The Gamer Chapter 1614 – Raid and Adventures 10 – Adjusting for the Difficulty (Patreon)

“I can’t believe it,” Scarlett muttered. The technomancer had just been informed about the new Negotiator Perk. “Good thing you didn’t waste your Kingdom Theme cooldown… Lorelei!”

“How may I be of service?” the seer asked.

“We’re putting the project on hold for the rest of the day. You’ll help me compile a list of resources we want and what phrases would be best to get them.” Scarlett turned her gaze to John. “You can spare one of your three bodies to also attend.”

The Gamer just nodded and that put a stop to that conversation for the time being. Once the party was out and about again, they could continue. “First and foremost, I’ll use the Ambassador Double for this next stretch,” he announced. “I don’t want to get ambushed at either the front or the back, so using the body that can fly will work best. Next question, who felt somewhat useless in the past few fights?”

The question wasn’t optimally worded, but the meaning was understood. Everyone knew the feeling, either from real life situations, other Raids, or regular gaming, when their particular skill set contributed little to nothing to solve the current issue.

Beatrice was the first to raise her hand, Gnome hesitantly followed. After some additional consideration, Lydia also gave a show of hand. Metra halfway raised hers in a weighing gesture. “I’m not useless, but I feel pretty limited. Not quite as bad as Gnome though.”

“They just ignore me!” the season elemental complained, pulling her knees to her chest. She was adorable, pouting, blushing, and rocking back and forth. It made Momo and Nia give her head pats before John could do as much as walk over. “Uwu… they just run around me… uwuwuwu… covered by illusions… uwuwuwuwu…” she grumbled and did her cuddle rock sounds.

The coordination and use of illusions by these Skinwalkers was certainly more apt than any they had fought before. Combined with their numbers and turf advantage, it made it impossible for an immobile tank like Gnome to really contribute anything. She was always two steps behind, not even contributing any real threat.

Beatrice had a similar issue. While she could keep up with the enemies, she had been kept isolated from the group by the way the traps sprung on them. Beatrice could hold her own quite well in certain situations, but she did her best when she had a slight advantage. The passive maid’s whole kit allowed her to win more and every fight began with them clawing control of the battlefield first. Only once they had stabilized could she do as she wanted. It was likely advisable to sacrifice her single target damage in favour of someone that provided the utility to balance the scales early in the fight.

Lydia and Metra’s issue were different flavours of those two. The Creator Puppet, simply, was too easy a target here and when John died it was an auto-wipe. Undine, Aclysia, and Salamander were the only three that performed well in the situation. Undine was the healer, Aclysia and Salamander had area coverage, which was one of the basic counterplay options for illusions. Lydia also had area coverage, but it was a tad too conditional for enemies like this.

John considered his options. He had already switched himself out for a more apt body, so that was done. Gnome, Metra, Lydia, and Beatrice were up for replacement. “Lydia… you’ll stay,” he said after a moment. “I think the issue with you we can fix just by learning the enemies more. The wires and scrap clusters are too good to miss entirely.”

“My assessment is similar,” the queen agreed. “I merely wanted to give the option.”

“No need to clarify for me,” John assured, then considered the other three. “Metra, I think you should also stay. You have just enough mobility that you should be able to keep sticking to them, plus I don’t want to throw most of our tanks out.”

“Good call,” the blonde berserker babe agreed.

That left Gnome and Beatrice for actual replacement. It did feel alien to remove Gnome from the group, but she really was just too slow for these fights. “Nightingale, you’re in,” John said after a moment. “You’re the second best of us at dealing with illusions and they do have enough power budget in their actual strength that I don’t want to take Lorelei along.”

“I shall do my best,” Nightingale vowed.

John had two good options for the last slot: Nia or Claire. Nia was better at dispelling the illusions in the fight, while Claire could do more to scout them out ahead of time. His decision fell after he looked out the window. They were in the crawling stages of a time dilated dawn. Claire could fight under the daystar, but she really, really preferred not to and a Raid was not a place to bring one’s B-game to. “Nia, you’re the last member.”

The pariah gave an abrupt nod, backing away from the appeased season elemental. The new party grouped up by the door and headed back out.

