134: Dungeons and Octopuses
Chapter 134: Dungeons and Octopuses
CROWN
“I didn’t realize Akasha could be so vindictive,” I commented as I settled in.
Duck was in her usual position nearby, sprawled on her recliner like a little kid stretching between the arms of the chair. I’d given her limited permission to reshape things in the Sanctuary, and she’d made some more elf-friendly furniture, but she kept that one the same. It gave me the impression of a cat curling up in its favorite spot, whether or not that spot was shaped to fit the cat. The boneless sprawl had that exact look, made more ridiculous by the fact that she was usually on her interface with her head tilted back, upside down.
“I’ve noticed she takes the actual work of being the System super seriously,” Duck agreed. “Messing with that, or the people she likes, really raises her ire. I’m still worried about what she will do in the future, but at the moment I really can’t complain about how she’s handling anything.”
Time was running faster while we talked, so I spent a little while watching Boran, the new dungeon we’d made, to make sure he wasn’t doing anything funny on his first few days. Satisfied, I closed out the window and went back to watching Upside’s current debacle.
| AKASHA: Thanks, dad! Let me know next time you’re visiting Downside for vacation, we’ll go visit dragon-lady!
| CROWN: Is she still alive? I’ll have to find some time before she expires.
| AKASHA: You’re fine, she has a few octuries left.
| CROWN: You should use base ten when you’re talking about Downside.
| AKASHA: You knew what I meant!
| CROWN: I did. I’ll try to soon.
| AKASHA: Yaaaay~
I sighed, but it wasn’t a sad one. “It’s good she isn’t upset about Reyth. I was a little worried.”
“Stop worrying about your daughter’s love life and concentrate on your job,” Duck replied. “Did you ever look into that weird faith distortion?”
The dismissive attitude made me grumble, but I shrugged back. “Yeah I did. I’ve still got an eye on it but it’s fine. Just a remote tribe of Calen elves and some of the Scourge keep crossing paths, and somehow they’re both worshipping the haptix nearby as some kind of ocean spirits.”
Duck tilted her head up to look at me more directly. “Okay, not dangerous I guess, but that’s pretty weird. If I could get a Proxy of my own, I’d want to check that out.”
“Are you sure?”
My Terminal huffed. “There’s a lot I’d want to see. Why? You don’t think I could handle it?”
I shrugged again. “Depends. Do you like tentacles?”
The elf blinked and stared at me for several seconds… until I couldn’t take it any longer and burst into laughter, falling back into my chair. I felt a rotten fruit splat into my chest as I laughed, dismissing it instantly, and grinned at the fuming little elf glowering back at me.
“You asshole.” Duck huffed and flopped back into the chair. “So it’s nothing that weird?”
“I can’t actually tell,” I admitted. “But it looks more like a simple local worship that’s spreading. I’m keeping an eye on it but I don’t think the haptix are encouraging it. Definitely not how I envisioned first contact between them and the elves.”
Duck wiggled a finger in the air, likely fiddling with her own interface. “I’d think the elves wouldn’t be so quick to do that sort of thing.”
Another shrug, and I sped up the time dilation enough to watch a few days go by and how the tribes were interacting. “They’re isolated, still in the Stone Age. I don’t think they’ve had contact with the more advanced elves, and they’re all Calen so they wouldn’t have the generational memory either. I’m not even sure how they got there. I didn’t place them there…”
“Lost colony of some kind? It’s been thousands of years since the elves started to spread.”
I made a noncommittal noise of agreement. “Likely. They seem to have settled into coexistence with the Scourge though, that’s unexpected. Or maybe it’s just a cold war.”
Duck squinted at me. “You did make the Scourge intelligent enough to negotiate with. Maybe they just settled in?”
“Maybe.” I sped time up just a little more, watching the days fly past and turn to ‘months’ or whatever equivalent they had in that culture. I slowed down again somewhat when I saw what was happening. “Hm. I’ll keep an eye on them. I think they’re actually cohabitating now. Peace I could see, but this is new.”
A tiny flick of the tail showed Duck’s amusement. “Admit it, you’re really curious. Not like I blame you. Sometimes the weird stuff happening just begs to be investigated. But we should probably leave alone for now. Keep an eye on it in case it’s an incursion or something, but we need to focus on those.”
The days ticked by as I nodded, idly looking over the rest of the world. Individually, there were plenty of interesting things going on. Collectively it was… relatively dull right now. Off and on wars between hives of the insects and the vaskan, skirmishes between the Scourge and the various species of Upside…
One of the larger descendants of the sea serpents that I’d created ages ago had gone berserk and wiped out two settlements of haptix. Worrying on a mortal level, and saddening to me… but not something I really needed to intervene about. That was nature being nature, and one catastrophe did not an imbalance make. The ‘monsters’ were doing what I’d designed.
