Jess scoffs, “I don’t care what she wants. All I need is a replacement for the lesser shadow wolf you killed. Once you have one, I don’t need you to release into the wilds or anything. I’ll just take it from there.”

Moota laughs, “As if it won’t end up in the wild afterwards. They already know we can move members of our species around. Anyway, what I want is a little more hefty, though only because cattle sort of need a herd to do anything in the wild. I’m thinking a herb bull and three herb cows. I give them about fifty fifty chances of survival but any more would be stretching things a bit.”

Doyle nods, ‘About what I was expecting. Of course, I can’t set them up to worship either of you, but that is to be expected. As long as they are still in my dungeon and thus under my control, they don’t have the free will to actually worship anything.’

Ally frowned, “I hadn’t heard of that before.”

Moota sighs, “It’s the same reason we can’t just force animals to worship us. Well, we could, but it wouldn’t be worth anything. Free will is the base for all faith. Even when it comes to non-sapients like a regular cow or wolf. You need a sapient who doesn’t control them to bring the faith to them.”

Ally rolled her eyes, “Just another example of why godhood is just a scam. Anyway, what do we get?”

Jess shrugs, “It looks like she already gave you a bunch of patterns and it isn’t like I ever had many personal followers to pull off of. You already have the lesser shadow wolf and that is about the limit for me. Instead, I’ve got a bit of captured shadows.”

Ally laughs, “A little bit of captured shadows isn’t all that important. Sure, it is quite rare as to capture it you have to get into the concepts behind a shadow. For you, though, it isn’t rare at all. Just going by your title it is impossible that you can’t gather the stuff. Was it at least captured from deep space?”

Jess nods, “True, I can easily gather the stuff but you can easily make a lesser shadow wolf. I know it takes time and energy but I’m not exactly gaining back the resources I used to gather the shadows in the first place. Plus, I’m sure a dungeon will get something interesting from the stuff.”

Doyle brings up a display showing one of the female lesser shadow wolves that he had set to stick around on the seventh floor. ‘I’ve got one that is a good way towards being able to leave the dungeon. The captured shadow sounds fun but I have one other thing I want you to promise. Keep any powerful wolves away from the town for a decade.’

Jess sighs, “Fair enough, I can work with that. How long do you think it will take for the wolf to be ready?”

Doyle closes the view panel. ‘It will take as long as it takes. Though I would say about nine days, give or take a few. The time really depends on how active the dungeon is. If I hadn’t already had it around for over a month and been pumping energy into it so it could have pups, you would have been waiting a while.

‘Now Moota, we just finished up the last deal and we basically tapped you out on what you can provide. While I don’t mind providing you with some cattle, I don’t exactly have a large backlog of herb cattle. What are you offering?’

Moota smiles, “I don’t have all that much new things. What I do have is a few snippets of info that you should find useful. Though since Wolfy over there offered an item, how could I not? There aren’t many things in my storage ring that the system would be happy with me giving away, so let’s go with a glass of milk and some fresh grass.”

Doyle laughs, ‘Those items are both useful in their own ways. Though I would have to hear the info before trading for it. With that in mind, Jess, share your contact info with Ally and we’ll get back to you when the wolf is ready.’

Jess rolls her eyes, but after exchanging details with Ally sinks into her own shadow. Moota snaps her fingers and releases a flash of light. The light isn’t too bright, but it acts almost like a liquid as it fills every corner, flowing around edges until the entire room has been illuminated.

Once the light receded, Moota nods, “That would assure she left and isn’t just hiding in the shadows. I’ll have to look into who she is once I’m back. It shouldn’t be too hard. While a deity falling isn’t the rarest thing, an entire pantheon of them croaking is big news.

“Anyway, I promised you some info. Since I want four cattle, I wanted to get four things but that wasn’t possible. Instead, I found two high-quality pieces of information. The first has to do with your monsters. You’ve likely noticed they aren’t really leveling up at all, or at least so rarely they might as well not be.

“What you have to do to advance the monster patterns is work with them more closely, both when they are fighting delvers and on your own time. When a monster you want to improve is fighting adventurers, get up close to the fight. Don’t shy away from it and instead get in close enough to see the monster’s muscles tense or look out from the monster’s eyes.

“Then when you have free time, don’t just have them laze around. You already have farms and there are even a couple unvisited floors to play with. Without a sapient on the floor, you can truly observe your monsters, but just like looking at a dagger won’t help a smith beyond the surface flaws, watching a monster laze around won’t help you. Instead, you need to have them fight each other. Once you have that going on, you should start to see their patterns level up.”

