For the Record

“So, uhhh.”

…

“Any way we could maybe… speed this up a bit?”

I’ve been following Rose for the past few days as it’s been adding the plane’s land to the dungeon. It seems like a pretty slow process… as far as I can tell from what it’s told me, we’re around maybe 12% done.

It’s only a matter of time, but that time is more than I’m willing to wait right here.

Oh, we’re stopping here.

“Another subcore?” I ask.

“Yes, my master.”

Rose can’t maintain control of the entire area without creating another subcore here and there. It’s been making them in a grid pattern, even though that means some areas have overlapping coverage it’s much better than having light or missing coverage at the corners.

…Or so it’s told me. Whatever. I just want the job done.

…

…

“Seriously though. How can we speed this up?”

Rose rubs its chin for a moment. “There is one option, but it is rarely used. We don’t necessarily recommend it.”

I sigh. “So there’s a way to speed it up? How?”

“We could produce additional Avatars for individual subcores, which could then –”

“Then they could each do the same work?” I interrupt.

The core Avatar nods. “However, each individual Avatar will continue to drain resources –”

“Don’t care, do it.”

(You’re so impatient,) Nyx chides.

It’s true! I might have eternity now, but I’m already bored. I don’t want to think about how bored I’m going to be in what, a billion years? No, I’m good. Faster is more better, that’s good enough for me.

My former Assistant sighs through our bond.

…

I should call it a link, maybe. Sure, we have the usual retainer bond thing, but they can’t actually talk to me like the former Assistants can.

…I’m going to do that.

***

And just like that, two days later the entire plane is one large dungeon. Now, to figure out what to do with the 3026 subcore avatars.

…

You know, I thought about asking the others… but my retainers are still at the Feral Isle, I haven’t brought them here yet. Well, except for Pearl and Izahne, but that’s because they wanted to come here for whatever reason. I haven’t really been paying attention to what they’re doing, I figure if they need me they’ll find me.

…They can find me, right? From our bonds?

(Nope, that’s a you thing.)

Oh.

(Although you could probably call them to you, I think.)

I see. Well, I don’t really need them right now.

And now, the next step!

Monsters.

Sentient ones.

“So what are our options for our ‘special citizens’?”

Rose blinks at me…

And then a wall of information slams into my mind.

“Woah woah wait, stop. Let’s try this again,” I say as I rub my forehead. “Let’s limit it to uhhh sentient monsters, maybe bipedal ones since I want them to get along with humans if they can… or at least to be able to I guess. So they need to be able to talk… ideally without me having to give every single one a speaking Skill. Spellspeech can do it, but I don’t want to wind up in a coma for dealing with three or four of them.”

…

Wait.

“Izahne is a nightwalker… I was a gorgon… Or, Astraea was… Can you make those?”

Rose tilts its head, along with the fifty or so of its subcore clones that have been following us. “We can. They are relatively high mana cost, as they are strong monsters. Is that your desire, my master?”

“Hmmm… well, a question first. Is that mana cost against what you’re already drawing from the plane, or directly from me?”

“Mana consumed for dungeon operations is always drawn from the source plane.”

Oh good, no coma for me! Although from how Nyx reacted when Artemis was draining me when we restored the moon, maybe that would outright kill me…

(Probably. You’re made of mana and divinity, without those you’ve got a solid chance of just dissipating entirely.)

Good to know.

Anyway.

“Alright, so mana costs are fine. Do they start with default language Skills, or can they be specified?”

A different Rose answers, “They can be specified, but initial Skill complements will increase mana costs accordingly.”

I nod. “So if we can specify additional Skills, can we specify Classes as well?”

“Yes, but –”

“Yes, yes, more mana costs. That’s fine. Alright, here’s what I want you to do…”

It only takes me ten minutes of deliberating over how to distribute Classes to my new underlings before having an even better idea…

Everyone, meet me at my castle. We have something to discuss, it’s a big thing that I need help with, I project to my retainers.

***

It takes me a solid hour of high speed flight to reach my castle, since Rose and I were in a fairly remote region of the plane at the time. By the time I’m there, it looks like the others have been waiting for some time.

