When the last goblin died, I felt like I had exited a claustrophobic cave and could once again breathe fresh air as the system returned control of my demesne to me. During the incursion, the system had been completely silent, but now that everything returned, new notifications also showed up. Specifically, I had two notifications: one fairly small and one significant. The first was that Sigilmancy had gained a level. I guessed this must have been due to inspecting the goblins’ sigil arrays and seeing several previously unknown skills. While that skill-up would be useful, the second notification was far more impactful and one I had been waiting a long, long time for:
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<td style="width: 100%; text-align: center">Demesne Core Level 2 obtained. 6 Demesne Points obtained. </td>
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Thank you system! Thank you very much!
As I had theorized, killing some delvers–just goblins, but still sufficient–had been the condition I needed to meet in order to level up. And with the level up, I had gotten a veritable bonanza of DP, double what I had started with at level 1. That seemed oddly suspicious, so I checked my status and–yup, literally everything else was the same.
While the system could be extremely frustrating, I didn’t feel particularly disappointed this time. In fact, I felt the opposite–empowered. The system could have given me free stuff, free stuff that it chose, but instead it had given me purchasing power. My limited use of Demesne Points hinted that it was possible they could be used to buy anything. My first thought was to immediately throw all six points right into mana regeneration. But then logic took hold and I quickly discarded that idea. I would spend these points soon, but not without due consideration.
So, first things first, I needed to clean up my dungeon.
I absorbed the goblin corpses, everything they had left with them, and the debris and ruin they caused.
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<td style="width: 100%; text-align: center">Absorption 4 obtained.</td>
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<td style="width: 100%; text-align: center">2 Essence obtained.</td>
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The four dead goblins yielded two Essence.[1] I also received a whole slew of new patterns. From the scout’s knife and hunter’s spear, my {iron} pattern was updated to include hardened iron, as well bladed and polearm variants for {weapon}, while from their clothing I received {leather}. From the swordsman, {weapon} added more bladed variants that could be characterized as “sword,” {leather armor}, and finally {steel}. (It was notable that the leader had a steel weapon while the hunters and the scout were using only tempered iron weapons. Perhaps the goblins had an extremely hierarchical society, or were scavengers, or as my archeology professor in college would have said, for religious purposes).
Finally, it appeared our goblin leader had been carrying a bit of this world’s money–I got a pattern for another metal alloy called {Silverium}.Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.
Absorbing the Silverium coin was a pretty big game changer for two reasons. First, from what I could intuit by assessing the pattern was that Silverium was a special alloy of silver and mana, essentially mana-infused silver. It seemed probable that a magical metal had a lot of uses for, well, magical things. Adding it to my repertoire would open up a lot of doors for me. The second reason was that the coin was, in fact, enchanted. But the enchantment didn’t come as a pattern. Instead, I understood it through Sigilmancy. This meant that enchantments were also sigils!
So what was the enchantment on the coin? Even after absorbing the coin, I didn’t have immediate knowledge, so I needed to manipulate Interface into giving me the information in a readable form. First, I recreated a single coin in the iron chest and then I inspected it. As I looked at the coin, I could see a sigil array overlaying it. The sigil array on the thing was very small and arranged into a triangular shape with three distinct sections at each of the corners, each section clearly a sigil in its own right but with fewer marks and a far simpler design. Next I used Interface to connect, and thereby read, not just the coin, but also the sigil array, and return the information as status box.
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<td style="width: 100%; text-align: justify">Silverium Coin
Lesser Sigil <Mintmark>, 10/10 Integrity
“Mawukacik Mint, ONE True Sterling”</td>
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It all came together, and I even got some world information too! The system returned the entire enchantment as a “Lesser Sigil;” however when I checked the component parts, I was able to get the concepts they represented[2] but not what they were classified as. In any event, this enchantment was called<Mintmark>. What the enchantment did was to act as identifier and integrity checker. Presumably there was a way to check the coin and read the information the enchantment showed (much as I did through Interface). I think that this was a way for a person to confirm the source and authenticity of the coin. The second part of the enchantment monitored the coin’s physical integrity. If the coin lost a certain, small amount of mass, the enchantment would disperse itself. So, the enchantment was the embodiment of “legal tender” and also worked to prevent debasement.
I made another exact copy of the coin. Hah!–the enchantment did not prevent forgery viz-a-viz me.
Oh . . . I was losing focus and getting swept up in all the sweet loot.
I needed to repair my dungeon first and foremost. So I immediately did that. I rebuilt the bridge, reset the traps, and recreated the pots and spiders. It wasn’t too mana intensive (this time), but if my skeletons were killed, they would be expensive to replace. I worried that in the long-run, maintaining the dungeon this way would be too mana inefficient. There was a real risk I couldn’t maintain it if dungeon runs were short and frequent.
My new bounty of DP came to mind. The total disaster of what happened last time also came to mind.
Yeah–I needed to collect my thoughts before rushing any solutions. So, I decided to use my previous life skills as a corporate office worker to write a report.