Chapter 372: Crunchy |
This wormhole had a few extra bells and whistles added to it. It first pulled us down into the ground through a pinhole, warping the tiny space to fit two full teams of Delvers through it. That included the walking assault platform that was Vaulty and a full-sized dragon in addition to our prisoners. The thing then bounced us around a few times, taking us deeper and deeper below ground through a series of random twists and turns until we were miles below the surface. Finally, the thing spat us out into an arena-sized obelisk chamber.
There was hardly anything in the space, despite its size, although the obelisk was one of the largest I’d ever seen. Regardless, it wasn’t much of a spectacle compared to trees and cacti the size of skyscrapers. Mana weaves covered the walls, floor, and ceiling of the dome-like interior, and a casual glance showed me rune configurations for controlling heat and pressure.
Before I could start asking questions we received a System prompt.
You are now leaving the Less-Than-Habitable Megadungeon.
Your personal progress will be evaluated
After leaving this obelisk chamber you will have completed the primary objective–Navigate the Megadungeon to enter the Chasm.
Progress towards the secondary objective–Activate multiple obelisks to receive escalating rewards: 2/8
Progress towards the emergency objective–Eliminate the United: 1
You may exchange 1 Unity Essence now or retain it until you’ve completed the Chasm. Exchanging a higher number of Unity essences at once will yield superior rewards.
I checked on everyone while keeping an eye on the notifications. We all seemed to be present and in one piece. Xim had already knelt to enter meditation, as had Vaulty, both using a Wisdom evolution to vastly accelerate their mana regen for a brief time. Nuralie was evaluating Tomomaru and his iguana with several potions laid out beside her. Ishi had activated her Telekinetic Surgery skill and was using the last of her mana to treat the man’s badly injured animal familiar, although the healing didn’t look like it was doing much.
Drift was speaking in hushed tones to Varrin and Etja, Joma was checking on Nottagator and inspecting Cloaky for damage. Ember was keeping an eye on the United prisoners alongside Shog. That was a rather intimidating pair of wardens, I thought. The prisoners were behaving for their part, likely waiting to see if I’d deliver on my promise to set them free once we’d entered.
I selected “No” on the System prompt, deciding to keep my Unity essence. There was no reason to exchange it early. I didn’t even know what the payouts were.
As part of the enhanced rewards offered by the Megadungeon Labyrinth, your parties have been assembled at this obelisk for an additional level distribution. Up to 5 Delvers can receive an additional level and commensurate bonus as though they had claimed this obelisk during the Labyrinth itself. The first 5 Delvers to touch the obelisk and accept this level will be the ones to receive it.
I called everyone to a loose form of order. We were all receiving the same notifications and I wanted to make sure we were on the same page about what was going down.
“How do we want to handle the levels?” I asked. “There’s 12 Delvers here, counting Shog and Tomomaru, and only 5 rewards.”
Nuralie looked up from her Littan patient. “We should do as Two of Crowns had planned from the beginning. Our parties both have level differences that need to be addressed. The levels should be given to those who need to catch up.”
I nodded my agreement, and nobody seemed resistant to the idea. Me, Xim, and Varrin had all managed to reach Level 18, while Nuralie and Etja were both Level 17. As for Ishi’s group, both princesses–that is, Joma and Ishi herself–were Level 21. Drift and Ember were now Level 18, whereas Vaulty still only had a grade.
“Hey Vaulty,” I said, “has the System said anything about assigning you a level yet?”
“Affirmative. However, the level assignment offered is 26. This is too far ahead of the rest of Two of Crowns, so I have deferred accepting.”
“What’s the practical effect of that?”
“The System states that I may not enter a normal Delve with the party unless I am either a Delver or a Minion of someone in the group. The Labyrinth was an exception due to the circumstances that brought us inside of it. System Core 1 also noted the alternative of using Your Majesty’s ‘portal bullshit’, but that is irrelevant as you are not a member of Two of Crowns.”
“Guess you don’t want to be a Minion, eh?”
“I have lived that life and found it lacking.”
“Fair enough,” I said. “Then it seems like Etja and Nuralie should grab a level, along with Drift, Ember, and someone else from your party, Ishi. It’ll put either you or Joma ahead of the group again, but if you’re catching up to Vaulty then might as well.”
