Expansion

Chapter 26

With negotiations and my other projects still ongoing. I focused on a standard of living upgrade to my chamber of Machinations. I added an antechamber with a teleportation circle. I linked that circle to corresponding ones in each of the breakrooms.

Once done, I moved it, so it was parallel with the middle of the mid and linked it behind the mole's area. I didn’t need to since I could teleport around, but I liked to have a fall back in case something weird happened. Not planning was planning for failure and all that.

With the design settled I sent a text alert so everyone would know. It was something I should have done much sooner. I'd been inconsiderate by not making myself accessible to my flammable employees.

I also needed to figure out how to exempt monsters from the effects of the dungeon. Hopefully in a way that could be disabled for league play. A concern that went just below creating permeant viewing screens in the breakrooms.

With the things I could remedy seen to, it was time to think about more long-term issues. I had a rather large pair of goals looming. My tithe was the one that I felt most keenly, but the easier one to address. If the chips were down, I could do something drastic like convince Elim to take up side work as an executioner.

"Pffft..." I couldn't help laughing at the idea. The oiled abs and spray tan of a b-movie executioner in a black hood rearing up in my mind. Elim wasn't weak or anything, but he'd look it next to one of those cartoonish bodybuilder behemoth types. Getting back on track, I decided to worry about it later. Now was the time to go all-in on my dungeon. That meant a core upgrade.

"Upgrade sickness..." I muttered to myself and got a chaos beverage from the niche. Floating on my back I sipped it meditatively. I didn't remember any details, forgetting what had happened like waking up from a dream. Even so, it left me shaken and I still needed to steady myself for going through that bullshit again.

I sent out a quick notice about what I was about to do. Nothing had happened to the hounds the first time. Unfortunately, that wasn't a guarantee that everything would go without a hitch. The incident with 24 was never far from my mind.

As a precaution, I also opened the door of my antechamber and the chamber of machinations. Depending on how long the upgrade to the hounds would want to look in on me. It was inviting trouble to leave myself exposed like that, so I took an extra precaution.

"Mute alarms," I said. With that done I carved a note to self to unmute them on the wall then sealed off the entrance of the dungeon. It was easy to do. I shuffled the six tiles of the entry tunnel several spaces to the left. Even with earth magic, getting through from the closets point would be difficult.

With only the final step left to take I finished my drink and set it back in the niche. An electric ripple passed across my pseudo flesh like a cold sweat. I couldn't remember why I was so disturbed by what had happened, but my instincts were clear on the point. Something fucked up was about to happen, but it was the price of progress.

Upgrade to Core Mana Output 100 => 200

Core Upgrade costs 10 pts

Commence Upgrade?

Y/N

I paused but not from fear. If I was going to have to suffer for upgrades, why space them out? With my remaining points, I could buy interface upgrades as well. Then again, that might make what was about to happen that much worse.

"In for a penny, in for the whole fucking pound," I thought to myself. It took a few minutes of serious concentration, but the message changed.

Upgrade to Core Mana Output 100 => 200

Upgrade to Interface lvl 2 => lvl 5

Core Upgrade Cost 10 pts

Interface Upgrade Cost 3 pts

Total Cost 13 pts

Confirm Upgrades?

Y/N

I agreed and a fifteen-second count down appeared. It seemed long on the one hand yet brutally short. Time crawled as I waited for the upgrade sickness to hit. It was painful enough that it felt like someone was having fun at my expense. A thought that was born of my new view of the system being anything but impersonal.

When the sickness hit, I saw the runes again and felt memories of the last time come rushing back.

Kings played chess on fine green silk with the fates of thousands or a single life riding on the game. Neither knew what would happen, only that the patterns of fate would wend around their play. Neither cared, the game long since losing its savor. They carried out the motions, fucking a dead horse in hopes of the memory of pleasure. The world bled and pulsed, and I knew there were too many eyes.

The flash of my prior experience merged seamlessly into the blind madness of the new. I wasn’t assailed by visions but by sensation. Sinew, bone, and blood. The wet grinding horror of my human body rang in my ears with each unneeded breath. Flesh on the tips of my fingers felt a burning cold as needles danced across my skin. I was complete. What was, what is, and what might yet be, tangled and thrashing.

“The journey isn’t the destination, but I’ll grant you a wish in exchange,” A voice whispered in my ears. I grasped blindly for it. I found void, bone, fire, and flesh writhing in my grasp. The promise would be kept, but only if I slew myself and returned whole. The answer and the question were the root.

I woke up from the experience clawing at the ground with my throat aching. The unfamiliar pain was the first thing I noticed, the second was that something was patting me on the back. Twisting a little I found several skeletons looking down at me. Dawn deposited a wet rag on my forehead and my orbs flickered as I processed the gesture.

“H-hey,” I said, throat protesting my attempt at speech. Curious after what I’d been through, I looked at myself. I found the familiar feminine shadow form. It was a relief and I sat up, holding the rag on my forehead. I appreciated the gesture despite not being able to feel anything from it.

“It was rough, but I’m alright,” I said, feeling better since I didn’t use my mouth to speak this time. That I was starting to forget some of the details of the experience was also helping. Like a dream, it wasn’t fixed in my memory and I was fine with that.

“You were screaming and clawing at the ground for half an hour,” Dawn informed me. It explained the state of my throat. Going by how much it took for me to even feel anything, I suspected a mortal being would have ruptured something.

“The hounds had us come to watch over you,” Andre added.

