[D'sP] Funny Bricks - Chapter 501 (Patreon)

The village on top of the mountain takes Doyle more time than he expected. Not because building the houses and such take all that much time. Rather, Doyle ended up realizing that it is supremely hard for him to create an inhuman house.

Maybe it is because he was born a human? Or rather, the fact that this new body didn’t force a change. Doyle was certain that if he had ended up in something like a wolf, his view of the world would have changed, at least a little, by now.

There is simply nothing you can do when forced to run your mind through a biological system. However, Doyle isn’t a wolf or some other animal. He isn’t even a golem, an earth elemental, or a living crystal. He’s a dungeon core.

His mind runs off of pure magic. While his core is a crystal, Ally assures him it isn’t a brain analog. That’s where his soul stays. Humans lack such a thing, which is why their death can be such a wishy washy subject.

Crack a dungeon core? Boom, they’re dead. The soul leaves.

Humans? You can do all kinds of things to them and have them still survive. About the only 100% guaranteed method to confirm a human is dead, especially at higher levels, is to make a spectral undead out of them.

Doyle finds it ironic. Humans are quite fragile, all things considered. Yet they can struggle and survive so much.

Anyway, Doyle realized that since his mind wasn’t being run through something, it was likely maintaining form. Given time? His mind would likely “relax” in shape, but for now? He was running a human mindset.

So yeah, his struggle to create an inhuman village? That wasn’t going to pan out and he had to settle for unrealistic angles. It gave a good effect when combined with using more than four walls .

A square room? Well, you can’t really do too much to that. Even if you lengthen sides or squish it into a diamond, four walls is the default amount and so feels familiar.

Doyle sighs, he couldn’t feel too disappointed about his failure. Not only did he get a spiffy new village, but it was really good for his skills!

Village Planner had gone up 11 levels to 62. This could have been more, but after the difficulty with the design of the original building? Doyle didn’t try too hard to go beyond regular planning.

However, it was Psychology that really showed improvement. Doyle had spent so long pondering on the nature of the human mind, that he gained 32 levels! This made it his second-highest level skill at 116.

Though Doyle was still 24 path points away from being able to afford Actualized Status Reorganization.

Doyle turns to Ally, ‘What skill should I look into leveling next?’

Ally shrugs, ‘Maybe try for another skill?’

Doyle, ‘I’m not really sure what I should go for?’

Ally, ‘You haven’t actually picked up a skill for trap design or engineering. Maybe give that a try? It would likely fit under class skills.’

Doyle sighs, ‘If it comes, it comes. I’ll just keep working on my current skills. Not like they’re any harder to level.’

Ally nods, ‘Fair enough. Then how about working on creation?’

Doyle, ‘Why that? Aren’t I basically using creation all the time?’

Ally, ‘Not really? Oh sure, there are the loot patterns you automatically pop on your monsters, but you mostly depend on farms. By this point and given how active your floors are, most dungeons would have a much higher level creation skill. 

‘You would be behind in your paths compared to a normal dungeon if not for having more skills. While we can’t exactly see what other dungeons have, skills can be figured out given time. Something a dungeon’s fae has in spades.’

Doyle, ‘So how would I train creation? It would be inefficient and quite cruel to repeatedly create and then deconstruct monsters.’

With a straight face, Ally says, ‘Funny bricks.’

Doyle, ‘What? Funny bricks? What does that even mean?’

Ally, ‘Well, this is more of a guess, but with some research behind it. Bricks are made of dirt, well, clay, but that’s a type of soil. Anyway, soil is surprisingly complex to make and a brick is simply a solid object. So yeah, you just create whole-cloth, a brick of some odd shape.’

Doyle, ‘What’s the research?’

Ally, ‘A bunch of dungeon fae who graduated from my school kept track of guestimated skill levels while the first floor was being created. Dungeons that create their floor out of things like wood and stone experienced slower growth than those who used dirt.’

Doyle, ‘But can we be certain a clay brick would have the same boost?’

Ally shrugs, ‘Well, it can’t be worse than a stone or wood block. So if you have to choose one? Might as well pick the material that gives you a chance.’

Doyle, ‘Welp, I guess I’m going to make a bunch of bricks then.’

Ally, ‘Try and make them weird. Not just in shape but other qualities. How dense can you make them? What about how many air bubbles? Can you create a foamed clay brick? Like, I don’t think you can bake a bubble, so that would be pretty cool. Nevermind all the spatial nonsense you can play with.’

Doyle felt that was a fair suggestion and so lost himself in creating the bricks. First was to replace the wooden walls of his mountain top town. This not only got him familiar with creating bricks, but involved some strangeness already.

Even the roads got paved with bricks! That actually came first because you can’t exactly mess around too much with the shape when making a road. It has to be smooth, after all.

Though once freed from reworking the town, things got interesting.

Bricks of all shapes, though he kept it to about the same mass. It starts simple enough in that they are simple shapes. Hexagonal, pentagonal, triangular, circular, and so on. Just a bunch of shapes. Then he varied the shape in the third dimension.

