universe’s tutorials? Quite possible that there are more people exactly like you. From how you described your experience, he was looking for a specific sort of person.

‘However! Rare tends to not be as rare on a universal scale. Even supposedly unique creations might end up with a pair out there.’

Doyle nods his core, ‘The law of large numbers and what not. Though given he himself described it as rare, not that I can remember the specifics, points towards my “condition” being rarer than not.’

Ally shrugs, ‘Well, no matter how rare your condition, there is another option. While you might have been a prize, it probably isn’t the only thing he is looking for. There is another side to this all, though.’

Doyle tilts to the side, ‘What?’

Ally says something and frowns.

With a sigh, she says something else, ‘Well, that isn’t important right now. I’ll just chat with my mom later. Anyway, if he was turning a bunch of people into dungeons, not all of them would be so averse to sharing this with their local delvers.’

Doyle nods, ‘Fair enough, now there is only to wait for more goats to turn.’

Ally, ‘I’m actually kind of surprised that the goats starting to change didn’t count. I guess water isn’t ice no matter how cold it gets until the crystals actually form.’

Doyle, ‘Except given your analogy, the crystals were already forming. It was simply still more water than ice.’

Ally shrugs, ‘I guess not enough.’

From there, it is only a couple days before the next partial transformation. Then the day after and soon enough, not even 24 hours before it happened again.

The two of them are now focused on the 15th floor.

Ally shakes her head, ‘Something has to break soon. Well, besides the goats.’

Soon after she says that, every goat which is blown off the mountain begins to transform. Except, fewer goats are being blown off than ever and each that does goes too high and falls too far to survive.

Doyle, ‘They’ve adapted to stay on the mountain, which is nice. Except it means that those who do transform can’t survive it.’

Ally frowns, ‘They shouldn’t be adapting like that. Dungeon patterns are like snapshots and you’re just making copies off of it.’

Doyle, ‘Eh, the pattern is like a hologram. Not as in the cheesy holographic stuff card games used, but actual holograms. I learned at some point that a hologram has everything contained within it or something.

‘Anyway, we already know that there is wiggle room when it comes to a pattern. Just look at how the foxes adapted.’

Ally, ‘Yes, but that required us to train them. These are fresh goats, untrained.’

Doyle, ‘Well, they are also born in the farm and not directly spawned.’

Ally shakes her head, ‘And those farm goats haven’t been switched out or anything.’

Doyle tilts back, ‘Okay, fair. Though if you notice, the goats on the other floors aren’t adapting like this. So there must be something specific to this floor. Whether that is the farm or the pattern? There’s something going on.’

Ally nods, ‘I’m not denying it. There might be some local effects going on. Could be a change caused by all that wind constantly whipping by.’

Doyle, ‘I’d lean more towards my one path helping with an elemental evolution. That or a build up of actual knowledge instead of just system injected information. I’ve been stuck at level 99 for a bunch of things and while things haven’t gotten better? I’ve figured out some quirks.’

Ally sighs, ‘Bottlenecks are so confounding. That is exactly the kind of thing you would get a skill level for.’

Doyle, ‘We simply need to figure out what I’m missing. Besides, I doubt my normal skills are so limited. They haven’t gotten to that point yet.’

Ally nods, ‘Most likely.’

And with that, some more time passes, just a couple days. However, Doyle has kept a close eye on the goats this entire time. Which did turn it from a little macabre to boring. Still, each goat seemed to be making progress.

Every change was towards the same goal, but they went about it a different way. None successfully yet, but with fewer death smears and more ragdoll physics. Still dead, but whatever was changing, had an effect.

Doyle and Ally figured it would be a slow series of changes that culminated in one goat surviving just long enough. They are wrong.

It was simply one more goat blown off the mountain. The goat flipped through the air and began to shine in a light blue color with flickers of green. Except this one is different.

Oh sure, they all were, but something made Doyle and Ally pay attention.

Then it became clear. The evolution is more ordered. Instead of blossoming from all over, it started at her feet.

They fell towards the hard rocky mountain side. Which more than once Doyle had considered changing out for soft gel or some such. Whatever the case, this goat came down, feet first. Which isn’t the first such instance, but this time something is truly different.

