Chapter 21: Adam’s Admiration

Adam admired Ariel. Everyone who knew me, knew this about me. What they don’t know, is that it’s more than just looking up to her, and admiring her ability and generosity like all the others. I wish I could be her. Powerful and loving; that’s the woman I see.

Ariel doesn’t just do good things. She doesn’t just help her friends. She loves people, and tries to make the world itself better for everyone. She is no angel sent by god, I know this to be fact. I’ve seen her titles. There is no god to thank for her, there is only her. If worship granted power, I would worship her, and encourage others as well. We don’t need god, we need her. If everyone could learn to be like her, this whole world would be better. If I could be like her, I would be better.

I’m not obsessed, I just understand more than the others. When I asked her for advice on learning to craft like her, she suggested I start with analysis and insight. Analysis to understand what things are. Insight to gain an instinctive understanding of how they can be used. When I used these skills on themselves, I realized that her suggestion was far more important than I’d realized.

Analysis and Insight are both skills that access the world database. They also both rely upon the intelligence attribute of the user. I now understand how to begin work on improving myself.

First, a Personal Database. This will let me store information I’ve gained and access it easily without relying upon my normal memory.

Second, World Information Retrieval. This will let me obtain information from the World Database. The base power is very expensive, but if I limit how much I can access and retain, it becomes much cheaper.

Third, intelligence needs to be the attribute I make my highest as it will govern everything I intend to do.

Now, the great big sneaky trick: Intelligence helps me figure out what information is the most valuable to me. To keep the World Information Retrieval affordable, I had to limit what information I could access and how much I could keep. The access portion is limited to creatures and things weaker than me. The retain amount is restricted mainly by time. However, the time I spend searching the database is not restricted, only how much I take with me when I leave it (about one minute’s worth of study). Copying Ariel, I made this skill only work while sleeping for even more of a discount. So I learn every night, and store the information in my Personal Database.

---

Sam’s View

When Adam said he’d focus on crafting to be more like Ariel, I assumed he’d pick up woodworking or something. Instead he’s become the house chef. I’m not complaining, the food is good, just surprising. He’s been spending a lot of time with Ariel, more than any of the rest of us, but I’m pretty sure it wasn’t recipes they were discussing. I tried joining in, but I couldn’t understand it. How did the youngest of us, become the smartest? Makes me feel a little bit jealous.

Kelly:
“Instead of staring at them and getting worried about Adam stealing her away, why don’t you work on improving yourself? You know Adam will be staying behind to take care of this place when Ariel leaves with you for another town.”

Sam:
“What am I supposed to train in though? Ariel is so much stronger than me, there’s nothing I can do to help. You’ve got it easy. Training to be a guard and watch over the slums is pretty straight forward.”

Kelly:
“You just need to focus on the things Ariel isn’t good at.”

Sam:
“What do you mean? She’s good at everything!”

Kelly:
*quiet muffled laughter* “If you weren’t so blinded by love and watched over her properly, you’d notice. It’s pretty obvious. I’ll leave you to it.”

---

Sam:
“Hey, Adam, you’ve been talking with Ariel a lot, do you know what she needs help with?”

Adam:
“Common sense.”

Sam:
“Huh?”

Adam:
“She has no idea what normal is, and would never be able to avoid notice and attention even if she cared enough to try. If she ever needs something done quietly or stealthily, she won’t be able to do it herself.

“You’ve had a lot of practice sneaking around without being noticed, right? Can you imagine Ariel entering a room and not being noticed?”

Sam:
“... I can’t. She stands out way too much.”

Adam:
“It’s not just her appearance, that can always be changed, it’s also her behavior. Everyone assumes she’s a sheltered young noble at first glance because she acts like a child that knows nothing of the world; gawking openly at everything she sees, and displaying no caution.”

Sam:
“Is there something I can do to help?”

Adam:
“Mostly, I’d recommend honing your skills at acting without being noticed, and your skill at talking your way out of trouble. Ariel might be able to win any fight she gets into with humans, but I think she’d prefer to avoid fights entirely.”

Sam:
“So I need to practice stealth.”

Adam:
“Don’t forget to learn skills and abilities for detecting and seeing through deception. I don’t think Ariel will be good at that, and you know quite well how greedy humans can be.”

