136: The Roach Motel
Chapter 136: The Roach Motel
CROWN
I’d felt a little guilty pulling Plume out of his ‘memory stasis’ to ask a favor like that, but I did have my priorities. I couldn’t say I’d been a good father to Akasha, but I was damn well going to try my best when it mattered. I’d figure out a way to make it up to him later. The rooken had seemed like a pretty decent fellow… which explained why he’d been offered that opportunity in the first place.
I didn’t really know, I’d done it on Akasha and Duck’s recommendation without looking too deep into it at the time.
It wasn’t really much, but if it gave Akasha peace of mind while she was dealing with the incursions, that’d be enough for me. What else could I do?
“It appears your so-called ‘dungeon traps’ are working thus far.”
I’d known Orpheus was in the Sanctuary the moment I’d returned. I had, in fact, gotten the notification while I was in my Proxy, and given permission for her to enter while I was wrapping things up with Plume. What I hadn’t done is lain eyes on her, which I did at last when I turned around and looked.
“Woah, Orph, lookin’ good.” I raised an eyebrow at her new appearance with an appreciative nod.
Since she apparently couldn’t see herself how I saw her, Orpheus tilted her head at me with a perplexed blink. From the time I’d met her, she’d appeared as a female with some level of sexualization – which made me wonder about my previous life quite a lot. It had toned down considerably from the ‘voluptuous goddess’ I’d originally seen her has, but her new form – courtesy of the Perception Filter – was the most business-forward yet.
For a certain definition of ‘business’ anyway.
The purple hair was still there, long and flowing instead of bound up like her ‘office’ look. The exaggerated curves were replaced with a more lithe build, one that was armored in shining metal plating. The breastplate was matched with pauldrons on the shoulders and bracers on the arms and legs. She also had wings, which fortunately weren’t expansive or anything that would get in the way. They were just little feathery white tufts poking out her back.
My memories of Earth culture had become less and less important over time, but this one bubbled up from within. Valkyrie. This was Orpheus preparing for battle, and clearly my Perception Filter had decided she needed to look the part.
Unable to see what I saw, Orpheus ignored me and shrugged the wings. “I am not sure where that abbreviated name came from. It sounds… very strange in my native language. I can only presume from context it was meant to be affectionate?”
“It was. Sorry, I’ll not do that again,” I laughed. “I didn’t think about how translation would make things sound.” I wasn’t actually sure I was speaking English any more. Often I found myself speaking Elvish or Challian to Duck, but the Sanctuary let us all understand one another anyway.
Duck made a loud clucking sound, the kind of noise elves make when they want attention. “Can we focus on the task in front of us? It’s going well but there’s a lot to look at.”
“Yes, what is the current situation?” Orpheus walked over to observe where we were currently looking, which was somewhere on Downside near the polyform-vaskan borders.
The insect-creatures had initially quarreled with the vaskan quite often, but most areas were now either at peace or in a cold war. At least, that’s what it had been like a few decades ago in their time, which was relatively recent for me up in the Sanctuary. It had changed in the last dozen years.
“Downside is handling it very well.” I gestured to the map. “Most of the dungeons are popping up in vaskan territory. I’m not sure why, given the concentration of population in the polyform colonies. Works in our favor though, since culturally they tend to go after dungeons quickly, and the Dungeoneering Academy is now a multi-national organization. Apparently Sena’s descendants are still working on keeping things on the level. The upswing in dungeons has caused some more fighting, especially between the colonies and the vaskans, but it’s nothing extreme.”
Duck pointed to one of the dungeons. “The City of Sound and Culling Hive are still active, even without souls to guide them.” She swished her tail back and forth. “Those two really did a good job, they’ve gotten the vaskan in the area working with the colonies to make their own version of the Deep Watch. It’s not as effective but for keeping the place under control, it’s great.”
Orpheus nodded, before lifting a finger. “I am gathering these meanings from context, but do you mean there are mortal organizations specifically looking out for incursions? That is dangerous, it lends some belief to their validity.”
“No, they just have an almost religious view of keeping the dungeons running properly.” I zoomed in on one of the dungeons. “The Deep Watch only knows that the dungeons deal with fixing the System when glitches occur. To them, those glitches are unnatural. That alone should make for some resistance.”
The High Administrator considered for a long moment, then nodded. “Probably. It does seem to be working. We’ve had poor luck trying to warn mortals about incoming changes in reality. It usually works to a point, but also stunts growth for some reason, so eventually an incursion lands and we aren’t generating enough energy to do anything about it.”
