"You think he's coming back?"
"Probably. I doubt a little storm's gonna do him in."
"I dunno, it's been going on for weeks and it hasn't shown any sign of getting weaker, and he's still in there."
"We could send someone to go get him," a non-leader suggested.
"I'm pretty sure we can't. The government's investigators are still crawling all over that place and they haven't been able to get more than a few hundred feet into it. They're almost twice our Levels. I highly doubt we could even get to the point where the ground turns into water, let alone all the way to the center."
"Then what do we do?"
"Well, now that no one's stopping us from running the Dungeon, we could continue raising our Levels. We won't get much higher, especially with staving off Dungeon sickness taking up a lot of our time, but we can still be higher Level by the time he gets back."
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"For the last time, yes, I'm certain. If you ask again, I'll tell the others you're a threat to the country."
"If you're so certain there's a national threat in the storm, then you should know what it is! Tell me what you know, you stupid halfling, or I will kill you right here and now."
"You're the one who made this stupid Skill, you know it doesn't work like that, and if I weren't the only one capable of surviving the process you used to implant it, I know you wouldn't have kept me around. I'm the only reason this country's survived to this point and everyone important knows it. If you kill me, you wouldn't survive an hour."
A human man in almost reflective white clothes moved to strangle the halfling woman in front of him, stopped himself half way, and yelled before punching toward the wall, destroying half of the nearly unoccupied castle they were in, probably killing at least two servants.
"I hate that you're right. One of these days, I'm going to find a replacement for you, and they are going to be an obedient little dog, unlike you frustrating little halfling."
"I have a feeling you won't."
The man pointed his finger at her sternly before walking to the door of the half of a room that remained. At the door, he said, "It won't be long until I replace you, Padina," before leaving.
Padina closed her eyes and she saw him leave out the front, as if he hadn't just destroyed half of the castle. A few of the townsfolk saw one of the major nobles leave the property and rapidly moved to get out of his way. Padina sighed and moved her sight back to the center of the storm.
Just 3 more days. I can't do much in 3 days, but given what I feel will happen, I need to break you out of that stupor you're in in 3 days. I feel I'm not going to live until the next opportunity to be free presents itself. I'm certain I won't with how many years of my life I've spent to move what around what pieces I have.
I don't know why I have such a strong feeling I need to wake you at such a specific time, as I wish I'd have more time to set up the board for your success, but any feeling even half this strong has never been wrong.
And so, Padina, the only halfling with any real political sway on the planet, continued her work. Using the Skill implanted into her, she felt what actions would need to be performed to create the highest threat to her slavers as possible. What was intended to be a Skill used to guarantee the king would not fall would instead be his downfall.
She couldn't directly interfere, as that would immediately cost her her life, but she could indirectly help by causing enough minor events in the lives of enough people to push them where they need to be when they need to be there. With her own image's Skill Set, she could pay a portion of her lifespan to create any effect.
However, she felt she shouldn't use it to Level up, as the higher her endurance, the less relevant the cost of lifespan would be, and as such, the less powerful the Skills would be. With the what she felt to be 25 years left and short deadline before her future was completely out of her control, she could only make minor moves. She felt that if she went below 2 years left, she wouldn't survive until salvation.
She moved her sight over to the hidden Village Dungeon that Degritone's newly taken over Swift Liberators were using to train. Each morning, she spent a couple days of her life to remove ten sugar molecules from the food of the unofficial leader in Degritone's absence.
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While she could never know beforehand exactly what outcomes her meddling would have, but she knew that if she were turn the strongest sources of that feeling of salvation she came to know and hate over the years into feelings of danger, that Degritone's chances of success would increase significantly. While she couldn't guarantee his success, she was doing everything in her power to make it so.
With his breakfast just unsweetened enough, she felt he would be unhappy enough to call for a liberation of a village, making the Liberators be out of their hideout when Degritone returns to Level in the Dungeon. She then moved her attention to an old couple in the second nearest Village.
