Doyle laughs at her suggestion, ‘I guess having that leader on the first floor is panning out! Though I assume the monsters being commanded by someone has to be close enough to get orders. Otherwise I could just say that a single kobold hid away in a cubby somewhere was the leader so the rest of the monsters have a perma boost.’

Ally shrugs, ‘There should be some sort of limit to it and not just the monsters being ordered around. Otherwise you could just give that hidden kobold a radio or some equivalent and be done with it. Likely commands structures can’t pass through floors and you might even need them to be within a certain number of rooms of one another. Easy enough to test of course. Just position your goats and kobolds around on the second floor so you can test it.’

Doyle nods, ‘that is a good idea and there isn’t anything else too pressing. Let’s give it a shot right now. Though I don’t need to go too overboard. I can start with the forest room and work my way out. First though, I need to set up the first floor leader. [First floor kobold leader, you’re in charge of the others in the room before yours. Now system, show me the stats for the kobold healer before and after that change.]’

{Male Kobold: S[4 > 5] A[8 > 9] C[4 > 5] I[6 > 7] W[10 > 14] P[6 > 7]}

‘Good, it works for that. Also, it looks like it goes off of the adjusted stats, maybe? The healer there gained four to wisdom, which is the general boost of one plus the specialty boost. A plus three means that it counts the kobold leader as having either nine or ten wisdom. That would include the plus three from being a monster capable of commanding others. How does that work Ally?’

Ally claps, ‘a good question and I don’t even have to cheat by reading off of a tutorial screen! Your base stat score is equal to all your permanent bonuses. A bonus from being under someone’s command doesn’t count because you lose it if they die or stop being in command. On the other hand, your path is a permanent part of you and a kobold won’t suddenly be unable to order others around so that plus three can’t go away. There are a lot of other things that go into it, but we aren’t likely to be bothered by it. After all, if a kobold was cursed to lose their mind we don’t need to mind that it loses the plus three because you can just spawn another.’

‘Huh’, Doyle mutters almost as if to himself, ‘that does make sense. Though I do have to wonder about the systems order of operations for that kind of thing.’ Then he chuckles, ‘Well, not that it matters! Let’s get down to some science! Maybe with double exclamation marks bracketing it.’

‘[System, wait until I finish speaking before compiling all the answers at the end. Healer kobold in the forest room, you have command of all the other kobolds in there with you. Did the goats in the forest room have any stats change? Same kobold, you’re now in charge of the kobolds in the ramp room. Did those kobolds have any changes happen? Goatherd kobold in the second large room, move to the ramp room with your flock and once you arrive you no longer have control of the goats. Once the goatherd is there, healer kobold, you have command of her and her goats. Did the goats experience a change when the healer took charge. Now goatherd kobold and goats, move through the rooms away from the forest room and stop for a moment in each one. For each time they stop did their stats experience a change? Finally, goatherd, you have control of the goats again, go back to your original room.]’

{The goats did not change, The kobolds changed, The goats did not change, The goats experienced no change in any of the rooms, and The kobolds experienced a change during the first stop.}

Doyle is quiet while he parses the results while Ally flies out into the core room. Once there she smacks him, ‘don’t do that! While what you just did was simple enough the system can be quite literal and chaining commands like that can cause problems. More than enough people have tried to program the system to do things for them and after a certain point it never turns out well for them.’

Doyle shifts his core back and dims, ‘I could see how that could cause problems. Though I won’t avoid doing so if it seems like the best option. Having to micromanage those goats and kobolds around to do that would have been annoying. That and we got exactly the information I need to know from it!’

‘First, if kobold A is in charge of kobold B who is in charge of others the others still get the same boost. Second, while I am not too sure, it seems that those who can give orders can themselves take orders from a room next to them. Everything else can only take orders from the room they are in. Lastly, if monsters move around, they can leave the influence of their commander.’

Ally bites her thumbs, ‘well I guess as long as you don’t abuse it. Plus the system is slightly more lenient on newly integrated worlds, but still! Keep it under control. Besides that, I think your second guess isn’t quite correct. My bet would be that it has to do with commanding their own species as compared to another.’

‘This sort of thing can be seen in armies all the time. A human with a command skill will always be able to give bonuses to other humans at a further distance than to, for instance, dwarves. Though we won’t likely have to face anything like that. Those kinds of skills tend to be more geared towards mass combat. Also, be careful about thinking in terms of rooms. While it breaks down to that right now, later on if you have more open floors you might find the effects become radius based.’

Doyle tilts to the side, ‘wait, it actually does go room by room?’

Ally nods, ‘yep! One of those strange things that comes from all those special energies being based on intent and sapient observation. There is no good reason a spell would spread to cover exactly a room, but they do. Only once you get to the point that a place becomes less of a room and more of an area do spells start to have a more uniform spread. Helpful for security spells though, as it makes setting their boundaries a lot easier.’

