HC ch15

Dave joyously told Charleen what he encountered in the capitol. With a look of wonder she listened. Charleen is the priestess kobold that he had been living with. The original interest with her laid with her wanting to learn about business. Her innocence and her openness soon stole his heart. For two years they had been together and the other kobolds have found partners as well, but only he knew her assigned name. He was the only human who knew any of the kobolds’ true names.

Later that night Dave thought about his life some more as Charleen stretched her arm over half his chest. The smaller kobold slept peacefully as something was nagging on him. It took him over an hour before he realized he had been thinking of his past. It had always been his past, but what of his future. For the first time he had no need to risk his life to grow stronger. He now had a home and the means to support himself leisurely. He had nothing he wanted. He then shifted his head to look at the top of Charleen’s head. He grew a smile when he came up with something he would want.

Dave did not quite understand the message. For one it was a crimson red instead of blue. He had heard only dungeon master menu’s related to dungeon cores were red. He contemplated selecting no but thought of Charleen once again. He had a feeling if he did he would never be given the chance again.

———-

Excruciating pain, if there is any way to describe the way we felt over the last three days. Thought numbing pain is as accurate as words come. Then as suddenly as it came it ended. It took a minute (Chronos counted longer) to check ourselves and for me to go over the logs of what exactly happened.

“ Are you just going to ignore us?”

If our core could have jumped it would have. Which would have been dangerous as Loyee was actually holding it. On one side a distinct crack could be seen. Before it was barely there, a blemish at best, now it shows some serious damage.

Now we were aware of them, there were more gods in my core room than I usually host. Some of them from the opposing factions.

“ So, do tell us.”

I would have nodded if I could.

With a brief pause I considered serving drinks and did so before continuing.

With that a smile crossed the mentioned goddess’s face. She had been waiting for these new followers for some time.

A dragon looking god steps forward.

“ Interesting, it sounds strangely familiar to the inherited memories I grant my mortal kin.”

I recall the god as a neutral god of dragons and thought it over.

“ A legacy is not like an inherited memory. First off, there is no degradation between generations. Second, only one child will inherit the full legacy as the other two will inherit lesser branches. Finally, is the frailty of the legacy, as it can be stolen away!”

This put shock into all the gods as Loyee explains.

“ It is a failsafe in case a dungeon gets too strong and tries to break the accords because of his believed strength built on so much experience. With this knowledge I know why we were all drawn here. You created the means for mortals to become extremely powerful.”

Loyee paused and considered her next words. She knew as well as Krypt that there was no way for them to kill Hollow, Stopping him was possible, but he is a being that survived longer than most of the gods in the room. Making an enemy out of an unkillable entity was very unwise, even for the gods.

“ It is not unreasonable to compromise. What you have developed is still young and can be controlled. In return, we gods will help one of your mind fragments ascend to become a lesser god tasked with overseeing this legacy trait you have created. As this was born from me I shall name the new god as my child.”

Many of the gods grew complex faces. To translate to mortal, Loyee was directly giving up her trait of monsters inheriting past experience to facilitate this compromise.

This made Log and Boss pause, the only two other system menus accessing personalities contemplated this near instant decision. Loyee could not help but find it both cute and funny how the dungeon loved parts of itself over other parts. Still she refrained from laughing and took the initiative.

“ The more fragments to work with the more stable the god is born. Do take note Hollow, they will become a separate entity from you. I can not promise the end result of creating a new god. I am not even fully confident I will survive this.”

Hollow note of this and prepared himself for what’s to come.