Instead of basically just a plate, he makes balls, pyramids, and so on. Then includes concave sections. Of particular note, he made shapes others would recognize. A puzzle, except missing a single piece near the center, chess pieces as best he could remember, and so on.

Doyle didn’t keep up with the recognizable shapes though. In fact, he went back and deconstructed all of those. No reason to leave clues.

That left him making unsettling bricks. This was partly Doyle playing with optical illusions. Though there were also a number of examples where he warped the dimensions of the bricks. He particularly enjoyed making brick-shaped bricks that weren’t actually brick-shaped. They would surely feel odd to pick up!

Satisfied, Doyle looked down at the bottom of the mountain where he had been tossing the finished bricks. ‘Oh. That’s a few.’

Ally sets aside the novel she is reading and checks his viewpoint. ‘Well, you aren’t wrong.’

Down around the base of the mountain is a sea of bricks. Well, not a sea, but the base of the mountain is certainly covered in the things.

Doyle tilts back and forth. ‘I don’t remember making that many. Lots of duplicates.’

Ally, ‘I looked in a couple of times. Except for a few that you destroyed? It seems you were trying to perfect a shape and so made many multiples of each. Sort of went into a fugue state there.’

Doyle, ‘Well, hopefully my skill leveled a good bit.’

They checked the status panel off to the side.

Ally, ‘Hmm, that is disappointing.’

Doyle, ‘Only 16 levels? For all that work?

Ally, ‘Well, I guess it is a skill meant to be used a lot. I’d guess the near duplicates don’t provide much towards the level. This isn’t like a smith making nails. You could churn out duplicates with no effort.’

Doyle, ‘Blarg, it means I’m still 8 points away from the path I want!’

Ally, ‘Well, there’s always trying for a trap skill. While in theory leveling a new skill isn’t any harder than leveling a high-level skill. But you’re newly integrated and so get a slight boost at the low end. Which at the very least? Will make it easier to acquire such a skill when you’re trying for it.’

Doyle leans back, ‘Well, no harm in trying. And if it doesn’t work? Well, 8 levels isn’t all that much. I’m sure I’ll gain it on one of my skills soon enough.’

Doyle turns his attention back to the 21st floor and begins playing around with the traps. Except as time goes on, nothing really clicks. Oh, sure, there is something there. Doyle is certain some people would have picked up a trap-making skill by now.

Then again, there’s probably a reason it took till now for him to actually use them. Traps might just not come naturally to him. So after another convoluted trap fails to pop anything, Doyle sits back and considers what he Is good at.

Ally’s suggestion to try for a trap skill makes sense, but it was also something he had been ignoring despite having a dungeon full of kobolds doing them for him. Not a dead end, but there must be something he was already doing that could pop a skill.

Then, after a good few hours of pondering the question, something occurs to him. There is one thing he has been doing on basically every floor. His farms!

That was why his creation skill doesn’t passively train as much. So it only makes sense to get a skill for what he is doing instead. ‘Hey Ally, traps aren’t working. I’m thinking maybe I get a skill related to the fact I have a farm on every floor?’

Ally looks up, ‘Huh, not the worst idea. Let me give it a think.’ and takes an hour or so to look up stuff and consider any potential issues.

Doyle is back to poking his traps, if only to pass the time, when she calls him back.

Ally, ‘Okay, I think there might be a trap there.’

Doyle, ‘Trap? It’s a skill. As long as I use it, things should be fine.’

Ally nods, ‘Exactly! As long as you Use it. Right now, your farms are restocking your floors without any input. You aren’t out there, choosing which goats to breed together.

‘Not that you can’t. Rather, if you get a skill for it? Chances are you won’t level the skill except when actively making those decisions. It’s basically the difference between owning a farm and being a farmhand. You can do both, but the skills used are different.’

Doyle, ‘So what’s the accounting equivalent for this?’

Ally shakes her head, ‘I’m not even sure that would be a good analogy. You’re an off mix of an absentee owner and oddly involved.

‘Now that everything is working, you basically just let it run. However, it is all just following your orders. I don’t think there is one clean skill to handle it.

‘A skill for handling the logistics? Well, you’ve already planned the logistics. It would be similar to your village planner skill. A skill based on making sure you always have enough monsters? You could in theory even get one specifically for cattle and on the surface, seem in line to get all the levels. Except you don’t actively handle that.’

Doyle, ‘There has to be some skill that fits the situation?’

Ally sighs, ‘There isn’t a hard line between active and passive skills. However, much of what you can get a skill for with that? They’re skills that grow with active decisions and actions. Stuff that for your existing floors has already been taken care of.

‘And that’s ignoring the fact that as a dungeon? The genetics involved are a lot more stable and limited. Your creatures get stronger not because their parents happened to have the right genetics to give you a head start. Rather, you need to grow their patterns and have them fight delvers.’

3aa - Chapter 500

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