Sam:
“Right, I’ll do that then.”

Chapter 20: A Miracle?

Sam’s Mother’s View

Luxurious food, luxurious bedding, luxurious bathroom… I felt like I was in a dream, it was so surreal. Just this morning I was still bedridden, too sick to do anything, and now I’m living in mansion!

Watching Ariel work, was like watching a miracle worker. She created beds and blankets out of nothing, and they are the most comfortable beddings I’ve ever lain in. For dinner we ate a meal more delicious than any I’d ever had before, and after I made use of the toilet, and cleaned myself in the shower. These experiences were all so strange and amazing it was hard to believe any of it was real, and not some fever dream. Ariel explained everything like it was all normal to her. Did she live in heaven before?

While still in a daze from wonder and amazement, I joked that all I needed now was a way to work while sick, and regain the beauty of my youth. Yet, Ariel seemed to take what I said seriously. At this point, I no longer know what to expect. Everything Ariel does seems impossible, for all I know, maybe she will make the mythical fountain of youth. In this house it feels like anything is possible.

---

Ariel’s Dream:

If she wants to work while sick, and retain beauty into old age, I don’t think I can accomplish that through ordinary means. She’d probably have to work through a proxy or something.

A remote control VR system? No, too complex. Linking a headset to a clone involves telepathy, and I’ve got nothing related to that currently.

What about piloting from inside? Like a mecha? I’m not sure how the boarding and unboarding would work, but the basic concept is sound. The clones don’t have a consciousness so, allowing a different consciousness to take over should be cheap and easy to setup.

What happens to the pilot? If their mind is in control of the clone, their own body needs to still be cared for. A life support system? I should already have the necessary abilities. I can make food and drink, and have a contact based analysis ability, so identifying how much of both to give should be viable. Making air is likewise doable.

Piloting and life support seem doable with minimal adjustments. The piloting portion does require creating a new ability, but it’s cheap because it’s so useless. Allowing a different person to control my body doesn’t help me any in a fight, and since they have to be in my body for it to work, both involved parties must be willing for it to work, which further hampers usability. It’s not like I can trap someone inside a clone… wait, even if a monster could get out easily, thanks to them getting intuitive understanding of their abilities, a human might not. I’ll have to investigate that.

So, getting in and out of the clone, and taking it over… how will that work? Maybe if I make a skin-suit. Like a costume one can put on. Old myths from my previous world had people wearing animal skins to transform into animals, so something like that might be easy to understand. After putting the costume on, it immediately transfers the wearer into storage with life support and transforms into a full bodied human form?

How much control over the clone should I allow? I’m wary of allowing too much. Appearance control might be good for the intended purpose of helping people to work in old age as copying their existing appearance might be bad for it, and limiting the clone to a fixed pre-made appearance is awkward, and I don’t really want them to wander around with my appearance.

The base attributes can be set to copy the ratios of the person using it, and give control over appearance with UI help. I should probably include multiple methods of exiting the clone including some voice commands for an exit system. If the user asks “How do I take this thing off?” or some variant of that, it should provide a visual prompt with both instructions on how to take it off and additional voice command options for exiting should they be unable to use the standard method for some reason.

If I want to avoid squick, I should probably make the base form of the wearable costume as inoffensive as possible. I could include a minor illusion to hide exactly how it works too… a transformation sequence to hide what exactly is happening? Excess bloom is probably the easiest solution, especially since it should take less than a second.

An amulet with voice commands. I like this idea. I should probably include some interface options like a way to change it into something else, such as a bracelet, or belt, or anklet. It does need to be something worn on the outside though.

Could I upgrade the vitality patch to include this feature? I think the answer is yes, but it would be awkward, and I don’t think I want to do it. The vitality patches are intended to spread and be used by many. I don’t want everyone to suddenly gain such a powerful disguise ability.

Adding sense sharing and consciousness sharing, while somewhat useless in a fight (and cheap as a result) this actually has a lot of potential. I’ve long been worried about how the things I make are used, this might actually help solve it. I’m gonna have to create a lot of new and complex unconscious behaviors to make it work, but this has the potential to make the vitality patches choose whom is allowed to have their power, and how much to grant.

