“I don’t like having the kids in there,” I said.

“It was your idea,’ Big Mike said.

“I know, but I don’t think it’s a good one, it’s just the only one that I could come up with. The best choice of a bunch of bad ideas is still a bad idea,” I said. "What can we do better? I mean the kids are obviously the smallest and weakest of us, I’m thinking now that we were lucky that we held the rats back off the backline.”

“I’m willing,” said Baila. “I want to kill monsters.”

Big Mike looked at his daughter and shook his head, “I know you do sweetheart, but I don’t know what I’d do if I lost you. Or your sister.”

“Come here, babies,” said Consuelo, and gathered them both up in her arms. They came, but I think Baila was a little reluctant, she didn’t like being called a baby.

“So what are you suggesting now?” asked Big Mike.

“Well,” I said, “We either need to get stronger or the rats weaker. But, if the rats get weaker, I’m pretty sure the experience point that we get goes down. Janet, Tanya and I are relatively high leveled. I’m thinking if experience is given in the same way as in games if we weren’t there the experience would go up.”

“So, what your suggesting is sending us in without you three?” said Big Mike.

“Nope, nope, nope,” I said. “I was just pointing out the problems with what they used to call power leveling in games and wondering if it occurred in the new-Earth.”

“Probably,” said Tanya. “I noticed that I shot up a lot of levels in the first rat battle, the second rat battle, I didn’t. It kind of sucked.”

“Let me check my Experience Log,” I said. I called it up and it showed the ten rats that we’d battled. “Yeah, the first rats gave me, 417 experience for the two level-five rats and 1250 for the level-eight rat. The later battle only gave me 287 for each of the level-eight rats.”

“Could it be that there were more people fighting in the second battle?” asked Consuelo.

“Probably, but even if we allow for that, if the numbers were adjusted to be the same, the level-eight rats in the second battle should have been worth 536 points. Clearly, there’s a difference caused by something, probably our higher levels.

“So what you’re saying is that both numbers and levels impact the experience points given?” said eGirl.

“It appears that way,” I said.

“Well shit!” she said. “Pardon my French,” she said to the little girls who giggled.

“Ok,” said Big Mike, “we’ve got problems then. We don’t get as many experience points if you three are with us, we are a lot less safe without you, and I don’t know if anyone has mentioned this, but the high-level rat in the first fight was the average level in the second fight. Does that mean that Maxes is giving us monsters that match our levels?”

This story has been taken without authorization. Report any sightings.

“Huh,” I said, “hadn’t thought about that. But if so, that means our plan of bringing in the little ones is even less safe than we thought it was. But we still have the same problem that we started with, we can’t leave them alone. There’s always the squirrel factor to worry about.”

“Well, what can we do?” said Janet. There was a long pause then. In our debrief yesterday, we’d covered why we’d decided to bring the little girls into combat with us, so even if the three newcomers didn’t agree with our decision, they at least knew why we’d made it.

“In the stories I read, they’d throw money at the problem,” I said. “Little weak masters of rich clans were given high level gear and usually a minder or two. I don’t have any gear left. And what I did have was pretty basic, I mean look at Consuelo’s polearm and Big Mike’s shield. ”

They both held them out and passed them around and everybody agreed that they were pretty minimum wage, not high dollar goods.

“Another thing to think about is while the three of us are Ok as minders, I don’t know how long the rat supply is going to hold out,” I said. “I can’t tell if Maxes is a dungeon or just a big rat’s nest. If it’s the latter, we got to maximize the experience points before we run out of rats, if it’s the former, then we can grind until we reach our goal. By the way, what is our goal? I’m going with level eleven.”

“Damn it Monsoon,” said eGirl. “Let us figure out one question before you bring up the next one!” And everybody laughed. But afterward, there was a stretch of silence while everybody thought about the problem.

Finally Jake spoke up. “What’s equivalent to money?” asked Jake.

We looked around at each other wondering if he was seriously asking that. “What do you mean,’ said Miranda. “Are you talking barter? Who are we going to trade with? What are we going to trade?”

“No,” said Jake. “Monsoon said in the stories they threw money at the problem. Well, we don’t have money or expensive goods, but we do have something equivalent.”

“We do? What?” asked Miranda. I was glad she asked, it saved me from having to.

“Training,” said Jake. “It may be slower and more tedious, but it’s safer and, probably, more effective. I mean look at Monsoon.” Everybody did, so I waved and made my seriously-thinking-about-deep-things face. Everybody laughed.

“Not literally look at Monsoon, but consider him. He trained his spell Force Bolt up and now he can one-shot a level Eight Giant Rat. If everybody got their Force Bolt spells up to, what is your Force Bolt level now?” he asked me.

“Copper 9.”

“If everybody got their Force Bolt spells up to Copper 9 before we went back into Maxes, wouldn’t it be a lot safer?” he asked.

“And their Shield spells to at least Copper 9 too,” said Tanya. “I don’t want these little ones to be bitten or hurt.”

“And their Shield spells to Copper 9 too,” Jake said, “then it should be safer to go back inside.”

Everyone looked around considering what Jake and Tanya had just proposed. It was a good idea, and frankly, the only idea anyone of us had, so there was that.

“Let’s make this a democracy,” I said. “All in favor of tabling going back into Maxes until our Shield and Force Bolt spells are Copper 9, raise their hand.”

I looked around and everybody’s hand was raised.

“Good, then it’s decided. Copper 9, both spells. However, the real goal, at least for us three” I said pointing to Janet, Tanya and I, “is to get to my mother’s. I’m just mentioning that because if we all hit level eleven, I say we hit the road. I don’t need to kill rats. Their cores, hides, furs, teeth, claws, their loot, I don’t really need. I’m killing rats to gain experience, to have you guys gain experience, that’s it. I have other plans, fish to fry. I want you all to come with us too. But that’s our goal. I mean it’s been six days since the event. Since then I’ve been in 18 life or death battles. I know that there’s going to be more killing required, but screw it if I’m going to risk my life or your lives just to gain experience.”

“Amen brother,” said Big Mike. “Amen. And yes, Consuelo and I need to talk about it, but I’m for going to your mother’s. I want to meet the Duchess.” And, no surprise, everybody laughed again.