DF248 - Senses Working Overtime (Suliel) (Patreon)

“We can’t set out until the troops have had more training.” Count Hartwell glared around the table. “Musketeers have proved decisive in our battles so far—doubling our numbers of them in the feild might completely negate our numerical disadvantage.”

“Time is of the essence,” Duke Ariman countered. “Prince Mazir won’t stay holed up in Avenford forever. The longer we wait, the more time he has to regroup and march back on us—or head north to reinforce the capital.”

“Can’t you train in the feild?” Soraya asked diffidently. She wasn’t used to her role as Treasurer yet, which included attending meetings like these. Nor was most of this group as accepting of her as Anton had been. Count Hartwell didn’t respond to her question, barely deigning to send her an irritated glance

“Well?” Suliel demanded. As she was the chair of the meeting, the Count couldn’t ignore her. Also, while her rank was fuzzy—her tentative title was Queen-Consort, at least until they saw what Class she qualified for—she outranked the Count.

Count Hartwell tried to stutter a response, but Soraya was quite capable of answering her own question.

“Soldiers gain experience from drills and maneuvers in the field,” she said. “Everyone knows that. They can practice shooting at targets after the day’s march is done.”

“That would deplete our stores of ammunition,” Hartwell responded. “We could—”

“Kelsey?” Suliel interrupted, looking at the final member of the Expedition Planning Committee. The Master of Ordnance didn’t seem to be paying full attention.

“Hmm? Oh, I’ll be going with the expedition, so I can keep our supplies topped up,” Kelsey said. She demonstrated by depositing a musket on the table.

Duke Ariman sniffed disapprovingly, so Kelsey rolled her eyes and made it go away.

Pay attention, would you? This is important, Suleil sent.

Sorry, got something going on, Kelsey sent back.

“Ah, but away from Kirido, we won’t have the opportunity to test our mettle against monsters,” Hartwell said. “The extra levels—”

“Forget about the extra levels. Your guys have got crazy levels from all the fighting. They may be starting a new Class, but they’re not Tier One recruits,” Kelsey retorted. “I did a Dungeon Break once, as a personal favour to your queen, here. If you want to kill monsters, you can send your troops through the front door like everyone else.”

“Ah, Musketeers aren’t suited for the cramped conditions of a dungeon,” Hartwell objected. “And if they went into a dungeon… you would be incentivised to kill them.”

“Real risk means better experience,” Kelsey shot back. “And those monsters aren’t free. Guns and ammo just cost me materials and time, but monsters cost me mana.”

Can we wrap this up? I think I need to bring you in on this. She sent at the same time.

In on what? Suliel asked. Can’t we just discuss it during the meeting?

Important as it was, most of the important decisions had been taken. Count Hartwell was protesting a schedule that had already been set and hadn’t come with any new arguments. Hearing him out was just politeness.

I need to take you on a Full Dive to really explain.

What’s that?

I need to share—not my whole sensorium, but a human-sized chunk of it. It’ll take all of your attention.

Suliel didn’t let the shudder show externally, but she sent the feeling down the link. Kelsey had an extraordinary amount of sensations that she could share.

“I think that’s enough,” she said aloud. “Count Hartwell, we’ve been through these arguments before, so unless you have anything new to add, I think we’ll end it there.”

She glanced at Duke Ariman for his support. He grunted his acknowledgement and rose to his feet.

“Then, Your Highness, we will take our leave.”

Suliel felt a trickle of experience flow in. Decisions made and confirmed, just what her Class required. Tier Three was close now; she could feel it. The nobles stood up to leave first; Soraya and the scribe trailed behind them. She looked like she wanted to say something, but Suliel shook her head, promising a talk later. She locked eyes with Kelsey across the table.

Kelsey looked significantly at the pages.

“Leave us, and close the door,” Suliel commanded.

“I’ll keep an eye out for you,” Kelsey said. “You’re not going to lose consciousness, but you might want to close your eyes.”

Suliel gave Kelsey a displeased look, but they were beyond mere trust at this point. She leaned back in her chair and closed her eyes.

Just relax and open wide, Kelsey sent. I’ll patch you in as soon as you’re ready.

Patch? What does that mean? Suliel asked, but then the light came and filled the space behind her eyelids. This wasn’t the dungeon she was seeing, though, it was—

“Tyla?” she said aloud to the empty room. Except that wasn’t where she was. Her eyes were telling her that she was in a very different room, one with wide glass windows, strange moving pictures and a few pieces of comfortable furniture. She was sitting on a chair, while Tyla and Kelsey were sitting on a soft-looking slab. Mel was floating over Kelsey’s shoulder, looking like she was about to dart behind her.

Standing in the middle of the room was a small, naked elf boy.

“Hello,” he said. His face flickered and changed to a different one.

“What are you doing here?” Suliel asked Tyla.

“How am I seeing you?” she responded.

“Hello,” the boy said. His face changed again.

“Say hello back, or he won’t stop,” Kelsey told her.

Suliel blinked. “Hello,” she said to the boy. He smiled, then his face changed again.

“As to how you’re here, well, that’s due to a pretty impressive feat of mental manipulation, if I do say so myself,” Kelsey said with a smug look. “My real body can see you, so I can put your image into my mental construct—that’s what you’re seeing right now. Tyla’s Communing with me, so she’s ‘in’ my construct, so she can see you, and I can share my vision of the construct with you, so you can see her! It’s all very clever.”

