D.E.M.O.N.S: Getting Summoned Weekly isn't so Bad

The group took a break from discussion after Oditr finished explaining the situation with the beastkin. This was mostly because they all recognised that Oditr wasn’t really getting a chance to eat. Kat and Burnice made some minor small talk about the sand castle contest but it was mostly to fill the empty air.

March had a pensive look on her face, she’d clearly taken the silence as a chance to properly think on what Oditr said earlier. It wasn’t something she was willing to ignore, not coming from the dwarven queen. Of course, while she didn’t want to ignore it, she didn’t exactly understand it either. March had been under the impression that you were either strong, or you weren’t. Perhaps you could be strong relative to someone else, but she’d never considered ‘types’ of strength. She didn’t know if this was advice that she’d ignored in the past, or if it’d never come up.

Marigold was practically bouncing in her seat. She clearly wanted to say something but she was holding back for now, as, like everyone else Marigold recognised that Oditr did deserve a chance to have her meal. Though it was a bit in question in regards to how much Oditr did need to eat. Marigold knew that her family had a big dinner every single day, but that was mostly for socialisation. She also knew that quite a few of her family didn’t actually EAT at those events.

When she was little, she’d just thought they were shy, or being silly. Now she recognised that food intake became really, really weird as people grew in strength. Some craved it constantly, burning through food to fuel their efforts… while others could go a week without noticing they hadn’t had so much as a bit of fruit. 𝒷𝒹ℴ𝓿𝓁.𝓬𝓸𝓂

Eventually it was Burgandy that broke the silence, “So to ask an easy question then. What exactly do you do for fun? You said you had hobbies during that rant you went on about free time earlier,”

“Huh…” mumbled Oditr. “I thought I also mentioned during that rant that I like to tinker?” The rest of the table shook their heads. She had in fact, not mentioned anything of the sort. “Odd… well I suppose that’s fine. I can mention it now. It’s still partially work in some ways… but I find it quite relaxing and I’m usually not investigating things particularly seriously.

“I’m certain that I mentioned I was trying to push for more innovation amongst my people? Well part of that push is simply because I enjoy the process of messing with things. Currently one of my more public projects is finding out a way to power machines with mana directly. We… sort of can at the moment but it requires a lot of work.

“We have to either enchant the whole object, which is a massive pain and terribly mana inefficient usually… or what we can do is enchant a water wheel to spin and then use that to move the machines… but I feel like I’m missing something. That there has to be a way to convert mana more directly into variable force. I mean, I’m almost certain I’ve heard legends of a ‘Force Mage’ before, but alas, I haven’t been able to figure it out so far,”

*I feel like we know the answer to that question.*

[Yes but if you haven’t forgotten we ALSO aren’t supposed to advance the technology of a world too much. I feel like giving Oditr the answer, even if she’s quite close to one already would be a bit too much interference. It would be setting off the dwarven industrial revolution. Sure it seems obvious to us, but they’ve clearly been focused on magic for a long time. They’re missing some basic principles. Which seem basic to us… but were mighty hard to work out the first time.]

*Yeah… I guess you’re right. It just feels wrong not to help. It wouldn’t really cost US anything. Well, we’d get in trouble, but it would be easy to say, in theory. Hey System…*

User Kat would indeed be punished for revealing basic principles of industrialisation or electricity to Oditr.

[Well at least we KNOW we’ll get into trouble?] Kat sighed, but in end, didn’t say anything. She convinced herself that it would be wrong to rob Oditr of the accomplishment she was probably going to achieve anyway. It was more of a bandage then a real fix for the problem, but it was enough for her to get through the rest of the meal. Probably.

“Do you do anything else?” asked March. “That seems like more work to me. Though perhaps I’m not one that should be criticising. I spend most of my time training, doing jobs, or working out how to train more efficiently,”

Oditr shrugged and said, “I used to have other hobbies but it turns out running a country is a full time job when you want to do it correctly. Which is really annoying. If I just didn’t care I could hand off basically all my power to someone else and only check back every now and again… but for obvious political reasons that would weaken my kingdom’s position immensely. How Titania gets away with half the shit she does, I’ll never know,”

“What do you mean?” asked Burnice.

“Ah… well… not to talk bad about Titania but she has… a few known vices and isn’t terribly afraid of letting her people know she indulges in them. I suppose I seem like a massive prude in comparison to her. Anyway, she manages to wrangle a lot of free time from her people. Perhaps it’s because she’s been in charge a lot longer then I have, or perhaps it’s because she’s more powerful.

“I actually did try to lessen the load on myself once. Ended up having to execute my prime minster. Which was REALLY annoying. Especially because his mother was my parents’ prime minister. The woman is my GODMOTHER for crying out loud. I was so certain I could trust him… and then I accidentally found out he was plotting to marry me and then have my killed. Which… really put a damper on things.

“I’m not even sure why! He had almost all the power I could give him at the time. He just didn’t have the title. Oh, I know the reasons he gave me, both in prison and on the execution stand, but they all just rang hollow to me. All this ‘you aren’t fit to be queen’ and ‘I’ve been doing your job for five years, I might as well go for the crown’ which weren’t inaccurate statements…

“But it’s not like I hid this from him. I was very upfront with why I wanted to hand over control but not give up the crown. I don’t want the damned thing. It’s heavy, gives you neck pain if you wear it too long. The lining on the inside is worn so it rubs on your temples and we can’t get it fixed because the whole thing is enchanted as much as possible, so fixing the lining would mean redoing all of those as well in the process, and we don’t even know what all of the enchantments on the damned thing DO anymore. The first king of the dwarves didn’t right it down because he assumed he’d just tell his heir everything…

“Which would be great, except for the fact he was killed in battle, so he never had the chance,” Oditr shook her head to clear it a bit. “Sorry, that’s still a bit of a sore spot for me. I don’t really know how to talk to my godmother properly after that. The worst part, I think, is that she doesn’t hold it against me. She was furious with her son when it came to light and…

“If anything that was worse? Because like, sure this woman helped raise me and she and her husband were basically a second set of parents for me… but it feels like I did something bad, and then watched my brother get punished for it? Or well, I assume that’s what this feels like, not having siblings obviously.”

“Yes…” mumbled Burnice. “His court case was rather famous wasn’t it. I’d mostly forgotten it now, but I actually had to do a report on it for one of my dwarven history classes. I’m not sure I did the report well… I can’t remember it much, but yes, I remember the event you were talking about. So… no attempts to hand off power after that?”

Oditr nodded and said, “Yes. I wish I could justify it. I mean, Auctifer and Titania manage. Ulf… well he just said ‘here wife this is your problem now’ and she happened to love the job… but hmm… maybe I need to find someone who wants to be in charge of the country AND understands what that means, marry them, and then go hide in my workshop. Hmm… it seems I need to think about marriage once again,”

*Ok. I feel like I have questions about that line of reasoning, but I don’t know if it’s polite to ask them.*

[DO IT!] Lily decided to egg on Kat. She was curious what these questions actually were.