As they currently are, the vitality patches only have a sense of touch and field perception. The fog in this town blocks field perception, and they are so small and cover so little area that touch is useless. Effectively leaving them blind. If they can share senses with the wearer, then they won’t be blind anymore. If they aren’t blind, then they can make judgements about the wearer, and those around them.

I’m going to upgrade the patches. I’m going to upgrade them a lot.

---

Sam’s Mother’s View

The next morning I really was greeted with a miracle. Ariel gave me an amulet, and instructions on how to use it. It let me transform into a healthy young woman of great beauty! I don’t see any reason to ever change back.

Ariel’s View

To make everything work right, I had to greatly increase the amount of intelligence available for unconscious behaviors. This does make the “Only while sleeping” limitation less powerful, but since that was only tied to a fairly cheap ability, it has minimal impact on overall costs. I also seem to be gaining power much faster than I used to. Not as fast as when I was with mother, but much faster than when I first arrived in town.

The consciousness sharing trick enables my clones that are attached to people (the vitality patches) to react to the thoughts and actions and perceptions of the person they are attached to. This is really powerful as a tool for getting really detailed in how exactly they behave. Theoretically, the one wearing the patch could control the patch’s powers (all the powers a clone of mine has, really), which is why I needed a smarter patch to put limits in.

My new creation: A transformation amulet. When activated, it will transform into a form desired by the person activating it, and store that person’s body inside. Technically, the person activating it is in control of the form taken, but I used some trickery to prevent people from figuring out how to do so. It relies more upon their unconscious desires, than their conscious ones.

Why didn’t I just make the transformation part of the vitality patch? Well, actually I did make a version of it part of the vitality patch. Thing is, I don’t want it to be available to just anyone, so it’s more like a hidden feature with a secret trigger to help people in need. The amulet is for deliberate transformation and will only be given to a few people, while the patches will spread to lots of people in time… at least I expect it to.

Two things I included in the adjustment for the vitality patch: if the wearer commits murder, the patch will detach and vaporise. Additionally, a person must wear a patch for one full year before a second will appear, and it will only create a total of two additional patches per person. I made a point to explain this to everyone, after ensuring everyone and their mothers had one. I didn’t tell them about the hidden features.

Chapter 19: A new home

Terra:
“You’ll be allowed to do as you like with the inside, and if you want to make a basement, you’re free to do that as well. However, if you want to make any changes to the outside, you have to contact me about it. I’m in charge of all authorized construction because the lord wants to maintain a certain type of appearance for the town.”

Ariel:
“Solid grey stone is his preferred style?”

Terra:
“It’s not just solid grey stone, it’s also a slanted red tile roof. The roof is very important. It just doesn’t look right without it.”

Ariel:
“I understand. Thank you.”

Terra:
“With this, my job is done.”

Terra then turned and left.

Everyone else then all ran into the house to check it out, while I cleaned up the mess outside. I ended up making a big flat board that would eat non-living things pressed against it, and started using it to dispose of the giant tiger body. Eating the tiger, even by clone proxy, was enough for me to gain some detailed information about it. Nothing was terribly interesting except one thing: It was Sam’s father. Makes me think this tiger was probably one of the first monsters to make use of the brothel.

I wasn’t sure what to do about the blood and left it. The grass would get in the way of using the board, and cleaning magic doesn’t work well when what I’m trying to clean is natural grass and soil. I could probably make a spell specifically for removing blood, but that would take time, and there’s more important things to do.

Upon entering my new home, I saw that despite the stone exterior, the flooring and internal walls were made of wood. The entryway is rather large, there’s stairs on the side going up to the second floor. Both floors had long hallways with lots of rooms, and the back of the house on the first floor contained a kitchen and dining area big enough to serve all 32 rooms worth of guests.

The back of the second floor, was connected to the dining area by a set of stairs, but was otherwise a giant empty room. There was no bathroom or outhouse. I guess Terra either forgot humans needed that, or simply never learned how to build such things. I’ve got a lot of work to do.



While everyone else started claiming rooms and discussing how to use the house, I decided the first thing to do was make a proper bathroom. This seems like something guests might want to make use of…

Deciding to make something accessible from the front, I cut a hole into the back wall of one of the rooms that was near the front, to create a new doorway that was connected to the front. After making a door and placing it in the new doorway, I covered over the previous door so it’d not be usable or visible anymore.

