[D'sP] He Won't - Chapter 381
Added 2024-07-19 10:07:17 +0000 UTCDoyle, ‘Well, I didn’t expect that. Quite a good haul, even if there is a distinct lack of end products besides that last one. Though technically, even that isn’t an end product I handle.’
Ally shakes her head, ‘We aren’t done yet with the rewards. Though we’ll have to wait for the last bit. After all, it is a quest and you took part in it. Chances are good that once the actual quest wraps up you’ll get something or other and gain a level or three.’
Doyle, ‘But I don’t want to gain multiple levels?’
Ally shrugs, ‘Eh, it happens. You stuck your toe into something bigger than your level and the experience gain is commiserate. The reason I think you’ll only gain three levels is because it was your kobolds in there and they were over leveled for the challenge. So you have two degrees of separation.’
Doyle, ‘I guess I should spend my path points then.’
Ally rolls her eyes, ‘There are some people who advocate spending points as soon as you get them, just in case an errant level shows up. Though it is generally agreed upon that getting a path one level or the next isn’t too critical as long as you don’t keep delaying it. However, you now know this is coming and even those who like to save up their points will spend them if given such an obvious heads up. So yeah, maybe you should spend them.’
Doyle, ‘I’m kind of surprised I haven’t gotten more levels so far. It seems like something I would be flying through.’
Ally, ‘Well, as a dungeon core, you already have a slower leveling speed. Though likely the biggest thing holding you back at this point is that no one is reaching your lowest floors. Instead of a fight, this is like a wrestling match between a boy and his older brother. You being the older one. You’re letting them grab you and monkey around, but if they take it too far, you can easily win.
‘And delaying the creation of a new floor wouldn’t change this. That would simply be like the same older brother agreeing to wrestle with an arm tied behind his back. Anywhere else besides a newly integrated world, you’d have level fifty and up locals tromping through your last floor to collect the drops. Though we’ve rehashed this conversation more than a few times. What’s on your mind?’
Doyle, ‘I feel like I’m stagnating. My skills are all capping, new monsters are scarce, and even normal people in Wolf’s Rest seem to be gaining new powers and abilities on the daily. And people aren’t too shy about talking to themselves about their growth in levels.
‘Ace and friends are tighter lipped, but since others are hitting level ten off of floor six? I have to assume that with them reaching floor 14 and 15 means they’re at least in the twenties and if they sit down and farm, they’ll easily get to 25. I’m level seven.’
Ally, ‘I could go on about so many things, but that isn’t what you need to hear. A person can only hear that “levels don’t mean anything” so many times before it becomes meaningless. Instead, you need to focus on accepting your monsters as a part of you. Though speaking of that, accept your kobolds back in so the healer can get back to the fifth floor.’
Doyle, ‘Oh yeah, that was a thing’, and he brings up the prompt and accepts them back.
Ally nods, ‘Now, as a former human, you have a unique view of the world compared to other natural dungeons. Some dungeon cores have a hard time even separating out the bosses. While not what most would call a hive mind, the normal monsters are very much just an extension of their body. This is to the point that you could compare them to white blood cells in a human.
‘You recognize each monster as its own thing. This isn’t a problem, both ways work and honestly, your monsters will be more unpredictable than in a normal dungeon. However, it makes you look weak compared to others.
‘Sure, you’ve got pretty awesome stats, likely at least three times the average of what those near your level would have. To get a stat to the triple digits before level ten, would normally require you to basically sacrifice at least a couple stats, and yet you have multiple stats there and most will reach it by 10. You’re doing amazing!
‘Except you have Ace and his friends. They’re monsters themselves, though in the “once in a thousand years genius” sort of way, maybe once in a million, kind of hard to judge this early. Anyway, you might have missed the signs, but all of them had unlocked the basic regeneration humans get around a Con score of 50 quite early on. Even the ones focused on their magic stats.
‘I would not be surprised if their stat total right now is equal to, if not greater than what your stats will be once you reach level ten. So you’re still ahead of them, but not as much as you are compared to regular people. At least, if you’re just comparing your core.
‘What you need to look at is you as a whole. Sure, they’re throwing around flashy magic spells and channeling strange psychic powers. But you are your dungeon. Trying to compare just your core to everyone else is like comparing a hand to the full body of another person. Yes, your fingers are weaker than one of their legs, but if we compare all of you to them, you are so much stronger it isn’t even funny.’
Doyle, ‘Yes, but they keep developing new powers and learning new skills. Their spells are more varied than the monsters I have and it has been a while since I got a new skill.’