John remained on the couch, turning his attention to Scarlett. “So, want to make that list?”

“Imma tag along,” Rave said, before Scarlett could confirm.

“Why?” the redhead wanted to know.

“’Cause I’m hella bored?”

“…If you continuously throw in suggestions that are unproductive, I will toss you out,” the technomancer warned.

“No mischief, I swear.” Rave’s lips twisted into a smirk that was all but reassuring.

“She’s lying,” Lorelei stated drily.

“Thanks, Rel, my regular human eyes caught that smirk.” Shaking her head, Scarlett turned around with enough intensity to have her hair fly in a dramatic whip. The tips hit Sylph in the head, who squawked like a surprised seagull. “Why the fuck did I grow these out?” the already annoyed redhead grumbled, as she led the way.

“The fault is entirely my own,” John said.

“Yes. Terrible influence,” Scarlett agreed immediately.

“Without me you’d get to still sit in your tower, just accruing wealth endlessly.” John put on the lamenting tone thick, to the point of irony. “Piles upon piles of money, spent to make more and more money. No one to bother you, no friends, no family. You’d just be chain smoking away, hidden from the world. What a blissful, unknown existence.”

“…Fuck you.” The silence broke what little conviction she had to leave it at that. “Okay, fine, maybe you’re not the worst influence ever. Maybe I like having a social life and the prospect of investing my wealth into a family. Happy?”

“Generally? Ecstatic,” John answered sincerely. “Are you?”

“Peachy.” Scarlett’s answer had a charming amount of venom to it. “None of this answers why I need the long hair, though. Maybe I should shave it all off.”

“You can, but I think you do look good with long hair.”

“Real cute,” Rave backed up. “Brings out your feminine side.”

“It is a fitting aesthetic for your lifestyle,” Lorelei stated.

A long sigh announced Scarlett’s surrender. “It is not that bad…” Her fingers combed through the straight, deep red strands.

They crossed the bridge that crossed the circular river around the workshop. The stone bunker the structure had started with had grown more esoteric with each iteration, Lorelei guiding all those that helped shape it. In its current form, Hailey’s smithy had been moved to the top of the building, sitting atop the slanted roof, only covered by a pavilion roof. Vents and pipes formed a runic network around the central furnace. The fuel glowed an arcane, blueish white, as magic and fire both consumed the infused coals.

BLAM!

The sound of a small household’s worth of wealth getting turned into kinetic force and vapour echoed through the creation crew’s sanctuary. His superhuman hearing picked up that there was an exchange between Ehtra and her weaponsmith, but not exactly what was being said.

BLAM!

A second echo followed them, while the four of them entered a conference room at the heart of the segmented workshop. Somewhere in here, Delicia was also working. John would check on her once they were out.

“First thing we need is a bigger bed,” Rave said once they were all seated.

Everyone looked at her like she had just swallowed a billiard ball. “Jane, there’s making jokes, and then there’s saying things that are just nonsense,” the Gamer chastised his fiancé. “If we get an even bigger bed, we’ll need a separate building to put it in.”

“That’d be a power move, wouldn’t it?” she purred.

“Stop,” Scarlett interrupted before John could respond, halting the banter train in its tracks. “We have a purpose. What are the resources Fusion needs?”

“First question is what can be traded through the new Building,” John said and opened the Guild Hall editing menu to get a clue on it. The description was somewhat enlightening, if also vague in some aspects, as Gaia’s write-ups so often were. “Sounds like the materials traded can be anything, including organic matter, but no sapient entities and nothing that would grow on its own to be sapient.”

“Why specifically ‘grow on its own’?” Rave asked.

“Assumedly so we could still trade things like Artificial Spirit crystals that can be used to create a golem that is sapient,” John answered. “I think the intention here is that we cannot trick the system by having people travel as slaves, which would technically make them a marketable good.”

“A vile idea,” Lorelei mumbled.

“I fully agree, I was just posing the theoretical of using the mechanics to circumvent the stated rules. Could declare someone a slave, trade them, then liberate them on the other side, and that would enable them to travel between Kingdoms – which the description said is specifically not wanted. People that enter on one side of the Building have to exit on the same side.”

