Bob walked up to Charn, casually Eldritch Blasting the centipede that was charging him.

"It's almost noon, time for us to leave," Bob said, gesturing towards the pool of light where Nora and Orson slumped.

Charn nodded and then staggered over the group as Bob went to fetch Wayna.

Wayna had proved to be more situationally aware and was already headed for the light.

Bob motioned for the kids to follow him, and he escorted them back down the hallway to the landing where he stopped.

"Alright, that was a good first delve," Bob said with a smile, "you all put in the work."

"Now," Bob said with a grimace, "by my count, each of you owes me twenty-crystals for shepherding you, which we should settle up on now so that I pay the tax on them when we leave the Dungeon."

"But first, you should probably check and see how many crystals you earned today," Bob said.

He watched as the kids started counting their crystals.

"Seventy-one," Nora reported first.

"Seventy-three," Orson said, followed by Charn repeating the same count

"Seventy-seven," Wayna stated happily.

"Ok," Bob said, "so after my twenty, that leaves you with fifty-one, fifty-three," he nodded to Charn and Orson, "and fifty-seven respectively."

"You'll be paying a twenty percent tax, so it's eleven crystals for everyone except Wayna, who gets to pay twelve," Bob stated.

"That means that each of you earned over forty crystals today, which further means if you were to do this six more times, you'd have enough crystals to reach level five and take your path," Bob said.

Wayna nodded with a smile, while Charn and Orson shared weary grins, and Nora looked thoughtful.

"That doesn't cover the cost of joining the Adventurers Guild or paying for your first gateway token though," Bob continued, "so you can rest assured that you'll need to invest more time before you actually reach five and take your path."

"Rule six," Wayna said with a brilliant smile.

"Exactly," Bob nodded, "you'll always need more crystals, which means putting in the work."

"So let's go upstairs and pay our taxes," Bob said as he walked up to each of them and accepted his twenty crystals, "then I'll talk to my agent and find out if they have another slot for tomorrow morning."

"I'd also recommend that you throw a few crystals to the Church as well," Bob said, "or at least one an hour to whoever is standing ready at the top."

He led them upstairs and demurely approached Voren.

"I've accepted eighty crystals as payment for shepherding," Bob said quietly, "I have the sixteen for the taxes here," he handed the crystals to Voren, "and I have eight for the church, as well as four for your services," Bob handed over another dozen crystals.

Voren's eyebrows lifted in surprise, and his sneer shifted to a genuine smile.

"Thank you," Voren said with a hint of warmth in his voice, "few of those unfamiliar with Harbordeep think to compensate those of us who stand ready to aid the Adventurers who delve our Dungeon."

Bob gave a bow of his head and replied, "I appreciate the aid you stand ready to provide," before stepping back and gesturing for the kids to step up.

Nora went first, and after paying her tax, she donated four crystals to the church, and four to Voren.

The others followed suit.

Voren graced the group with a smile and said, "Blessings of Vi'Radia upon you, may the light ever banish the shadows from your path."

Bob gave another bow of his head, then lead his charges out of the Church and towards the Adventurers Guild a block over.

Once they were at the edge of the Guild, Bob motioned for them to stop.

"We learned something important there, didn't we?" Bob asked.

Nora nodded and said, "Voren treated us with contempt because he expected us to ignore the value of his time."

Wayna's eyes widened and she nodded slowly.

Orson and Charn took a second longer, but both nodded slowly, Charn with a slight frown.

"Another lesson," Bob said, "Always be polite, and keep your conversation quick and to the point."

He leaned and lowered his voice, "Voren is at least tier six, perhaps even tier seven. He's ready to go in and save others," Bob stated.

"Actions speak louder than words," Bob continued, "and Voren's actions tell a different story from his words."

He straightened up.

"Wait here for a few minutes, I'll go check with my agent," Bob said as he headed for the doors of the Adventurers Guild.

Stepping inside he made a beeline for Jakob, who was hunched over a sheet of parchment.

"Good morning Jakob," Bob said cheerfully as he approached.

Jakob tucked away his parchment and smiled at Bob, "How did your shepherding go?" he asked.

Bob sighed and replied, "Somehow Nora managed to spread the word far enough that I had three extra kids waiting for me at the entrance to the Dungeon," he shook his head, "but I took all four of them down, and brought all four of them back up."

"Hopefully they learned something," Jakob said as he pulled out a ledger from his desk.

Bob smiled and said, "Let's hope so."

Jakob opened the ledger a bookmark and ran a finger under a line.

"So, I have an open slot for you tonight, from one to three on the twenty-sixth floor," Jakob said, "shall I mark you down for it?"

"Absolutely," Bob confirmed, "and while I'm here, is there another morning slot open for the kids for tomorrow?"

Jakob nodded, "There isn't anyone scheduled for the first four levels at all this week," he sighed, "which is probably a good thing, as apparently, the word has spread that the Guild has a Shepherd."

"You have," Jakob pulled slips of parchment from the back of his ledger and said, "six requests to shepherd a fresher from zero to five,"

Jakob handed the slips to Bob who looked at them helplessly.

