"You know, I've never really considered myself a slacker," Larry said as he pulled racks of fabric out of thin air. "But you're the sort who could give a fellow insecurities."
"I could ask Yorrick if he has a free spot if you want to start grinding," Bob offered. "While we never talked about it, I'm pretty sure he'd be willing to work out a deal for you in exchange for your tailoring services."
Larry shuddered. "No, thank you," he shook his head. "I've seen videos of how they run Dungeons, and I'll stick with the slow and steady pace."
"They have videos?" Bob asked, then shook his head in turn. "It's Yorrick; of course, they have videos."
"It's all rushing through while a hologram of you screams a combination of threats and invectives," Larry said dryly. "Always be killing? Really?"
"That's how you survive as an Adventurer," Bob replied. "When the wave comes in, or the tide rises, it isn't slow and steady; it's a frantic battle with no respite. Delving the Dungeons fast and hard is the best training you'll find to prepare you for the real thing."
"Arms out," Larry instructed.
Bob held out his arms as a measuring tape flew out of Larry's bag and held itself in place.
"It's not that I don't respect the people who are standing up against the waves, and I've taken my turn as well, it's just that I don't really want to hit the Dungeon that often." He jotted down a number that was visibly glowing on the tape. "Don't you feel sort of creeped out in there? It's like there's an oppressive force bearing down on you. It's not a lot, but you can just feel like it could crush you."
Bob frowned. "Are you talking about the mana density? Because unless you're delving a couple of levels past your own, or staying in there for over twelve hours at a time, you shouldn't feel that."
Larry nodded. "Yep, that's what they call it. I didn't feel it at first, but after I made it to tier six, I suddenly could."
Bob's eyes widened.
When he'd become a progenitor at tier six, he'd chosen to increase the people of Earth's sensitivity to mana, if they chose to become a paragon.
It made sense that one of the side effects would be the ability to better sense the mana in a Dungeon.
He was drawn from his thoughts as the measuring tape wrapped itself around his neck.
"And done," Larry said, noting the glowing number before the tape flew back into his bag. "You can take a seat. It'll probably take me around half an hour to mock up a shirt, jacket, and slacks. We will check the fit and the drape, then I'll go back to the shop and get to work. I should have everything done and ready by the day after tomorrow."
"Good," Bob replied. "You weren't wrong. I've gotten used to real clothes, and while I can make do with summoning something out if I have to, it isn't the same."
"Well, the next time you come around, I should have a real treat for you," Larry lowered his voice and whispered, "I just hired a girl who uses the elemental spells in combat, and she's pretty sure she enchant them to be self-cleaning," he finished with a grin. He rubbed his hands together gleefully. "I can't tell you exactly how she does it, proprietary enchantment and all that, but it runs constantly, locking down one point of mana regeneration, and you can't even tell it's working."
Larry's smile widened. "We're going to make so much money off of that."
Bob nodded. "I have something similar on my armor, and I love it," he agreed.
"Then I expect you'll want to come back for a full wardrobe refresh in six months or so when we have it perfected," Larry replied as he pulled a bolt of fabric off the rack and sat down at his table. His smile was now verging on what Bob considered to be 'Thidwell' territory. "I'll even give you a customer loyalty discount."
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"I'd say that we have enough confirmation to declare with a high degree of confidence that Mr. Whitman has reached tier nine," Taylor reported.
Elania shook her head at her chief of staff's tone. "A high degree of confidence? Really?"
"If you don't want me talking like a spook, you should start attending the briefings instead of leaving me to suffer alone," Taylor sniffed.
"You know I've been busy," she sighed. "I wish I could drag you along, but someone has to keep the shop open."
Taylor grinned. "You made sure I got the first clear, so I won't complain too loudly." She paused. "To be clear, I'm still going to complain, though. It's every American's god-given right."
"Don't I know it," Elania grumbled.
New Earth, or Nerth, was coming along nicely. In a lot of ways, it was coming along more nicely than the ongoing efforts to reconstruct the country.
She knew that a lot of that was just the effect of working from a blank slate.
Despite being fully aware of what was possible, she still found herself falling back into the old paradigms of thought, and needed someone to remind her that they weren't working out of the old rulebook.
With enough crystals, it was possible to alter the geography of the planet to better suit their needs. Which they had done. The eighty-four settlements on New Earth were arranged neatly with an eye toward order that would have made a member of the Soviet central planning committee weep with joy.
While they weren't really terraforming, they were able to make significant changes. Rivers were moved, in one instance almost a hundred miles. The land was leveled so well that even the surveyors smiled, and the progress of the elevated railway system was unimpeded by the occasional mountain range.
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Ultimately, they would create twelve regional capitals, each encircled by six cities, all connected by railways. Travel between the continents would likely be accomplished by portals, although it was possible that someone might dedicate themselves to either an airline, or develop a shipping company to cross the oceans.
Regardless, having cleared the Dungeons and relocating them, they were working to build up the infrastructure necessary to support the people who would eventually move here.
At the moment, she had military personnel guiding volunteers through the Dungeons every day, who lived on the space station which had been affectionately nicknamed 'Big Bertha' by someone, and later abbreviated to 'BB.' There were grumbles from more than a few of the volunteers about the delving schedule, but they were quiet complaints, and they would die down as more people volunteered.
The bottleneck was the base tier. She couldn't expect people at tier five to delve at tier seven. It was doable at tier six if you had a double affinity, but it was a little rough with a single. Because they'd needed to ensure that as many people as possible were able to delve the Dungeons, the restrictions on higher levels and tiers entering had resulted in a real lack of tier six people, at least in the grand scheme of the population.