Doyle sighs, ‘and I bet a huge room is just about the edge of what would be considered a room.’

Ally shrugs, ‘maybe? Since humans are the main species on the planet that is probably true, though making that assumption isn’t always a good idea. For instance, more than one group of humans have been taken by surprise when a giant’s spell covers an entire room despite it being much bigger than how they defined a room.’

Doyle nods, ‘got it. Magic is wibbly wobbly and what I might consider big isn’t what someone bigger than me would. Now for an even more important question! How are your path points coming along?’

Ally squints, ‘hmm, not much should have happened? I haven’t really been doing anything recently to grow my skills.’

Doyle wobbles around and laughs, ‘you might have forgotten but you don’t exactly have all that high of a level in your skills. In fact, most of what you have been doing is teaching me things and that is one of your skills, isn’t it?’

Ally’s eyes go wide, ‘I completely forgot I got reset! Now I still haven’t done all that much, but at least some of my skills will have gotten a nice boost. [System, show us my status and paths.]’

{Name: Ally Huxley

Race: Autumn Court Dungeon Fae

Soulbond: Doyle Huxley

Paths: [41] Dungeon Companion I 10/10, Fae Magic I 10/10, Autumn’s Jester 3/100

Level: 10

S[12] A[9] C[12] I[15] W[7] P[9] D[9] K[20] L[12]

Skills: Tutor lv14 > 21, Fae Glamor lv13, Courtly Manners lv3 > 5, Telepathy lv3 > 15, Soul Sight lv1 > 11}

{Points: 41

Class: True Dungeon Companion I 1/1

Completed: Fae Magic I 10/10

Started [2/3]: Autumn’s Jester 3/100, Dungeon Fae Legacy I 1/120

Available: True Dungeon Companion II 1/10, Royal Tutor 0/25, Fae Magic II 0/50, Scryer 0/10, Hidden Advisor 0/15, Fount of Knowledge 0/30, Soul Chanter 0/100}

Ally floats there stunned for a moment. ‘Well, that is more than I expected. Though I guess telepathy was a given since that is the only way I talk anymore. I don’t much like those paths though. They are all about being some secretive informer. I even have the Scryer path! Not that it will stop me from taking said path. Not the most common but generic enough that I know some of what to expect from it.’

Doyle shrugs, ‘soul chanter sounds fun at least. I wonder if it means you can talk directly to souls or you get some form of soul based magic?’

Ally scoffs, ‘there isn’t any soul based magic. Some things like my soul sight skill gives you the ability to observe them. But overall any form of mucking about with them is rare enough the system might not even have more than a handful of skills for it. More likely soul chanter has something to do with allowing people to pass on peacefully. This is a dungeon after all and people tend not to be dying of old age in their sleep.’

Doyle nods, ‘we haven’t really had all that many deaths yet so I doubt that but anything is possible I guess. Anyway, do you have a plan for what to pick yet? You aren’t exactly gaining levels at the moment’

Ally glances over the list of available paths again. ‘Nothing really calls out to me except that legacy path I got last time. I don’t want to just throw all my points into it though. So I am thinking of upping my class, getting scryer, and only then dumping the rest of the points into my legacy.’

Doyle lifts up one of his stone blocks and shapes it into a hand. This takes a moment to do and Ally just floats there and does a slow blink before asking, ‘and what pray tell are you doing?’

He waves the stone hand around then lifts and lowers, ‘eh, just raising my hand to ask a question.’

Ally stares at him a moment more, ‘okay, change the question. Why are you doing that?’

Doyle laughs, ‘well I wanted to ask why you weren’t going to do anything with autumn’s jester and felt like being a bit of a jester myself.’

Ally rubs the bridge of her nose while squeezing her eyes shut, ‘euugh, fine, sure. Perfectly normal way to ask a question.’

Doyle laughs some more and nods, ‘but of course it is! Every kid that went to school in my country would be familiar with raising one’s hand to ask a question. How else are you supposed to get the teacher's attention without interrupting them?’

Shaking her head Ally sighs, ‘well ignoring the local customs how about I answer your original question? Though it isn’t so much that I am trying to avoid autumn’s jester as it is I somewhat know what it has for me. I don’t need it at the moment so it can safely be put off. As for the path itself? The word autumn in it refers not specifically to the season but rather the idea behind the season and even more specifically to the way the fae courts connect to it.’

She pauses but then continues, ‘my connection to the fae court of autumn is special. I don’t want to deepen that connection again until we have more power. There is more to it but I would like it if you don’t dig too deep into it until I am ready to talk more about it.’