Ally looks to the side, ‘The uh, the monsters certainly help as well.’
Doyle pauses, having just been considering what a high level table would actually be like. ‘The what?’
Ally nods, ‘The monsters. Like, they’re out there and no place is ever truly secure against them. It just takes the right ability or enough of them. A monster attacks a town and boom, people need new stuff. Even on Ecumenopolis there are monsters. Hell, even on supposedly lifeless rocks, floating out in deep space, a monster can show up.
‘There are small scale ways to prevent monsters from coming into being, but we’re talking about a small facility at most and they can’t be placed too closely together.’
Doyle, ‘Now hold up, the town hasn’t had monster problems since the wolves. Wouldn’t there be more hanging around?’
Ally shakes her head, ‘They haven’t had any visible problems yet. Here, look at this.’
And she pulls up a blue screen showing a live feed from the town. Specifically, it shows a basement with a couple of mice running around. Then she pauses the scene and zooms in on one mouse that is nibbling on something. That something turns out to be a rock, which the mouse is easily chewing through.
Ally, ‘That right there is a rock gnawer mouse. A relatively common vermin type monster. Not the hardest to kill as, besides their teeth, they stay mostly the same as a normal mouse. At least, up until their third year of life when their body slowly becomes as tough as stone. Until then, even a child can kill one as long as you avoid getting bitten.’
Doyle, ‘Can I get one? Like, they seem capable of sneaking into the dungeon. I don’t have a use for them, but a mouse that literally eats stone sounds cool.’
Ally, ‘Oh, don’t worry about whether they would be useful. After they hit the three gear mark, they also start to grow bigger. While they never really end up the biggest of monsters, you’re looking at a mouse the size of a small child, eventually. Not that you would get there anytime soon. They’re an example of a creature where levels affect their size more than age.’
Doyle sighs, ‘And I assume there are a ton of vermin monsters that make it so no structure or item is truly safe. Nevermind the fact I’m sure more directly harmful critters appear as well.’
Ally nods, ‘Yep, even if the sapients are at peace on a planet, there will always be fighting. If anything, dungeons just help train for it. A little savage, but then again, it isn’t like your world was peaceful before the system came. Though it was certainly more peaceful in select spots than it can ever be now. At least without literal divine intervention and the like. Not that any deity would actually force peace like that. Wastes too much of their power. Besides, paladin style orders tend to provide a lot of faith.’
Doyle sighs, ‘Well, I guess if monsters are constantly destroying stuff, you would need new stuff all the time.’
Ally shrugs, ‘I wouldn’t say all the time? But certainly the stuff apprentices make will fall afoul first. If only because people who buy it are less likely to have it in a secure location. A king’s throne will last for centuries if only because nothing can get to it.
‘Though there is a reason the vermin bane enchantment is one of the most popular. There are even people who go as far as to have each individual brick and plank of their house enchanted with it. Not that vermin bane makes it immune to vermin. They just won’t enjoy it, what with the magical item being filled with power that is antithetical to their existence.’
Doyle, ‘Nothing lasts forever.’
Ally, ‘As far as we know. Souls and True Immortals seem to, but that might just be our limited knowledge. Though there are rumors of them being destroyed in the past. But those are myths of myths and not worth thinking about right now.’
Doyle, ‘Though speaking of enchanting, how does higher levels of skills and patterns work? I thought masterwork was some kind of point where something is as good as it physically can get?’
Ally shrugs, ‘Pretty sure I already told you, but crafting and skill use gets mystical after a certain point. For instance, high-level stealth allows a person to hide in the middle of a stage, despite having nowhere to hide and the spotlight on them.
‘Though with crafting it can also result in an item that while not inherently magical, is easier to enchant for certain purposes. Take a sword. If a high level smith makes one with the purpose of it being enchanted with sharpness. While the result might not be magically sharp, it could be enchanted with half the effort. The very nature of the sword drinking in the magic and holding onto it.
‘That is how you get most of the legacy weapons you see kingdoms and clans keeping as trump card heirlooms. Since you can enchant it to a certain level for less work, that also means they can enchant it with all their might and reach a higher level. And when that involves a kingdom’s best enchanter in the last hundred years? You end up with something qualitatively better than anything else that planet has.’
Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.
Doyle, ‘That makes sense. Though I also assume it involves luck to get a good enough base item.’
Ally nods, ‘Most times you just end up with a sword that is magically sharp with which sharpness enchantments don’t stack. That has led to the high end being full of multi-effect items. Though the mid market is dominated by single effect items as you can only put so much enchantment into an item and so better to go all out with one effect.
‘Though speaking of high end crafting. We should check out what you got from that dungeon bead. Don’t worry about spotting what it changed. Unlike some other beads, that one is well documented and only gives access to paths. With some quirks. All of which you’ll easily notice since the system basically forces you to. Pull up your available paths and you’ll see.’
