Doyle takes a moment to think over what Ally had just told him about raids and comes to the crux of the matter. ‘Even if the system doesn’t directly recognize raid groups, that doesn’t mean I can’t. They managed to beat my fifth floor with a minor raid, which I guess should be considered decent enough. Though the amount of loot they got was a little up there, I can see why. They had been consistently delving that floor and mostly getting potion drops because of my one path. This final push was likely all the floor needed to really drop the mother load.’

Ally nods, ‘They kind of accidentally set up the floor into one big loot pinata. Both us and them focused on the gear drops but with your potion dispensary path, if a monster could drop a potion it did. If it wasn’t for that bag of holding they got, it would have been very hard to actually take everything out.

‘But enough about how loot they got. What are your plans for raids? It isn’t like you have any pre-built skills or abilities related to the matter. If anything, you would basically have to be personally paying attention to the intention of each potential raid as your floors are disconnected.’

Doyle creates three stone squares, two with six stone discs on top and another with only a single stone disc. ‘This represents their parties. From one perspective, this represents a minor raid and another it could be seen as a half raid as there are technically three parties involved. Jim and Ace’s, as well as Doctor in a party of one.

‘Or at least that is how I see it. They haven’t actually created a party together as far as the system is concerned so in reality it would be more like this’, and he removes the stone shapes only to replace them with 13 stone squares, each with a stone disc on top.

‘This is what the system currently sees, 13 parties of one person each. Over a double raid worth of parties. At the moment, my instincts that are driving the dungeon aren’t dipping into the system at all and just counting each person. If, however, I was able to hook into that system info and they started using actual parties things would be easier for me.’

Ally moves over to the stone shapes and pushes most of them to the side leaving only six squares with a disc each. ‘This going by party size is a full raid, are you okay with that being a thing? I would think going by raw numbers is the better solution.’

Doyle shakes his core, ‘Ace and company won that fight because of Doctor being there. If Ace and Jim had both been leaders of their own parties and invited along Doctor as a third party, I would gladly call that a half raid. So if there are six, one being, parties out there I don’t mind allowing them to face content I would normally reserve for a full 36 man raid. Hell, if one guy wants to face raid tier content I wouldn’t mind letting them do so, I just don’t have a way to manage that.’

Ally shrugs, ‘I can see where you’re coming from. But how are you going to alert them to this quirk? Like I said, the system doesn’t really observe raids except in special circumstances, generally on a dungeon by dungeon basis.’

Doyle laughs, ‘But that’s just it! If the system is treating it differently on a dungeon by dungeon basis, that means it is based on the dungeon and not a widespread rule. My guess is that by default a dungeon doesn’t do anything with it. Then, depending on how people treat the dungeon and how the dungeon grows the system likely turns on and off things. So a dungeon that focused on packing in as many swarms of monsters as possible might have the restrictions put in place by the system loosened to allow for half raids, with no penalties.’

Ally frowns, ‘Still, I haven’t heard of any specific options screen for it from any of the active dungeons. From what I gathered, they all just had some system they made on their own.’

Doyle nods, ‘Which makes sense, as any awakened dungeon besides me has come from another dimension. They already had their own systems in place before being introduced to the system. So likely all that happened was that when the system took note of what was already in place, it didn’t bother doing anything of its own. My guess is that all it will take is someone in an actual party to enter my dungeon for the option to pop up.’

With a sigh, Ally returns to her bed. ‘I guess that makes some level of sense. Though with how varied the results are I kind of doubt, it will be some easy options page with a handful of toggles. Though we shouldn’t have to wait too long. Since they did beat your boss, one of those 13 are now qualified to start a local branch of the adventurers guild.’

Doyle scoffs, ‘I had forgotten about that. The whole raid thing really cheapens that.’

Ally laughs, ‘Don’t worry too much about it. Even on well-developed worlds, this sort of thing is more the rule than the exception. At least the founders are all decent sorts. Anywhere else, it would be some noble or government official paying a full raid to get their child into the position. Being in charge of the local instance of a system backed guild is a good way to advance their sort of skill sets. Even if it does tend to make sub par guilds. Though not too incompetent when it comes to the adventurers guild. Those sorts don’t tend to live long.’

Doyle clears away the stone shapes as he shakes his head. ‘I would expect so. With the kind of jobs adventurers do, they wouldn’t take fools lightly. Can’t have the guild accepting quests from liars trying to get the most bang for their buck. After all, there is a large difference between a few monstrous rats in your basement and a colony of dire rats. Anyway, there is one thing you said early that is wrong. My floors aren’t disconnected.’

