NOVEL SIMPLE Turn About Is Fair Play – Chapter 186
Ally answers the door quick enough, though she doesn’t look all that happy. ‘So I hear you’ve made a pact of some sort?’
Doyle’s core tilts to the side and freezes, ‘Huh?’
Ally raises an eyebrow, ‘You made a pact, without talking to me first.’
Doyle tilts to the other side, ‘I was messing with some stuff and the town finally got to put in the adventurers guild. Got some stuff from that. Oh, and I got a path to afford the contract.’
Ally sighs and rubs the bridge of her nose, ‘That, that would be the pact. Did it not occur to you what you might be signing?’
Doyle, ‘A contract? Sure, it was through the system but I’ve signed a bunch of contracts in the past. This one wasn’t even all that long. I think reading the entire thing only took a day or two to fully understand.’
Ally rolls her eyes, ‘You sign a pact with the adventurers Guild. Me thinks your world needs to have their ideas over contracts rewired, especially those through the system.’
Doyle rolls his core in return. ‘If they don’t have contract law out there then earth lawyers are going to eat them alive.’
Ally shakes her head, ‘Nah, we have lawyers of our own. More of what I am referring to is that you need to be careful about how binding the contract is. The Guild contract should have had something in there about being binding under the authority of the Guild’s founder?’
Doyle nods, ‘Sure, who else would be the opposing party?’
Ally sighs again, ‘Yeah, going to have to teach your world to be extra careful about any contract claiming to use something’s power to bind it. I guess I can’t blame you too much, especially since it doesn’t go over who the Guild’s founder is, cause that really is the sticking point here.
‘Since we are already so bound, let me explain who they are. The Guild’s founder is something of a mix between a god and a true immortal. You already experienced one of the big boys around, Order. The Guild’s founder is the step below that. As far as the known multiverse knows, the founder is the founder of the first true adventurers guild founder, that managed to spread their guild between dimensions.
‘Though that doesn’t really give you the best idea of what they represent, so let me give you another example. Death is the best known personification of some nearly universal constant. Rightly so, of course, as Death is nearly all-consuming. If not for things like Order and Chaos, Death would be like Order and Chaos. A quirky little Catch 22 that Lady Death is quite happy for as being a concept doesn’t leave any room for having a personality.
‘So yeah, the Guild Leader is sort of important. You don’t get to have interdimensional business without at least a true immortal behind something and it doesn’t get as big as the Guild without more than just that. The only time interdimensional stuff happens without it is within a cosmology where the dimensions are all touching.’
Doyle rolls back, ‘Any other levels of power I should know about? Seems I just keep having new levels of beings able to kick my butt popping in out of nowhere.’
Ally shrugs, ‘Eh, there aren’t really any extra names to learn. Either the situation is unique enough that you just call them by name, you know, like Death. Or they just fit under the other two. Good example of that is my mom who is technically fae royalty who gets called Gods more often than not. Well, if they aren’t being called Arch-Devils or Demon Lords, which at the top end are also Gods, but mortals like to just ignore that detail.’
Doyle nods for a second before he notices something. ‘Why are they gods and not immortals? Are they unable to become true immortals or some such?’
Ally laughs, ‘Not impossible, just so unlikely that there aren’t any true immortals from their groups currently at large in the local area. Basically, how it works is that to become a true immortal you need to break away from mortality and what makes you mortal. For beings like fae and devils, that would mean going against their racial nature.
‘This doesn’t mean a devil needs to be good, but rather chaotic. While possible for any being with a soul cause of that free will thing, as a general rule of thumb it does not happen. So what happens when they get to the height of power, the next step is godhood. Fae belong to courts, just another name for a church and devils belong to the nine hells, which is basically just a fancy name for a pantheonic heaven.
‘Not that any traditional god would admit to this. If they even have to come close to it, they prefer to use the term deity to provide more separation. One of the fun side effects of this non-existent difference is that devil-bane weapons work just as well against law based angels and fae. Or put another way, they all belong to a class of being many refer to as outsiders. Not to be confused with outer gods and their spawn.’
Doyle sighs, ‘So there are gods, true immortals, concepts, and then just to throw it all off some unique beings?’
Ally shrugs, ‘Yeah, pretty much. Once you get to that level of power, things end up simplified. It is only on our end that all those powers seem unique. You in particular should realize this as under the hood you’re basically still just using quintessence, the OG power source.’
Doyle continues, ‘So what is the problem with me making a deal with one of them? I know it’s apparently a serious thing but from what I saw I would sort of end up strong-armed into taking the contract eventually, anyway.’
