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Chapter 176 - For the Record
🕑 Added 2024-08-27 12:38:02 +0000 UTCA massive sigh reverberates in my throne room.
It’s mine, of course. I’m not sure who else it would have been. Some things never change, after all.
Hades… or Izahne again, rather, has resumed her old habit of dungeon diving.
Not that she has much room for advancement. I do suppose she could try to level her Class…
Maybe I should do the same. Besides…
I have a second Class now… whatever that means. I’m not sure I’m even supposed to. Maybe I’ll ask someone who would know.
Nyx… might not appreciate being bothered about something basic like this. Maybe I’ll ask Eris… or Livvie…
(Or you can just ask me. You already know I’m hearing all of this anyway.)
Are you sure? You don’t want to just be left alone?
My former Assistant sighs across our link. (Multiple Classes, right? It’s extremely rare, but every now and then a hero shows up with more than one. Your buddy Dipshit might have two as well.)
Huh. Really? Strange. I wonder how that’s all going…
I check in on the usual obstacle course events… I’d rebuilt that as well, considering for centuries on and off the ‘True Hero’ has been showing up and trying different things to free the seemingly immortal woman still sitting on the rock in the middle of the pond. And of course, none of his efforts have borne fruit.
Because of course they haven’t. And he continues to be convinced the fair maiden is a prisoner and not in fact the one who keeps killing him.
I’ll give the rusalka credit for that… she’s an exceptional actor despite her flat and continuously exhausted delivery.
Maybe that just makes her more convincing, who knows. Dipshit is an idiot, after all.
…
I’m bored.
Which, as ‘old divinity’ apparently thanks to Astraea, isn’t really a surprise. She’d gotten by for centuries on end by fixating on her ‘Olive’.
Which I suppose I could as well, her alien emotions for the fox monster still beating strong inside me.
Maybe she was to Astraea what Izahne seems to be for me… although I’m still not sure why I’m so fixated on my more recent wife.
Maybe it’s because of how much time and effort I’ve put into trying to understand what it really means to be a partner in a marriage. It was so simple when I could just view it the way Nyx described it… give and take, joint ownership of each other.
But thanks to Astraea’s memories, that’s all thrown into question.
It instead seems to assume shared emotions… and while I can definitely confirm Izzy feels them – or at least did at one point – I’m not sure if I’m even capable of feeling them myself. Not genuinely anyway.
I wonder if wanting to feel is enough.
…
Maybe I should look around my plane. Maybe there’s something entertaining here. So I link my consciousness to my kin still scattered about where I’ve left them as sentries… not that I’d been paying attention to any warnings they may have offered over the years.
Hmm…
The population has definitely grown, although the nightwalkers seem about the same in number… probably because they’re not actually capable of reproducing. Even if they could, their offspring would be normal vampires and immediately burn up under the light of the moon.
The gorgons, on the other hand… their population has increased by more than an order of magnitude, and clearly more housing has been built, expanding some of the towns into sprawling metropolises in their own right.
How?
Adventurers. So many adventurers.
And I know better than anyone how exactly that works. Unfortunately.
Stupid Astraea.
…
It’s a strange feeling to consider her, any part of her, as separate. The feeling is absolutely clear now…
I’m her.
Maybe I was always her, even though I’m certain at least at some point I wasn’t.
It’s confusing, but livable at least.
Anyway, I suppose it shouldn’t be a surprise that my people have multiplied. It’s not like they have any predators or anything here, Rose and her clones keep the peace, and of course if all else fails there’s Vivi. I know I can trust her.
…
Now there’s another thought.
Vivi. Come to me.
…
…
A few moments later in a flash of light and a few rapidly scattering insects, my ancient knight appears and promptly drops to a knee as always… all while radiating the odd mixture of anticipation, concern, and even fear.
Which shouldn’t be surprising, I suppose… she did see my true form, after all.
My larger self, the whole. The dreamer. The thing I must never set free.
…And considering how they burst forth from tiny rifts in the void now, probably the source of my feelers, at least now. They’re definitely different, no longer made of compressed ash.
Maybe it’s just another characteristic of my race or Class, considering how much they’ve changed since my true awakening.
“My queen calls and I answer,” Vivi intones from her place on the fine rug.
Yes, I’d restored that as well. Why wouldn’t I? I have an image to maintain after all. Imagine what the others would think if I held an audience and the place was threadbare?
…
I’m just going to ignore that I guess.