“Feel free, Princess,” said Joma. She was rubbing some kind of ointment between Nottagator’s claws. Ishi wasn’t the type to argue with free stuff, so those five took the mana distributions. Fortune’s Folly were all now Level 18, soothing a mild anxiety I’d had about us getting out of alignment with one another.
After that was dealt with, the skill levels came pouring in.
Your Dimensional Magic skill has increased from Level 56 to Level 58!
Your Blunt Weapons skill has increased to Level 41!
Your Dungeoneering skill has increased to Level 41!
Your Heavy Armor skill has increased from Level 40 to Level 42!
Your Mystical Magic skill has increased to Level 41!
Your Physical Magic skill has increased to Level 41!
Your Shields skill has increased to Level 41!
Your Leadership skill has increased from Level 37 to Level 40!
Your Diplomacy skill has increased from Level 26 to Level 28!
Your Statecraft skill has increased from Level 19 to Level 21!
It was a healthy pile of skill levels, although things were certainly starting to slow down for the skills over Level 40. I was happy to see that both Leadership and Statecraft had new evolutions available and decided to let one instance of focus peruse those while discussing our next move with everyone else.
Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
Now that the obelisk had given out all of its distributions a portal had appeared. That was allegedly what was supposed to happen inside Labyrinths, but this was the first time things had behaved as expected. Examining the portal showed that it led back to New Krimsim.
A moment later we were all distracted by the sound of stone sliding on stone as a massive section of the floor peeled back to reveal a steep set of stairs down. Fifty feet wide, with each stair three feet deep and two feet high, the thing was sized for people even larger than Varrin or Shog. It went down as far as I could make out, and our various members with scouting abilities were already giving it a look-see.
I didn’t notice any souls floating around, so I left the investigation to those better suited for it. Instead, I ran my evolution options over in my mind while meandering over to our captives. I pulled out my infinite bag of charcuterie to get a snack in while I pondered as well, chomping down on a few crackly nuts.
Leadership was a contest of auras, which is exactly what I’d been hoping for. There was one option that wasn’t an aura, and it was a good evo, but it wasn’t on-build for me. It was the same one Tavio had for Leadership 40, allowing him to make an enemy into a Focused Target, buffing allied damage and granting some other little perks. Not really my thing at the moment.
As for the auras, one improved social defense while the other improved movement speed. While being faster was great, social defense governed mental resistances and I’d more or less decided to make it my life’s quest to become immune to every form of mind fuckery that existed. My recent brush with Berserk only compounded my resolve, so the choice wasn’t very difficult in the end.
Diplomatic Command
You gain an aura extending out to a number of feet equal to 20 + your Leadership skill level. Allies within this aura gain a bonus to their social defense equal to your Leadership skill level.
Once again, I was my own ally from Auradilato, so I got the social defense buff as well. My party members always got the buff so long as they were on the same plane as me, and the range of the aura for everyone else was pumped by my Heavy Armor skill. Further, the effect of the aura was boosted by my Leadership 10 evo, meaning it was a bonus of 56 instead of 40.
Since it was a friendly aura, it granted another 98 health regen to everyone else and an easy 392 to me. I also got an additional persistent +5 to all my attacks and defenses for having yet another aura always on, and… yeah. The aura build was really starting to snowball.
Statecraft didn’t have an aura option, sadly, but I was sure there’d be plenty more down the line. Before that skill’s options were presented, I got a notification letting me know that my Level 10 Statecraft evolution had improved.
You gain 1 additional instance of focus for each evolution you have in Statecraft. You now have 2 instances of focus that can be used to perform acts of governance.
Technically, I hadn’t picked the next evo meaning I didn’t ‘have’ two yet, but the System didn’t seem to care, and I wasn’t going to complain.
In addition to contemplating governance, those instances of focus allowed me to inhabit a Mystic Magister of my choice, of which I now had 21. That created a magical second me to run my kingdom even while I was away. After reaching skill level 20 I could now have a magical third me, which was pretty nice since there was a lot of shit to do over there. Magical first me, Arlo Prime, could thus enjoy the lackadaisical lifestyle of a murder hobo without the crushing pressure of obligation weighing on his shoulders.
“Am I becoming a hive mind?” I asked no one in particular. I dismissed the notey, hunted down some of the crispier treats in my bag, and got on with my business.
Democracy
As long as your citizens support your rule, you may add Statecraft as an additional modifier to persuasion checks and social attacks. If your citizens do not support your rule, you may not add any modifiers to persuasion checks or social attacks.