Ally shrugs, ‘Well yeah, there are the portals but you can’t exactly be using them for much. They don’t work like your inter-floor portals.’

Doyle nods, ‘You’re right enough about that. I could likely create more of them in secret but that would help, anyway. After all, once delvers are on a floor I can’t give new orders. Maybe I could have a message relay system using kobolds or some such but that still would butt up against the problem of a floor’s points cap. I’m not exactly capable of moving monsters between floors willy nilly and I don’t exactly want to grow my quintessence debt. Still owe a bit more than 60 of the stuff to the system right now.

‘No, what I am referring to is something I honestly had forgotten about until just now when I was looking through my various options. Here, let me show you the path I’m referring to’, and Doyle shares a screen with Ally.

{Ageless Queens

5/15 - You have earned +1 Destiny/Level, One ant queen of choice no longer has a max lifespan

10/15 - You have earned +1 Destiny/Level, One ant queen on each floor will be mentally joined to the previously chosen queen to form a true hivemind, Previously chosen queen receives +1 to their currently lowest mental stat for each other queen in the hivemind

15/15 - Path complete, You have earned +1 Destiny/Level, The ageless ant queen has an adjusted chance to become a roaming boss which increases with age and other queens in the hivemind}

Ally reads it over and frowns, ‘While this does create a connection between floors, I don’t exactly see how it will help. Plus, you never did anything with it.’

Doyle tilts to the side, ‘Yeah, I sort of forgot about it. Would have been nice to be reminded of it. Anyway, the important part isn’t just the connection, but rather the fact the queen can become a roaming boss. This will not help me short term. I don’t even know how long the queen would need to live and how many subordinate queens she would need before gaining a soul.

‘However, I’m not really worried about raids in the short-term. Ace and his friends aren’t exactly representative of a normal person. What they faced with the kobold boss would have likely caused another similar sized group to fail. No, the queen is going to be my long-term solution.

‘Once she does become a roaming boss, I will train her to become my spy master. There are ants everywhere and no one notices them. So with the right paths, she should be able to observe through her kin and use the other queens to process it all. She could probably even handle watching the town as my territory does cover it.’

Ally frowns, ‘But how does that help you actually deal with the raids? It doesn’t matter if you find out about them if you can’t respond.’

Doyle nods, ‘That is true. Having a spymaster so I know about a raid doesn’t in and of itself help. Except that once I have enough floors, I won’t be able to always pay attention to everything and maybe I miss something. I’m not perfect and will never claim to be. However, we aren’t the only ones capable of responding to these things.

‘A normal floor isn’t likely to hold back a raid no matter what I do so for now I’m just discounting them. Sure, a maze floor is going to be hard even with a bunch of people, especially with dimensional shenanigans going on. That isn’t where the true stopping power lies, though.

‘My bosses will be the hard stop. Look at how close the kobolds were to managing it. Sure, it didn’t seem close but they didn’t have a plan on how to react. The boss hadn’t had a chance to figure out what works when facing so many enemies at once. Plus, they lost the first patrol. While yes, they did manage to get the mage and healer to safety, that was it.

‘If, however, I had someone who saw the raid coming, they could have informed the kobold boss about it. That patrol could have been called back before it was wiped. The kobolds could have gotten into position sooner. Even something as simple as being able to better prepare the animals could have been enough.’

Ally claps her hands and smiles, ‘I think that would actually work! Even if the boss ant is unable to talk directly to the floor bosses, all she would have to do is have some ants move around to spell out the information. Though that brings up back around to what YOU are going to do about raids. You talked about using the system but didn’t really elaborate on it.’

Doyle rolls his core, ‘Eh, I was sort of talking a big game with little to back it up. Until I see how the system handles it all, there isn’t much I can plan for. Not that I don’t have a few ideas. For instance, it would be nice if I can get the system to warn any delvers about the dangers of raids. There doesn’t even need to be too much behind those warnings as just the warning alone will be like my days working at the grocery store. None of the employees can actually do much of anything if someone walks in, picks something up, and walks out. However, even though everyone knew that, just our presence was enough to make most petty shoplifters decide not to. So yeah, I’m hoping a system message will work much the same way.’

Ally sighs, ‘Fair enough. I guess you can’t exactly lay out a detailed plan for the unknown.’