NOVEL NEXT 97 - An Annoying Sidekick Appears!
"Archmund," Gelias's voice called out in warning.
"Young master?" Mary said cautiously.
The Gemstone Cufflinks glinted in Archmund's sleeves as he took a seat behind the desk. There was an indent upon the desk.
"What's there to worry about?" Archmund said, the words flowing like water. "There's no threat here, only reward."
He felt no threats looming at the edges of consciousness, no Monsters or dark miasma lying in wait.
As his words passed over them, their eyes grew hazy and unfocused for just a second. Their Gemstone Keycards flashed, crimson and cyan and the colors of their own magic.
Gelias's eyes narrowed. "Archmund. Those ornaments. Do you know what they're doing to—what they're doing for you?"
"Gelias, I feel fine," Archmund said. "A bit more of a silver tongue, a bit of a sharper wit. Don't worry."
"Yeah, Gelias," Rory said, clapping the elven boy on the back. "He seems all fine and dandy to me."
"Let me scan those with my magic," Gelias said, looking Archmund in the eye. "I want to know where they sit in the hierarchy of the Dungeon."
"Sorry, Gelias," Archmund said, and he was surprised, though not completely, to feel the steel conviction in his words. "These are mine. I'd rather not give them up, especially if they're so risky."
He was more than willing to fight Gelias over the matter, but the elven boy immediately relented.
"I see," he said, and his tone gave away nothing.
"What sort of power is that?" Beatrice said. "What does it let you do?"
"It feels like some of my powers," Rory said. "Calming and support."
Gelias cracked a smile. "Yes, I suppose you could say that."
Archmund's leg jittered up and down. There was something he really wanted to see.
"Could the three of you leave us for a second?" he said, pointing at Gelias, Rory, and Beatrice.
"You got it, boss!"
"As you wish!"
Gelias let out a tense breath. "Sure."
"Just the two of us?" Mary said breathlessly. She leaned on the desk. She seemed to be staring at him. "It's like I'm your secretary, young master."
He glanced over at her. "Oh, stop that."
"Sorry, young master. I won't do it again," Mary said, uncharacteristically serious.
He looked over at her. She gave him an uneasy smile.
"How's your arm?"
"It's fine."
"Why did you send them out?" Mary asked.
Archmund pulled out his Gemstone Tablet. As he'd suspected, it slid into the indent on the desk perfectly.
"I've shown you this, not them," Archmund said. "At least, not the details. They know this lets me talk to the Omnio, but not how and what else it can do."
New screens and displays popped up on the Gemstone Tablet.
[Tier 2 Attained!]
[Upgrading…]
It had returned home.
"Hi!" said a voice. "I'm Gemmy! Your local assistant!"
Archmund jumped to his feet.
"Young master?" Mary said.
"What the fuck is this?" Archmund said.
"What the what is what?" Mary said in turn.
"This!" Archmund said, pointing at the weird crystal blob that had appeared on the table. Mary frowned.
"I… maybe we should turn back? If you're starting to see things. We've been down here for a while, and the second time through should be safer."
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She made a valid point, especially if she couldn't see the thing.
"What are you?" Archmund said, pointing at the crystal blob that had big googly eyes and a smile.
"I'm Gemmy, your local fairy assistant for Dungeon management. I can tell you everything about the integration of your Gemstone Tablet with Granavale Dungeon!"
Great. So not only were elves real, fairies were too.
"No deal," Archmund said. "I'm not making any deals with fairies."
Mary was starting to look gravely concerned.
"No deals here!" said Gemmy. "I came included with the Gemstone Tablet! I can tell you anything that you want to know about it, up to your attainment level! No easy secrets to the universe here! Just reasonably logical true conclusions about the universe!"
"And why haven't I seen you before?"
"You hadn't unlocked me! But now that you're approaching another level of Awakening, and you've conquered another Dungeon Tier, you've given name to my existence!"
Archmund was starting to think this function was an annoying helper character that would become very, very annoying soon to his extreme annoyance. He wrenched his Gemstone Tablet out of the desk, hoping to disconnect it.
"Sorry, you've just discovered another functionality of my existence!" Gemmy said. "My presence is a function of your advancement with your System Interface, namely your access to a place of deeper magic, but now that I'm here, I'm not dependent on staying here! But if you want to use any of the controls of this place, you should pop this tablet right back in! I'll be here regardless, ready to help you with anything you need!"
Archmund grit his teeth. "Gemmy, can you promise me you're not going to try and corrupt me or try to drive me insane?"
