Discipline Issues

Chp 47

After doing the heavy lifting for the temple of Lorrel’s design, I cut in some rough chambers and decided that was enough for one day. My resolve lasted all of five minutes, when it occurred to me I could add another such structure on the opposite side of the dungeon's entrance.

Favoring symmetry, I added an unadorned mirror image of the same structure. It would need a theme and god/goddess eventually, but slotting it in was enough to make sure I wouldn’t forget it for long. Lorrel was an unattached goddess, but she did have a consort of sorts among the gods. If I liked him, I could make it his. If not, I’d hunt up someone suitable.

This time when I stopped, I really was done. There was plenty more to do, but refresh was approaching, and I had something significant to buy, which meant the next day would be limited in scope project-wise. I’d put it off a bit, but it was about time that I purchased Elim’s blessing, since he’d made it home and had a couple days to relax.

Elim had been a sweetheart and reported in to let me know and update me on his plans to buy things I’d asked for. I’d told him to take it easy and enjoy himself until he left to buy out his contract with the Earl. Dropping a blessing on him in the middle of that probably wouldn’t have ruined the mini-vacation, but I hadn’t wanted to risk it.

A touch late, I remembered I hadn’t informed him of that particular plan. Doh.

[Hey Elim,

Let me know when you leave. I’ll activate your blessing once you're on the road,

Thanks,

42]

Once I kicked out that message, I headed back inside the dungeon to do some cheap/free interior renovations with my remaining mana. One of the things I’d been working on, but hadn’t had a lot of luck with, was safe zones. They had started out as nothing but empty rooms, and I hadn’t hit on a design I liked for them.

After playing with the temple, I felt like I had a better notion of what I wanted to do. So, heading into the blue stack, I expanded the room until it was sixty by a hundred and twenty feet in size. Plenty of room to camp in if one were so inclined.

Instinctively I wanted to add a toilet, but there wasn’t anything in the store to function as one. Nor were there any obvious workarounds. So I put developing one of some kind on my to-do. That spawned several related items.

A couple slimes would probably be enough to keep the dungeon at large clean. Despite feeling that was true, I added double-checking it to my list. Death was a messy business but so was living. The longer I enticed people to remain, the bigger it would get.

One issue I could tackle was water. Since I had the cleansing stones at my disposal, it was simple to put a fountain in. Food would be easy enough to bring down, but bringing enough water was a pain in the ass.

With that concern taken care of, heroes and adventurers would be able to descend with fewer cares. I felt good about how things looked and considered the top three layers complete aside from aesthetic work. Maybe a little bit of expanding was in order too, but it wasn’t a big deal for the moment.

It occurred to me the safe zones should likely reflect the increases in difficulty during the stages of descent. Getting nicer and better equipped the lower someone went. Another for the to-do list.

A message chime broke me out of my musings.

[Mistress 42,

I’m ready whenever it's convenient for you.

Your faithful servant,

Elim Grey]

The slight change in how Elim addressed himself didn’t escape my notice. It seemed like clarifying the point about his father's identity had a ripple effect. I almost wrote back to ask him about it, but decided against prying.

Not that the decision made me less curious. An item upgrade timer going off gave me something to distract myself. Elim had acquired some fabrics, and I’d been getting them up to a better standard of quality before passing them on to Henry. In this case, a leather hide had finally been brought up to D rank, and I spent a couple of minutes making colored variants with the system.

Feeling pleased, I decided to pass the material along in person. That meant a trip to the Necropolis, though Chris insisted on calling it the BoneYard. Since I had some time to kill before I could spend the last of my mana before the refresh, I hoped some skeletons would be up for a game of some kind.

Or, more specifically, that they’d be up to teaching me a game. Henry, Chris, Dawn, and Jeffry were the only skeletons who typically approached me socially. The rest were polite generally but clearly uncomfortable.

Hopefully, they just needed some time to adjust to the situation and would then warm up a bit. I didn’t need to be best friends with everyone, but I did want them to feel like we could talk casually. It would make things easier on us all in the long run.