Ally shakes her head, ‘You are choosing not to develop your monsters more. Look at your adjustment points! With those, you could make a kobold warrior of great skill. You could develop more skills, you’re just holding back.
‘And I approve! Don’t run out to learn new skills at random. Keep your points until needed. While people out in the town can be more free form with their spells, it isn’t like they’ll remember all those niche spells in the middle of combat. They’ll just fall back on the spells they practice the most, especially if they have a skill for it.
‘Now, let’s ignore the path points for now. Instead, you’ve got a new skill that has seen no use. Let’s ignore all this, because you are strong enough that we can, and focus on leveling your root rune use skill. Then, after you’ve snagged the easy levels, you’ll have even more points to spend and likely some new paths for it.’
Doyle tilted his core back, ‘I really haven’t done anything with that, have I? There just isn’t much to go on.’
Ally waved towards the screen watching the town sort through their haul. ‘You might have gotten none of that, but nothing is stopping us from observing it. Though it won’t be too helpful. You need to blaze the trail, because you started it. Your planet’s native runes are not that fallen civilization’s runes. In fact, since they have fallen, all of their knowledge is suspect.
‘Just look at Ace and what he is doing. Every book, every scrap of paper, or piece with writing on it is being quarantined. Now, I admit, these are direct rewards by the system and a dungeon so chances are all the nasty traps are removed. Those blank spots in the books won’t all be from removing information that identifies the fallen civilization. Some will be knowledge your people should not have yet.
‘While many people misunderstand it, those original mythos stories are closer to truth than many would find comfortable. See, it wasn’t the beings, those elder entities, causing people to go insane. Rather, the reason for insanity in those stories was knowing things that one’s mind could not accept. This is similar, but on a slightly different tack.
‘Instead of knowledge so far out there that it is beyond many’s comprehension. This is dealing with a species’ natural mental makeup. Even if that fallen civilization was human, they thought in different ways. Not that people here can’t learn from it, but it is almost certain that part of how they understood magic ended up leading to their downfall.
‘The system wants your people to maintain their tech, not just because it provides an extra support to their survival. It wants them to have multiple mental frameworks of how reality works so if one ends up warped, the entire civilization doesn’t crash. To depend on only a single source of enlightenment only to end up with a warped understanding is what your people would call one of the Fermi paradox’s great filters.
‘This usually isn’t possible because most species will have one or two powers they’re inexorably connected to. Sure, some will stray from that, but most will be like your kobolds. One power or another, though not always through sexual dimorphism. Your planet is weird having so many options.
‘While humanity as a whole is accepted as being one of the most diverse, the planet by planet tends to fall very much into one power bucket or another. You will have a world ruled by magic next to a world city chugging on technology equal to that magic. Not that they can not dabble or trade for power items, but beyond the most basic levels, even technology becomes weird science beyond the normal ken of man.’
Doyle, ‘Surely there are empires that cross such boundaries? And mixtures of the powers can’t be too out there.’
Ally shrugs, ‘Oh, that all certainly exists. Though while I did say a tech and a magic world could be right next to each other, there tends to be regions of dominance between the various powers. As for stuff like magitech? The combination of two powers, especially technology with something else, is quite common even in the mid levels of power. Though the high end tends to run purer because of what it takes to get there.
‘An ancient Archmagi isn’t going to spend a hundred years learning technology when he could spend the same time making a new spell of even greater power. Really, the biggest key is that doing so doesn’t grant greater personal power. It simply allows for more diversity. Except at that level of power, the saying about how “if all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail” really hits home.’
Doyle, ‘Fair enough. Though I guess that brings us back to where to get started.’
Ally, ‘Runes are the poor man’s enchantment. Not really, but they allow you to make a “magical” item without it actually being magic and thus needing to be a masterwork. This is because the item is inert until magic is running through the runes themselves and even then, it is the carved out space through which the power flows.’
Doyle, ‘So runework is cheating?’
Ally shakes her head, ‘Runework is the equivalent of an electromagnet. With better materials and more power, you can do amazing things with it. However, just as equally, you technically make one if you wrap some cheap insulated copper wire around something and stick the ends in a potato. Yes, it does technically work, but without getting into better things you’re dealing with cantrips.’
Doyle, ‘So what should I make?’
Ally shrugs, ‘Well, anything. Though since you want a direction, let’s vibe with that potato example and make the equivalent of a potato powered light. Then work up from there.
‘I’ll warn you when the quest is a day or so away from being completed, so don’t be afraid to deep dive into this. Once you have a foundation of runes to work with, you can extend out into what you really got the skill for, formations and arrays.’
