Now, much of it came crashing back to me.
In my life on Earth, I had lived a very mundane life. I had a corporate job, a house in the suburbs, and a family. I had a daughter, Quinn. I knew that, I remembered that. I couldn’t remember many names–even my own name–but I remembered Quinn.
I searched through my memories. I could remember many life events with my family. My latest memories were when Quinn was a senior in high school. She had been studying hard to prepare for her college applications.
I guess I died sometime around then. God, I hoped she didn’t die around then too.
While I had been going through the gamut of emotions, Quinn looked around the room with curiosity. Her eyes roamed around and then settled on my core in the middle of the room. She said something, but I only saw her lips move.
“Can you hear me? Nod your head for yes!” I mentally shouted at her.
Quinn didn’t respond affirmatively or even say anything.
Great!
I had a companion–finally!–who was my daughter–thank you system!–whom I couldn’t even talk to–thank you again system!.
Nah, it was fine.
I shaped one of the walls of my small core room, creating a slightly extended panel of white stone. I then recessed small amounts of the white stone to form letters and words like an etching: “Hello Quinn! If you can read this, nod your head!”
Quinn watched intently as I did my work. Her eyes flowed across the words and she emphatically nodded her head. I shifted the words again, this time saying “Please wait.” She nodded her head again, crossed her arms, and shifted her weight onto one foot in that classic teenager pose that was a mix of boredom and annoyance.
The very first thing I did was create a robe made of leather on the floor of the room. Quinn had been reborn naked and, even if I was her father, I would prefer she was wearing something. I wasn’t much of a tailor or clothing designer so the robe was very basic. Quinn understood immediately what they were and put them on while I worked on the next thing.
I created a new notepad status screen that I could write on, then created a connector thread out of another status screen and connected them. Next, I designed a thin flat metal sheet with a shiny black surface that could transfer what was in my notepad into physical text showing on the flat surface, much like a tablet screen. I added a small hole in the bottom of the screen and put in a dense clump of Aural Nettle. Finally, I took another connector screen and attached it between the nettle and the notepad screen. My previous experience with the CCB helped a lot so it only took me fifteen minutes to make the whole thing.
I pushed mana through and into and the item came into existence on the floor of the room.[1] Quinn noticed it almost immediately and went and picked it up.
I typed into my notepad and the corresponding words appeared on the shiny black surface: “Please speak into the microphone at the bottom.”
Quinn took the metal tablet, turned it so the microphone was right next to her lips, and said, “Hello? Can you hear me?”
My status screen updated with a transcript of her words. The item worked!
I sent to the tablet, “Quinn! I have missed you so much! I have so many questions!”
Quinn shifted the tablet so she could read what I wrote. Her face scrunched in puzzlement. “Who is Quinn?”
Pfff–huuu–whaat?
“You are Quinn!!”
“Oh, I am Quinn. I. Am. Quinn,” she said like she was repeating a new age mantra for self-fulfillment. After a moment, she then asked, “And you are?”
Ah, right. How would my daughter recognize me as I was now a sphere of magical rock. “I am you father”--dammit, I still didn’t know my previous name and she wouldn’t recognize ‘George’ or ‘Gorge’--”I was reincarnated as this demesne core you see now. I don’t remember my name from before though. Do you remember what my name is?”
Quinn stood there and thought about it, her ears moving about as she did so. “I don’t remember your name. I don’t–I don’t remember anything.” Her ears drooped down, “I’m Sorry!”
My heart dropped out of the bottom of my stomach. I had most of my memories from before, so why did she not have any? Something was amiss, but my question had upset her. So, I decided to push any further inquiries for now. “It’s okay. You can call me George.”
“Hi George.”
I changed tack, “Can you tell me what you do know?”
“Um–I know my name is Quinn, I guess. You made me, so I should be thankful to you for that. I can feel that we are connected um, not physically, but like on some level? And when I look at you, I feel an instinct to protect you. I also sense that you are going to help me grow more powerful.”
That was a relief. Quinn came with a baseline understanding of who and what she was right of the gate. I didn’t have to explain every detail about dungeons and minions. She seemed completely accepting of her status, which was also good. If she suffered shock or trauma, it would have made things a lot more difficult.
It was at this time that the system decided to finally provide feedback. A whole slew of notifications came to me. A wrote a quick message to Quinn that I needed a moment to review them and then I dived in.
The system message stated the obvious. The message in red, though, was far more significant. First, it was in red, which I had only seen when I'd manage to break the system. At that time, I had received three messages of three different colors. The red one, the one I chose, eluded to the "Builder." Second, the message was directed to me personally and was clearly from someone else. Whoever the Builder was, they were involved in the management of the system.
It was somewhat concerning that I was being both congratulated and warned off.
I felt the familiar feel of mana rushing into my core. As before, I quickly shunted mana into my secondary well, although I didn’t bother with spending mana desperately like last time. Full of mana, Quinn at my side, and time remaining, my dungeon would get some serious upgrading.
A quick check of my own status and everything was as expected. Interface was now my highest leveled skill at nine. Sigilmancy had just two whole levels as a result of my work on Quinn’s sigil array, and was not a respectable level 6.
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I had four Demesne Points. I mentally sighed in resigned frustration. When I had first woken up, I had three, and when I got level 2, I received six. Now, I received four. The Demesne Points allocated when I gained a new level was randomized because of course it was.
