Artistic Expression – Chapter 29

Back in the dungeon Doyle and Ally are a bit stunned at the turn around that just happened. The six remaining guys all stumble out of the dungeon, leaving the gruff man behind. Once they are gone Doyle gains back direct control of his monsters despite the one guy still being inside. So after a quick order to the closest assassin vine he turns to Ally.

She shrugs, ‘the system does put some limits on what you can do while people are inside but only to a point. He is clearly disabled enough to not count as a threat. Now if he pulled out a health potion or some such and healed up the restrictions would be back in effect but that isn’t very likely at this point. Anyway, they might not have provided much but you still have the energy from those four other guys. Use it or lose it!’

Reminded of his now overflowing pool of energy Doyle gets down to spawning more goats starting with the large room and working his way to the entrance. Right as he is about to run out of overflow the gruff man dies providing him a bit more. Still to replace all the goats takes a little more even beyond what he had gotten. He can only sigh at how pitiful that group was. If they had challenged him with a normal-sized party most of them likely would have even struggled with the goats. Still there was loot to process and so he deconstructs everything before checking his system prompts.

{Axe pattern lv4 acquired

Weapon patterns goes from lv3 to lv4

Iron pattern lv1 acquired

Metal upgraded into metal patterns

Deconstruct goes from lv3 to lv6

Boots pattern lv4 acquired

Armor patterns goes from lv3 to lv4

Leather and cloth patterns goes from lv1 to lv5

Wood pattern goes from lv1 to lv2

New soil pattern lv1 acquired

New soil pattern merged with dungeon soil pattern

Pattern Database goes from lv10 to lv11

Five humans defeated - threat level pitiful

Minimal experience gained}

Doyle goes over it and doesn’t find anything too shocking. Those new patterns starting out at a greater level makes some sense to him as Earth had a decent level of manufacturing before the end happened. What in the end annoys him though is that last bit. ‘Why am I still level zero?’

Ally smirks, ‘you have to either kill a lot of people like that or, you know, fight someone who is an actual threat to you? Don’t worry about it though. You should focus on getting your skills up so you can purchase the rest of the goat path you want. Any stats you get per level don’t boost things retroactively and I have no clue how that works with your monsters.’ She gets a faraway look on her face for a moment, ‘actually scratch that.’

‘I have been informed by a helpful little tutorial screen. Yes, we are apparently still getting them. Wait there’s another. Okay, we will keep getting them until they run out. Anyway, your monsters count as having gotten the stat per level boost at the same level you did so yeah. Finish that path before you level. Not that you can prevent levels now that we are likely to be getting visitors but that’s life. Anyway, the system tends to react negatively to people who try to grind out skills without leveling.’

Doyle nods his core, ‘Sounds reasonable enough. Plus even if it didn’t matter for the monsters it would still matter for me. Now you can watch for anyone that seems like they want to pop in for a visit and I will go and putter around the dungeon some.’ Doyle sets up a view of the entrance and shifts his attention to what he can change around the place.

First thing he comes up with is an alteration to the kobold room. A few stalactites and stalagmites here and there to provide cover should shake things up. He takes a quick look at the rectangular room with the bushes and shakes his head. There are things he needs before he can complete that.

Beyond that the physical setup of the rooms are good enough as is. Only the kobolds can really take advantage of such niceties so instead he has to focus on other things. Rules already are keeping most things in place but Doyle is certain they can do more.

Then it hits him. If there are bees, he should have some honey. In the center of the rectangular room he grows a stalagmite and then hollows it out. With the addition of a few small holes and one big hole it is ready and he spawns another queen and some workers. As they get to work building their hive, another thought bubbles up, so he shifts to one of the existing hidden hives. Inside it is everything you would expect to find. Bees, larvae, honey, and wax. That last one is what he wants. Doyle deconstructs a chunk of the wax much to the displeasure of the bees but he couldn't care less. With the addition of wax his database skill goes through a major restructuring.

{Wax pattern lv1 acquired

Material patterns lv0 table created

Dungeon soil lv5, leather lv5, cloth lv5, Earth standard air mix lv2, volcanic rock lv2, metal patterns lv2, wood lv2, and wax lv1 moved to material patterns

Material patterns goes from lv0 to lv7

Dungeon Pattern Database goes from lv11 to lv13}

‘I wonder if the monster patterns will eventually go under their own category? It would make sense for that. I probably just don’t have enough or the right variety for it at the moment. Oh well, what is important is that it raised my skill two levels even though I only gained a level one pattern. Ally was definitely right that quality is important here. Two levels just from removing a handful of low level patterns is impressive. Though I do have to wonder what it would have been like if I could keep the level five patterns separate. Anyway, I should have over ten points at the moment so a few more should get me enough to finish the path.’

Goal in mind Doyle focuses on just grinding out his skills. First for him to work on is the control skill which is still only level four. He hadn’t been using it all that much as until now everything has been more of a matter of creation. There still isn’t much he can think of using it for so instead Doyle decides to get artistic with it.

Now he wasn’t exactly the best artist around but he had always liked scrollwork with the vines and such. With his dungeon already having somewhat of a vine theme that would make perfect decorative engravings for the place. There is a lot of room to work with so Doyle limits his artist endeavors to the entry room for now.

