It seemed half an hour had flown by whilst she was spacing out, certainly not good news. Delphina frowned deeply as she tried to think of anything that she could ask that wouldn't potentially generate yet another quest.
"How about… 'An Ode to his & her Majesties failures'. Or even 'A Brief History of Mareveil pre 'The Darkening' 2030-50MA'…"
"Can I ask if you can summarise either of those books so I don't have to read them? Don't use up my questions for this because I am asking about you, No.69's system capabilities."
[I can confirm I can summarise both of these books, using up 2 questions apiece. By doing so, you will partially complete the logged Quests: Investigate the Darkening & Who Me?]
[Please confirm, as you will be left with only 7 questions.]
Taking a deep breath in, she first settled herself more comfortably on the sofa. Delphina wondered if using up four questions so quickly was worth it. However, partially completing two quests was easily worth it. She was starting to run out of patience for this Q&A session after all.
"Yes, confirm."
[7/20 questions now available.]
[Compiling the books 'An Ode to his & her Majesties failures' and 'A Brief History of Mareveil pre 'The Darkening' 2030-50MA'.]
[Processing compilation…]
[20%]
[45%]
[70%]
[Complete!]
[The compilation from these 2 books will now be mentioned in sequential order.]
[After the first Gate Flash occurred, attention was placed on the fact that Mana was the root of the problem- the Gates, the Heroes, and the Villains all using it, causing destruction. The usable areas of the World were slowly shrinking towards the Imperial Continent.]
[Too many continents had fallen due to the warring between the Heroes and Villains; those that went unchecked as the Empire grew its power to fight them had caused irreparable damage…
Delphina took her time to read through the absolutely exposition-dump worthy amount of text on the screen in front of her. The more she read, the more confused she became. There was more information that was missing that linked these drastic scenarios together. There had to be.
… How all this happened is unknown, as Mana had indeed been eradicated. Theorists from the de Luna Duchy proposed that, because life remained, the Gates near that life also remained active. As Sword Masters could still utilise their skills, they deemed this energy 'Life Energy', which only certain people could tap into. But why only the Imperial Continent was unaffected by the loss of life has never been uncovered…]
[The Empire became destabilised due to the loss of trust in the Imperial Family. However, it was held together by the four Dukedoms, all of which the common people still supported.]
"I can make some wild guesses about a couple of things, but I'm not sure… Actually, fuck it. No.69, just a quick check-up on the system's abilities question."
"If I ponder my findings out loud, will you comment on them and/or count them towards my quest completion if it is relevant?"
[…]
[Checking with the Administration database.]
[Yes, that is within my system capabilities. But as your Level increases, the amount it will count towards will decrease. This will also not count towards scenario completion unless it involves a conversation chain.]
With this, Delphina leaned forward with her elbows on her knees, gently cupping her chin in one hand.
"First off, the Heroes and Villains arrived in this World over a rather long period of time- I'm guessing that as they brought in 'Otherworlder' tech and the like, before it became oversaturated or before they became overwhelmed, whatever came first. They used to be welcomed."
"So the spread of them wasn't such an issue. I mean, especially with The Gates, and it seems pretty strong Megafauna used to invade regularly?"
[Yes, that seems roughly correct so far.]
"The de Velasques took the forefront in hunting these guys, but by that point, the 'Past Livers' were thoroughly bred into the Four, no, sorry, at that point in time, it would be the Three Great Families. Probably the Imperial Family as well, because of people marrying into their Royalty from other Continents. And who knows what was happening with Heroes and Villains over there?"
"That meant any skills that didn't use Mana were by that point already present. Obviously, that had to be true for the Burgess Family; otherwise, they wouldn't have become the fourth Ducal Family. Someone else might have managed to do that."
"That's probably also how the de Velasques and the de Lunas became simultaneously the strongest Sword Masters and Mages."
"So, to cut a long story short. The twins, Maria & Donovan de Velasques, thoroughly rigged the de Lunas detection artifacts that they still use to detect Past Livers, to ignore any Past Livers present in the de Velasques Family…"
[You are correct, the detection devices do not work on the de Velasques Family.]
This wasn't something Delphina needed to let sink in; it was something she'd guessed quite early on, after all. Any family as supposedly old and long-running as the Four Great Families would have literal bodies, let alone skeletons hidden away in their closets.
"Wait, what year is it?"
[2848MA.]
"Not going to take a question off of me?"
[No, providing the date and time is standard according to the Administration's rules.]
"Well, would you look at that. Very convenient, I appreciate that… Following on from what I was saying. Wait, what was I saying?"
Delphina had lost her train of thought; her brain was now beginning to overflow with the recent information. And finding out just how long ago 'The Darkening' might have been threw her off.
"It's been at least around 800 years, so that's what, four generations of Sword Masters? A lot can happen in that amount of time."
"Uh, so. The de Velasques did whatever they had to do to protect their Family. The Emperor and Empress ritually offered themselves after they thought Mareveil would be safe. But that didn't work."
"So Emperor and Empress go bye-bye, only for it to kill everything off apart from this Continent, that's relatively simple. The Dragons protected them. But didn't give a crap or more likely couldn't properly care about elsewhere and keep Mareveil safe at the same time."
"Dragons protect their hoards to the death, and they were enamoured with the Imperial Family. There's no way the Emperor and Empress didn't leave any grown Crown Princes or Princesses behind at the time. The Dragons would have protected them for sure."
"And the declination of the Imperial Family is obvious, no more Mana, no more Dragon skills or protection from the Dragons. And to be fair, most of the World dying off because of their decision is also a massive cock-up."
"Because, from what I can tell, despite Mana being eradicated, there were too many 'Life Energy' based skills and techniques that ended up concentrated in the Four Great Families, and most likely these were pretty common in the general populace too."
"There is also the fact that Past Livers still keep cropping up even now, some 800 years later. So, both Life and Mana must be eradicated for The Gates to stop accessing here. Which is completely unrealistic."
"That explains why 'Bad Endings' in the Game were to do with the World ending, because this Continent is one large Gate Flash- or whatever they're called. From total wipe out…"