This was the real conundrum of handling incursions. Fortunately… what the dungeons did actually ended up generating energy for me, and so far it was working. I nodded to Orpheus and spun the display about until it was settled on part of Upside instead.
“Unlike Downside, we don’t have any Academy or organizations here to keep in check what’s going on.” I scrolled back and forth. “So they’re slower to resolve the dungeons, but on the other hand they’re also much slower to pick up on any strange belief system. Isolated rooken communities are the most vulnerable, followed by the Scourge, but most of them follow the elf culture a lot more. Dwarves were made to be stubborn so not an issue, and elves tend to be cautious about accepting new things. So the incursions linger longer but don’t really get a foothold as easily.”
“Interesting,” Orpheus murmured. “And what about those glowing dots in the oceans?”
I shrugged. “Those are popping up near the haptix, and they just… handle them. Rapidly, I might add. I doubt those two will last more than a few more days. I’ve been meaning to look into how they reject them so quickly, but I’m not even sure we need dungeons down there.”
Duck spoke up when I mentioned that. “Actually even stranger is the fungal minds! Have you noticed?” She gestured vaguely toward the peaks. “They got rid of theirs without even sending anything into the dungeon. It was just gone within a day. Is that normal?”
Orpheus shook her head, but showed no sign of surprise. “It is not normal to happen regularly, but an unusual species will often be able to reject an incursion on its own. They try various attack vectors, and will try to tune it to each species. Since they cannot really see your world, they have to guess at what they are invading by the reaction of each change. Through their failures they build a more confident idea of what vectors will work, and will spend more energy on those.”
That was news to me, but it made sense. I still frowned and scratched my chin. “So this early success isn’t all that special, you’re saying? I was hoping we’d really hit upon something new and helpful.”
“Do not misunderstand.” The purple-haired valkyrie wagged a finger. “Normally, this is a process that only takes a few cycles. A few testing incursions, some of which gain weak footholds and require the use of a Constructed Avatar to correct. This is a significant cost in the universe’s energy. A second wave occurs within a few cycles, and is far more effective. It becomes a war of attrition, and in our cluster most of our Administrators are much younger and less experienced than those attacking us.”
“Because the ones attacking us don’t have the interface, so they’ve learned to do everything the hard way over eons,” I guessed.
Orpheus sighed. “Correct. Of all of us here, only myself and <Heimdall> have properly learned how to do everything necessary without the interface, and even so we tend to use it anyway.”
I blinked at the name she spat out, which didn’t quite sound right. I interpreted it fine, but it was the first time I’d run into something that the translation couldn’t quite match. Considering Orpheus was likely a non-euclidian being, this new Administrator must have been something really weird.
“Also,” she continued, “you will rarely see so many at once. Some of the protection I had been giving you is still intact, so they must be expending a truly remarkable amount of power simply to cause these tiny attempts. They are likely not aware that their attempts are actually giving you energy rather than forcing you to respond. It is possible they are learning that their rejection is through the local community rather than direct intervention, though. Expect a change in tactics soon, and more powerful incursions.”
Duck tilted her ears down. “I guess it’s a good thing we conserved our souls in case we needed the dungeon run properly.”
“You will also need to address the incursions faster and more effectively,” Orpheus added. “At least, on Upside. Downside’s situation seems to be self-correcting, but eventually they will figure out that despite the difficulty of getting a hold there, their incursions last much longer when they do catch. They will likely start prioritizing Upside if things continue as they are.”
I frowned, then chuckled to myself. “Actually, I think I know just the thing. We just need something like the Dungeoneer’s Academy on Upside. Surprised Akasha never took care of it, she must have been too distracted with her own problems.”
Orpheus gave me an uncertain look as I mentioned Akasha, but didn’t press. She just nodded to me and sighed.
“This is an extremely dedicated attempt. You aren’t even all the way at the edge of the cluster and they’re trying this hard. I suppose your bait idea worked wonderfully. I only worry that they’ll continue to throw resources at you and eventually find some kind of gap in your network.”
I grimaced at her and looked at the map. “Oh… I’m sure they will. We’ll just have to deal with it the old-fashioned way when it happens.”
“Are you gonna call in the old guard to handle things, boss?” Duck asked from the other side of Orpheus.
The High Administrator looked at me curiously… but I didn’t even need to say anything before her expression changed. “Ah. I see.” She paused, and then tapped her chin before asking a question in a quiet, almost bashful murmur.
“May I come, too?”