[D'sP] That Was Inevitable - Chapter 506 (Patreon)

Doyle and Ally talk a bit more about what constitutes a viable creature a dungeon can acquire a pattern from. Though it is mostly them spinning their wheels until Doyle comes back to something he felt was important.

Doyle, ‘So uh, you’ve got some blocked memories? Like, everything else is important and all, but that seems a little more critical. A kind of top of the pile problem?’

Ally shrugs, ‘Oh yeah, that was inevitable. I had all those skills on stuff like courtly manners? And now they’re gone! Poof! Except, if I remembered it all? Well, what separates complete knowledge of a skill, including personal experience, from having a skill?’

Doyle, ‘Part of having a skill is the soul. If you didn’t have the buildup on your soul, then no amount of memories would translate into actual ability. Otherwise, you could just download skills at any level!’

Ally, ‘Except you can. You literally do that with your monster. They don’t start as blank slates. When a robot is created, it starts with the skills based on what it is designed to do. When new abilities are programmed into it, new skills form. And if that programming is improved? The skills increase in level.

‘That is actually how some of the skills are broken down and effects separated out by level. Skills known so well that certain supernatural effects have actually been classified by how many levels it takes to form them. Not that we’ll ever gain access to those kinds of level guides.

‘They’re only known by the civilizations at the top of the tech ladder, as it were. After all, you need programmers with supernatural skill at the top of the tech curve. Anything less and you can’t nail it down. Though even then, it isn’t an exact science, no matter how much they wish it would be.

‘I will admit, we might have the ability to math some of that out? Like, we have pretty exact control over skill levels. Not direct control, of course, but we can fiddle around with it to some extent based on what floor we put the monster on and the patterns proficiency with the skill.

‘Though that would probably be a waste of adjustment points. Especially since they might not be directly transferable. Would suck to think we figured out exactly what skill level was needed for a certain thing, only for it to be different. Besides, it is likely similar to the foxes and how their stats were all random within their range. Where some monsters will have different understanding of their skills, despite having the same skill levels as all the others.’

Doyle, ‘Meh, not worth our time. Oh sure, it would be neat to micromanage exactly how a kobold’s fireball performs, but they’re all going to be similar enough. If anything? Having that small bit of variance is useful. Harder for the delvers to plan for everything and only getting harder the deeper the floor.’

Ally nods, ‘There is that. I guess I was expecting something else. Dungeon cores do tend towards the controlling end of things.’

Doyle, ‘Snort, I’m sure they do. The dungeon is what they can control and then delvers come in and wreck things. Even for humans, a common response is to try and control what you can even harder.’

Ally, ‘Did you just verbalize a snort over our telepathic connection?’

Doyle, ‘Sure did!’

Ally sighs, ‘That’s a bit childish.’

Doyle nods, ‘Sure is!’

Ally sighs again, ‘Okay, whatever. Let’s get back on topic then.’

Doyle, ‘Yep, back onto your memory problems. After all, I doubt this specific knowledge was based on a skill. So why are you able to recall it now? If it was erased, shouldn’t it stay that way? How can the system just decide to reinstate it like that?’

Ally, ‘Everything you learn is added onto your soul. That part of where the concept of an Akashic record comes from. The soul has no limit on what it can store and karmic connections, especially bloodlines, can hook into what others have.

‘Though I have heard that some realms have a proper Akashic record and there is even a rumor that the void is also a form of Akashic record that contains all knowledge past, present, and future. We simply aren’t able to read it right now. I’m not sure on that, but it is where soul cores go and we don’t exactly know how they work, so yeah.

‘I’m not going to say it is impossible. I’m just going to admit to not knowing the truth.’

Doyle, ‘Well, that’s cool and all, but I don’t think we need it. If anything, I get enough of that when grabbing souls from the void for my bosses.’

Ally, ‘Fair enough, now, do you want to try and improve that poor bear’s chance of evolving?’

Doyle glances over at a window, just in time to see the ceiling once again collapse on said bear. ‘Huh, that would probably be a good idea. If it wasn’t akin to a train set diorama, I’d feel bad about this. Though really, what is the difference between an animal and one of my creatures? Neither are sapient.’

Ally waves his question off, ‘They are like animals. If they gain sapience, they’re like sapients. However, they aren’t. Similar to how the souls of your bosses are stored in your core, a lot of the higher-order thinking goes through the floor. You can consider most monsters like, hmm, what’s a good way to describe it from your perspective?

‘Ah, I got it. They’re like terminals. Some stuff is native, like how a computer terminal can accept inputs and display outputs. For the monsters that is stuff like breathing. However, the actual vital stuff? They’re at a distance. Your monsters feel pain at a distance. As if they were numbed.’

Doyle, ‘That sounds like a bunch of excuses for why what I’m doing to my bear isn’t cruel.’