Still, having too many higher tiered Dungeons to delve was a problem she didn't mind having.
"I'm guessing that means he's planning on leaving again," Taylor mused, drawing her out of her thoughts.
"He's still looking for a world of his own," Elania replied with a shake of her head. While he and his friends were powerful, she had done the math, and even spending two-thirds of the day delving, there just wasn't any way he could keep an entire planet's worth of Dungeons from overflowing.
"Maybe we should extend him an invitation to Nerth," Taylor suggested, not for the first time.
"I'm not sure we could offer him the peace and quiet he keeps saying he wants," Elania said.
"Yeah, but hear me out. We could offer him one of the Dungeons on the southernmost section of that second continent," Taylor began. "Have him take the one furthest south, and let him move it to one of the archipelagos in the middle of the ocean. There are three of them with big enough islands to have a real city, so let him choose one. No one is going to miss that Dungeon, not even the screwballs who claim to love living in Alaska." Taylor shivered. "If we can get him to take care of that Dungeon, that takes the load off of us, and we can finish weeks, maybe even months ahead of our current projections."
"I think," Elania said slowly, "that if we keep it a secret, he might go for it."
"It wouldn't be hard," Taylor agreed. "We send the people delving it away, he comes in and clears it down the gets the quest to relocate it. We classify the location and make sure the satellites route around it. As far as anyone knows, it's a black site or a research facility."
"Of course, I have to wonder why he didn't just ask the dinosaur people he saved for a Dungeon on their planet," Elania shook her head. "From what we've been able to gather, they effectively worshipped Bob and his team as gods."
"That's probably why," Taylor said. "Everything we know about the man indicates that he's very uncomfortable being the center of attention, and the few reports we have state that he doesn't like being venerated at all. Would he really want to setup shop on a planet where he's been deified?"
"That leads rather nicely to the question we haven't asked ourselves. Do we want Bob around?" Elania asked. "We'd effectively be ceding part of our planet to him, as I doubt he'd be willing to submit himself to governmental oversight."
"How can we not want him around?" Taylor retorted. "Every time we turn around, Bob comes up with something new and important. Sure, we have people coming up with amazing things all the time, but he's the one who figured out the Affinity Crystals, and even after the update, he created the spell to let us explore the universe. Are you willing to gamble on that well being dry?"
"You're not wrong," Elania agreed. "Even just having him as a friendly neighbor would be better than losing him to the infinite void of the multiverse."
----------------------------------------
Bob felt a vibration on his arm.
This was not unusual, as Monroe viewed him as his own personal napping pad, so the seventeen-hertz frequency of a kitty purring was a common experience.
This vibration was more localized, and it wasn't at the same frequency.
Of course, that didn't mean that Monroe had not claimed him for a nap, because das uberfloof had done exactly that. With a grunt of effort, Bob managed to press the feline of mass consumption up enough to allow him to wriggle free.
Monroe merely stretched and snuggled into the nice warm indentation in the bed that Bob had so thoughtfully left behind.
Bob walked into the bathroom, tapping his wristband as he closed the door.
"Hello?"
"Good afternoon, Bob. I was hoping I could arrange to have you meet me this evening at eight pm," The President's voice came through loud and clear.
"I have dinner plans at eight," Bob replied, then hesitated. This was the President of the United States of America. "Is this something important?"
"Fairly important," Elania replied. "Are your plans set for eight in California?"
"They are," Bob said.
"Perfect, as DC is eastern, you'll have plenty of time. I'll make sure everyone knows you'll be here," Elania finished, ending the call.
Bob looked at his wristband, nonplussed. He had spaced a bit when it came to the time zones, but that was mostly because when people tried to schedule with him, they worked off his time zone. Clearly, the president enjoyed the same perk. Still, this felt a little bit like being summoned, and he didn't care for that feeling.
The president hadn't tried to impede his freedom and had done a good enough job prior to, during, and after the integration that if he had been voting, he would have voted for her.
He was inclined to give her a bit of leeway.
As he turned on the shower, he let out a sigh. Larry wouldn't be done with his clothes until tomorrow. "Looks like I'm wearing a summoned suit," he muttered as he stepped under the gloriously hot water.
A few minutes later, as he was scrubbing his feet, a System notification appeared in his vision. It was unusual in that he hadn't done anything that the System might recognize as worthy of notice, he hadn't been interacting with his interface, and it was a different color. Rather than the normal blue, the background was more of a turquoise.
System Request.
User 'Robert Whitman', User identification code 40816G1407N3210ISS3PM1IO.
The System has detected an anomaly in one of the newly integrated universes. After cataloging information, it has been discovered that a large group of users, fleeing a planet rendered uninhabitable, had been lost.
During a recent expedition between universes by
The System has deciphered the signal, and determined that at the time of transmission, the users aboard the colony ship were still viable. The System has determined an approximate location of the Colony ship.
As a member of a compatible species, with the ability to reach the Colony ship, possessing both the Savior and Reclaimer achievements, you are being offered the opportunity to aid the System.
Accept transportation to the Colony ship, protect the users, and transport them out of the void.
Upon accepting this request, you will be given a quest.
You have six hundred seconds to accept or reject this request.
A timer appeared in the upper left-hand corner of his vision, counting down from ten minutes.
"The fuck?" Bob muttered, straightening up and slipping the cord of his loofa over the shower head as he turned off the water.