For the main feature of the room, I created a sit down toilet, much like the ones I’d used in my past life. Toilet paper isn’t a very good solution for cleaning though, so I added a bidet. Put in a toilet paper dispenser too anyway. It can be useful as a cleaning cloth for all sorts of random things.

For the water supply, I just use a spell that makes water. For waste disposal, I made a tank for it all to flush into, that absorbs it all… this means my clone is eating the waste, doesn’t it?... oh well, slimes don’t taste things in the same way normal people do. Shouldn’t be an issue.

Adding a sink and bath/shower combo finishes things. After I finished, I made a point to explain how it all worked to everyone, and was a bit surprised to learn they had invited all their mothers over already (which added to the number of people to explain things too). Sam had even carried over the special bedroom I’d made and left in his mom’s room.

Boy:
“Can’t you make special rooms like you did for us to sleep in, that are bathrooms, and put them in every room?”

Ariel:
“Oh, that’s a good idea. It’ll take a while, but remaking the same room over and over shouldn’t be too hard once the initial design work is done. I’ll be leaving this room as is though. It can be for guests to use.”

Mother 1:
“Oh, so that’s why it opens to the front.”

Ariel:
“Yeah. I figure this is probably nice enough that people might come here just to use it.”

Mother 2:
“That’s definitely true. It’s a good thing the doorway to enter this house is a double door. Might be needed to handle the traffic this place could get.”

Sam:
“If it’s alright, could you make us dinner Ariel? That meat sauce you made earlier was really good, and I want to let everyone else enjoy your cooking.”

Ariel:
“It’s not really cooking, but sure, I can make dinner.”

I hadn’t realized how much time had passed while I was working on the bathroom. Definitely late enough to be time for dinner. So many things to do now that I have a big house without any furnishings.

Since Sam was talking about my meat sauce that I’d made with the intent of having it taste like the best Italian meat sauces I could remember, I decided to go with an Italian dish: Lasagna. Strips of pasta with layers of meat sauce and cheese in between.

Realizing we lacked basically everything needed for dining, I also made a table, plates, forks, knives, spoons, and cups. The very large and long dining table is enough to seat all 12 of us… right, need chairs too, let’s add folding chairs with nice foam cushions.

I was thinking about adding some cleaning features to things but realized it’d just cause problems. The pristine white would already draw attention, and if it self-cleaned that’d just draw even more attention. I can make it fairly easy to clean though by making it both waterproof, and smooth such that food, dirt, and other things will be easy to remove. Maybe later I’ll add drains and a waterproof coating to the floor so the whole room can be hosed down for easy cleaning.

Everyone seemed to really enjoy the food, so I’m glad I took the time and effort to make it. For drinks I provided water, and a low fat milk as options. Mostly because I remember drinking milk all the time in my past life.

When dinner was over, I started working on sleeping accommodations since it was late, and decided to put off the other work I wanted to do for later.

Chapter 18: A not so subtle takeover

Thug’s view:

I’m a thug, I admit it. I live my days inspiring fear in others and taking advantage of it. It’s a pretty good life. I get to drink as I like, I get food, and free use of the brothel. Today, my life changed.

I’d just been hanging out with my fellows at the entrance to the boss’s home (he always likes to have guards outside), when a strange group showed up.

Thug:
“Hey, we don’t like strangers hanging around. Scram!”

As they were ignoring me, I walked up to them only to hear a shout behind me. Looking back I saw everyone who’d been inside appear in front of the building as it suddenly got replaced by a completely different and even bigger building. It was solid stone, like the buildings in the main shopping district… what the fuck just happened?

Boss:
“Hey! What’s the meaning of this?”

Mysterious woman (Terra):
“This lady” *points to a beauty near her* “was given permission from the lord to set up a house anywhere she wants. This place was chosen.”

Boss:
“She’s not under protection is she?”

Mysterious woman (Terra):
“She is not.”

Boss:
“Then I just have to kill her, and she won’t need a house anymore!”

The boss then walked up and swung his sword down at her. I assumed that’d be the end of it. I’ve seen people cleaved in two by the boss before. My assumption was wrong. Very wrong.

The sword not only failed to cut the beauty in two, she caught the sword with her bare hand.

