Crystal Clear

  Chapter 219

  I looked at the crystal I’d acquired from Elim which I’d set in a niche in my chamber of machinations. The room had taken on a very odd office villains layer vibe over time, filled with my drawings and test pieces of art or design elements. I had a scale model of the necropolise against the back wall like a macabre architectural show piece because I’d had more time than sense one day and felt like it.

  Fixing its state had been relatively easy, just a day's mana that I’d paid moments before refresh the day after informing the “council” about it. More changes were going to cost points, but I did have a surplus and a fair amount of year left to me. So the major issue was figuring out what I wanted to do and how to implement its use after.

  “Rumming on it?” Chris asked, startling me. He was leaning in the entry way door with a can of chaos in hand. Always a slightly jarring but fitting accessory for him. It lent a very off the clock renaissance character vibe.

  “Do you mean ruminating?” I asked.

  “Maybe. Either way, staring at it like it owes you money,” Chris said with a shrug.

  “Yeah, I’m definitely going to let the Lepusan use it with a secret keeping contract. I’m just not sure what to do about it long term,” I admitted.

  “Eh, they're alright,” Chris said, taking a swig. He was being weirdly subdued given that he was not reading or breaking something. This was the kind of mood I expected when he decided to whittle something which was like a destructive version of meditation.

  “You uh, doing okay?” I ventured, feeling wrong footed. Chris didn’t seem to register the question and just stared at what I was getting the impression was the middle distance rather than anything in front of him.

  “I’m not saying you should, I like the town, but I mean… could you make the mountain a volcano?” Chris asked.

  “The fuck?” I asked, my orbs fluttering.

  “I’m just thinking, the puppies are going to grow up and they're going to want to have families and they can't exactly do that at present. I get your making the lava layer bigger, but it's a bit small for them even now. Are you really going to be able to make it big enough for more?” Chris asked.

  I almost asked him if he was high even though I knew that wasn’t really something he could do without their being signs. Mixing chaos with things could potentially do it like the fire proofing potions incident but he wasn’t sparkling like a demented magic girl or anything telling.

  “That's… not something I’d considered,” I offered, doing my best neutral but kind tone. “I’ll have to give it some thought.”

  “Huh? Yeah, sure, but could you? I mean, just from a stuff you can do perspective,” Chris asked.

  I genuinely considered lying. This conversation had a very odd vibe to it, but it wasn’t like he could force me to and I didn’t actually like lying unless I had a better reason.

  “I mean, it would be ugly and unnatural at first and take a bunch of work to shape later, but yeah, I probably could,” I admitted in the end.

  “Alright, makes sense… you think about it more,” Chris said, tone still meditative as he turned and wandered off as randomly as he’d appeared. I firmly did not file that on my list of things to consider. I was having enough problems attracting people in any numbers without turning the valley into a Mordor themed kennel. Thought that admittedly did sound absolutely metal.

  Rumming, which I found was a fun turn of phrase the more I thought about it, wasn’t getting anywhere. I’d also exhausted most of my usual advice sources and gotten some variation on “be careful and think about it more” or flat out shrugs. This wasn’t a normal problem by any stretch of the imagination, like most valley problems.

  I decided it was time for a walk and put on my Deux appearance as well as a pants outfit with a long tunic with flowy asymmetrical back bit that made it kind of a short dress but not exactly. I wasn’t a fan of actual dresses in practice though I liked the way they looked and my height as the mayor meant if they weren’t ankle length most halflings would be getting a view under the skirt no matter if they wanted it or not. Pants made things simple.

  Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.

  Transporting to my town house I made my way out and started strolling. The skeletons greeted or ignored me as usual while the new folks to the valley usually stared. A few children waved shyly then scurried behind their parents when I waved back, which was cute. The occasional mistrustful glare from said parents, not so much, but I wasn’t bothered.

  There weren’t a lot of human families in the valley, about five last I’d checked that weren’t part of the Silvertree serfs. Those kids tended to stay across the river and their parents were as a rule respectful. The new ones consisted of two peddlers and three averagely skilled craftsmen. They’d come once one of the parents got a look at things in the valley and realized it was cheap to live locally or saw some other opportunity that appealed to them and moved.