“Shouldn’t I be seeing things from where you are, then?” Suliel asked, still grappling with the explanation.

“Nah, this here,” Kelsey waved at herself, “Is just a placeholder so you know where to look. This is all in my mind; I can see it from any angle!”

“So if I stood up and walked, you’d make my… image… do the same?”

“I could and I probably would,” Kelsey said. “I don’t recommend it, though. Your body is still in the real world and subject to tripping.”

A ghostly image of the meeting room table shimmered into existence in front of Suliel. She opened her eyes to see a headache-inducing overlay of the real world on top of this one. The real Kelsey winked at her.

She closed her eyes again.

“If you want to move over to the couch and snuggle up with Tyla and me, just ask,” Kelsey said. “It’s probably easier if I move you.”

“And what about the boy?” Suliel asked, ignoring her statement.

“He’s the core Tyla’s been carrying around,” Kelsey said. “It was supposed to be dead, but it isn’t—quite—and it turns out to be a he. And an elf. I don’t think that’s a coincidence.”

“Normally a dungeon takes the form of one of their early monsters,” Mel explained. “Kelsey is an exception, and so is this guy.”

“Well, look at you with the exposition!” Kelsey teased. “I thought you were just going to hide behind the couch when Suliel showed up.”

“I’m not afraid of her!” Mel shouted.

“I’m glad of that,” Suliel said, causing the fairy to whip around to look at her. “But if someone could explain what’s going on, I’d be even more grateful.”

“The core that I carry, the source of my magic,” Tyla said. “We thought it was nothing more than a corpse—”

“Combination of corpses,” Kelsey put in.

“—yes, that. However, it seems there is something like a person inside it. The boy you see is its self-image.”

“I don’t—you mean to say the core is alive?”

“No, it’s only partly alive. And partly alive is mostly dead.” Kelsey said. “I mean, look at it!”

“Hello,” the dungeon said.

“Hello to you too. See, how is he supposed to build a cavern complex and summon monsters like this? I doubt he even knows how to kill people!”

“I’d regard that as a positive,” Suliel muttered. Kelsey only grinned back.

“What we’re saying is that it might be possible to bring it back to life.”

“You think you can make a new dungeon?”

That would be huge. Zamarra only had three dungeons. Each one was different, but all of them were sources of magical resources and experience. A new dungeon would start small, but it could be nurtured and grow into something amazing. Especially if they had Tyla to communicate with it.

“No, no, no,” Kelsey said, dashing Suliel’s hopes. “We think that Tyla can learn how to turn any mage’s core into a dungeon.”

Suliel would have dropped to the floor if she wasn’t sitting down. “A mage core… I doubt any wizard would give theirs up willingly.”

“I would,” Tyla said. Suliel nodded in acknowledgement, but her mind was racing ahead.

“But useful as wizards are, a dungeon would be so much more valuable for a town or a kingdom,” she said.

“I’ve got four cores I can contribute to the cause,” Kelsey said. “And… remind me whose side the Wizard’s Guild is on? A dead wizard doesn’t need his core.”

“This could change everything,” Suliel breathed.

“Don’t get too excited,” Kelsey warned. “Tyla still has to learn how to do it.”

“How does she learn?” Suliel wondered. She turned to Tyla “How will you do it?”

Tyla looked uncomfortable. “There is a first stage, I think, that I have completed with this one.” She pointed at the boy. “Meditating over the core, connecting with it, until it is aware enough for Communion.”

“What’s after that?”

“You can’t see it, but the core looks quite different, magically, to a working core,” Kelsey said. “Our theory is that Tyla can use her magic to modify the core into the correct state. Then, theoretically, all she has to do is set the core down in a nice cave and let it get to work.”

“I was planning on placing the core before doing any magic on it,” Tyla said. “We already know cores die when they are moved.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Kelsey said, waving dismissively. “The important part is that Tyla needs to see a working core to know what to change.”

“Yours, I presume. Can’t you just show her in here?”

“No,” Kelsey said thoughtfully. “I can’t. It feels like a hard limit prevents me from reproducing any part of the magic that makes me.”

“Would that limit affect Tyla as well?”

“We won’t know until we try,” Kelsey admitted. “But I don’t think so. She’s not a dungeon.”

“It is a shame we didn’t know about this earlier,” Tyla said. “I did see the core of the Hungry Depths, but I didn’t take the opportunity to examine it closely.”

“Has anyone ever seen your core before?” Tyla asked.

“No. Kaelan Stormblade got to the bottom level, but he never killed a single monster. And I’ve reorganised since then.”

“Not even Anton?” Tyla asked.

“He was still second Tier when he last delved me,” Kelsey replied.

“Don’t you have a shortcut? Aris said you took her to the tenth floor.”

“That was before the restructure,” Kelsey explained. “Now, the hospitality and industrial floors only connect on floors three and five.”

Tyla slowly turned to face Kelsey. “Are you going to have me fight my way to the bottom?”

“It’s the only way,” Kelsey agreed. “But don’t worry, you’re going to have Suliel to help you!”

Suliel stared at them. “What?”