She spent a year of her life to move the old man's favorite chair a few inches. This happened to be just enough that he'd stub his toe the morning of Degritone's next movement and murder his housekeeper for not keeping the furniture where it should be, before sending out one of his maids to go buy a new one.
In the capitol, she spent 3 years to move a ring from the bottom of a pack to the top. When the slave trader saw this ring in the morning, it made him think of the town he grew up in, and he decided to spend a couple days there, going for only a short diversion from his normal route.
In a seemingly random part of the woods around the edge of the storm, she spent 8 days to make a tree's roots grow one one hundredth of an inch higher above the ground. The inquisitor that tripped over this root would miss seeing Degritone leave the area by tens of milliseconds.
In the single largest expenditure of lifespan since her early years, she spent 10 years to cause a rat colony to eat all the food of a Dungeon guard. To Padina, this was the strangest of the pieces she'd moved since his arrival, but she went with it, because the strength of her feeling of salvation from this food was only matched by the feeling of absolute dread she felt from Degritone.
Unknowingly, this would create arguably the most important single event for every creature in any world.
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After weeks of being battered by the storm, a tree fell on Degritone, sending out a wave through the sea of his calming image and knocking him from his almost 4 week long stupor.
For the first time in a long time, Degritone moved. He looked down at his hands and saw that the golden rope was in the incorrect hand, though his hand was open. He grabbed it, pushed the tree off of himself, stood up, and with blinding fury guiding his steps, he began moving toward the nearest town.
Then he got a message.
Melena: Are you ok? It has been a very long time.
Degritone: They're dead.
Melena: What?
Degritone: They're dead and it's my fault. I am going TO MURDER RIP DESTROY THEY WILL REGRET THE DAY
Melena: Can you calm down and explain what is going on?
Having received an order, Degritone worked on calming down, the storm around him parting and revealing the sky once more.
Degritone: Ok, it was tough, but I calmed down. I may need to calm down multiple times. Basically, I rescued two villages of lolis and made them a little town a ways away from other towns. After that, I realized that I was incapable of doing everything that needed to be done on my own and went to find an organization or something to help me.
When I came back to show the people I'd found the village I'd made to show them I was serious, the lolis had all been slaughtered and left
The memory of the village sent him spiraling again, the hole in the clouds beginning to close once more, but he heard Melena's voice, "...calm down and explain what is going on." He spent another few minutes calming back down.
Degritone: to rot, presumably by their previous owners. They're dead because I rescued them and gave them a place to stay. The government allowing this to happen must be destroyed. I will DESTROY IT!
He began shaking with murderous intent and the storm increased in intensity, but he was able to keep himself from losing himself to the emotions enough for the clouds to close.
Degritone: I was already planning on destroying it but I don't think I can contain my rage much longer. I hate to even try to see a silver lining, but it did make my calming image evolve. I can now use it while standing and moving around. I can literally be a walking hurricane now. I doubt it will help me much in the fight against those PIECES
Deep breath.
Degritone: against the level 90 combatants you said exist. I don't know if I will be able to stop myself from charging in there completely under leveled. I need a Dungeon I can complete a few hundred times to get to whatever the maximum level you can get off a level 75 dude is. Or maybe my murderous image is enough, but I doubt it.
Melena: I do not know what to do in this situation. I am certain you would obey my orders, given you are you. I am uncertain what would be the best call to make, including if I should even interfere. You probably know the world better than I do at this point. Tell me, are there any Level 25 Village Dungeons you can even access?
Degritone: No. All the Villages aren't allowed to grant Classes except to preapproved people and the only Village Dungeon I have access to, the one used by the organization I talked about, is only level 10. I could increase my level a bit in there, but I'd probably need level 60 or higher to have any chance of winning. Preferably higher.
Melena: A Level 10 Dungeon would only allow you to reach Level 47, and that is if you spent years completing it over and over. You could come home and do some of the Level 25 Village Dungeons over here.
Degritone: I will not abandon the lolis over here.
He closed the messages and began moving back to the hideout, "Level 47 will just have to be enough."