Ally facepalms, “We should have realized that.”

Doyle laughs, ‘The more obvious something seems to be, the more likely you are to miss it. Anyway, I accept that bit of info was worth a couple cows. So Moota, what do you have for me to get the other two?’

Moota looks away for a moment but forces herself to look back. “Well, I hope the milk and grass will be worth something. Info about dungeons under our universe’s system is sparse to nonexistent as before you, the only sapient ones were the tutorial dungeons and they don’t like sharing. Not that the info I’ve gathered isn’t as useful as the last. Just not as actionable.

“I’m not asking what paths you’ve taken, but the important breakpoint for a dungeon’s class is the third rank. I don’t know why, but I used some resources such that I can trust this info. So if you haven’t already gone with an alt class, stick to the main path till the third rank. After that, feel free to do what you want.”

Ally sighs, “I’m on your side for this, but you aren’t really giving us much to work with.”

Doyle shakes his core, ‘No, this is good info. I assume there must be something special with the third rank. Going by how I am, it would cause me no end of worries when it came time to decide on whether to split off or not. Combined with the items I wouldn’t quite call it enough but since you’ve been friends with Ally, I’m fine with saying we have a deal.’

Moota lets out the breath she had been holding. “I was a bit worried. Sure, I could probably make it work with only three cattle, but four seems to be a breaking point from what I can tell. I did a simple divination and the likelihood of starting an actual herd of herb cattle goes way up at that point.”

Ally raises an eyebrow, “Weren’t you just going off on the wolf about using prophecy?”

Moota shrugs, “For depending on it. Even if a proper prophecy has a 99% chance of happening, there will always be a chance, no matter how small that it doesn’t. Comes with that free will thing. It sounded like she did one big divination and went off of that. What I did was a bunch of smaller spells.

“Like, so small mortals can use them, though being a god does add a bit more oomph behind it. Anyway, my tactic was to use it after deciding on how many cattle to use. The spell would tell me how lucky the choice would be. Then, of course, I decided on another amount to use and repeated it. A bull and three cows wasn’t the best choice, mind you, but I don’t have enough things to trade for a herd in the three digits.”

Ally laughs at that. “You aren’t wrong. Plus, I don’t think we would be able to deliver that number in any reasonable timeframe.”

Doyle shakes his core, ‘Especially since I can’t just supercharge the monsters. There is only so much energy I can pump into them like I am with the lesser shadow wolves and even then it is wasteful. It basically takes flooding the immediate area around the monster with energy and hoping the monster absorbs more than not before it diffuses. Anyway, I’m going to go back to working on my seventh floor after juggling my monsters around a little bit so I have enough herb cattle being prepared.’

Ally nods, “I’ll take care of things from here.”

Of course, Doyle was forgetting something. Moota was currently on the seventh floor so he couldn’t exactly do anything. All it would have taken was to ask them to move their conversation elsewhere but he felt embarrassed about the mistake so decided to do something else, that of livening up the sixth floor.

There were only so many critters to add though and his attention soon turned towards that first bit of info that Moota had passed on. No matter how long Moota and Ally chatted they wouldn’t be going at it too long though so he decides to focus on his horned rabbits. Doyle starts simple enough with them.

At first, just observing the rabbits live and since no one was on the sixth floor, this was quick enough, what with everything being sped up. In the end, though, there is only so much that Doyle can get from just observing the rabbits. That doesn’t mean he didn’t figure something out.

Believe it or not, the horned rabbits had a horn that was too long. Doyle could see why this would be the case. They were meant to sacrifice themselves for the well being of the herd. With that in mind, a long horn which could deal fatal damage would be preferred even if it means getting stuck in whatever they hit.

Doyle wasn’t completely against this either but it wasn’t like he wanted to remove the horn. Rather, if it was half the length, the horn would be much more useful in general. As it is, the horn can only be used to attack. Shorten it and the rabbit would be able to dig through tougher soil and more easily break up grass roots.

A useful advantage for a burrowing herbivore. This change even benefits the delvers if they can manage to kill one. With a shorter horn, there is less material that needs to be saturated. So maybe for once someone will get a herbal horn from a rabbit. Sure, they aren’t like the mythical unicorn horn, but they should be a lot easier to gather. Who knows what an alchemist will manage to do with them.

Satisfied with his discovery Doyle summons up a new rabbit and is happy to find that it appears with a shorter horn. It isn’t exactly how he thought it would be, but that just means that the pattern actually advanced instead of him just making a change to the creature. Though to confirm it, he pulls up the rabbit’s pattern.

{horned rabbits lv6}