Epic 251 (Patreon)

Heyo guys, thanks for the patience. Still not 100% with more hosptial visits coming up, but got this done for ya!

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https://docs.google.com/document/d/1TY2clhBMd_cTZu7SGXo6vHJ-x2Ei5kuEDceicigpHck/edit?usp=sharing

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“This will do,” Runilac said as he slowly put the contained Troll Oil down on his workbench, the stuff sparking and shifting as the light of the forge filtered through it. The substance had a strange feel, even to Delta, who could produce it. It was like her blessing, more ‘other’ than Dungeon. 

“What are Trolls?” Delta mused.

“No clue, but I know they’re closer to us Demons than the gods,” the smith shrugged as he looked over the shaft of wood from Wyin and the tear from Jeb. 

“There’s only one thing left, and this one could be the easiest or hardest item, depending on you. I need a focus, something to sit at the head of the shaft for your boy to channel himself through. It can be an icon or a crystal, just something important to you and acceptable to him,” Runilac announced, and Delta tried not to blink in surprise.

“I have a lot of important things,” she said, hoping to point out the obvious issue with his request.

“Find something in the top ten, then,” Runilac replied slowly, like Delta was wearing his patience thin.

…Well, she had her books, she had her spiders, she had her flowers, she had her monsters, she had her lake with the fish, she had all the drinks and food, and more.

What counted as important and something she could just give away?

If all of it was important, was none of it actually important?

No, Delta didn’t believe that for a second.

She stepped back, far enough in the room that she wasn’t going to infect Runilac’s space with an experiment she was cooking up. 

“What is most important to me is… everything we’ve done so far. The Spider Room to the islands of the Fourth Floor. Fran’s bossroom to the Pygmy Village. From the Mana well on the Third Floor to Ren’s circus.

Every monster, every item, every critter, and every memory.

Delta treasured them all.

And it was that she wanted to give to Alpha as his focus. Home, not perfect or quite finished, but warm and true to her, and always welcoming to Alpha as well. She held out her hands and focused intently on her Dungeon Mana, feeling a substantial portion of her reserves sink as motes between her hands began to swirl together. Their usual chaotic nature seemed to slow down, obeying her heart’s desire as if they wanted this just as much as she did.

A flicker of orange, a streak of blue, and a blush of green gathered in her palms.

Delta slowly opened her hands and held out a smaller replica of her Dungeon Core. The orb looked like a sunrise caught in a single moment, orange streaks dancing with the quiet blues of the night, the teasing greens in the mix. It was a thick heavy thing filled with so much mana it could have been a deadly explosion waiting to happen.

Instead, it layered itself for stability.

Runilac gripped the edge of his table, his knuckles turning a stark, bone-white against his dark skin. The singed hair of his beard curled and crisped, but he didn't pull away, drawn into the gravity of the thing she was making.

“I asked for a focus, not a mana reactor,” Runliac muttered, having to shield his red eyes for a moment, ashen beard smoking in places as his form seemed invigorated by the excess energy.

“Almost done,” Delta promised and closed her eyes, reaching for that new side of her, the one that had a dozen tiny ‘beings’ connected to her, the flow of change and protection… and she channelled it into the orb.

“Bless,” she intoned, and the room was swallowed by an all-consuming orange light with a tiny streak of blue and green.

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“Skill gained… skill processing… skill? Affection gained! Error. Skill gained…”

Alpha should have been a little worried about the fact that his power, his system, was glitching out. Prompts and options bugged out before his eyes as the screen tried to display logic itself lacked now.

Alpha watched it for a moment as all around him, the soft lapping of waves of the First Floor lake kept him company. He was a little worried he might run into adventurers or more people, but Delta had made sure Alpha had entered the prime version of the Dungeon, not one of the many mirrors the other people were exploring or challenging.

It was a bit of a relief. People saw him and either tried to strongarm him into joining their group for a tiny share of the potential treasure or tried to guide him like he was a child picking up a sword for the first time.

