[D'sP] You're Not A Space Station - Chapter 370 (Patreon)

Ace sighs, “Stories about the deep ones and their ilk only showed up a hundred or so years ago.”

Camila, “Well, maybe that means they’re further away from here than my old planet? After all, they’re practically a part of my culture’s creation myths.”

Ace, “The problem is the shared myths in the first place. Nevermind that at least here, they’re considered to be from ‘beyond space and time’. The fact we have any shared stories at all means that souls from a place that has them arrived here and the experience with them was deep enough to survive the memory wipe that seems to happen after death.

“Honestly? Them being part of your world’s creation myths makes me worry. Because your world is more likely to have had them around. At least here, even if we didn’t explore things too thoroughly, our technology allowed us to peer into the deepest depths of the ocean.

“Though I guess the whole ‘when the stars are right’ thing could be referring to the coming of magic.’

Camila’s ears drooped, “I’m going to have to go to the wolfkin lore speakers and listen to all those stories again. See if we can compare our myths to your stories beyond just the deep ones.”

Ace sighed, “And I’m going to have to go into the restricted section of the library. I’m sure someone has kept a collection of the stories outside of our control and so I’ll need to know more myself. Maybe even transcribe some of the stories with any potentially troublesome names removed. I can imagine how bad things could go if someone read them out loud. I’m just glad that the names were considered to be unspeakable for the most part and so all the attempts are technically not correct.”

Camila nods, “We have much to research.”

All the while, down in the dungeon Doyle is a bit worried. ‘So, Ally, about that Lovecraft stuff they just talked about? Given the stories, some of the mythos stuff sounds an awful lot like void creatures. Is there anything I should be worried about?’

Ally, ‘Not unless someone tries to read one of those books in the dungeon itself and only if they choose the wrong one. Not everything that fits under Lovecraftian, which was admittedly marked as a priority read by the system when I was familiarizing myself with your planet, is in fact Void based.’

Doyle, ‘But some of it is.’

Ally, ‘Well, yes, but within the dungeon we are safe. They aren’t going to find us when their attention is upon the dimension your world is in. For one, their attention is already here and given the oddity of how time works in the Void, they’ve always known of it. A dimension is simply too big for them not to.

‘Also, thankfully, the stories are right that they don’t actually care about anything here. At least, those from the void. The biggest problem within a dimension will always be the cultists and the creatures spun out of local stuff. The mentioned deep ones being a good example. Good thing we aren’t near the sea, as far as anyone around here can tell.’

Doyle, ‘What about the deities from the mythos that aren’t technically from the void itself?’

Ally shrugged, ‘Eh, even deities can be followers of those higher than them and not much beats the powers in the Void. Of course, just like anything else, the void warps those deities and thus why they’re so strange.

‘Now let’s ignore it for the moment, there is literally nothing you can do about it. Instead, we need to focus on the kobold team. You’ve moved the pseudo-sapient healer to the deepest floor to give him a temporary level boost, but we still need a team to go with him.’

Doyle tilts to the side and back, ‘Since the system wants people to use ten person teams, we’ll follow suit. There must be a reason. On top of that, I’m going to buy his team a skill specifically for this quest.

‘With an even split of male and female kobolds, they’ll have equal access to Mana and Qi so that’s covered. This leaves technology to worry about. Of course, we don’t know what kind of technology we’re looking at. Giving them all the skill to identify electronics could be wasted if the important tech to grab isn’t.

‘So instead, I’m going with a scavenger style skill. They won’t know what they’re grabbing, just that it is important in some way. Yes, there is an equal chance of them grabbing trash, but as long as they grab enough, we’ll be good.’

Ally, ‘So, I’ve been thinking. Are you sure about only sending kobolds? There’s an inherent limit to how much they can carry because of their size.’

Doyle nods, ‘While I could send a goat or axebeak along to act as a beast of burden, my kobolds should already be able to extract anything one of the town’s team could. Plus, I’ve got a few bags of holding that have been slow baking. With them, the kobolds will be able to make full use of their lifting capacity.’

Ally, ‘Slow baking? What in the world do you mean by that? Last time I checked, you were still limited to just set dressing, loot, and real when it came to spawning in stuff.’

Doyle, ‘Oh, I guess it hasn’t come up? I’m just using the option to make loot items, but in my lowest floor where people haven’t gotten to yet. Sadly, the time acceleration doesn’t help. Though I have noticed that lower floors are moderately faster at getting loot items to spawn.’

Ally nods, ‘Yes, lower floors have more world energy than shallow floors. Though partly it feels like it is increasing a lot because the energy density outside is still increasing. Which is weird, but at least it means this planet will be quite magical.’

Doyle, ‘What about the time acceleration?’

