[D'sP] We Should Gather Faith - Chapter 445

Ace sighed and hopped down from the wall. “What happened?”

Doctor shrugged, “Why would something need to have happened?”

Ace raises an eyebrow, “People seem to do a decent job of letting me brood in peace.”

Doctor, “I’m really not here for anything. You’re literally next to the garden. Oh sure, there is a magical disease cropping up, but that’s more of a flu that managed to transmit itself through skill use. I’m here to gather some herbs to test them.

“It doesn’t resist healing magic, but if possible, I’m trying to cure any magical diseases that crop up with traditional medicine. I don’t want to encourage a magic resistant disease. Which I assume is more likely to happen with a disease that can already interact with magic.”

Ace frowns, “Don’t we have mystical, but not magical, healing options? Psionic, Qi, or what have you?”

Doctor shakes his head, “Not yet. Qi has self healing options already, but nothing to heal others. It is something being worked on, though. Things are promising.

“Our best guess is that while you can, in theory do anything with any of the powers. After all, they seem to all come from the same source. They aren’t equally good at it. That’s why Qi already has pretty robust self healing while magic has decent general healing. Though I think to get the best of the best, we would need some faith healers.”

Ace grimaces, “I don’t want our healing to depend on the ‘faithful’ sorts.”

Doctor smiles, “I would too. Good thing that isn’t what I mean. I didn’t say divine casters. I said ‘faith’ healers. Those who use the resource known as faith, to heal. It is most common for those doing so to follow a deity or some other force.

“In fact, during our studies we’ve found that those who follow powerful beings who aren’t actually deities, use faith more. Our working theory is the fact that only deities can fully make use of faith and so those powerful beings are more willing to spend it. After all, why hoard what you can’t use?”

Ace, “That still doesn’t give us a faith healer. You’re just talking about someone following a being despite it not being an actual deity. A fact they’ll deny or cause trouble over.”

Doctor, “There is a third option.”

Ace, “And you’ve strung me along for long enough. Once again, people avoid disrupting me unless they need something. What do you need?”

Doctor coughs, “Ah, well, the third option is a person who uses faith to heal without an outside force. Our guess is that these are most common in tribes where they worship a local bit of terrain or a culture with an element of ancestor worship.

“In those cases, the faith gathers without going to an actual being. Though mind you, down that road lies the chance of an actual deity forming if it is personified at all. Anyway, those who preside over that stuff can make use of the faith.

“With that in mind, I think we need to guide the local faith. We need to develop a local non-deity faith sink. Because faith is the shortcut to the most powerful healing magic.”

Ace groans, “So not only are we the state, we’re going to enforce a state religion? I’m already edging towards being a king, I don’t want to append ‘god’ to that designation, especially since we both know that’s a dead end.”

Doctor crosses his arms and shakes his head, “I would never push anyone to become a deity. It took so much data analysis, but seeing what being a deity means? I’ll wait until I’m actually blocked hard before I even half consider it.

“No, the point of this is not just to gather the faith, but also prevent any unintended deities from popping up. Whether through apotheosis or one sneaking in to make itself the deity of focus. By directing the religion into a thing instead of some being, we prevent that kind of shenanigans.

“We would need a priest or shaman to handle things. Still, if we come across a serious curse or one of us is reduced to a near death state? They’d be the most likely to be able to save us, especially the curse. Faith is particularly powerful against curses.”

Ace, “So how do we do it? Not only do the people out there”, and he gestures to the other side of the wall. “Have the pre-system mindset about deities. There are still those into the whole ‘one true god’ thing. Which fair, I guess there could be a literal creator deity or some such.

“But they also now know their options. There are literal deities performing actual miracles. And their followers have set up tables like it’s the new semester at college and they’re clubs looking for members!”

Doctor, “That is in our favor! The trick is we don’t have to lie. We can literally set up our own booth and admit we just want their faith to power healing magic. There needs to be some sort of religion around it. That’s how you guide faith, but it doesn’t need to be heartfelt devotion.

“They don’t even have to give up any current deities they might follow. This would purely be transactional. Offer a prayer to the local healers faith fund, and we’ll have access to better quality healing!”

Ace, “And you completely skip the part where, within a few generations it becomes a real religion?”

Doctor coughs, “Well, that is possible. Though people will live longer, so not any time soon.”

Ace raises an eyebrow, “I was literally just thinking about how the hundred years of protection we got might be too short and considering what I personally need to do when that time comes. Any time at all, is any time too soon for me. Because guess what? I’ll be there as I don’t plan on dying.”

Doctor sighs, “Can I at least work on my pitch and try again?”

Ace doesn’t sigh, there isn’t enough force behind it. Instead, it is more like he is deflating slowly, the air barely escaping his lips. Then he looks up, “I didn’t say no.