Even for Alpha, there was only so much he could take before he might actually say or do something that would make things troublesome.

A silver and gold fish splashed about near his feet, looking far too relaxed to be a normal fish, which wasn’t strange considering the location he was in. Nothing really was ‘normal’ here, 

Things were usually true rather than normal, which wasn’t a bad thing. Alpha preferred that.

He tossed some bread he got from Miss Nina, who was working in the bar, well, one of her clones, and the fish ate it up. Alpha raised his hand to the sleeping black duck across the lake, who opened one crimson eye.

After a moment, Waddles ignored the offering and went back to sleep.

Alpha looked back at the screen after a moment, seeing it mostly stabilise aside from every third letter being backwards. He raised his finger towards it for a moment, then hesitated. He had only recently been able to look at it for an extended period without panic, but he couldn’t quite let go of the fear in his chest. His arrival to this world was far rougher than Delta’s, but apparently nowhere near as bad as Beta or Gamma’s. 

Gamma joked that it was so rough they didn’t think for days when they came to.

Alpha ‘s arrival was more like a bad nightmare of grasping hands, probing ideas… the feeling being attached to something so hot it would have seared skin if he had it at the time.

In a way, he was glad Delta got a peaceful awakening and quickly found company.

The screen flickered again, rebooting for a moment before returning more compact and slightly more chaotic.

“Are you okay?” Alpha asked after a moment, not sure whether he was scared of being ignored or of being answered by Sister. The screen was still for a moment and Alpha wanted if he could no longer be heard.

The room suddenly changed, like a window opening, letting in a breeze that was only noticeable because the space was so calm. A pale white dress smoothed down over legs, down to white socks and slightly scuffed cardboard-looking shoes with holes in them.

Sister leaned forward until her chin rested on her knees, not speaking as if she was thinking about how best to begin.

Alpha had a different issue.

“Are those crocs?” he asked with a tilt of his head.

“I’ve been trying a lot of fashion from the ideas Delta has. I enjoy these more than sandals, but I find socks to be off-putting,” Sister nodded, voice so normal she could have been a normal little girl.

But she wasn’t, and that made Alpha want to retreat. 

“You’re not in danger. The Alpha System, and the others, are being overtaken by Delta, but she has considerable concern for your safety, and her corruption reflects that.” Sister said, nodding to Alpha’s screen as if she would rather discuss technical issues than her own preferences.

As if one were less vulnerable than the other.

“Your connection to the powers that be is being rewritten, but you’re not losing power, nor are you feeling pain. That’s an achievement I don’t think even my Brother or I could manage at our best,” Sister said, sounding affectionate towards the chaos rather than upset.

“You could stop it?” Alpha said, not sure what he was supposed to say to his ‘benefactor’.

“I could try,” Sister agreed, then smiled, more of a motion she found pleasing than a true reflex,” but when a giant mushroom appears to prop up the house crumbling around you, I don’t think it's wise or fair to chop it down to be ‘safe’,” she concluded.

“Why the mushrooms?” Alpha asked, unsure whether he should debate the idea or change the subject.

“Hm?” Sister blinked, looking at him, then around where some glowing mushrooms grew in the darker places of the Lake Room, “Happy accident really. Do you know where Gutrot Mushrooms come from?” she asked one of the mushrooms growing slightly away from the rest with a black surface.

“Not really,” Alpha responded, keeping the fungus in sight, as if it might sneak off if he let his guard down.

“Like magic, when a god entered this world, it was done improperly… or without the proper measures. The god that collapsed to shower people with magic, losing too much to himself to be himself. Another god also entered this world and was forced to shed many aspects of itself. I don’t know where he came from or what he was before,” Sister said, and her eyes went distant, older… and more inhuman for a moment.

“Perhaps a deity of decay? A god of the rot? The line between life and death? I don’t know, and I don’t think it matters too much. What does matter is that this god desired power and a new state. The aspect of fungus was discarded, growing only where other gods or Dungeon mana was at its thinnest. In return, it became a parasite. The mushrooms Delta absorbed were a lot like you absorbing mana until you become Archmage,” Sister said simply and Alpha recoiled like she hit him with a sack of bricks.

