Ally answers the door quick enough, though she doesn’t look all that happy. ‘So I hear you’ve made a pact of so sort?’
Doyle’s core tilts to the side and freezes, ‘Huh?’
Ally raises an eyebrow, ‘You made a pact, without talking to first.’
Doyle tilts to the other side, ‘I was ssing with so stuff and the town finally got to put in the adventurers guild. Got so 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. 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 sothing 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 sothing’s power to bind it. I guess I can’t bla 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 explain who they are. The Guild’s founder is sothing 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 dinsions.
‘Though that doesn’t really give you the best idea of what they represent, so let give you another example. Death is the best known personification of so 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 interdinsional business without at least a true immortal behind sothing and it doesn’t get as big as the Guild without more than just that. The only ti interdinsional stuff happens without it is within a cosmology where the dinsions 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 nas to learn. Either the situation is unique enough that you just call them by na, 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 sothing. ‘Why are they gods and not immortals? Are they unable to beco true immortals or so 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 beco a true immortal you need to break away from mortality and what makes you mortal. For beings like fae and devils, that would an going against their racial nature.
‘This doesn’t an 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 na for a church and devils belong to the nine hells, which is basically just a fancy na for a pantheonic heaven.
‘Not that any traditional god would admit to this. If they even have to co 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 so 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 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-ard 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 sa vein, you seem to like decisions that will affect both of us without keeping in the loop.’
Doyle’s core dims, ‘Oh. Yeah. You do deserve to be inford 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 . I’ll definitely work on it in the future though I don’t expect you to believe 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 statent. This isn’t my first rodeo when it cos to a lack of social tact. I’ve had a bit of ti 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 in a little on what it actually entails?’
Doyle nods again, ‘It was a really basic contract in the end. By providing guild mbers, true guild mbers 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 so other stuff to those true guild mbers and in turn they don’t screw 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, sothing that would cripple our long-term growth. The guild would make sure to redirect adventurers from other locations away from us using thods 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 mbers that do find the dungeon, such as a certain Jim who beca a true mber by being the local guild leader, would have a few kickers added to their and their team’s delves. Nasty for 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 mbers, but a lot of my advancent 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 inford 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 mont 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 interdinsional organization would entail.
‘See, since I was able to understand the agreent enough to accept it, I was instantly put on the guild’s list of dungeons to cull. Since I’m not so kind of plague dungeon or other similar type of environntally disruptive place, it wouldn’t be on so 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 inford 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, soone would. I wasn’t worried about people on this planet, at least not yet. I was worried about Jim being forced to report to so passing powerhouse. Because an organization held by soone capable of making it go interdinsional is going to have mbers more than capable of culling 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 ti 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 ti I talked to her. She might have loved but the penalties at that level for not elevating the ssage 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 cos from dungeons on the rush order list. But I’ve seen her receive a ssage about two such dungeons in all of my life. Both tis 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 soone 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 soone 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 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 ti, for obvious reasons, that might not have been the case. Also, sothing else is bothering , did you ntion sothing about buying a new path?’
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