"These are requests, not tasks," Jakob said, "you can choose to not accept them, the people who posted them are unlikely to have the funds to pay the Guild's fees to have you tasked to the job."

Bob grimaced and looked through the slips. They were all similar, each asking him to Shepherd their son or daughter through their first five levels, if at all possible in the evening so their children could help at work.

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He looked up.

"How many more of these do you think I'll receive?" Bob asked quietly.

Jakob shrugged thoughtfully, "There are probably close to a thousand young people who haven't taken their paths yet," he said, "although probably half of those are just waiting for some specific event, such as an apprenticeship, and then another half of the remainder will be waiting for the parents to finish delving for the crystals needed, and figure another half aren't in a rush, so maybe a bit over a hundred?"

Bob winced and said, "I can shepherd four kids at a time safely, so let's schedule me for four hours in the morning and another four in the evening."

Jakob raised his eyebrows and then shrugged before writing in his ledger.

"I'll have you set for eight till noon and then six till ten tomorrow," Jakob said, "just let me know which four kids you'll be taking."

Bob took the slips of parchment and fold back the corners of the top four, before handing them back to Jakob and saying "These four, I'll get the others next week."

Jakob nodded, "I'm sure they'll check on them tomorrow morning, so I'll have the requests tagged."

"I'll let the other four kids know that I'll shepherd them again tomorrow morning," Bob said as headed back outside.

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Bob walked confidently down the hallway towards the Dungeon.

He'd had a great afternoon. After letting the kids know that they'd be going back down the following morning, he'd decided to get some exercise in, so he'd gone outside of the city and gone for a hike.

The coast was breathtaking.

It was mostly hilly cliffs looking over the ocean, lightly forested, and with a mountain range immediately interior.

Curious, Bob had portaled up over the mountains and discovered highlands on the other side. Rivers wound over plains and through forests, and he could see two towns immediately. Alternately flying and portaling further east, Bob spotted another mountain range running parallel to the first, although this one was much taller, and wider.

He'd headed back to Harbordeep wondering if anyone had an actual map of Thayland, and making a mental note to check at Kathaleen's. He'd needed to go there anyway in order to pick up the first volume of Dhoakes Definitive Dungeon Delving Directional.

Bob's mind snapped back into focus as he approached what he had mentally labeled, 'The Under-Cathedral'.

Stepping down into the massive space, Bob strode towards the person he assumed, given their cassock, was the priest on duty for the night.

"Good Morning," Bob called cheerfully, "I'm Robert Whitman, here for my one to three delve on the twenty-sixth floor."

The priest, or in this case, priestess, turned and looked up from their book and graced Bob with a smile.

"May Vi'Radia guide you through the darkest night," she said, "My name is Annisa, and I'll be available if you should encounter any difficulties and need to retreat through the gate with an injury."

Bob gave her a bow of his head and stopped in front of her.

"I'm not local," Bob acknowledged, "so I don't know if there is anything else I should do before I delve into the Dungeon?"

Annisa looked him over carefully before replying, "Ideally you'd wait for a group, but I suppose if you're going to be delving alone, you've at least seen to your equipment."

"Curator training," Bob said agreeably.

Annisa nodded, "I'll mark you as going down to the twenty-sixth floor for two hours," she said, "you'll want to turn left once you're on the twenty-sixth floor, and then follow the path for two thousand feet."

She held out her hand and light sprang from her palm, coalescing into the image of four faces, three bearded men and a woman.

"You'll then head right, and within fifty feet you should find 'Karri's Krew'," Annisa continued, the light from her palm shifting to show the woman's face in greater detail.

"Let them know you're their relief," she finished.

"Thank you," Bob said with a smile, "I'll see you in a few hours."

"Walk with the light," Annisa said in way of farewell, and Bob hurried towards the Gateway.

Pressing his new token to it, Bob pushed mana through it and then stepped through the event horizon and down onto the twenty-sixth floor.

----------------------------------------

Bob coughed as he stepped out onto the twenty-sixth floor. Sweat beaded his brow and he scowled as he fought for breath between coughs.

The air was thick, heavy with the smells of burning rock, and it was damned hot.

Looking around, Bob frowned as he pulled out the book detailing the Dungeon in Harbordeep.

He looked at the map and then sighed. What at first glance he'd thought were canyons with rivers of lava, were in fact tubes floating on a sea of lava.

Pulling out his canteen, Bob took a sip before casting Resist Fire as a persistent effect on himself, as well as Flight, Control Air to provide fresh, clean air, and Control Fire to reduce the heat.

Feeling much more comfortable, Bob turned left and headed down a tube of what looked like volcanic rock.

He noted that there were regularly spaced intersections where the tunnel branched left and right, the sounds of combat echoing faintly.

Reaching two thousand feet in just a few minutes of walking, Bob paused before heading towards his assigned area, and pulled mana through his matrix to cast Mana Sight.

Yard thick cables of Mana flood his vision in their silvery brilliance, dozens of them. They layered the tube so thickly that they might as well have been the tube. They bent and twisted and pulsed, motes of mana drifting off them to fill the air.

"Wow," Bob breathed.

He struggled to describe exactly what he was seeing.