“Delta ate pieces of a god?” he blurted out, more worried about that the history lesson.

“The discarded concepts, a fraction of a million, a cell of a body… a few dozen times, but it wasn’t going to be enough to harm her,” Sister said quickly, eyes panicking like she might have said something wrong.

“I didn’t plan it, nor was it expected. A fluk,e her goblin contracts picked a few… but lucky in its own way,” she added, sagging a little to look like she was visibly exhausted.

“You’d be horrified at how badly our plans go awry off their intentions. At first, I thought I had made more mistakes, more errors… but Delta has been a miracle. She has given me hope beyond what I dared dream,” she smiled as she used her hand to lightly splash the water, sending the fish off in a spiral around her hands as if playing.

“You don’t need to tell me that,” Alpha said, uncomfortable. After a few moments of peaceful silence, Alpha needed to break the silence or he might start picking at his nails.

“So, if Delta keeps ‘corrupting’ the overall structure, what happens to the existing admins?” Alpha asked slowly. Sister paused in her teasing of the fish before she brushed back her pale hair, sun-bleached to an ethereal shine.

“We already planned for our quiet retirement. There’s been some protest on that part, so I’m personally unsure where I’ll go. I can’t remain as the ‘Sister in the Sky’, nor can my sibling remain ‘the Brother Below’,” she said with a shrug, like a motion she practised so she could be around others and blend in better.

“Why not?” Alpha asked, trying not sound frustrated.

Why did it have to be one or the other? Why Delta or them?

Why did it have to be so final and rigid?

“The space of gods is not infinite. No world or dimension can have too many gods. The spread of belief, the spread of domains, and the ‘mass’ divinity demands are constantly fought over. The more gods in one world, the less power any one god can have. For example, say a god of decay wanted to be a World Tree, worshipped as a source of mana and wisdom… There cannot be a new tree that would ever equal the original. So, the only option is a conceptual agreement of transfer or…” Sister trailed off, unsure how blunt she should be.

Alpha could read between the obvious lines.

“Force. Dislodge the old and take its place,” Alpha said quietly.

“Brother and I were the only gods in this world originally, we retain a lot of that space, and we want to give it to Delta, to a few others… we want the process to be an amends for what we have done. Delta is going to keep growing, and there will only be a few spaces in the world for her presence to fill. My chair is one of them, and I’ve already let her seep in, let her try it out, and soon she’s going to sit on it without thinking, and I’ll never sit on it again,” Sister said confidently.

“That’s stupid,” Alpha said, and Sister blinked at him, clearly taken aback. 

“I don’t like your plan, it sucks,” Alpha said, arms crossed and refused to look at her.

“It’s not a great plan, but it's the one we have,” Sister protested, waving her hands in an attempt placate him.

“Then make a better one. Delta would turn the chair into a blanket so we could all share space or not need to go home… or away,” he said, stubbornly refusing to let Sister debate it.

Delta wouldn’t accept this, and neither would he.

“You don’t get to do what you did and then give us a godly version of a house or a car, and then leave. That doesn’t mean anything,” Alpha continued, standing now as he glared at the lake.

“I don’t know what else I can do,” Sister said quietly, pulling her knees close like she wanted to fold herself up and vanish. 

“You haven’t changed at all,” Alpha said, finally turning to her, and she looked small from where he stood, more fragile like glass cracking. “You’re still thinking like gods, the ones who did all this messy stuff. Start growing and try stuff. If you can’t figure something out as you are, try something else. If you can’t figure out an answer on your own, just ask someone,” he insisted, closing his system window.

He didn’t need it right now.

“Ask me,” he decided, and Sister looked up at him, eyes wide as if she was on some ride she wasn’t prepared for.

“Ask? Alpha, how can I ask you to come up with an answer to the concepts of gods?” she said, scrambling to her feet like she forgot how legs worked.