“But we could trade for seeds and such,” Scarlett hummed. “Can’t exclude all biological matter, especially when the line between organic and inorganic blurs in the Abyss.”

“So, what do we need?” John asked. “I feel like, urgently, we need nothing.” He looked at half his economy to prove him wrong.

“Cement, concrete, plaster.”

“…Really?” John asked. Cement was such a common resource, he never had even considered that it was something there could be a shortage of. “Can’t we solve putting up walls with magic?”

“What do you think is more readily available: people that can pour cement or people that can shape stone?” The question made John sigh and gesture for her to proceed. “Abyssal construction is more complicated than the mundane equivalent. The structures we build are sturdier, but they also need to withstand more and deal with mana flow. Ferro concrete is the basis of mundane architecture, but the Abyss deals with many other metals and we need different kinds of concrete to deal with the different heat expansions. Optimally, the concrete is an alchemical compound that assumes part of the attributes of the metals it binds to.”

“I suppose I have been spending too much time with the class of people that can just…” John turned his wrist once. “…magic their homes into existence with money, influence, or personal power.”

“Fusion has an abundance of crafting resources that would otherwise be rare. That generates an impressive amount of wealth, but that wealth has trouble manifesting in infrastructure because we lack the people and the raw materials to build it,” Scarlett continued on. “We’ve been relying on Fateweavers where we can, but their thought-constructs are notoriously susceptible to decay. They will not last us for long.”

“Feels like we should put Delicia to the task of finding a way to make more alchemical concrete compounds?” John suggested.

Scarlett shrugged. “You can ask her about it. She didn’t want to, no matter how much money I offered.”

“Hm, I’ll do that then. So we need a Kingdom that’s willing to trade in masses of basic building materials.” John glanced over to Lorelei, who had taken out a sketchbook and began writing things down. Beyond the initial suggestion, she was putting down a variety of phrases that might lead them to the desired outcome. “Anything else?”

“World Gems, to accelerate Mobile Barrier engine production and research,” Scarlett listed. “Advanced plastics and ceramics, those get scarcely produced by the Guild Hall. Sand for glass production. Fertile earth for terraforming of midwestern Protected Spaces. Seeds for new plants…”

“I’m not entirely sure we should introduce the wildlife of other worlds into ours.”

Scarlett rolled her eyes. They had been through the environmentalist arguments a number of times. The ability to create (theoretically) closed ecosystems through Illusion Barriers lessened worries, but the Gamer was still wary of unintended knock-on effects. Scarlett was of the utilitarian approach that nature should be put in the interest of commercial interest and that, therefore, the optimal ecosystem was one where everything in it could be used by people. If all else around it went extinct, that didn’t matter much.

It was a callous worldview, but one with merit. They were humans and why would they not make a world that was best for humans? John and Scarlett already lived in a world that had been affected by this thought process for several thousand years. Anyone who said this was a bad principle to follow did so with the benefit of not having to contend with wolves roaming the streets.

Simultaneously, anyone who argued for the complete taming and exploitation of nature was not giving unintended consequences its proper due. They were also not respecting the value beauty had to the human psyche. Yes, wolves were dangerous and so were crocodiles, hippos, kangaroos, emus, boars, and Tasmanian tigers. Simultaneously, the world was and would be poorer for the extinction of these species. There was no logical basis to that argument, their ecological niches could be filled in one way or another (especially using the biological manipulation of alchemy), but it was just true. Beauty had a value that wasn’t easily summarized with a commercial mindset.

“I’ll introduce them with all of the necessary precautions and procedures,” Scarlett stated.

“I can trust you to,” John admitted. “The problem is that I don’t know who else I can trust – unless you suggest I make this a closed market?”

Scarlett pressed her lips together. Various aspects of her worldview clashed. She wanted to have first access to the resource. She wanted it to be given to her on the basis of merit. She had the merit at the moment, they both knew that, but closing a market was inviting losing that merit. Anything without competition inevitably became less functional.

“We’ll have to hammer out the details on a case by case basis,” she stated.

John sighed, because he agreed that was the only way to really do it. “Putting the matter of seeds and other such things aside, what else can you think of?”

Scarlett continued to list things for a while.