“Thank you for coming, I appreciate it,” I said and hoped it hadn’t been too traumatic an experience for them. The group exchanged a look then turned their heads toward the door. A moment later Stalin and Blackmore came running in, bowling Chris over to get at me.

I wanted to call what happened a group hug. A group hug that ended with Andre respawning from Blackmore’s excited kisses. Dawn and Chris were looking crispy as well, but Dawn staunchly endured and pet Stalin.

Chris tucked tail and ran for it when he saw an opening. I couldn’t blame him though, parts of the armor he’d been wearing were turning red while the leather smoked. The bones of Dawn’s hand were turning black and starting to crumble. Even so, I felt like she was enjoying herself and didn’t stop her.

She ended up disappearing, off to respawn like Andre. The hounds cuddled with me while I continued to lay on the ground. Curious I started flexing everything from the tip of my tail up, testing how I felt. Once the pain in my throat subsided, I noticed that I was numb to a greater degree than usual. Beyond that, while I could sit up, I wasn’t floating.

If I wanted to move, I would have had to slither like a snake. Like a Naga might have been more accurate since I had an upper female half. It was strange but I’d been through a lot and my body tended to react in odd ways to stress.

“I need to stretch guys,” I said, and the hounds let me up reluctantly. They didn’t follow along with me as I experiment with the unfamiliar method of moving. Instead, they cuddled together on the floor, moving as little as possible while still keeping an eye on me. Slithering about was actually a bit fun though I couldn’t feel much.

The only thing that troubled me was that my maximum mana count hadn’t altered yet. It had changed from its normal color to yellow which was different, but not illuminating. The description for the upgrade hadn’t said how long it would need to take effect. I’d hoped it would be immediate, but I supposed that changing at the refresh made sense too.

When the refresh was approaching a ten-second timer appeared. Seeing it I felt my nonexistent heart sink. As it hit five seconds a warning popped up.

"Ah, might be in for another round," I informed the hounds. They got up and retreated to the antechamber, curious but cautious.

Final Reintegration with Core Commencing

When the timer hit zero a wave of pain and weirdness shivered through my body. Like a flashback to my upgrade experience that hit like a jolt of electricity and disappeared. I started floating again and my sense of touch returned to a more familiar level. My maximum mana had also changed to two hundred.

“Cancel that, I’m good,” I informed them, and they came back in for a round of scratches and pets. Since I was floating again, they lingered but seemed satisfied that I was right after a while. Once they left, I went back to my usual routine, though I felt impatient. I wanted the refresh to come again so I could spend my doubled mana with abandon.

In my excitement, I forgot about my precautions but thankfully noticed the note. I put the entrance to the mine back the way it belonged before unmuting my alarms. Free to have fun I got to work and started filling in the design of the topmost of the lower layers. I’d finalized its design but hadn’t made as much progress as I would have liked.

It was while I was finalizing the layer that I noticed something was amiss in my chamber. Laying in a corner was a small bag in dark blue velvet. Wondering if one of the skeletons had dropped it, I picked it up, glad it hadn’t been burned. The mystery of who it belonged to only lasted until I realized that it had embroidery on the opposite side. A blue and green rose with black leaves told me who it almost certainly belonged to. I still sent Chris a text to confirm it anyway.

He was happy to inform me that my suspicion that Henry had been part of the original party was correct. Before I’d come to my senses, he’d gotten a bit unlucky and ended up respawning early on. Looking at the bag I remembered the roses he’d made for me and felt a little embarrassed.

I was about as dangerous as a balloon most of the time. It hadn't occurred to me that might changes when I was in the throes of upgrade sickness. Not that I knew for certain that it had been my doing, but I felt guilty. I couldn’t picture what else might have happened.

Checking the feed was my normal go-to, but I hesitated. Depending on what happened he might not want me to know about it and I felt like I should ask first. Being an all-seeing overlord was my normal operating mode, but it wasn't polite by any means. I set the bag on a shelf in his crypt but felt like that wasn’t enough.

He'd come to check on me and gotten knocked out. Giving him something as a token of thanks felt appropriate. What exactly was less straight forward to figure out. Fabric was his thing, so I ruled that out and thought about what I was good at.

Shuffling tiles into aesthetic arrangements aside, I felt confident about my carving skills. Digging around in my inventory I found a bit of crystal and carved a token. Stealing inspiration from Elim’s crest, I crossed a rapier with a needle and placed a rose at the center of the cross. I felt like it fit Henry and used my interface to add a touch of blue to where the flower was. I placed the token under the bag as a surprise.

It was a nice gesture I felt, but I knew I needed to start actually talking to him again. It was absurd for us to end up as pen pals because I felt awkward. I also needed to stop pretending that work matters counted.

Belatedly I realized that Andre had suffered similarly, if at a different point. Even so, I hadn't felt compelled to give him something as thanks. I wanted to scold myself for playing favorites, but that was a pointless thing. Instead, I checked my list of requests and bumped one of his up then delivered it. It was less personal, but I didn't know him all that well yet.

Wanting to get my mind off my lack of social grace I put my mind back on work. I wanted a new chamber but didn't want to spend any mana yet. Instead, I skimmed some tiles off the unfinished levels. Using them I constructed the chamber next to the necropolis.

My plan to deal with Blue Vein had evolved a little from a pile of frustrating half ideas. If I didn't know something, the best way to fix that was to lure some who did to me. To do that my best option was to create an enticing trap.

Inspired by Mina's complaints about the world I'd decided to develop the valley into my bait. I was going to put in a village complete with a guild like she'd wanted. One that I was going to staff with skeletons.