“I know it’s been some time,” I drawl, “but give me the short version. What’s happened here in the time I’ve been… let’s say indisposed.”
She glances up at me for a moment in surprise before answering with a list of relatively minor things… the changes in population of which I was already aware, the further influx of generation of generation of adventurers who arguably aren’t even adventurers anymore but settlers, or even possibly citizens…
The former adventurers typically either moved here as families after spending some time delving my dungeons, or formed relationships with or even wed themselves to my gorgons.
Which I find myself wholeheartedly approving of… at least the latter.
Some even formed relationships with my nightwalkers, much like I had so long ago in a sense…
Speaking of, I’d been leaving her be obviously. It doesn’t mean we can escape each other’s emotions through our shared link, but I at least haven’t reached out.
I chose to give her space, but I’m still watching.
Ah, Vivi is still talking.
“-Of note. Things have been relatively peaceful, aside from the typical riffraff and conflict between the mortals. Your people, however, have unsurprisingly remained easygoing and productive as it was the way you designed them. Even most of the successive generations of gorgons have remained so… most of them.”
“We have rebels, do we?” I ask half-interestedly.
She shrugs. “Not of note. Some have become adventurers while others are simply living their lives as if humans and not dungeon monsters. Granted, it’s not as though they can simply leave the plane.”
I nod lightly. It’s true… I’d confirmed long ago that my monsters can’t leave here without rapidly losing the mana that is their life force.
Not without me making significant changes to them or expanding my dungeon home to other planes, anyway.
I wonder if that’s even possible. I’d ask Livvie to let me try, but I’m not sure how much I want to bother her with this kind of trivial experiment…
Maybe I’ll ask her later.
Meanwhile, Vivi has been waiting patiently for… well, anything from me. Feedback? Dismissal? I don’t know.
I’m fairly certain she’s figured out that I’m back – that her old master is back, in my form if nothing else.
Maybe I’ll try dungeon delving again. I do have two Classes to level… I’ve gained a handful of them so far between…
Wait, I have charm Skills. Why don’t they show up in my Status? They’re definitely in effect, even if I have them turned off right now…
I don’t even know what they’re called.
…
Well, I’ll deal with that later. For now… back to adventuring I guess.
Let’s just find back some old friends… I marked them after all, so it shouldn’t be difficult.
***
We’ve been making excellent progress, enough even to surpass level 600… it’s only a matter of time before we’re strong enough to challenge even the most difficult dungeons on this plane.
I’m not sure if there even are any other planes with such a wide variety of dungeons, although I shouldn’t be surprised considering this is the home of the demon lord…
Maybe I should stop calling her… it? That. There was a global message some time ago about her ascension to ‘demon empress’, whatever that even means.
Rosalie and Frederick have obviously kept up with my advancement, especially Rosalie. Her offensive spells have improved by leaps and bounds, after all. Our frontliner meanwhile has developed a handful more area-of-effect defensive Skills, a radiant magic project Skill… mostly run-of-the-mill stuff for a paladin. I can’t say I’m surprised considering those Themis grants a Class tend to be very similar if not completely the same.
It's unfortunate, really, but he seems happy enough with it, so I won’t argue.
Anyway, we’re all exhausted. We’ve just finished our most recent dungeon run… an undead-type dungeon populated mostly by skeletons, ghouls, and the like… as well as some groups led by vampires or even nightwalkers.
The end boss was actually a nightwalker – an incredibly strong one that we weren’t remotely prepared for. It’s fortunate that dungeons across the planes rolled out that new tech so we can just try again if we die… without actually dying. Still no idea how it works, but I’m not going to complain about a good thing.
Nobody likes dying in a dungeon.
But I digress.
A sudden chill through my bones halts me the second my hand touches the door of the Adventurer’s Guild.
…
Oh no.
Oh, please no. Not again.
…
…
I finally work up the courage to open the door after a quick glance at my companions…
To find those same red, vertically slit eyes move to follow me as I enter, soon followed by their owner. And my attempts to avoid the diminutive horror…
Fail. Because of course they do. Even with all my rogue and assassin Skills, I couldn’t escape this thing if I wanted to.
With a nonchalant wave and grin it says, “Hello Callian. I see you need a healer, and I happen to be available. When do we leave?”
“Do I have a choice?”
Ravona laughs.
And then laughs harder.
“No, ehehe! You never did! Ahahaha!”
…
A sigh escapes me. I guess it’s going to be some time before we finally get that rest.
