Bob was having a late breakfast in the Tavern, patiently waiting for Harv, Elli, and their crew freshers to arrive.

He had discovered that due to Elli being adamantly against the very idea of mornings, they often wandered in an hour later than Bob customarily did.

He was petting Monroe and wondering if it was possible for a dimensional familiar to get fat. Monroe seemed.... bigger. Not much, but a little. It was hard to tell under the fluff.

Monroe was curled up into a purrball and enjoying the attention from his human-servant.

Harv walked into the tavern with Elli, Eddi, and the J's in tow, where he caught sight of Bob and Monroe, and angled over towards the tables, Bob having prepared by dragging another one over.

"Morning Bob," Harv said cheerfully as he sat down, "you're usually in the Dungeon this time of day aren't you?"

Bob nodded as Eddi took a seat to his left, while Julli took a seat to his right, with Jacki and Jammi seating across from him, all three J's within easy reach of Monroe.

"Normally, but I came across something yesterday, and I wanted to let Eddi know," Bob said as he turned to the young man, who was practically quivering with enthusiasm.

"When you hit level five in your summoning school, you're going to have an option to increase your Summon Tyranasuarus Rex spell by twenty-five percent," Bob said to Eddi.

"Really?" Eddi gasped, and Harv cocked his head.

"Really," Bob assured them, "I was capped at level sixteen, but now I can push to twenty, and my math says it'll cap out to forty-three now."

"That's damn impressive," Harv muttered thoughtfully.

Bob nodded and said to Eddi, "It'll make your endless swarm even more powerful."

Theo arrived before Eddi could reply, and everyone at the table confirmed their desire for a full breakfast.

"So," Eddi said eagerly, "what is the new number?"

Bob blinked, then asked, "What new number?"

"You know," Eddi said, "what will I have at level ten?"

"Well," Bob said slowly, "assuming no other changes, your endless swarms will be level five, not level four, and your single summon will be level twenty-five," Bob raised a finger, "If, and I cannot stress that word enough, if, you have managed to level your summoned monster to twenty-five, you will have enough experience that your summoning skill will have reached level six."

"Stars," Harv muttered while Eddi just started doing a little dance in his seat.

"At level twenty-five," Bob said, "your endless swarms will either be level twenty-one or level twenty-four depending on how the math plays out, and your single concentration based T-Rex will be level forty-three."

"Stones," Harv and Elli said in an eerie harmony.

"Yeah," Bob agreed.

"Bob," Jacki said slowly as she rubbed Monroe's cheeks, "is it just me, or has Monroe gotten a little bigger?"

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Three hours earlier...

Monroe stretched, arching his back as he extended his front legs and flexing his claws.

His human-servant was still sleeping, and Monroe felt that with the lack of any servants to attend to him, his time might best be spent by taking a nap himself.

He had, after all, just spent the better part of an hour cleaning himself.

He hopped up onto his servant's bed, but the human wasn't in a good position for napping.

So Monroe slid into his human's extra-space.

His human hadn't had this before Monroe had come down the tunnel to this new place, but he rather liked it, especially now that his servant had installed a proper sandbox and started paying attention to keeping it clean.

Monroe ignored the padded box and settled himself down on the pile of rocks instead. He felt like having something cool under him, and the padded box got too warm.

He curled up, his tail covering his eyes, and began to nap.

Soon, he began to dream.

He was chasing a mouse across a huge open field.

Outside of his dream, his paws twitched.

Within the dream, the mouse ran, and Monroe chased.

He couldn't quite catch the mouse! If only he was bigger or faster.

You have absorbed the potential of forty mana crystals. You have absorbed the Affinity Crystal of Conjuration. Please allocate attribute and skill points now.

Monroe, still dreaming, batted the screen away as he continued his chase.

Name: Monroe Tier: 4 Size: 3 Level: 0 Weapon Hardness: 22.5 Hide hardness: 15 Strength: 6 Mana: 6 Armor: 32.13 Coordination: 6 Stamina: 9 Claw Damage: 64.395 Endurance: 6 Health: 18 Bite Damage: 50.985 Intelligence: 4 Movement: 16.5 Wisdom: 4 Dodge 9 Beauty: 6 Summoning Mastery 1.5

Monroe skidded to a stop in his dream, confused by the blue light on his face.

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He batted experimentally at it, and he sensed the idea of being faster, stronger, and more worthy of worship. He tentatively pawed at the parts of the light that represented those ideals.

You have absorbed an Affinity Crystal of Conjuration. Would you like to obtain the Magical School of Summoning by allocating a Skill Point? Either Mentally project or Verbally articulate, "Yes" or Mentally project or Verbally articulate "No"

A new panel of light was in his way now, and he swatted at it trying to get it to go away.

You have absorbed an Affinity Crystal of Conjuration at the same time as you obtained the Magical School of Conjuration. Please select from one of the following bonuses:

Maximum Level of the Magical School of Conjuration Increased by Four. Mana Expenditure for all Skills from the Magical School of Conjuration reduced by Eight Percent.

Monroe was getting frustrated. The mouse was getting away! He batted at the light again.

You have selected the following bonus: Maximum Level of the Magical School of Conjuration increased by four.