First around the portal he extends the more jagged edges into swooping curves ending in loops. Off of those loops he extends vines and leaves. Just the most basic kind but soon he is adding flourishes and faded edges to the leaves. After a couple hours he stops. There is more room around the portal that he could work with but what is there should be enough for now. Instead, he focuses on the light source on the ceiling.

Where with the portal he had used curved lines, the light received a much more sharp treatment. Straight lines and acute angles are the name of the game up there. His carvings spread out like a starburst until lines fill a third of the ceiling. There are three more walls to play artist with but it is at this point that he stops. Not because he is done but because Ally is poking him. ‘Hey Doyle, hey, did you do that?’

Doyle focuses back on his core room to see what she is going on about. Nothing has changed in the core room itself but rather she is pointing at the display showing the entrance. Not really paying attention Doyle bobbles, ‘I just carved some lines around the portal.’

Ally thwonks his core, ‘Not the lines, I watched you make them. Rather, the portal is different.’ That grabs Doyle’s attention and he takes a closer look at the entrance only to be shocked. So far he has seen three styles of portal. Flisle’s which was more like an open doorway. The tutorials portal that was just a circle in space and of course his, a jagged tear in reality. At least that is what his portal had been like.

Now however, while the edges are still uneven, they are smooth and flowing. Less like a rip and more like a mirage or the edges of a puddle. In fact, as he looks closer the edges ripple and shift around. Beyond that even the lines he had drawn moved along with these changes. ‘Huh, yeah I have no idea what happened to my portal. All I did was some art? Plus whatever is going on has even integrated that as well.’

Ally holds her chin, ‘hmm, since your art is the only change that has to be the source. How did you draw the lines anyway? That could be part of what has happened.’

Doyle shifts side to side, ‘I just drew them with the control skill. It was the lowest skill I had and so wanted to improve on it.’

Ally nods, ‘that might do it. After all the skill might generally be used to shape things but at higher levels, it can do more. You just finished engraving the ceiling so if control is the source maybe there will be a change there as well.’

They both look up and notice a change has happened. Before the light was made up of multiple tiny lights. Now though even Ally can tell it has become one whole. Then Ally facepalms, ‘doh, open up your log to see what has happened.’

{Territory control goes from lv3 to lv5

Conceptual reinforcement lv1 acquired

Territory control goes from lv5 to lv7

Conceptual reinforcement goes from lv1 to lv2}

Ally excitedly points at the log, ‘There! You got a new skill and it sounds like a good one at that! Whatever happened must have been because of that. Have I told you how to open up a skill description yet? Wait, no I haven’t because a tutorial screen just opened up. Anyway, it is easy enough. Just ask the system for a description of the skill. Though don’t let what you see limit what you think can be done with a skill. The description it gives is only for the skill at its current level.’

Doyle nods, ‘good to know. I guess if I had check deconstruction before I leveled it the description would have said it could only target a sphere?’ Ally gives him a thumbs up and smiles. He nods again, ‘fair enough. A good reason as any to avoid them when possible. Anyway, [System, give me a description for Conceptual Reinforcement please]?’

{Conceptual Reinforcement lv2

The ability to reinforce and alter the very nature of an object. This skill comes about through a combination of a domain and belief channeled through art. Most often gained by craftsmen who are devout followers of a god while creating representations of said god within a true temple. A rare skill generally kept secret as the crafter only has to be in a domain and believe in what they are crafting. This quirk has resulted in many crafters who have admitted to owning this skill being kidnapped by Devils as it is rarely hard to convince the crafter of their evil.}

‘Huh’, Doyle tilts to the side, ‘well good thing people aren’t able to recognize it through the art. I don’t feel up to being somehow kidnapped by a devil at the moment.’

Ally turns to him, ‘what do you mean people aren’t able to recognize it through the art? It doesn’t say that anywhere! We need to remove your lines right now. Devils are not to be messed with. In fact, since we have brought it up, never make a deal with a devil. They follow the contract to the T and people who have gotten one over on them are legends for it.’

‘Hold up there’, Doyle brightens, ‘it doesn’t say it right out but there are some big clues in the description. First of all it is only a rare skill. From the description most real churches, whatever that is, should have a couple people with this skill hanging around. Second is that it specifically calls out that only the crafters who have admitted to having it get kidnapped. Now if I had to guess there are skills for art and crafting that allow magic to provide some corrections to their work right?’ Ally nods her head.

‘Good. Likely I got the skill through a shortcut then. My control skill probably has a bit of correction added to it as well and so I skipped having to get a magical art skill high enough first. Plus I’m a dungeon. People expect us to be able to shift around our very structure on a whim so whatever changes come from this skill would be easily explained away. Now what is a real church?’

Ally takes a deep breath and lets it out slowly. ‘Okay, you're probably right. But never mention this skill out loud. In fact, never mention it unless we are talking over the soul link, you hear me? Anyway, a real church, or really any place of worship, is easy enough to define. If the thing, and no it doesn’t have to be a god though that helps, has their domain anchored there. Technically, if you had people worship you in your dungeon, then it would count as a real place of worship. Gods just have an easier time with having decentralized domains. All they have to do is get a spiffy statue made of themselves and fill it with their divine energy. Then when people worship near enough, their faith is gathered.’

Akhier

Also if you want to read more, my Patreon ( https://www.patreon.com/dragonheartednovels ) has two free chapters, two more chapters for only a dollar, and even more beyond that for the early access tiers.