ALL NOVEL The Monument – Chapter 244
Ally turns to Doyle, ‘Now that the whole god thing is out of the way, what seems to be the problem? I can practically feel your emotions churning about through our link.’
Doyle’s core shakes for a moment, ‘A double hitter. Both my normal nonsense and dungeon instincts teaming up to cause problems. Though what it comes down to is the fact the monument was placed in my dungeon without my say and I didn’t have a choice in it.
‘I’ve just personally never liked people messing around with my room so this feels bad. On the other side of things, I’ve felt similar reactions though on a much smaller scale and out of my control. After all, to a certain extent it is the same sort of thing anytime a delver uses magic to shape the stone.’
Ally nods, ‘I can see how that wouldn’t be pleasant. Though this is definitely something I have a hard time relating to. Living as fae royalty basically meant most of my furniture was mobile in some manner or another. Combine that with the maids and I don’t think I went a day without someone else moving my stuff around at least once. It has honestly been weird living here and not having stuff walk off after I put them down.’
Doyle lets out a slightly stressed laugh, ‘I don’t think I could have lived with that.’
Ally, ‘It isn’t for everyone, that’s for certain. Anyway, we should probably figure out what the monument is for. After all, it is taking up such a prominent space on your first boss floor. The dang pile of stones should be doing something.’
Doyle zooms in on all the carvings, ‘This is clearly some form of written language.’ He turns to the kobold boss, ‘Can you read this?’
The boss shakes her head and shrugs.
Ally raises an eyebrow, ‘Why’d you ask her first? Not trying to start anything, but I’ve been around the block a few times. If this is a common language, I would be the one to ask.’
Doyle, ‘I must admit, I assumed that if you recognized it, you would have mentioned it.’
Ally laughs, ‘Fair enough. That is sort of my thing. Anyway, while I don’t recognize the specifics, it is similar to another class of languages.’
Doyle tilts to the side, ‘Let me guess, draconic?’
Ally shrugs, ‘Got it in one. Though to be fair, most reptilian and near reptilian sapients end up with their written language looking like this. Dragons just tend to end up absolutely everywhere and so their version takes over since very rarely are they not at the top of the food chain. Combine that with all the stories about kobolds being related to the things and it does seem to jump out at you.’
Doyle, ‘While I did remember the whole kobold dragon relation thing, I was actually going off something else. Mainly the fact that most fantasy settings tend to imbue draconic with magic of its own and the writing on the monument is putting a tiny amount of pressure.’
Ally frowns and looks closer at the picture, ‘I guess I can’t feel that through the screen? Anyway, that isn’t entirely incorrect, but at the same time it isn’t really true either. It would be better to say that their language is closer to magic and so easier to use for it. Whereas a siege magicien might need to chant a long spell to gather and aim enough power to break enchanted walls, a dragon can simply draw a single rune and push a ton of power into it.
‘In this case though, I suspect the pressure you are feeling more comes from the belief and intent pushed into whatever is written there. It would shock me to no end if whoever carved this didn’t have Conceptual Reinforcement at an absurdly high level. In fact, the only reason the force is so weak likely has more to do with how long this thing has existed for.
‘Now all that is interesting, but the real question behind it all is how did you get it? Growing up I saw a ton of “extraplanar” stuff, if only because my family is extraplanar in origin so all our family heirlooms are as well. The problem with that is those things don’t really weigh in at the same level as this monument.’
Doyle circles the view around the obelisk part, ‘I don’t really get a sense of great power from this thing. I’m sure the knowledge written across the thing will be useful once we can read it, but the monument itself seems to just have that slight pressure and nothing more.’
Ally shakes her head, ‘You have it just about backwards. Sure, some of the knowledge on this thing will be useful, except this is a different dimension and so has different rules. Of everything carved on it I would say the kobolds are the most useful as evolutionary lines tend to line up even across dimensions. Not sure why, they just do. Oh, and the images of the various kobold deities will be useful if we ever have to get in contact with them or they contact us.’
Doyle, ‘If the knowledge isn’t all that useful because of the different rules, why would the monument be useful? Wouldn’t it be playing by those same rules as well?’
Ally nods, ‘That is actually the thing that makes it extraplanar. After all, if you pull a human from one dimension to another they don’t get tagged as extraplanar. The same for most common items, so you won’t ever find a normal hairbrush marked as extraplanar. That is because when brought over, those things are either altered to fit the new rules or they just don’t work.
‘For something to be marked extraplanar, it has to have kept its old rules and still use them. So there is something about this monument that breaks the rules of this dimension and despite that, it still works. About the stupidest example I’ve seen of this was an extraplanar rock.
