Why are you special?

Of course, I keep my other selves busy while everyone works.  Most are of course handling my specific duties… but I keep my office me looking things up.

Like: Is there any particular reason not to start a new dungeon before the old is killed?  Turns out that there is: They both grow at the full rate for the draw on the area where they overlap. So if two cover the same city, they both grow exactly as much as they would if they were covering it singly. Normally that's bad - it means you need twice as many adventures cleaning the places out. More than that, really, as active adventures add to the amount.  But that's not really a problem if I'm doing the cleaning… and it'll make the baby dungeon grow faster for when I kill off the old one.

Dungeons influence the local environment. Is there a way to control the effect along specific lines? Yes. It's tied to when the ritual culminates, and how the stars line up when it does. The Divine book even has equations for it accounting for geographic location, time of day, time of year, current century and … oh, wow that's complicated math. I guess I can see why nobody's figured it out. It's a good thing I have access to the manuals written by the guy who created the setup that resulted in the equations, isn't it?

Yeah, I'm STILL a cheating cheater who cheats.

So is there any way to get around having to solve… ah, there's an index for precalculated reverision results. I can literally just look up what terrain I want it to spread, look up the location within that section, and get a listing of times and dates. So for warm plains… I have about a month to wait.  

Which also gives me some time to prepare. What do I need… Fredrick's memories say…no, just no. I am NOT finding a young virgin humanoid to bleed to death. Ugh. I should check the actual manual. Because as Life, I can.

Oh, OK, that makes sense. So apparently it's supppsed to be done as a sacrifice of twelve he-lambs of the first year, but almost any living creatures can work in the right quantities.  And yes, a single young living humanoid can cover it. And even at that, the blood spill is just to provide some magical power to run the ritual and bridge the planes… kind of like filling a tube to start a gravity siphon?  If the ritual is done within the range of an active dungeon, no sacrifice is needed at all, as the magic to fill the siphon is already there. And as I provide my own power, I don't even need to worry about that.

Well. Do I even want to know why people thought killing people for this was a good idea? … No, I'm not looking that up, even though these books do have a history section. I am sure it would just make me angry.

Still. I now have a viable plan: Seed a dungeon with one that'll produce warm plains - good for farmland - then kill the old when the new one is grown enough to cover the city.

Actually… I have food stock good for a month or two from Oscar's work… and I did make that farming plane for the diplomatic meeting… if I break the old dungeon before seeding the new, that forces everyone to buy from me - which gets them real food for a change, immediately. And of course, it's really hard to stop me from charging standard rates. Or less; if I charge an entry fee to the diplomatic plane I built, I can let people walk out with however much food they can carry… and charge more for carts, draft animals, and things. Folks just trying to survive can eat their fill for cheap. Folks who want to make a business of it can too.

I'll need to play with the rates, of course. Ultimately I want to encourage folks to switch to some sustainable agriculture… which means slowly raising prices until starting farms seems like a good idea.  Which also means I'll need to rent Oscar out for cheap for making farmland, at least until the dungeon takes care of it.

Heh. He'll be an inexpensive farming implement. Would that make him a cheap hoe?

Bad jokes aside… I have a plan. All that's left is putting it in motion.

Oh. Timing. If I want this to work I can't seed the dungeon for another month, and it's liable to be a year or more until I have the kind of clout to stop the strip mining and tone down the refineries. And there's a very large army massing to take this place out. And of course, if I kill the dungeon early, someone else will seed it incorrectly. Which… means I need to talk peace with my new siblings.

Well, at least my new father set things up to make talking easy, “Earth, Air, and Water: Is now a good time?”

And with just that, all three are with me in my “office” - my bungalow by the sea. No, I have no idea which sea. As far as I can tell, it's a demiplane somewhere.  But I haven't exactly gone looking for an edge to it. Hmm. Maybe I should… later.

My brother Earth is a seven foot tall human-shaped mountain of muscle, with skin the color of damp, fertile earth. He has the smell of freshly turned soil about him; his hair is as black as coal, and his eyes are diamonds tipped with sapphires. There's a dull red glow from inside him whenever he opens his mouth to speak.  He doesn't bother with a shirt, but is thankfully wearing pants.  Sandals too.  The bulge in his pants shifts up a bit when he sees our sister, Water.

For her part, Water is swimming through the air - because she has a fish tail instead of legs. She has a beautiful shifting rainbow of scales on her tail that fade into pale blue skin at her belly, and long pointed elfin ears that flow back on her head. Her deep green hair floats and moves constantly, as though she's still underwater, and she has webbed fingers.  She plays the part of a traditional mermaid, and isn't wearing seashells. Her milk taps are a very dark blue, the jugs behind them are about as big as her head, and are floating freely (much like her hair).

Air looks more like a bird than a humanoid: Her hands and feet are clawed like eagles’ feet, she has wings on her back, she's covered in feathers, and has a beak.  Her head is white, the rest of her is a very dark brown. She's proportioned like a female human, and has hands to go with her wings, but otherwise looks more like a bald eagle.  She's technically naked, but there's not exactly much to see from a human perspective, as her feathers do a very good job of covering her modest chest bumps... and everything else, too: Not a single spec of skin is visible. She turns her entire head to look at Water: Her eyes are locked in place… but her neck is exceptionally mobile.

“Water, would you please cover up?” Air seems to prefer modesty… but with the tone of her voice, I have a good grip on what answer she's expecting.

“Why bother?” Yeah, that’s about what I expected from her based on Air's tone, “Clothing is impractical under the sea, and we're all family here,” Water turns her head and grins at Earth, “Right?”

Earth's face darkens and he looks away as I speak up, “OK, I know I'm adopted into this family….”

Air sighs and very pointedly looks away from Water and Earth, “So was I. And so were both of them - I'm certain of that, because I'm older than they are and remember Dad announcing them. From a bloodline perspective there's no particular problem with them getting married, just some… physical compatibility issues.”

I raise an eyebrow, and Water explains, “My lower half is a fish, specifically of a sort that just sort of releases eggs into the water. There's nowhere for him to stick it in me.”

I chuckle, “That's only necessary if you want a baby. You still have a mouth and an ample chest. Assuming you're both agreeable, he'll fit in fine that way.”

Air suppresses a giggle, Earth perks up and looks at Water, who quickly changes the subject while she glares daggers at me, “Setting that aside, I'm pretty sure that's not why you asked us here. What do you want?”

I'm glad looks don't kill here, “I have a plan for cleaning up Brasilia without killing anyone, and I'm reasonably confident it will work, but I expect it to take a few years to complete. I'm hoping I can get you to call off the massacre to give me time to do this cleanly.”

The three of them exchange looks, consider for a moment, and simultaneously give me the same answer:

“No.”