The goat landed on its front left hoof. Landed. And without a stumble, the rest of its hooves stepped onto the ground one after another and continued on at a stroll as if it hadn’t just fallen so far.

Doyle and Ally mostly don’t pay attention to that. They are instead focused on the completion of a change long awaited. The goat had managed to survive the fall because her feet and legs had been completely changed by the time she landed.

Now that change is stretching to cover the rest of her body. Doyle honestly thought it looked shockingly like one of those magical girl transformation scenes. Except, you know, it was a goat becoming a slightly different goat.

The biggest difference is in the horns. Before, they had been that classic curled back style that hadn’t grown long enough, but you could tell it was aiming to coil. Now those horns had changed.

They still twisted, but this time in a spiral instead of a curl. Now, Doyle hadn’t personally seen a goat like this, but knew that this is in fact a shape of horn that mundane goats could have. There are even some like that on this very planet. Still was strange, though.

Oh, and the horns are of course more than just horns, given that the evolution seems to have focused on them. Those horns are now packed with air aligned Mana and wind flowed through them at all times.

Not that the horns are the only change. Its fleece was now extra fluffy.

Doyle, ‘Huh, I wonder what else it can do?’

Ally shrugs, ‘We won’t get the complete image, but there should be a status for this variant now.’

Doyle takes a moment to look away, and yep, there was a new status panel floating with the rest of his screens.

{

Cyclone Goat (lv25)

S[83+2] A[60] C[150+2] I[2] W[4] P[5]

Max 3 Skills

Skills: Spiral Blast (Air Mana powered) lv37, Cloud Walker lv21, Air Dash lv18

Cost: World Energy[200]

}

Ally scratches her head, ‘Huh, fair enough. I guess after being thrown off a mountain so much, two of my skills would likely be devoted to air movement.’

Doyle nods, ‘I don’t blame them and to be fair, they don’t overlap from what I can tell.’

Ally, ‘That does seem to be the case. At least, if we assume the one allows them to walk on clouds, with the other being about dashing while in the open sky.

‘Oh, and I bet I know what was going on with the evolution not working. Take a look at that minimum level! It just “happens” to match the floor’s starting level. My bet is that they were actually trying to evolve into some higher form and this was about limiting them enough to fit on this floor.’

Doyle sighs, ‘I can see that. Do you think it would have been better to try this on a deeper floor?’

Ally shrugs, ‘Eh, who knows how high a level it was aiming for? While the level a person can reach tends to be more dependent on how much world energy their planet has. That’s only if they’re trying to level.

‘For most humans, as long as the planet supports it, level 100 is what most reach by the time they become adults. The metaphorical start point.’

Doyle, ‘So my dungeon is for kids?’

Ally laughs, ‘Remember, levels don’t actually mean anything on their own. If those 100 levels were from combat? Yes. They won’t be. Rather, unless a kid was set on being an adventurer from the word go, most of those levels will have been gained on chores and without any active path development.

‘Your dungeon, even with how you’ve made it, would shred those types. They are like loose sand. Perfectly fine in their tasks, but they’d fall apart.

‘Not that all non-combat types suck that much. A farmer who truly enjoys his job? Who gains the skills of the job and grows their path? Well, they won’t match an equal level combatant, but they will be powerful in their own ways.’

Doyle, ‘So why is everyone here so strong?’

Ally shrugs, ‘The newly integrated are always more powerful. Think back to what you did as a kid. Now think of everything you did since.

‘Even if it was all boring and tedious nonsense, you did so much of it. The paths you would have gotten as a kid are so much worse than those you get now. This is true from everyone else, whether combat based or they never want to hurt a fly.’

Doyle tilts to the side, ‘Then why don’t people keep their kids from gaining paths and such? At least have them wait until they’re older?’

Ally shrugs, ‘Oh, some do try. Except this runs counter to also giving them enough life experience to later on gain paths worth buying. Besides that, you don’t actually get as much freedom on handling your own status as a kid. If some of that life experience ends up dangerous, it is entirely possible that the system will suggest a path to help with it.

‘Oh, you won’t even be forced to take a path. But for a kid swimming in the ocean and not doing too hot? The offer of a path related to swimming probably feels worth it.’

Doyle Is Kicking Himself - Chapter 451

Faux Double Dash - Chapter 453