The twenty-seventh floor in Holmstead was much more... organic in its design. The mana conduits were rarely so straight or even and were much larger.

Bob shook his head and dropped the spell as he headed to the right, down a sloping tube that spiraled twice before opening into a chamber where Bob nearly ran into the Adventurers he'd been sent to replace.

The four of them were fighting a huge bear, nearly twelve feet long and eight feet at the shoulder. Its hide gleamed like dark glass.

One of the men leaped in from the side and pierced the bear's flank with his spear, the blow leaving a blueish-white after image as the bear's obsidian hide cracked, and lava flowed freely from the wound, pouring thickly onto the stone.

Another man, wielding a shield and flanged mace, slapped the bear's snout and then took cover behind his shield as the massive monster roared, a spray of lava leaping from its throat and onto the shield the man had hidden behind.

The woman, Karri presumably, leaped in to slash open the bear's side with a wicked-looking glaive, spilling molten rock to the ground.

The man Bob had nearly run into gestured to the shield wielder and a light orange glow surrounded him for a second, before settling into his skin.

"Thanks!" the man called back over his shoulder as he leaped forward, smashing his shield into the open mouth of the bear as it attempted to bellow again.

The two flanking the bear struck again, deeply, and the monster stumbled, the hellish inferno forming in its throat flickering.

The shield wielder left his shield wedged in the monster's mouth, and delivered a brutal two-handed blow to the monster's skull, his mace sparkling with a sudden coating of ice crystals.

The monsters slumped down onto the ground, and the man with the mace was quick to retrieve his shield as it collapsed into a puddle of lava.

Bob sighed.

Lavabears. Of course, they would in fact be bears made out of lava.

"Good morning," Bob called, causing the man ahead of him to jerk slightly as the group turned to face him.

"And a fine morning to you," the woman replied, "I take it Annisa sent you to relieve us?"

"That she did," Bob replied, "I'm Bob," he introduced himself.

"Karri," she said as she sauntered up to Bob and offered her hand, which Bob hesitantly shook.

In his time on Thayland, the most common greeting he'd seen was a clasping of shoulders.

She appeared nonplussed then smiled, "Welcome to the Dungeon of Harbordeep Bob," she said, "I'll hazard a guess that you're new in town."

Bob nodded and replied, "I am, and I appreciate the demonstration of how to handle a Lavabear," Bob continued with a smile as he said self deprecatingly, "I stupidly failed to realize that something named a Lavabear, would, in fact, be a bear made entirely of lava."

Karri laughed delightedly and said, "Oh yes, you'll find the monsters are named with an eye towards plain descriptions, a legacy of Orstang rather than Dhoakes."

She turned to the side and gestured towards the men behind her, "These are Lahft, Larrs, and Lubrick, and yes, before you ask they are brothers," her smile widened as the men snickered and lined up to lean on each other's shoulders.

Looking more closely Bob realized that without their equipment, he'd likely have trouble telling them apart.

"If you're going to be a night delver, we'll likely see each other regularly," Karri said, pausing a moment to stretch her arms above her head and roll her neck.

"If you have a short delve, join us in the servant's tavern afterward," she invited, "I know I'm going to soak in a bath for an hour or more before I'm ready to eat."

"You're not the one who keeps getting baked by lava breath," the shield wielder who might have been Larrs grumbled as the party started to move past him and up the tube.

"Be careful," Karri said over her shoulder, and seconds later they were gone, leaving Bob alone in the chamber.

It was a good fifty feet across, with three pools of lava bubbling up from the floor, equidistant and forming the other three points of a square drawn within a circle.

Bob called up his Mana Sight again and nodded to himself before releasing it.

There was definitely a Lavabear in each of those pools. Bob pulled up the pattern for his UtahRaptor and layered an effect over time around it, pushing forty-five seconds of mana into it. He did so twice more, before giving each of them an effect over time Resist Fire, and then opening a portal that ended next to a lava pool.

As a UtahRaptor exited the portal, the lava surged and the bear appeared, its coat of obsidian gleaming cherry red as it lunged out of the lava clamped its massive jaws onto Jake's neck.

Jake responded by lashing out with his hind claw and drawing a deep gash down the bear's neck, spilling more hot lava onto the floor.

The portal had disappeared, but the other two UtahRaptors were more than fast enough to close the distance, and they pounced, one from each side, raking their scythe-like claws down the bear's exposed flanks.

The lava that had spilled onto his raptors appeared to do a slight amount of damage, but his Resist Fire spell was clearly mitigating it.

The Jake being gnawed on was worse for wear, and Bob watched anxiously as it was shaken like a rag doll twice before his pack brought the monster down.

The two raptors who had attacked the flanks were barely hurt, less than five percent, while the one who had tanked the monster was barely clinging to life.

Bob placed an effect over time heal on all three of them, pushing enough mana into it for it to last thirty seconds, and then summoned another UtahRaptor, this time pushing enough mana into it to last for thirty seconds, applying an effect over time Fire Resist, and sending it back over to the lava pool.

Two seconds later another lavabear surged forth, and Bob grinned as he started to grind. It'd been a while, but now it was time to put in the work.