You know, the saying no knews is good knews? Welp, this is knews and it’s bad. Apparently he needs to send his heir to the capital to learn. The core knew exactly why it was. It was an implicit threat, one they couldn’t get out of. While heirs weren’t the most important for higher leveled individuals or that have attained higher heights than that, they also were not unimportant either. And by declaring that the individuals that go to the capital are the heirs then those that do not, can not inherit.
Now, the nobles aren’t oblivious and have tried to fight this in various ways, nothing overt yet besides arguments galore in the nobles court. However, nothing is moving, and especially because the nobles are fighting it, it’s going to stay in place, it is a maneuver to weaken them after all. And it was a double headed ploy. By only recognizing the true heir as the one that went to the capitol then they would also lock out anyone that did not go to the capitol as an heir. This meant that the few that tried to change their heirs right after, or outright refused, were thus considered illegitimate by the crown. In this way the crown could then take over their estate and deal with it how they sought fit. It was beautiful! It was a giant pain in his ass.
He had just been granted another core, and he could finally expand after wiping out the will contained within and of course even after he reabsorbs it, something he is loath to do as cores are expensive and not worth the return, he still won’t have enough to purchase the upgrade he needs to become his own heir. Looks like he is going to have to cause mass executions again in order to fill up the bar before he needs to leave. It doesn’t help that the children he has already had aren’t even old enough to make the trip safely. No, that was likely the point, more power to the crown, why would they care? It’s only likely the young noble houses that wouldn’t have the spares for the first go around.
The core sighed, he had built up such a good network of criminals too, just enough to increase revenue and maintain a steady supply to the dungeon, but not enough to prevent function and maintain order. He sighed, he had built up the criminal underworld centuries ago, he had raised the latest criminal overlord of his own town and its neighbors himself, it was going to be so sad to see him go, he was useful.
But you reap what you so, and he would have to reap his prized underworld boss, he had had it all planned out so well too. In a few centuries the boss would be betrayed by his own men and then tossed into the dungeon to die while the new figurehead he raised to replace them took over. It was beautiful, it was poetic, it was not to be. He would have to throw them all into the dungeon and then some. Hmm, he might even have to toss in some adventurers on top of all the nobles as well, a true cleansing. Maybe an emergency mission? Yes, find xx it’s in the dungeon and is the only cure for yy disease. Better give his soon to be dead ex wife that disease then. Which one though, he had developed many only curable diseases for his dungeon afterall.
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Oh oh! That one, it would also give him reason to disown his wife and send his children in as well, it’s a sexually transmitted disease after all! Though admittedly it was just blood born, which was how she would get it, she was delightfully dedicated after all. Hmm, that means he would need a new one of those as well. Well he didn’t need a good wife, and regular or terrible ones were a dime a dozen soo…
For the first time in a long time the dungeon stopped its focus on playing with dirt. It needed to focus on its task of gaining DP so that it could purchase a talent higher up into the avatar skill tree. It wasn’t terrible and he had been saving points for it for a long time, just nowhere near enough. Of course, the dungeon didn’t actually need to stop focusing on dirt, as a dungeon it could infinitely multitask with no limits or limitations. However, the dungeon was just that worried at the moment…
But the next moment, the dungeon gave a mental shrug and started its murder spree. It didn’t quite absorb the core yet, that could still be put to use until all the people were murdered, hopefully he would have enough of a tally to not use it, but that would require the dungeon to be invaded by another army. It was far too unlikely to happen.
Now that that is taken care of, the dungeon moved on to much larger concerns. Was the color of that section of dirt the right aesthetic for the dungeon? Or sure he could go with a monochrome palette for the dungeon, but the core had long since realised that was so blaze. No, he needed to change things up considerably. For example, blue dirt could mean there is a deposit of copper nearby ‘causing’ the discoloration, red dirt for iron and so on. There were other minutiae that could also determined things and a good, well most professions that looked down at things, would know what those colors meant.
Of course, some adventurers just said that the dungeon was just ‘not right’ with all its color pallets of dirt. However, this core thought posh on them, the true dirt enthusiasts appreciated his work! And they were rewarded for it by not [Dead]ing in stupid or silly traps.
Well, this particular dirt didn’t have any of that importance or gravitas, it was just a patch of dirt, but the dungeon thought it just didn’t look right. There was so much to be improved! Call them what you will, the core wasn’t one to disregard aesthetic!