“This was going to happen no matter what we did. Someone would try and turn the forest into a deity or some other nonsense. We do need to get out in front of things.

“Faith is a literal resource now, instead of just a soft resource. If we could literally bottle it, I would be all for it. Except I doubt we’ll have that technology for a while. Nevermind the fact that I’m sure every religion, true or false, would be after us if we did.”

Doctor nods, “I’ll get the Barrais on it. They have knowledge on setting up local religions. Which is very suspicious, but useful at the moment.”

Ace grimaces, “We’re putting too much on them.”

Doctor sighs, “They’re too competent at the kind of things we’re facing now. It really says something about the world right now.”

Ace shakes his head, “They didn’t get their skills from nowhere. Their skills say more about the world before all of this.”

Doctor shrugs, “True. Well, I’ll be off. Enjoy your time.”

Ace laughs, “I can’t rest when I’m dead, because I’m not planning to die. What time I’m stealing for myself now? Eh, it will have to do.”

And the two go their separate ways.

From there, time passes and the regular townsfolk, finally with a goal, make progress deeper into the dungeon.

The first five floors are old hat by now. A simple cave, a less simple cave with a few trees at the end and the limit breaker cliff, the random cave with mining and the rarest drop of a bag of holding, a winding tunnel full of wolves, all leading up to the boss floor. A large underground cavern with the side tunnels that are re-dug by the kobolds. The kobolds who have a small settlement on a hill at the very center.

Floor six, the Slaughterhouse. A never ending plains, or at least it seems like that. The most common floor to delve even now, as everyone wants steak.

Floor seven with its giant stone sphere hovering in the center. The floor itself curves around the sphere. Where the first half is covered in “ruined” buildings, the home of a small pack of lesser shadow wolves. The other half is dominated by a group of myconids.

The floor eight. Like a mini dungeon in and of itself. Each room is like a floor, including the zero gravity room themed off a certain book Doyle enjoyed despite the author. All culminating in the last room being a one-to-one copy of the first floor.

Floor nine is a kilometer long hallway with mining locations. Then, of course, floor ten is the boss floor. A strange arrangement of rooms that go up, to the sides, and even down to create a pit. This is the home of myconids and mushrooms as well as the place where Bill died. Tess has been back to this floor more than a few times to let off steam.

Floor eleven is a simple endurance challenge where you face off with a horde of myconids sprouts. The center of the room being a lake with monsters no one alive has experienced. Mostly because they stay towards the bottom, the spores even cause havoc in the upper levels.

Floor twelve is still causing trouble, even after the solution was found. It managed to hold off Ace’s people for so long and now it is holding back the regular townsfolk. A giant random grass maze with patches of harvestable wheat.

And of course floor thirteen, Bird Mountain, the current goal because of the kobold camp with the mithril. Though that’s a side show to the floors major feature. The fact that the entire floor is a spiral mountain, along which you are attacked non-stop by hexcu as well as a few golems.

After that, the townsfolk don’t know much. Fourteen is double sided with kobolds on one and myconids on the other. Floor fifteen is a mountain valley with low clouds. Floor sixteen is known only to the inner circle and is a small freshwater ocean with islands. Then the final known floor, seventeen, which is a forest full of kobolds.

And despite the challenges, the mithril is being fully mined out every day. The inner circle only manages a bar a day. Though their bigger haul comes from quarrying the stone that is left behind. 

That stone might not be worth as much to an individual as the mithril. However, for an organization? Well, it isn’t worth the same, weight for weight. It is at least worth as much in total compared to the small amount of mithril they were getting out. After all, the quarried rock is probably the toughest building material available for the moment. A fact which will only become ever more true the deeper the mithril vein comes from in the dungeon.

Which is why Ace ends up making a decision. It takes a while, but after inner circle teams manage to sneak through the 17th floor and find there is an 18th floor? Ace releases a bit of information to the town. The fact that the 17th floor has mithril as well.

Oh sure, 90% of the people racing for the 13th can’t actually make it past the floor, only able to beat 12 and then nipping down to the kobolds for the mithril. However, the remaining tenth? Knowing that there is more mithril that others can’t get to?

It lights a fire under them to advance. Which in turns lights a fire under Ace and his people to advance even faster themselves. They were slowing down and he hadn’t even noticed it till now.

It made sense to him. The early levels were quick, and now they were having to slowly build up their foundation. Except, they weren’t even halfway or level 100. Which after going through all their information? Well, it wasn’t the starting point or anything, but professional adventurers? Yeah, at around their age, they would have reached it.

The Townsfolk Finally Push Deeper - Chapter 444

The Whole Town Has A Festival - Chapter 446