SSD 5.05 - Fluffy Linings

Another Friday, another chapter. Thank you for all your support, and I hope you enjoy.

The little joys make life worth living. Life is hard, and you will find suffering and sorrow, but by taking the little joys, and fully savoring them, past sorrows shall blow away like ashes on the wind. Enjoy the moment, be happy, be free, and let sadness wait for another day.

-Frigak Lwenjas, Priest of Otga

==Caden==

Firi? That’s his teammate, right? There was some romantic connection there… I think.

“Your teammate, right?” I said, leaving off the bit about romance. Best not to mention that in case I’m misremembering.

“Yes,” Zidaun said, shifting slightly.

He’s nervous. What does he want me to give him away at a wedding or something… Not that that is likely to still be a tradition here.

Well… not unless this place is truly descended from Earth. Even then, wouldn’t expect a tradition to last quite that long.

I waited, idly considering how traditions could mutate over thousands of years, and doing my best to smile gently and seem encouraging. After another moment I gestured toward him, prompting him to continue.

“Uh, if it… is it… uh,” Zidaun said, stumbling over his words so much I considered using a command. Was that a reasonable way to deal with social awkwardness? No, patience, mind control is not for trivial matters. Some part of me began an internal debate about exactly much awkwardness was needed to transfer something from merely cringe worthy to a true disaster, though I did my best to ignore the errant thoughts. “I mean…”

Zidaun trailed off again.

“It’s okay,” I said, very careful not to make an actual order. “I asked you if you needed anything, so it is fine to ask.”

Zidaun nodded, his head moving rapidly, before he took a breath, visibly calming, then spoke again.

“Is it alright, for me to be… romantically entangled with Firi? I mean, not just sex, but… to seriously pursue him. To… potentially… build a life with him, here. To make a permanent commitment? It is up to you, of course… Maybe I shouldn’t have asked, except you wanted me to be honest…”

Zidaun started to ramble, and I raised my hand to stop him, which he did.

Zidaun was trembling slightly, by the end, seeming caught between multiple emotions. There was a sense of shame, that he shouldn’t want this, that it might intrude, or be an inconvenience, along with a nervousness, an uncertainty, but there was also something else, a passion, a need, buried below layers of social convention, or perhaps literal brainwashing.

Even if, for some reason, this would have created a difficulty, there was no way I would have denied Zidaun this. Not just because he shouldn’t need to ask, not just because the thought of controlling and forbidding this was reprehensible, but because of that buried passion. It was true emotion, and something completely for himself, and I would fan that flame as best I could.

Hopefully it can burn away some of the veils on his mind, when I give the order. Be better if he has other things to live for, when that comes.

“Yes,” I said, simply. “You can, and should, romantically pursue whomever you like, as long as they are willing as well. Pursue what makes you happy.”

Zidaun heaved out a breath, looking a bit dazed, and like a great weight had fallen off his shoulders.

He slipped out of his chair to kneel on the ground, prostrating himself before me, all the while offering his thanks in repeated murmurs.

I didn’t interrupt him. It might make me uncomfortable, but I had the sense that this, this gratitude, was genuine.

And he’ll need all the genuine emotions he can get…

I let him continue, until he looked up at me, tears shining across his face, and I smiled down at him.

“When you are ready to leave, just go through that door,” I said, gesturing to a doorway that had just appeared. And then I took my leave, the stone of my body stored away as this shard shifted back to being only a mind.

Ah yes, the ultimate use for cosmic power, escaping uncomfortable social situations as soon as possible. Of course, there is still the matter of the Adar.

It was dangerous, potentially, to strip away that control. If I wasn’t already planning to fix The System… I wasn’t sure if I would have done it, at least, not tried to do it completely. I still planned to restrict Zidaun slightly, and… depending on his reaction… I wanted to do at least something for those bound to me, even if it was just to raise the regard with which they considered themselves. Adding in some priority for their own happiness, even it wasn’t the optimal solution for the group… that should be okay.

Over the long term, that kind of alteration might have proven disastrous. They had, as a society, managed to outlast every other civilization on the planet, many times over, and that had value. However…

Only the value of survival. Not sure how much it is true for all of them, but Zidaun didn’t actually seem happy with his role.

And I had watched happiness be forced onto him, his emotions replaced with an artificial worship.

There is a utilitarian argument here, that the joy that brings outweighs the harm it causes.

Still, if you followed that logic all the way to its end, then the highest aspiration of society was to invent robots, have them see to our every need as well as producing more humans, and wire everyone into machines that triggered the pleasure center of the brain, forever.

Most philosophies are stupid at the extremes.

In that hypothetical society, sure, everyone was happy, or at least feeling pleasure, but I wouldn’t call them human anymore, either.

There was a certain bitter irony to that thought, too, because I could make a true utopia. Except, utopias don’t really breed conflict, at least no more than the natural human inclination to argue.

I could build it, a city where all of mankind’s basic needs were seen to. Hell, with the puzzle solving system I could manage to give all kinds of luxuries on demand, or I could go even further and use the next law slot I got to make it so that some simulated or copied version of me watched over every single human, making sure they wanted for nothing.

I could offer the dungeon for those that wanted to fight, a place where they could kill monsters or even try to kill each other, and I would bring them back safely, no matter the outcome. I could police them, ensuring no true danger or harm. I could offer materials to those that wanted to create. I could store and reproduce music, illusions, and any other work of man, offering an endless variety of entertainment, stored and kept forever. I could even heal, and with the patterns… I was fairly certain I could keep everyone young and healthy, without end.