But that’s fine.

Artemis is here too for some reason…

(Probably because you’re an idiot. You sent that to everyone linked up in your head except the headmaster.)

Oh.

Well, she’s been running a plane for however many thousands of years, I’m sure she knows a lot more about this than me.

“Get on with it.”

Yeah, Pearl is as snippy as always.

“Alright, so.” I gesture behind me at the small army of Rose clones following me. “I found a workaround to make the dungeon-plane hybrid able to make things a lot faster by making more Avatars.”

The former fox maid furrows her brow but doesn’t comment.

But I do.

“Yes, I know. They’re mana intensive, but that’s fine. The plane makes plenty of the stuff, for the most part they can have whatever I’m not already passively absorbing. I’m not entirely sure what to do with them all, but it seems like a waste to just destroy or whatever the extras.”

Izahne glances through them for a moment as the swarm watches on. “You don’t have any administrative personnel… how competent are they?”

One of them chooses to answer, “We are designed with the full capabilities of operating and maintaining a complete dungeon ecosystem.”

“That has to be competent enough… why not make them maids and town leadership or whatever?”

“Yes!” I shout. “Perfect! That’s exactly why I wanted help!”

My retainers glance among each other before shrugging.

I give a satisfied nod. “Now we need to figure out how to organize the others…”

“Which others?” Omorth rumbles.

“Well, there’s around three thousand of the Rose clones… You know, that’s dumb. Rose is Rose, but the rest of you need names. I can’t be bothered to pick them all for you, sorry, so pick them yourselves. Oh, and make sure they show up in your Status, you can do that right? I can do that so you probably can.”

They all nod in unison.

“Artemis, I know this is below you considering… everything, but you’ve been a spectacular attendant for literal centuries… would you be willing to choose a number of them for household duties and maybe give them some light training?”

One of the Roses raises its hand. “We share knowledge, and so only one of us need be trained in any desired task.”

My fox wife tilts her head for a moment, eyes locked on me, before she nods her head.

…But she can’t hide that feeling of satisfaction at being needed behind fake reluctance.

And now she’s blushing. I guess she can tell I found her out.

Izahne side-eyes her but doesn’t say anything. Probably for the best.

“Alright, and that leaves the rest.”

“Which others?” Omorth repeats.

I stand proudly. “So, I had a brilliant idea. Since I’m going to populate this plane with monsters as my citizens, I had to think of what kind to use. And, well. I can’t use vampires for obvious reasons, plus they’d all need blood so I’d need even more monsters they could feed from –”

“Get to the point,” Pearl interrupts with a sigh.

“I’m getting there, I’m getting there. So I thought about it, and decided my best options, the ones that made the most sense, are nightwalkers like Izahne and gorgons like me.”

“Gorgons?” my first-second wife asks.

I nod. “Yeah, apparently when I was first created I was a gorgon. I didn’t remember, but Artemis did. Which makes sense considering she was there when I was small.”

The fox goddess nods. “Small.”

…

She’s not commenting on it, but I can feel that Izahne is somehow… what emotion is that? Some kind of emotion, a positive one, in response to me choosing to populate with nightwalkers.

Huh.

Pearl sighs again. “I know you didn’t bring us just to tell us you’re making monsters.”

“Nope! I’m going to populate all the towns and New Moonside with them, but not even I am dumb enough to think I can just make a bunch of them and tell them to make a functioning town. They need jobs or whatever so the place actually runs like a town and doesn’t turn into a free-for-all.”

“That makes sense. They will fall back on tribal organization otherwise,” Omorth observes.

“Yes, what he said. So they all need jobs, and I need help plotting out what jobs they’ll need.”

“Plan?” Artemis asks with a head tilt.

“I don’t really have one, but for now I’d like to mirror something like what the humans were doing here before. It’s too bad Nerin died, I bet she’d be good at this.”

…

I glance at my former maid. “Wait, what kind of organization do the people of the Feral Isle use?”

Ah, she’s blushing again.

Don’t tell me...

“…Tribal,” she hesitantly answers.

Huh.