Finally, my trait Inchoate had evolved into Progenitor.
The trait increased the rate at which Quinn gained experience but wasn’t clear to me as to the method of how it worked. Still, the fact that she could grow was critically important; she wasn’t just another minion. The second part of the trait was also a little vague, but it probably meant making more kitsune would cost less mana. Also, the part about interface options was tantalizing. With my experience using Demesne Interface, this was a can of worms I was eager to open.
I opened my (long-neglected) Monstruary:
As it was implied, I gained a second archetype, ‘kitsune,’ and it was already at level 2. That was great! I was no longer limited to undead.
But I was surprised to see that ‘undead’ and ‘cave fauna’ were also now level 2. I hoped that wasn’t the extent of my rewards from the red box–I would have rather just gotten some bonus DP. Regardless, I was happy that I could now make monsters other than skeletons.
Thinking of that, I returned my attention back to Quinn. She had put the robes on and was now sitting in the lotus position on the bare floor of the room with the tablet in her lap. “I’m back!”
“Can you try to bring up your status? Let’s find out what traits you have!” While I knew that I could simply look at Quinn’s status screen by myself, I also wanted to check whether she could see it too.
Quinn didn’t ask what I meant, which suggested her knowledge of the system was ingrained. Likewise, her eyes lost focus on the tablet, indicating she already knew how to bring up her status page. “Yes, I can see it,” she confirmed verbally.
While she went through and read to me what she saw. I checked her status myself.
[Sigil Sense] was a very basic inspect-type skill. The skill’s description didn’t quite match what I had intended, but it should still prove useful. A test was required, “Quinn, can you use [Sigil Sense] on the tablet and tell me what you see.”
“Okay!” She held the table in both hands at arms’ length and stared at it. “I see–” she mumbled as she squinted her eyes “–I see some yellow light. Yes, a golden disk of light, coming from inside it. It’s a little fuzzy though.”
“Anything else?”
Quinn had to stop using the skill to see my message clearly. “Nope, that’s pretty much it,” she said with a shrug.
I widened the small passageway from my core room to the basement space so that Quinn could walk through without having to crouch down or squeeze through. I asked Quinn to use her skill on one of the warriors. She stepped through the entryway and entered the big basement. She looked around and when she found one of the warriors, she triggered [Sigil Sense].
“Oh, this one is prettier!” Quinn gushed. “I see four circles of light. One of them is a little bigger than the others, though. Oh! There is a small one on top of his head too!”
Quinn ran right up to the skeleton warrior and looked it over with an eye of discernment. Fortunately, the skeleton didn’t attack her; it didn’t react at all and continued to stand at attention and stare into space. Gingerly, she reached out and touched its shield, then it’s arm, and finally its head.
“The crown is a magic item too?”
“Yep. It has a skill that helps regenerate bone.”
Quinn brought her hands towards the skeletons head and twiddled her fingers, “Can I have it?”
“Well–”
“Oh–it’s okay, I guess. It’s a good skeleton. I mean, it’s more useful for him than for me. Even if I am your warden, after all, you’re one and only warden.” she gave a huff, “My status even says I’m special!”
What? I checked her status again. The only thing that seemed unusual was that her status showed the word ‘privileged.’
I check on that and a new screen came up,
While Quinn continued to beg, I checked the information I had on Holdings and how they worked. When I checked the coronet, the system also said it was privileged. However, the tablet did not have it. I even created a Silverium mana coin with the enchantment. That too did not have the descriptor.
I checked the skeletons, but they were still the same. I checked the animals, the plants, and even the walls but nothing had it.
“Hello? Hello! Are you there?” Quinn must have realized I wasn’t paying attention to her, as she was practically shouting into the microphone.
“Sorry! Yes, you can wear it!”
Quinn beamed. She quickly grabbed the coronet off the skeleton’s head. She turned it around and looked at it and, satisfied with it, tried putting it on her head. Unfortunately, her ears got in the way and the crown squished them down uncomfortably.
I offered to fix it for her and she readily agreed. I didn’t know if I could adjust the coronet’s physical shape without breaking it, so I just absorbed the whole thing. I remade the item but this time I made it as a necklace, with the band made of black leather and a central pendant at the front made of Silverium.
Quinn squealed in delight at the new form of the magic item. She quickly put it on.
I checked the new necklace. Other than the name having changed,[2] all of the other details were the same, including ‘privileged.’
I started to create an exact copy of the choker. I worked my way through the process but when I started to put mana into it, it immediately failed like I had hit a brick wall. I tried a couple more times but the same result happened. The choker could not be copied.
The implications were becoming clear. Skeletons and the coins could be copied because they weren’t special. They were themselves functionally all copies of templates. Thus when the Necromancer’s Abattoir created its instance, it copied them as part of it. But Quinn was special; she was unique. If she was in the holding, it would be Quinn herself in the holding, not a facsimile.
If Quinn died in my dungeon, if she died defending me, that would be it for her (again). I couldn’t let that happen. I wouldn’t let that happen!
dSMS Tablet
Lesser Sigil
Durability 5/5
Notes: The dSMS tablet has the following sigil components:
[2]Choker of the Necromancer Princess
Durability 21/21
Sigil [Osteogenesis]
Privileged