‘In its home dimension the rock was just a normal rock. When brought over to a new dimension though, something about the situation or maybe just random chance caused it to hold onto the rules of gravity. That rock was from a short lived dimension where gravity was many times greater than most dimensions and a few other interesting tweaks which caused an early death from collapsing in on itself.
‘The rock was pulled out by a curious True Immortal and ironically they were quite disappointed by the results. They wanted to observe the material makeup of a rock from that dimension when placed in a more baseline dimension. Instead they got the ultimate paper weight. A rock with the density of some white dwarves and yet the atomic makeup of the thing matches a normal rock, just closer together.
‘Even odder is the fact that it doesn’t affect other things as if it was its actual mass, instead affecting things like a normal rock of that size would in whatever dimension it is in. It wasn’t even super sturdy or anything. Though once you shaved off a piece of it, the smaller piece would let off a ton of heat as the extra mass dissipates and it becomes a truly normal bit of rock.’
Doyle mimics a whistle, ‘You seem to care quite a bit about this. Do you have some idea what this monument is supposed to do?’
She shakes her head, ‘Not a clue, however it was a bonus granted by a location path. That means that one, it won’t be harmful and two, it will affect an area. I’ll send my mom a picture of it later so see if she has a clue, but for now we can make a couple assumptions. First is that since it came with a bunch of other bonuses that affect kobolds in your territory, the monument should do the same.
‘Second is that kobolds will likely want to make pilgrimages to it. Both from within your dungeon and from without. The only monuments that don’t get visitors are those controlled by a force strong enough to prevent people from showing up and those which are lost. That first bit might come true, but the second one won't, seeing as the thing is in the middle of a kobold village.
‘Even if no outside kobolds ever even come in contact with your territory, they will know it is here. Their racial akashic will make sure of it. So you better be ready for kobolds to sulk around the entrance.'
Doyle nods, 'I guess that would be a worry, though more for Ace and Jim than for me. I'm sure they'll figure it out though.'
Ally shrugs, 'Even when not sapient, kobolds are one of the easier "monster" races to deal with. They'll actually learn to not attack well defended settlements, even when the population gets out of hand. Though it might end up being a problem with the monuments attraction.
'In normal times, the extra kobolds and a few of the elders will split off to find a new home. Now they might want to stick around. Though as you said, that's not our problem.'
Doyle, 'I would be interested in seeing what the monument does to kobolds that aren't mine.'
Ally nods, 'I would be interested as well. Though it might not be impossible one gets in, just unlikely. If anything, you can at some point figure out a way to grab one. After all, even completely barred off dungeons eventually get access to outside creatures and I suspect that means being able to port them into the dungeon proper.'
Doyle tilts to the side, 'I doubt it is that straightforward. The area outside the dungeon feels like one of my floors when it is being delved, except increased by a couple of magnitudes.
'I don't doubt that I'll gain access to the stuff outside at some point. However, chances are it isn't going to be me literally teleporting them into my dungeon proper. Maybe I start benefiting from deaths within my territory if I make it thick enough?'
Ally sighs, 'That does make sense. I guess we'll just have to roll with whatever hand we're dealt. Anyway, how have your location paths panned out?'
Doyle, 'I picked up another which is where I got that monument from. Anyway, here is what I have at the moment.'
{Location [2/1 I]: Heritage Kobold Community I 15/15, Communities of Myriad Heritages I 15/15}
Doyle pauses for a second when he sees it. 'So uh, what is with the two of one for locations? I had the kobold rank two path and I don't see it anymore.'
Ally raises an eyebrow, 'Think about it for a second.'
Doyle does before he realizes what happened. 'Right, while the number of location paths I can have isn't limited to one, like with the class path. It still does the whole "varied path" thing where one can turn into another.'
Ally nods, 'Got it in one! Also, now that you have it with two first rank paths, this is a point at which you can rank up the other one and make it the main location path. Later on when you have higher rank paths it will be harder to balance things so this is going to be your best chance.'
Doyle tilts back, 'That is a good question. On one hand, I really like kobolds. On the other, the "myriad" path option is more generally applicable.'
Ally shrugs, 'This is really a choice between a powerful buff to kobolds and a more general buff to everything.'
Doyle nods, 'True enough. Though it also sounds like a problem for future Doyle. I really hate when people say that, but this is very much the case right now. I haven't checked so in theory I could be wrong, but I'm guessing I don't have any other location paths available as the other was also a modification to the kobold path. So yeah, I'm just going to put it off for now.'