I knew I’d promised not to get involved, but I couldn’t help but check on Akasha when I noticed she had a physical body incarnated. I let out a deep sigh as I saw where they were.
| CROWN: You really shouldn’t linger around them. It was her choice.
| AKASHA: I’m just making sure he’s okay.
| CROWN: Everything will be fine. I think I understand why she did it.
| CROWN: You’re immortal. Her memories are still there, it just may be a while.
| AKASHA: But she could have been here now.
| CROWN: And she will in the future. But for now, let him be.
| AKASHA: Is it okay to be his friend?
| CROWN: That depends. Are you willing to let them be someone different?
| AKASHA: I don’t know.
| CROWN: Make a new friend. Just be friends. It will work out.
| AKASHA: But I still don’t want anything to happen to him.
A deep, heavy sigh escaped me. “Kids,” I muttered. How did I come to be the emotionally mature one here?
Compromise. That’s what I needed. I pulled up the reincarnation queue and mused as I looked through it.
| CROWN: I know someone I can put close to him to keep an eye on him. If after a couple decades you feel the same, we’ll do it your way. I’ll even make sure you have a body for the right species, if you want.
| AKASHA: I guess. Thanks for not yelling at me too much.
| CROWN: Believe it or not, I was young too once. Now go be the little imp she fell in love with.
| AKASHA: Yes, sir~
I rubbed my temples. The interface was adding tildes to her speech. That had to be some kind of translation effect.
Please don’t let that be a multiversal constant, I thought.
“Is she still hanging around Reyth’s soul?”
Duck’s question brought my head up, and I sighed loudly. “On the upside – no pun intended – this doesn’t seem to have been a childhood crush. The only problem is now we have a lovesick System. Maybe that’s why she was so vindictive about someone messing with the world.”
“I still think it’s funny that she described him as a very pretty bird,” the elf chuckled. “Her emotions definitely run hotter than ours.”
“Didn’t you tell me to stop worrying about it like… fifteen minutes ago?”
Ears wiggling, Duck tried to look innocent. “Yes, but I thought you giving advice was adorable. You know that was on the open deity channel, right?”
I groaned and ran a hand down my face. That was going to get me plenty of teasing.
“No respect,” I muttered. “Go through all the trouble of making a world and everyone including the kids bullies me.”
Another basic alert popped up, and I almost dismissed it. Then I frowned to myself. “We didn’t have any dungeons scheduled, did we?”
“Nope,” Duck confirmed. She sat up and stared at the air in front of her. “That’s a real one. Looks like we got our first incursion early. The defense was automatic. I guess Akasha might know about it…”
I shook my head. “I don’t want to bother her right now, not if she’s doing the job. How many tagged souls do we have in the queue anyway?”
The elf tilted her head and dipped an ear in thought. “About eighty last I checked. Give or take. Did you have any specific profile in mind?”
“No, I just want to know what’s in the armament.” I sat back and looked over the location. “Vaskan territory. Probably some tribes will hit it first, but it’s close enough for an organized expedition. I say we see how well the automated version works before we start staffing them.”
Another message popped up, but this one was just Orpheus telling me that her protections were failing. I already knew that. I sent her an acknowledgment and closed the window, looking over my options. I’d hoped that the vaskans would be more firmly entrenched in the Iron Age by the time this happened, but their progress was still patchy… and I knew from watching the elves go through this – the dwarves went directly to Iron Age and skipped the Bronze , which made me wonder if that had happened anywhere on Earth – that early iron was inferior to good bronze by a good margin.
Not much I could do about that, now.
“Well at least we know the system works.” I stood up and stretched, lowering the time dilation significantly to around 1:1. “If these come slowly, they should be easy to handle. If-”
I paused as another message came in, this time from Akasha.
| AKASHA: Father I think there’s been an incursion. I’ve formed a dungeon around it.
| CROWN: We noticed. Just let the dungeon do its thing and handle your own worries.
| AKASHA: I’ll try, but I was right about them.
| CROWN: Right about what?
| AKASHA: They hurt.
That made me stare at my chat window. A slow frown took over my face as I rubbed my chin. Here in Sanctuary, I’d long adjusted to being emotionally muted. I also knew ‘muted’ did not mean ‘gone’ somehow. With or without an endocrine system, I felt stirrings of emotion.
What I felt in that moment… was anger.
I pushed it down. Not because I felt it was invalid, but because I knew it wouldn’t be productive in the short term.
Instead of saying anything about it, I settled into my chair and zoomed into the incursion as far as I could go, to observe every moment of what it did.
“Okay, Duck. Keep an eye on things.” I cracked my knuckles – purely performative – and narrowed my eyes. “I’m going to be busy.”
Duck almost asked what I was doing, then abruptly shut her mouth. “Sure thing, boss.”
“Let’s see what they’ve got.”