Ally rolls her eyes, ‘You don’t suddenly get more world energy on the floor just because time is passing faster. If anything, there is probably less as something has to be powering that effect.

‘Anyway, how is the loot option helping? Yes, they do slowly gain world energy, but that isn’t exactly fast and to make an object real costs so much more than just having an item ready to spawn.’

Doyle, ‘Well, since no one is delving my deepest floor, eventually all the items are ready and I can just redirect it all to one item and force the matter. This does take a while, but while expensive, my bags of holding were already an item I could put as loot on the third floor. They’re not all that special.’

Ally makes a disgruntled face, ‘I guess that is true. It just feels like you’re breaking some kind of rule. I’ve always been taught that to get an item, someone needs to go in and loot it.’

Doyle, ‘Well, yeah. If they actually want something, they’ll have to come and get it. That doesn’t mean the item can’t already be there waiting. It’s that in any dungeon where the floors are being delved even semi regularly, there won’t be items just sitting around.

‘I’m sure a dungeon like Flisle has tons of high end loot sitting around their deepest floors at this point. In fact, if I was a dungeon of that size, I would probably have all kinds of ready to spawn loot hanging around so I could play with any interesting team of delvers that might come my way. As it is, though? I’ll just have to settle for having a small stash of bags.’

Ally sighs and shakes her head. ‘Well, I guess it is useful for us at the moment. Bags of holding will allow them to carry out more without being noticed. Though I have to ask, what are you expecting to get? While technology is a powerful tool, you likely won’t be as able to take advantage of it. As a weird type dungeon, you’ll more easily develop strange magical stuff over tech. If you wanted to pioneer technology, you would have needed to pick one of the tech picks like the space station options.’

Doyle, ‘I’m not expecting to find all that much tech, all things considered. Remember how the teams are being placed randomly around the quest area? Yeah, no way is that actually random. The system is deciding the kind of area to drop each team. Sure, maybe of the available spots it wants to drop you one is chosen at random, but each team will be where the system figures will fit them best.’

Ally shrugs, ‘I think you’re being a little paranoid there. Though that aside, how would you even explain gaining all this stuff? You’re pretty adamant about not revealing that you’re awakened and while I’m behind you on the subject, you can’t expect Ace to ignore reality for you.’

Doyle, ‘I expect my biggest gain to come from material science, as it were. There probably isn’t even mithril in the quest area. After all, the system set this up to help people with what they have now. So instead of new magical materials, the kobolds will probably find normal materials being used in various ways with magic. Stuff that Ace and his crafters can make use of right away.

‘Will there be tech? Certainly! But it isn’t going to be true magitech or some such. We’ll probably find things like technology based flashlights adapted to use magic as a power source and the like. Stuff that will be interesting, but more interesting will be what they use to channel the magic and so on.

‘On top of that, unless the system decided we needed guns, I’m guessing I won’t actually have to change all that much in my dungeon right away. At least not until I would have had the chance to gain examples of it naturally.’

Ally, ‘But if you’re going to wait to use the stuff until someone drops it in here, why risk sending out the kobolds in the first place?’

Doyle, ‘Because I can’t trust that I’ll actually get everything I might want. For instance, if the original sample of the flashlight they bring back uses a very specific bronze alloy to conduct the power, there is no way to be sure that the people will be able to replicate that exact alloy. They might miss some additive or get the ratio off.

‘And if someone never actually brings an original one of those flashlights in? Well, I’m missing out! It gets worse if they use stuff like plants as a part of it. Sure, I won’t get the plant pattern itself, like how I’m still missing trees. Don’t know how that’s kept going, but whatever. Anyway, even if I don’t get the plant pattern itself, I’ll be able to at least replicate the finished product.’

Ally nods, ‘Okay, I can see the angle now. And Ace and company wouldn’t be able to tell if you should have something or not because they aren’t going to confiscate what people gain from the quest. Buy it all at a high price? Sure, especially the books, but it will be up to the person who earned it if they sell or not.’

Doyle, ‘Exactly! All it takes is someone being secretive when they leave the quest to end up dead in my dungeon and Ace will have no clue what I may or may not have access to. Though that does bring up the question of books. If my kobolds grab something good, I can’t exactly just hand it to the town.’

Ally shrugs, ‘Eh, they’ll figure it out. You need to be a bit more selfish. Helping the town advance does help you, to an extent, but as a dungeon you need to focus on your own advancement. They’ll either work to keep up or not, but that shouldn’t stop you from advancing. Ace and friends are nice enough, but if they start to fall behind, other people will show up to take advantage of you and there would be nothing you could do about it.’

I Had To - Chapter 369

Invitation Time - Chapter 371