Dark Fate, Book 23 Prologue

Prologue – Trade Chat

(North American System Information Exchange Forum, formerly Community Building and Civil Defense Chat)

abby_gail, bento, RainyDayze, GringottsGoblin, DoritoMan, D.VaLuvr69, Carion, RadicalEdward, FusionGal, NotACop, Scholar, RamblingWreck, Anonymous4, Anonymous6, RedShift, SevenNationArmy, DarkLord, BagOTrix, White_Queen, Faraday, BackpageGal, FullServiceMassage, daytrader, LinaLuv, Skippy, shadow_clone23, THE_MERCHANT, jenny8675309, Rabbit, Angelus and Tracker are in the chat.

NotACop: That… that can’t be real, right? We didn’t just see that?

abby_gail: If you’re asking whether we just saw the Emperor of the Ceresan Empire 1 v 100+ a whole group of people, including the Russian President, and slaughter them all in a ‘trial by combat’, then yeah, it is real.

LinaLuv: No real poll numbers yet, but looking at the boards on Ceres, this is possibly the best thing he’s done since coming back from the Commonwealth.

NotACop: You can’t just go around abducting and killing heads of state!

DarkLord: No, YOU can’t do that. I think I’ve shown that I, in fact, can.

White_Queen: As much as I hate to condone such actions, that was actually fairly restrained.

Jenny8675309: Restrained? How?

DarkLord: Moscow still exists. And, frankly, sending a Tier 3 monster at an area with mostly Tier 1 creatures counts as a weapon of mass destruction, so I wouldn’t have lost any sleep over wiping the city off the map.

SevenNationArmy: But what kind of message does this send, going forward?

DarkLord: “Leaders who fuck around no longer get to hide like little bitches, and instead get to find out by facing actual consequences.”

Carion: Honestly, with how often leaders (both government and corporate) seem to believe that actual, life-and-death consequences are only something that happens to the nameless peasants, I can’t bring myself to care.

daytrader: But that leads to instability! If major leaders can be taken out just like that, think what it will do to the markets!

DarkLord: And how many corrupt or abusive governments have been propped up in order to keep the markets happy? How many stable governments have been destabilized to keep foreign markets happy? How many people have died because those in charge never saw them as anything but numbers on a spreadsheet, ‘acceptable losses’ so long as their bottom line was not affected?

FusionGal: So, ‘for the greater good’?

DarkLord: Of course not. However, the Ceresan Empire does not play diplomatic games. You hit us, we hit you back, and we’re going to make sure it hurts. Make an example of someone, and do it right, and people start thinking twice before they sign up to be the next example.

Skippy: Of course, it helps that no one on Earth can actually kill you, right? Since they would have to be Tier 2 to even scratch you.

DarkLord: Tier 3, or at least high Tier 2 using a Tier 3 weapon, actually.

White_Queen: So, that new look during the execution was due to you getting Tier 3. Side-grade from Greater Incubus?

DarkLord: No secret, but yes. Greater Apocalypse Incubus. And, because I don’t exactly hide my class or profession, except when I’m in disguise, I guess I can tell people that I gained the Soulcager class and the Timestruck Demon Lord profession.

Scholar: Huh. Why is ‘Demon Lord’ an advancement from ‘Demon King’? Shouldn’t it be the other way around?

THE_MERCHANT: Common misconception. While ‘Demon King’ and ‘Demon Lord’ are the direct translations to English from the Infernal, the meaning of the two terms is different from an Earth-centric view of Kings and Lords.

DoritoMan: Soulcager? That’s nasty-sounding.

DarkLord: Eh, not so much. I can just keep the soul of someone I kill, which gives me some benefits, and those who fight in my name grant me Soulshards of those they kill, which I can use for other things. I can’t just rip someone’s soul out of their body, or anything like that. I have to actually kill them to get their soul. And I don’t go killing people for no reason.

White_Queen: I haven’t heard of Timestruck Demon Lord. A Unique profession?

DarkLord: Yes, and one I only have thanks to your treachery. Along with everything else I have now.

White_Queen: Don’t remind me.

Scholar: Fascinating. What were the unlock conditions for your Race, Class, and Profession, if you don’t mind sharing?

DarkLord: Greater Apocalypse Incubus was unlocked by having the Genocider title, and directly combatting threats that were either planetary in scale, or involved creatures in a higher Tier than I was.

BagOTrix: So, the System rewards you for butchering a country?

DarkLord: The System makes no moral judgements. You might as well complain about Gravity not letting a human fly without some outside force aiding them. It simply is. And it should be noted that not all titles are helpful. For instance, anyone who survived the blasts throughout Israel, or are living kin of someone who died in those blasts, would get a bonus to damage against me, thanks to that title.

Scholar: How far out does ‘living kin’ take things?

THE_MERCHANT: Unless otherwise noted, for species like humans, the System recognizes ‘kin’ as a direct blood relative, or a blood relative with no more than three degrees of separation. So, a great-great-great-grandchild would be kin, but your father-in-law would not be. Cousin would be kin, but your cousin’s grandchild would not be. And so on.

THE_MERCHANT: This distinction also applies to titles like ‘Kinbreeder’, as well.

Scholar: By the way, what is the effect of that title?

DarkLord: Social interaction modifiers. Basically, it gives a minor boost or penalty to the effective attributes of someone you’re speaking with for purposes of social interaction, which scales based on how far their views are from the title in question. Someone who is extremely pious and from a very sexually inhibited religion might get as much as a 100% boost to their WIS in order to resist the Seduction skill of someone with the title, for instance, or they might have that bonus to their CHA in order to counter their attempts at Diplomacy.

Rabbit: And the System determines this?

DarkLord: Yes. So, you can’t be like some Evangelicals and say you’re against it, while spending a lot of time on porn sites looking at stepfamily content, for instance. The System won’t be fooled.

White_Queen: Of course, given his likely stats, it is unlikely that anyone DarkLord wishes to seduce would be able to resist, unless they had a firm immunity, or something similar.

DarkLord: Actually, my Tier 2 class, Demonic Seducer, had a skill that allows me to ignore immunity to Seduction.

Rabbit: So, no one is safe?

DarkLord: I don’t go seducing everyone I see, you know. I have standards.

White_Queen: Uh-huh.

DarkLord: For instance, I haven’t tried to seduce you since I found out who you truly were. And I haven’t gone after any trolls or undead.

DarkLord: Anyways, dealing with the Russian President in such a way has satisfied Ceresan law, so I foresee no further actions against them, unless they don’t learn their lesson.

Carion: So, are you going to allow Russian ships through the Panama Canal, now?

DarkLord: I said that no further actions were necessary, not that they had earned enough forgiveness to retract the punishments already in place.