All of your subjects gain a bonus to their social defense equal to your Statecraft skill level.
The names of these are irrelevant by the way, you don’t actually have to do anything icky like letting people vote. You just have to, ya know, be kind of nice. Only to the majority, though. Feel free to exploit the disenfranchised minorities all you want!
Also, this allows you to become even better at being a social tank despite having a Charisma score that only barely exceeds the bounds of human capability. You can even crowd source your wardrobe choices to make them more infuriating!
“You literally gave me this boa and vest!” I shouted my argument into the void, and not for the first time. The System was gaslighting me. I chewed on a handful of cheese and dried berries to calm myself down.
Democracy was appealing for several reasons. Modifiers were a bonus equal to the modifying skill level with some variable upward swing. Getting an extra modifier to persuasion and social attacks was especially powerful, since they generally received far fewer bonuses than things like weapon or spell attacks.
This would even get a boost from my Intelligence evolution Self-Insert if I was interpreting it correctly. Part of Self-Insert read:
. . . whenever an ally within this aura makes an attack modified by any intrinsic skill that you also possess, it gains a bonus equal to your own skill level in the matching intrinsic.
Since I was my own ally, my skills buffed my attacks twice, meaning this social attack bonus would be doubled. However, Distraction was the only social attack I really made, and my Ass-Dope Shades allowed me to modify those with Leadership instead of any other skill. The effects weren’t compatible. While the shades were much narrower in scope, I wasn’t out here trying to mind control people so I didn’t care much.
On the other hand, if people didn’t approve of my rule the evolution disallowed any modifiers to such checks and attacks, making that part of the evo mostly downside for distraction attempts. On the other, other hand, if my persuasion checks were significantly better I may not have had to commit mass murder when I was confronted by General Oladl.
Still, the boost to social defense for all of my citizens was where this turkey got most of its gravy. A quick consult with Grotto confirmed that an ordinary person had a social defense of 1. If they got a bonus 40 from my Statecraft skill, that was a massive improvement. It was better than most Delvers, since base social defense was equal to a Delver’s raw Wisdom score. Of course, Delvers who were also my subjects would get even better at resisting mental attacks, although that wouldn’t help me personally since, while I was my own ally, I wasn’t my own subject.
I let that bake in my brain while I looked at the next option.
Technocracy
Your Magisters gain a lifting capacity equal to your own and can interact with the physical world as though they were not incorporeal. Entities you authorize can issue commands to Magisters to assist in any task, whereby the Magister uses your attribute scores and intrinsic skill levels.
You can designate a number of Smart Districts within the borders of your state equal to the number of evolutions you possess in Statecraft. Smart Districts have a radius in feet equal to 10 * your Statecraft skill level. While within a smart district, your citizens have Haste and their lifting capacity is doubled.
Unlike Democracy, Technocracy looked like it was pure upside. While the magister I was inhabiting could physically interact with the world, all the others I had couldn’t. They acted like holograms. They all looked like people, be they human, Littan, or even a few of the adorable, fox-like Carbuncles, but your hand could go right through them. They were also obvious automatons whose function was primarily to distribute information.
This evolution would give them a lot more productive utility, creating a superhuman work force. I had a lift capacity of about 1 standard elephant, or 10,000 pounds for those of you using the customary imperial system. That’d make a damn fine construction worker. They could also serve as trainers for any of my skills, which now included several of Grotto’s skills, giving us a great start to the faculty of a Delver academy. More uses sprang to mind the more I thought about it. Suffice it to say the diversity this brought to the magisters’ capabilities was enormous.
As for the smart districts, Haste would make a mundane person twice as fast at everything, from thinking to action to movement. It nearly did the same thing for Delvers, with a few caveats depending on the person’s build. The doubled lift capacity was also neat, giving us another tool to help boost Closetland’s growth. Construction, manufacturing, research, learning, crafting, even time-efficient relaxation was on the table. Although, giving oneself Haste to find time to relax seemed problematic. Regardless, there was a ton of opportunity there.
I’d made the Leadership decision in the time it took me to walk over to Shog and Ember, but the last Statecraft option had me stop to stare into space for a while. I had a knee-jerk preference for Technocracy. Even so, this last one got me thinking more deeply about what my vision for Closetland was.
This evo 20 wasn’t just a fun bonus, it was turning into a pivot point for the entire kingdom.