I supposed I should be grateful only one out of the entire group seemed to actively dislike me. Kessia being the one. She had a chip on her shoulder no matter who she was dealing with, but didn’t go out of her way to avoid others. Her reaction toward me felt more personal. How I'd managed to offend her despite so little interaction was a mystery.

“Mistress-” Dawn sounded alarmed as I crossed through the mirror. In Front of me was a scene of chaos and ruin. Chris was cackling as he clung to the chandelier I’d installed after raising the ceiling. Below him, Angelo was climbing a makeshift pile of furniture to try and get his hands on the rogue.

Looking at the torn-up room, I got the impression they’d been having quite the time before I showed up.

“ANGELO Dominic Humerus, CHRISTOPHER Truman Phalanges! Both of you knock it the fuck off right this minute!” I shouted, my voice splitting the air like a thunderclap. Both skeletons stopped and turned to look at me like deer caught in headlights. It would have been funny if not for all the property damage surrounding them.

“Mistress! I can explain,” Angelo started, but he was cringing. Chris, for his part, just dropped from the chandelier and stood with arms defiantly crossed over his chest. Seeing that, I felt like sighing but kept it in. I would not show weakness.

“Both of you get to clean this mess up, then you’ll be explaining to me what exactly happened,” I said flatly. That got a rise out of Chris. He looked around at the destruction in what I’d swear was surprised disbelief. Like the mayhem hadn’t even registered with him until that moment.

“But-” Chris started. I held up a hand to quiet him.

“No buts. You busted this place up with your bullshit, so now you can put it to rights. If something broke, then haul it out of the mirror, and I’ll fix it later,” I said, already noticing a few splintered chairs. Really I was just going to replace them with new ones, but I wasn’t going to mention that. The point wasn't that anything they’d broken was essential but that actions had consequences.

Making them sort out and remove the broken bits would hopefully be tedious enough to discourage them from being so wonton a second time. Dealing with essentially unfeeling and immortal skeletons didn’t really leave me with many discipline options.

A clatter drew my attention, and I noticed a skeleton bending to pick up chips. Another pair were exchanging them but hastily aborted the motion when they saw me looking. Others made a point of studiously not looking at me. That only made their guilt that much more obvious.

Fuck, they’d been betting on the outcome. It looked like the games I’d been adding to the Necropolis weren’t enough to keep them busy. That being trapped underground without much to do was likely going to drive them stir crazy wasn’t something I hadn’t thought of already. It was just hard to do anything about it for the moment.

The bards were happily occupied with their music, and Henry seemed pleasantly engaged by his tailoring, but the rest hadn’t really taken to any particular hobbies. The library I’d added also wasn’t anything to write home about. I had a grand total of fifteen local books in it, plus the ones I’d made to help teach Chris to read.

“Get to it,” I said sharply when Angelo and Chris milled uncertainly. I needed to address the underlying problems, but I had to be firm with them for the moment. Once they were started on the task, I let my posture soften a bit.

“Mistress… Uhm,” Dawn started, only to falter and stop. I looked at her but just shook my head. I’d have preferred to have been notified when the shenanigans started, but I wasn’t actually upset. I hadn’t laid down any rules about how the skeletons were to behave. Foisting the job of tattling on them on Dawn after the fact wouldn’t have been fair.

“Do you think adding a training room would help?” I asked. Mentally, I called it a rumpus room but wasn’t going to share that thought.

“Possibly,” Dawn said after a moment of consideration. I nodded, quickly using some loose tiles to add an empty chamber I’d edit later. Looking at the common area of the Necropolis, I had to hold in a wince. It really wasn’t that big. I shouldn’t have been surprised that Chris and the rest of them would get squirrely in such close quarters.

Once Chris and Angelo were done, I was going to have to push some projects back and work on this issue. Maybe install some monkey bars for Chris. Anything to keep him occupied and spend his demonic levels of energy non-destructively.

A task I might as well put up there on the list with world peace and curing all disease as Chris chucked a bit of chair leg at Angelo.

“OI!” I yelled, startling him. Yep, I was going to have to babysit this then figure out how to keep the little gremlin occupied.