Frankly, it was too late if that was the weird gremlin's goal. He was bound to the Gemstone Tablet for life, and short of an exorcism he couldn't think of a way to get rid of Gemmy. Even that might not cut it.
"I promise you that!" Gemmy said. "I promise that I am completely and utterly incapable of acting against your desires in any way. I will tell you how to do whatever you want, however you want it, exactly how you ask for it! I am ontologically incapable of betraying you!"
Archmund suspected there was a trap laid in those words. In fact, he was sure of it. But unfortunately, he also suspected he needed to know significantly more philosophy to know for sure.
"Young master. Archmund. Are you sure you're alright? You talk to yourself a whole bunch, but this sounded… different."
Archmund sighed. "A gem construct with a face told me it could help me learn how to use this Gemstone Tablet to its full capabilities, and that it was incapable of acting against my desires and unable to betray me."
"Oh, that's… concerning," Mary said. "This is just like that story from Ardur's Faery Tales about the Wishing Bees."
"I agree," Archmund said. "I very much agree."
The Wishing Bees was a bog-standard story about being careful what you wished for. Archmund had heard all sorts of stories like that both in this life and the last. In that story, the hero got everything they asked for, and they regretted it. It was kind of like the tale of King Midas's golden touch, except with a bear instead of a king, bees instead of Zeus, and honey instead of gold. Truthfully, Archmund could barely tell all these tales apart, because half the stories in Ardur's Faery Tales mapped roughly onto a similar story from Aesop's Fables from Earth. (This, of course, told him that whoever Ardur was, he'd lived before Alexander Omnio I, because if Alexander Omnio I had arrived first he almost surely would've replicated "Aesop's Fables" as "Omnio's Fables", the shameless plagiarist.)
"It should be fine, though," Archmund said. "If it can't act against my desires…"
Mary gave him a skeptical look.
"Come on, when have I wanted something actually. You know. Bad?"
"You've been trying to get rid of me for a while?"
"I've been trying to make sure you got to choose your own destiny and path through life."
"And I have. Will your invisible buddy help you get rid of me even more?"
He glanced at Gemmy, which smiled back at him. "It seems like you're trying to convince yourself that this person is staying with you completely of her own volition. Would you like some help with that?"
Alright, so this helper was going to be kind of useless after all.
He clicked his Gemstone Tablet back into the desk.
"Can you make yourself visible to her?"
"Certainly!"
Mary stepped back. "Wow, it's… kind of cute, actually?"
Archmund didn't want to admit anything of the sort.
"So what was the point of being able to connect my tablet to this desk, anyways?"
"As you may have gathered, this place is your reward for conquering Tier 2 of the Dungeon," Gemmy said. "As the boss of this place, you have a great deal of control over scheduling and coordinating your subordinates. Thanks to your newly-earned Title of [Granavale Dungeon T2 Conqueror], you can access the "Management Modes" of your Gemstone Tablet."
"What does any of that mean?" Mary said.
She raised a good point. None of this would make any sense to someone native to this world.
"Do all of the holders of these… Gemstone Tablets or their equivalents have access to a "Management Mode"?"
"Theoretically! Conquering Tier 2 of any Dungeon is generally sufficient to grant the necessary authority for viewing and managing Tier 2 and below, though it may take some time for the associated permissioning to successfully reverberate throughout the Dungeon. For greater levels of insight, the associated titles are required!"
"So… if I had the title of, for example, the 'Crown Prince of the Omnio Empire'… would I be able to control the actions of anyone within my domain?"
"Absolutely not! Free will prevents that! However, the dead basically don't have any will of their own! Titles in the mortal world merely grant you the gift of information!"
Archmund leaned back in his chair, which was surprisingly comfortable.
He was starting to understand why the Adventurer's Guild and Omnio Special Forces pretty much demanded to be the first to make it into a Dungeon. If anyone else managed to get the Gemstone Tablet and then make it to Tier 2… they could become incredibly powerful.
Which. Made this feel suspiciously easy.
"So why don't we see a lot more chaos, a lot more powerful people able to make it to Tier 2?"
"The only reason you've been able to make it down here has been a confluence of factors! The unreasonable efficacy of your Infrared Lance ability against the formless dead, your vicious looting of the upper floors, and the Grand Working by the Omnio Empire have all served to weaken the Dungeon beyond normal expectations! If not for your incredible luck, all five of you would be dead right now!"
In retrospect, maybe he shouldn't have played so fast and loose with letting them treat the fight as a training exercise.
But this reward had been so, so worth it.
Archmund cracked his knuckles. "Show me Management Mode. Let's see what we can do."
Once again he'd gotten an advantage through incredible luck. It would take careful skill to stretch it into something sustainable.