  I found myself across the river eventually, strolling along Elim’s farm. There was a ciderhouse now and several chicken traps that looked more structurally sound than they probably should have. I made a mental note to check in on if Chris was giving Bess lessons behind my back.

  The more obvious addition was rows of carefully irrigated bee forage plants and the hives they supported. Erica had kept several hives in Selton and missed them, so I’d looked up what they’d need to be healthy in the valley. Apple trees sheltered the hives and some of the plants, making it a rather pretty area.

  I didn’t mean to stop but Erica herself was out, checking the hives and waved at me.

  “You look restless. Trouble, or making some for yourself?” Erica asked wryly.

  “Little of both, probably,” I admitted with a chuckle. “I’ve been rumming on something.”

  “Rumming?” Erica asked.

  “Chris’s word for worrying in circles. It stuck.”

  Erica snorted. “Sounds like him. What’s got you pacing your own skull?”

  I explained the crystal issue broadly and she listened with a frown, asking a few questions here and there to make sure she understood things. I’d expected more but she was quick on the uptake with things.

  “Oh, well, you're going to start a war if you try and give that to anyone in particular or keep it just in the valley,” Erica said flatly.

  “War?” I asked, caught off guard.

  “They start over significantly less than something that magically makes craftspeople masters overnight,” Erica said with a nod.

  “Well, sure, but the idea is to make sure its spread around broadly so that isn’t as much of an issue,” I countered.

  “Figure out how to do that, did you?” Erica asked.

  “Nooo, which is why I’m rumming,” I admitted.

  “Sensible of you. Doesn’t matter how clever the magic is, folk will only care how it’s handed out. If they think it’s your gift, you’ll be everyone’s favorite villain inside a month,” Erica said with a nod.

  “Yeah, which is why I’m not doing anything yet. I didn’t really consider “war” war but I knew there'd be conflict over it… I wasn’t even totally opposed to that. I doubt it's totally avoidable, I just don’t want it to get out of hand,” I explained.

  “Well, making it someone else's problem is one way to deal with it. If you can change how it works you could do something like give the church a holy one just for their classes and maybe the… “npc” ones as you call it. Don’t give them the ability to mass produce soldiers as it were,” Erica offered.

  “Yeah, you actually do have to have strong faith to become a cleric or paladin," I agreed. Not all classes had prerequisites but the holy ones did.

  “I could probably give the Earl one for npcs but with the build correction feature. He could still have better soldiers, but not heroic class ones,” I agreed. That would create problems somewhere along the line, but it felt like a manageable level.

  “Right… Elim said this is like a game to you. Not in that you don’t care, but in how it works in your mind. Rules and such. I won’t pretend to understand that, but I’m sure you’ll figure out a system," Erica offered.

  I nodded, biting back on a swear. The system I lived under was not exactly fun. I was finally at a stage where the freemium issue with points wasn’t bitting me in the ass constantly, but wasn’t free of it either.

  “Oh, wait, shit. I totally forgot about freemium,” I said as the idea sunk in.

  “Freemium?” Erica asked, brows up in confusion.

  “It's where something is free to lure you in, and then it's not if you want the good stuff. I could just add a lock where you can't get heroic classes without a “class change crystal” and make that a dungeon drop or something you get in exchange for monster cores,” I said, grinning.

  “Wouldn’t that just cause more problems?” Erica asked.

  “Sure, if I admitted to the crystal thing upfront. I don’t have to though, I can leave that a mystery at first then work up to making it a guild trade in thing for monster kills later when there are more branches,” I said, feeling good about the idea.

  “Thanks Erica,” I said cheerfully. It wasn’t perfect, but systems didn’t have to be perfect. They just had to break slower than everything else around.

  “I’m going to pretend to understand how I was helpful. So you're welcome,” Erica offered with a little nod of her head. I gave her a shoulder pat then turned to start back to the dungeon. I still needed to think more, this idea was something, and that was more than I’d had before my little stroll. I couldn’t help a chuckle.

  Freemium. Gods help me. I was really going to be that kind of bastard and didn’t even feel bad about it.

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