{Points: 127
Class: Dungeon Core III 100/100, Awakened Dungeon Core II 10/10
Location [1/2 I, 1/1 II]: Heritage Kobold Community I 15/15, Communities of Myriad Heritages II 30/30
Completed: Goat Supremacy 20/20, Energy Well I 3/3, Commanding Subordinates 12/12, Ageless Queens 15/15, Earth’s First Home of the Limit Breakers I 1/1, Biomes Aplenty 5/5, Potion Dispensary 10/10, Elemental Animals 5/5, Cows for Milk 12/12, Vegetation Variety 20/20, Divine Border 1/1, Know Your Enemies 10/10, Pathfinder, [UNIQUE] 1/1, Community Driven 10/10, Monster Rancher 50/50, Community Builder 30/30, Extra Accommodations 75/75, Energy Well II 6/6, Kobold Community II 30/30, Engraver 5/5, Boss Builder 50/50, Energy Well III 18/18, Monster Rancher II 100/100
Available: [Dimensional Stability 0/25 | Unlimited Skies 0/25 | Infinite Labyrinth Maker 0/25 | Strange Instances 0/30 | Towering Monuments 0/45 | Dimension Carver 0/50 | Fluid Boundaries 0/50 | Instanced Farms 0/50 | Vast Warping 0/62 | Expansion Seeker 0/70 | Unknown Places 0/80 | Connecting Instances 0/80 | Fluid Instancing 0/100 | Deep Compression 0/100 | Endless Expansion 0/100], ...}
Doyle tilts to the side, ‘So. I assume the rest of my paths are hidden behind the dots? That I didn’t just lose them all?’
Ally laughs, ‘Yep, nothing was taken away, just hidden. That includes the entire “started” section. Also of note, you can’t just select the dots and open up the rest of your choices. Well, you could, but that’s because you understand language and what they represent in a way an unawakened dungeon can not.’
Doyle, ‘Oooh, it’s like how I had an alarm on my phone that let me set it so it wouldn’t stop until I solved a few math problems or a puzzle.’
Ally nods, ‘Exactly! This is all to force it so that when a dungeon goes to spend its points, the new options are all it can pick from. Also of note, the square brackets and how the entries are divided by straight up and down lines? That means you can pick only one of them. The moment you put a point into any of them, the others go away.’
Doyle, ‘I also noticed that not all of them seem as personalized as paths tend to be? For instance, I don’t even know how I got access to fluid boundaries. I guess it could reference how some of my floors are all warped, but that doesn’t feel right.’
Ally nods, ‘That is because they aren’t. While some of the options you get will follow what you’ve done already, if not to the point of actually earning the path. The others will just be random paths that fit the bill. In fact, the less a dungeon has messed with dimensional space, the more unrelated paths there will be and the less paths in total.
‘The fact you got 15 paths to choose from, is only possible because you have messed around with dimensions so much. Though note the lack of some of your more odd achievements being referenced, such as the square room with the wrong number of sides. This type of bead is specifically concocted to provide orthodox dimension based paths. Yes, even paths like the “Strange Instances”. Because despite the name, what is strange about it, won’t be how it warps space.’
Doyle nods and then sighs, ‘Well, whatever the case may end up being, I’m a bit limited. While I don’t care what Ace expected to get out of this, I must admit being in line with his thinking. My instancing needs to improve and while “strange” instances might have potential. There is only one path in that list which feels right, Fluid Instancing.’
Ally shrugs, ‘A shame since some of them sound interesting. Dimension Carver? Unknown Places? While I won’t say those will never pop up again, it isn’t too likely and even if they do? Chances are they won’t be these exact paths even if they have the same name.
‘Though in some ways, the paths that aren’t yours are the most interesting, even if the names are boring. They represent paths distant from our own. Rarely do you get such things. While in theory it shouldn’t be the hardest, the system prevents harmful paths, which includes those that would warp a person in a way they wouldn’t be okay with. Though that can be a game of inches.’
Doyle nods, ‘What wasn’t acceptable yesterday, might be fine today or at least a half step towards it. Eh, whatever the case, I have the points so I can easily afford the 100 points. Though I have to ask, how could this go wrong for an unawakened dungeon? It doesn’t seem too hard and there are even really cheap paths.’
Ally, ‘It comes from a couple directions. The first is the fact that an option needs to be picked and finished within a hundred years. If the dungeon doesn’t, the system will force what it considers the best path onto them.
‘There is some leeway, but if the dungeon can’t afford the path points, well, the system will “loan” the needed points. If the dungeon can pay it off within a year, nothing extra needs to be paid. If not? Well, you already have a debt to the system.
‘As for the second angle? You’re actually just a hair away from running afoul of it yourself. You’ve bottlenecked your dungeon skills. Now think of what would happen after a hundred years if you’re still bottlenecked or you happened to run into the bottleneck at that point? Because even if you picked a path, if you haven’t finished it, the system will force the matter.’
Doyle shakes his core, ‘Eugh, yeah, I can see how that would go bad. And an unawakened dungeon, hell, even an awakened one without a fairy wouldn’t know this all. Kind of scummy.’
Ally nods, ‘The system developers weren’t bad people, but they certainly weren’t good people either.’
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