Ally takes a deep breath and then lets it out slowly. ‘The problem is not necessarily with you making the deal. The problem is that You made it. I admit, previously I had been acting like a royal brat but I have been working on it. In the same vein, you seem to like decisions that will affect both of us without keeping me in the loop.’
Doyle’s core dims, ‘Oh. Yeah. You do deserve to be informed with this kind of thing. Not to excuse myself for not telling you, but I’ve never exactly been one to have people to talk to in general so this is kind of new to me. I’ll definitely work on it in the future though I don’t expect you to believe me until I’ve actually shown you that I can.’
Ally snorts, ‘That was said a lot better than I expected. Sounds kind of like you’ve been practicing speeches like that.’
Doyle nods, ‘Basically. Take note of my previous statement. This isn’t my first rodeo when it comes to a lack of social tact. I’ve had a bit of time to get used to the fact that I’m going to be putting my foot in my mouth more often than not.’
Ally sighs, ‘Fair enough. Now, you’ve already signed the contract so we can’t exactly go back on it, but how about you fill me in a little on what it actually entails?’
Doyle nods again, ‘It was a really basic contract in the end. By providing guild members, true guild members that is, as the guild lets a lot of people join the local branch without actually joining the guild proper. Anyway, I provide better drop odds and some other stuff to those true guild members and in turn they don’t screw me over.
‘Of the things that would happen for being able to receive the contract and yet not agree to, includes a few doozies. Not going to list them all, you can read over the contract later but to get the point across. To start with, something that would cripple our long-term growth. The guild would make sure to redirect adventurers from other locations away from us using methods up to and including literal hypnosis and hacking of networks so as to make our dungeon undesirable.
‘A more instant downside is that any guild members that do find the dungeon, such as a certain Jim who became a true member by being the local guild leader, would have a few kickers added to their and their team’s delves. Nasty for me is that they would be shielded and so unable to radiate their power, you know, the stuff I eat? Sure, they can’t be prevented from radiating all power and the teammates are shielded much less than the actual members, but a lot of my advancement has been fueled by Jim and Ace, so having it cut in half would suck.
‘And of course, nasty for them is the fact that Jim and his team would let out a power pulse that would disrupt loot spawns. Not entirely, but it would definitely cut down drops for them by at least half. They are, of course informed of this by the system. Oh, and that cut in drops is on top of an already reduced drop rate because they aren’t releasing all that power my dungeon uses to create the drops in the first place.
‘Though I guess what could be considered the biggest downside at the moment and why I instantly agreed to the contract such that I was even willing to buy a path just for enough Wisdom to fulfill my end of the contract. It promised death. Not right away and maybe not even in the near future. See, I already had a clue of what kind of being was backing the guild. I wasn’t totally blind to what being an interdimensional organization would entail.
‘See, since I was able to understand the agreement enough to accept it, I was instantly put on the guild’s list of dungeons to cull. Since I’m not some kind of plague dungeon or other similar type of environmentally disruptive place, it wouldn’t be on some kind of rush order. However, anyone who is a part of the guild, including the outer circle that isn’t a part of the true guild, would be informed that I needed to be killed and to pass it on it or face penalties.
‘A truly epic quest with equally amazing rewards, so even if Jim wasn’t willing to try for it, someone would. I wasn’t worried about people on this planet, at least not yet. I was worried about Jim being forced to report to some passing powerhouse. Because an organization helmed by someone capable of making it go interdimensional is going to have members more than capable of culling me even once I grow strong enough. So yeah, it would have basically been a death wish to not agree.’
Doyle turns his attention back to Ally and notices she has gone pale. It takes her a good bit of time to get herself back under control. ‘We would have died a lot quicker than you thought. We would have died. We would have died within the week. My mom belongs to the Guild, and make sure you say it as a proper noun from now on. My mom belongs to the Guild and she would have been able to tell the next time I talked to her. She might have loved me but the penalties at that level for not elevating the message are dire. Like, racial extinction from the universe dire.
‘Though maybe it wouldn’t have been that dire, as what little experience I do have with this comes from dungeons on the rush order list. But I’ve seen her receive a message about two such dungeons in all of my life. Both times the court was closed for the day and she passed it on up the chain of command. Just think of who she must have been reporting to! Fae royalty, a literal god, having to report to someone higher than them?
‘Of course, it generally wouldn’t get to her. Local guilds have a chance to deal with such things first. So if your guild couldn’t do it, then the planet, then the solar system, and so on. To reach someone like my mom requires it to either truly be a universal threat or near impossible to destroy.’
Ally pauses before frowning, ‘That still doesn’t excuse you for not bringing me into the decision. After all, I know a good bit more about the universe’s situation. Even though I would have been on board with you, agreed this time, for obvious reasons, that might not have been the case. Also, something else is bothering me, did you mention something about buying a new path?’