I wasn’t sure how much of that I actually wanted to offer. Humanity, and the other sapient races here, deserved a chance to grow and develop, to build that kind of utopia with their own hands and with their own merits.

Do I have a responsibility, to save them?

If I didn’t know about souls… If I didn’t know, unequivocally, that death was not the end… then I would have said yes. The thought of allowing a life to be extinguished, no matter who that life belonged to, and that being the end, a true end, was unconscionable.

No immortal punishment, or permanent negative consequence, should result from limited mortal actions.

So, to allow that to stand, would be a terrible miscarriage of justice.

Except, that wasn’t the situation I found myself in, because, in some way, we carried on. Still, my own self, and my own fears, the fear that this aspect of myself would end… It troubled me.

It brought back that question of duty. Yes, it seemed that each mortal incarnation of the soul had a limited time span, a point beyond which our souls would be pulled back to continue our journey, but did I have a duty to prolong that point, right up to the very end?

Yet, people will want to leave.

And that was the other side of the coin. To eliminate people’s choice, was to violate the entire purpose.

It doesn’t matter anyway, not right now.

The System wouldn’t allow me to build that kind of society. That level of conflict dampening would go against its purpose.

Systemo delenda est

I snorted at myself, and the bastardization of the old phrase.

Or at least, its current incarnation. Even if I don’t create a utopia, in the end, just allowing civilization to progress should be enough.

To claim responsibility for the whole world… I didn’t want that, not forever.

And… someday, my soul will be pulled back, too. If everything relies on me then it will just crash down again. An Omelas with me at the heart instead.

Still, it doesn’t matter, once everything is settled… then I can think about building something better.

At least I know some things relevant to the current situation.

After all, I didn’t have a full loot menu yet, and certainly nothing that had populated with stabilized options waiting to be used.

Guessing that shows up in the next few levels somewhere, and the ability to create proper bosses, as well.

Something to look forward to.

I had a number of things to do, and my various shards were already occupied with handling as many of them as they could. It was taking a few shards just to untangle and categorize the vastly overgrown areas where I had let monsters and plants reproduce freely. Even the frozen ice had been saturated with some version of an arctic jungle, the long spindly tundra grasses having seeded the bare ice and woven together into pillars that grew until they reached the ceiling, there spreading out new roots into the stone, new shoots outlined the roots progress in veils of glimmering icy blue. Altogether, the shimmering could be mistake for drapes of ice, as if the crystalline grass towers had each penetrated through the ceiling to some hidden reservoir, the water slowly leaking down through the fractal cracks, only to freeze in descending layers.

Wonder how many dungeons have plants entirely by accident? Some seed left by an adventurer, growing without limit, could spread extensively.

Honestly, since plants produce a little mana, most dungeon’s probably wouldn’t care, even if they noticed the plant, unless it started to obstruct delver’s and monster’s ability to actually get through areas.

Considering how dungeons thought, it was a toss up on how they would react. Wouldn’t want to obstruct their own monsters, but would gleefully hinder any people who came in.

Still, if they noticed the faint increase in mana from the plants, they might spread some themselves.

Considering the shear number of tiny seeds, eggs, and insects that I had already seen hitch a ride with various adventurer’s, whether that was in their food, clothes, hair, and so on, it was inevitable.

Something to ask Zidaun, later, I suppose.

My aura could now expand into the open air, up to a certain range, but it hadn’t done that everywhere yet. The automatic expansion expanded in a sphere, from the central areas of my dungeon, though the expansion had obviously omitted going beyond my limits outside.

That being the case, while the area I had to work with now was truly massive, being many miles across, it hadn’t expanded as much as I expected. I wasn’t sure if that was due to the period where it simply wasn’t expanding, because I was soul diving, the reduced ability to do it automatically was slower than I had properly accounted for, or if the ability to expand was getting slower. It could be any of those, or some combination of them all.

Regardless, even if my aura had been expanding at full speed the entire time, I still would have fallen well short of expanding my main area to both my entrances. So, my aura hadn’t expanded out around them yet.

I hadn’t even thought about it until Zidaun mentioned that roads and towns were likely to be set up there.

At my command, aura billowed outward, enveloping almost five hundred feet from each entrance, before I pushed against the limits of where I could expand it.

That wasn’t a huge amount of distance, in the grand scheme of things, but it was enough for me to feel the presence of several people and some rudimentary buildings housing various animals. A facsimile of my human perspective allowed me to see that the buildings were stables, though there were no horses to be seen. There was a few odd lizards, but my attention was entirely caught by something else.

Oh my god they’re adorable!

There, in the stables, cuddled together in a large pile of snow, were cat dragons, or maybe dragon cats, it was hard to say exactly. Their faces were a broad arrow shape, they had six legs, were covered in layers fluffy white fur, and they were making cute tiny snores. There were also each about the size of a large bear.

I need one.

I thought back to the vast amount of space I now had to work with, just waiting to be filled.

I need a whole… herd, pack? Cloud? Cuddle huddle? Fluff pile?

Doesn’t matter.

Various people were panicking, apparently sensing the expansion of my aura.

Oh yeah, the sewers…

I’m an idiot.

Oh well, guess I would be talking with some people.

Can ask about the balls of fluff at the same time. Guess that is a silver lining… or rather a fluffy white lining.

With some attempt to damp down my enthusiasm, I moved a stone body out of storage, overlaying it with my presence.