Ally, ‘More like a way to make sure delvers can’t break your monsters, especially the bosses. I mean, think of how bad it would be for you if your bosses developed a traumatic response to delvers? What if the delvers made sure not to kill your monsters and instead just kept beating them until the monsters were too scared of the delvers to attack them?’

Doyle, ‘Ah, yeah, I guess that would be a bit of a problem.’

Ally nods, ‘And thus why dungeons aren’t literally holes with monsters in them.’

Doyle, ‘Wait! What about monsters that leave? My kobolds keep acting like kobolds.’

Ally, ‘Pre-system you had tablets used as terminals. They were fully operational computers, but were being run from elsewhere. That’s how your fully realized monsters work. And when they leave your dungeon? They start running off their native hardware.’

Doyle, ‘And when they return to the dungeon?’

Ally shrugs, ‘It gets uploaded. No real mystery there. You must have used something run off of the cloud. Even just a cloud-based document editor? Yeah, it’s like that.

‘Though it also means you don’t get a free lunch. You can’t send out monsters and reap the rewards if they advance out there and don’t return. The monster needs to leave, advance, and then return to get anything out of it.

‘Which considering how even just staying outside for any length of time causes them to abandon the dungeon? Yeah, you aren’t really going to be able to manage that. Evolving into a new form is going to completely cut off any mental compulsions or commands you might have given the monster. Your best chance is that something else chases the monster back into your dungeon.’

Doyle, ‘As if. To set all that up? I might as well be in control of the area to begin with. No, trying to scam an evolution off of the outside is impractical to the extreme. I’ll have to figure out ways to make it more common in here. Especially for any non-elemental forms.

‘Oh, and what’s up with the minimum levels on my monsters? The myconids in particular caught my eye when I was organizing things. The difference in minimum level between them was practically nothing.’

Ally shrugs, ‘You’re dealing with low-end monster forms. Myconids? They’re not quite as close as kobolds, but practically a civilized race. If they could get their adult form down to not having a minimum? They’d be a lot closer. Older stages are fine to have minimum levels, but up to adult, like with the kobolds, need to not have a level requirement.’

Doyle, ‘What’s up with that?’

Ally shrugs, ‘Remember, levels represent the development of the soul shell or pseudo-shell in the case of those without a soul. A creature that needs levels to mature? The pseudo-shell forms right away and a natural soul doesn’t get a chance to embed in the newborn. 

‘It’s like the soul is a square block and people have a square hole for said block to fit into. But beings like the myconids? Before that square block slips into place, a small triangle is fitted in the corner.

‘Are there square blocks that can still fit? Sure, but those are much rarer. Not the kind of thing you can build a civilized race on. So either you need to develop your dimension such that the souls attracted to it are the type to fit into the not quite square hole. This is how places with a focus on beasts instead of humanoids will tend to work. Or you adjust the race itself, such that the “standard issue” soul fits.’

Doyle, ‘I have seen a soul core or two. They all look the same, so how is there a special soul? I mean, I’ve even hung around entire realms devoted to fungal sapients. A bit warped and all, but the souls looked like souls.’

Ally, ‘I don’t know. This knowledge? It isn’t mine. It isn’t even my mom’s. This comes from the True Immortals themselves. My mom’s guess? Despite how you view souls, that isn’t the full story.

‘Remember, they’re beyond time and space. This could be as simple a matter as them being fourth-dimensional. That what we see as a core is just one point of their whole stretching across time.’

Doyle, ‘The void is timeless.’

Ally shakes her head, ‘The void is nothing and we define it by existing. Time exists in the form of everything’s personal timeline woven through the lack of time. Two True Immortals visiting the same dimension locks it down because their personal timelines within the void now intersects it and connects all of their timelines together.’

Doyle sighs, ‘Blarg, that all is annoying to even consider. Besides, this is once again off-topic. I need earth Mana for my bear. How do I cater the world energy in that area to provide it?’

Ally shrugs, ‘Well, you already messed around with power density before. Changing the elemental nature shouldn’t be too hard. Just take what you did with the mithril smelter and instead of density, shift things to be earth-aligned.’

Doyle, ‘Oh yeah, that should work. Let me give it a try.’

Doyle takes a moment to feel what he has done before. Nothing too complicated, just a bit of denser power in the smelter to allow the processing of mithril. Though this was on a small scale, he figured spreading it to an entire room wouldn’t change much besides the cost.

And even then? Who cares! It is not as if he planned to keep this area of dense earth energy. That would only last until he got his evolved bear.

Not that Doyle is able to instantly set up the area. He can easily create an area of denser power, a direct copy of the smelter. That wasn’t what he wanted though.

It’s like tweaking a spice mix, except you added a bit more of everything. That doesn’t change the flavor. You simply have more of the spice mix.

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