Beauty (Ariel):
“Do I need to kill you, or will you step down?”

Boss:
“Hmmm… You aren’t human, are you. Probably think you can do as you like since it’s just humans here. Well, you’re wrong.”

Huh? Not human? What’s he talking about?

That was when I saw. Boss transformed into a giant tiger and immediately bit down on her. Too stunned to think, I just stared. Is, she dead? Nope. A sword poked out from the top of the boss’s head, then swung round, cutting the front half of his head off.

As the Tiger fell, in the middle of the mess remained the beauty standing there. Despite all the blood around her, there was none on her. Completely unmarred by the assault, and unaffected by the mess on the floor. The sword in her hand was a beautiful clear sword that looked like it was made of glass. Was I staring at an angel? She then cast her gaze over the rest of us...

Ariel:
“There has been a change in leadership. I advise finding work that doesn’t involve threatening others.”

I simply nodded my head and fled the scene. That was too much. I don’t think I want to be in this city anymore. That sight is going to haunt my dreams. I’m not sure what’s scarier, the boss turning into a giant tiger, or the beautiful angel cutting his face apart like one would cut a watermelon. The expression on her face was like she was just taking out the trash. A mild annoyance. How can that be a mild annoyance?! I don’t want to be in this town anymore.

Chapter 17: House Hunting

After everyone was gathered, I explained that Terra was going to help us get land for a house of our own.

Terra:
“Why not build it here? This is where you like to gather, right?”

Ariel:
“But there’s not enough room.”

Terra:
“Oh, don’t worry about these wooden buildings here. None of them are authorized. All the authorized construction in this city is done by me and built out of stone.”

Girl:
“Hey, if we can take over any spot in the slums, let’s take the boss’s place! With what you’ve been teaching us, we could take over as the new rulers of the slums!”

Terra:
“You kids wouldn’t be strong enough to take on the boss of the slums. Ariel would be able to, but he’s a monster and much stronger than any of the humans in town.”

Ariel:
“You think I could beat him?”

Terra:
“Yeah, he might be stronger than any of the trained human soldiers, but that’s not saying much. As weak as you are, he’s still weaker.”

Ariel:
“I don’t really want to stick around though. So, if I’m needed to keep things under control, then that won’t work.”

Terra:
“Can’t you just make equipment? If I shed fur, it’s still high grade fur. As a slime, you could shed swords and armor. It’d be stronger than your clones.”

Ariel:
“Hmmm… if I upgraded my vitality patches to include a healing spell glyph, I could have them auto heal the wearer when they are injured. Rank 4 armor and weapons would enable someone who is rank 2, to fight with a rank 3 on almost even footing. At the very least, numbers could make up for the difference in individual ability, but you all are only rank 1 right now though.

“Do you want to take over running the slums? I will have to ask you all to properly enforce laws and not just go about mugging people or demanding protection money.”

Terra:
“If you prove yourselves, we can make you officially part of the town guard. We haven’t bothered stationing soldiers in the slums because there wasn’t any reason too, but if Ariel is setting up here, that would be a reason to. Especially if you start selling more delicious food and spices.”

Ariel:
“You really just want me to make more delicious things for you to eat before I leave, don’t you.”

Terra:
“Of course! Wouldn’t hurt if you improved the sexual skills of your clones too.”

Ariel:
“Is that what they are going to be used for?”

Terra:
“What else would they be used for? They aren’t good to eat, and they can’t fight.”

Ariel:
“... ah, well…” *turning to the others* “sorry for not letting you all answer properly. What do you all think?”

Beastkin:
“We should take over the slums! Teach those bastards a lesson!”
“If we become guards, we’ll have a job, right?”
“I want to be strong! You’ll help us be strong, right?”
“If we take over, we can help others too!”
“Who else would we help?”
“Our mothers! The brothel is run by nasty people.”
“We should make a big building so we can replace the brothel entirely with our own place, and invite our mothers to live with us!”

Ariel:
“So, the plan is to take over the slums?”

Beastkin:
“Yeah!”
“Yeah!”
“Yeah!”
“Yeah!”
“Yeah!”
“Yeah!”
“Yeah!”

Ariel:
“So, where is the boss?”

Sam:
“I’ll show you the way!”