Finally, the annoying lights went away, and Monroe continued his chase, feeling ever so slightly faster.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

"He does look a smidge bigger, which is odd when you consider that he's six years old now, and really shouldn't be growing," Bob said as he snuck a hand in to rub Monroe's ears.

"He's just so soft," Jammi said as she stroked Monroe's tail.

"So much fluffiness," Julli agreed.

Monroe just sprawled out, content that the appropriate number of human-servants were delivering the attention he deserved.

"I need to get a brush for him," Bob said idly.

"Oh, I know just the place," Jacki said and started to relay directions to what Bob would later discover to be an alchemy/beauty shop.

All conversation soon halted as Theo arrived with breakfast.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

One week later, and Bob was ready for his day off.

It had been productive, but the grind to gain a level on his summoned monster was just brutal. Eight thousand experience per level between fifteen and twenty was a huge amount, but even that paled in comparison to the one hundred fucking thousand experience it was going to take for each level of the summoning school between five and ten.

Bob had expected it to double, and take twenty thousand experience per level as spells did, but apparently, the schools were different.

Still, he'd gained three-quarters of a level towards his summon, his Portal spell had reached level five, and the bar on his dimension school was over halfway to level one.

And he'd pulled a hundred and two crystals after expenses.

He was taking a shower, reveling in the endless hot water. He'd found that he did some of his clearest thinking in the shower.

Turning off the water and drying off, Bob stuffed everything back into his inventory.

He'd taken to cleaning Monroe's litter box and washing out his inventory every morning when he showered. It kept the litter box clean and his inventory hairball free.

Bob swung open the door and was surprised to see a note flutter to the ground in front of him.

Bob,

Come see me at noon.

Thidwell

The man was nothing if not concise, Bob mused as he headed towards the tavern.

Harv and Elli had said they were taking the day off, and they'd planned to meet up for breakfast, sans the freshers.

Bob had started to feel a little protective of Monroe. He didn't mind people petting him, but the J's were a little too enthusiastic. If he didn't know that he could summon Monroe back to him if someone ever stole him, he might have been worried.

Not that the J's had given any indication that they were the dishonest type, but Bob was starting to become concerned that there might be a shrine somewhere in Holmstead dedicated to Monroe.

Bob spotted Harv and Elli as he walked into the tavern, and he slid into a chair then poured Monroe onto the table.

"Good morning," Bob greeted them.

"Morning Bob," Harv said as Elli reached out to rub Monroe's chin.

"How are your freshers doing?" Bob asked.

"Oh, they are hating level five," Elli said with a chuckle.

"It turns out that Eddi is afraid of the dark, and the J's really hate rats," Harv confirmed with a grin of his own.

"Still they are doing better than you did your first time down there," Elli allowed as he switched to Monroe's ears, "they're staying close to the gate."

"Eddi took the endless swarm path," Harv said, "and he's running around with eight tiny little monsters," he shook his head, "they aren't good for much yet, but he has his big one out as well, which is tearing up the rats pretty good."

"What about you?" Elli asked, "how is level seven treating you?"

Bob shrugged, "Slow but steady," he said, "I'm still several weeks out from having enough crystals for a full set of enchantments."

Harv nodded and said, "That's the way to do it though," he gestured to Elli and continued, "learn the lessons we paid for in blood," he finished somberly.

Bob nodded, and Theo arrived with three full breakfast platters and a steaming bowl of meat bits for Monroe.

As everyone dug into their breakfasts, Bob paused between bites to ask, "Thidwell left me a note saying he wanted to talk to me at noon, any idea what he wants?"

Harv nodded and made the mistake of waving a piece of bacon towards Bob.

Monroe had caught sight of the waving delicacy and snagged it with both paws, tearing it from Harv's grasp and pinning it to the table where he began to devour it.

Harv looked at his hand blankly, then scowled at Monroe.

"He's got his own bowl," he muttered as scooped up his eggs.

"Anyway," Harv said, "as I was about to say before the bacon thief interrupted, Thidwell mentioned that he wanted to talk to you about figuring out some paths for the freshers."

Elli was happily crunching through his own bacon and added, "There have been half a dozen other freshers who decided to take one of those Summoning Crystals from Thidwell in exchange for signing on to the guild."

Harv's expression changed to one of mild horror and he said, "Stars and stones, the girl with the spider is unnerving," he shuddered.

Elli nodded in agreement.

Harv shook himself and then said, "so far there is a boy with a dog, a girl with a spider, a boy with a cat, two more boys with those Tyranasuars, and one girl with some other kind of dinosaur."

Bob swallowed his spoonful of eggs and said, "When combined with an affinity crystal, it really is a powerful path."

Elli nodded as he scraped his plate clean and said, "No one is complaining, except the freshers who didn't get a chance to hear about 'The Reef' and his revolutionary new path," he grinned.

Bob groaned through his bacon.

"I thought that was over?" he grumbled after he swallowed.

"No," Harv smiled at him, "still going around."

"So you think Thidwell wants me to come up with a few more combinations for the freshers?" Bob asked.

"I'd lay crystals on it," Elli said as he slid his bowl to the side and resumed his proper devotion towards Monroe.

"I think he has gotten a bit bigger," Elli noted.