Bob inspected the Secretary of Defenses face carefully, searching for any sign of duplicity. His Veritas blessing should trigger if someone blatantly lied to him.
The man in front of him wasn't used to apologizing; that was clear as day, and yet he had.
"I'm glad you've come to that realization," Bob offered hesitantly. "As I understand it, the Tide that will wash over Earth when the System integrates our universe won't leave a lot of survivors. I'm happy to help, although after I've trained up your engineers as curators, I doubt you'll have much use for me."
"We do, though," SecDef replied with a grim smile. "Our society is going to undergo a drastic upheaval when we've successfully relocated back to Earth. What I, and those I've spoken to, fear, is that the situation will quickly devolve into a might makes right mindset. Our republic was founded on the idea that all men are created equal, and while we've had our painful struggles with living up to that ideal, the truth is that this System is going to shatter that virtue."
Bob shrugged his shoulders uncomfortably. "You aren't wrong," he admitted, "ultimately, the most driven people will have the highest levels, and the hierarchy of tiers has an impact."
"Consider then that most people, including the Police, Fire, and EMS, will be level zero," SecDef shook his head. "Consider that the local, state, and federal government representatives will also be level zero. What's to stop someone who is level five from just taking over a town and ruling through force?"
"The fact that five people with wooden sticks can beat him to the ground?" Bob asked.
"Fine, level ten then, or even level twenty-five," SecDef persisted.
"Then I imagine this hypothetical strongman or strongwoman will rule until such time as their subjects level up enough to kick their ass out of power, or they'll leave and go somewhere with a less tyrannical ruler?" Bob offered.
"Maybe? I'd prefer that we had a strong government to prevent that from happening in the first place," SecDef leaned forward, "what we'd like you to do is to continue digging this Dungeon past the twenty-fifth floor. Make the next eleven floors much smaller, suitable for a dozen or so people at most. We'll then restrict access to those floors by rank, ensuring that the chain of command doesn't break down because a Sergeant is immeasurably more powerful than the general who is issuing them their orders."
Bob closed his eyes and took a few calming breaths. He opened his eyes, locking his gaze with the SecDef's. "Do you really want the U.S. Military to rule over the country?"
"No, of course not," SecDef looked surprised, "our civilian leadership would have a higher level than the military. Hell, it'll do POTUS some good to level up a bit, raise his endurance a bit."
"So you want the current administration to transition to a monarchy of sorts," Bob narrowed his eyes and raised a hand to cut off the SecDef. "Because that is what will happen. The President will level up, tier up, reincarnate, and level up again. At that point, they'll have a life span of hundreds of years. The next election will be half a year after integration, and I doubt life will have returned to any semblance of normality, so elections will be delayed because you just can't hold them yet. The President will undoubtedly have a Dungeon constructed for his personal use, and he'll continue to level up. When things have finally settled down, who is going to challenge him?"
Bob shook his head. "I don't know what a democratic republic even looks like within the System," Bob sighed, "but I have a feeling that the burden of being a voting citizen will be much heavier. After all, why would you take anyone seriously who hasn't at least tiered up?"
SecDef let out a sigh of his own and rubbed his stubbled chin. "I've considered that," he confessed, "but honestly, that's a problem for future Ed. Current Ed needs a functional chain of command to pull off saving as many people as we can."
Bob leaned back in his chair. He'd had the exact opposite thought that limiting what level people could aspire to would help avoid concentrating the actual power into the hands of just a few people. How much of his reluctance was due to the injustices he'd witnessed on Earth?
"Give me a few days to think about and talk it out," Bob said, "I'm going to be working on the sixteenth floor today, and if things continue as planned, I expect I'll have a month before I finish the twenty-fifth floor anyway, so we have time."
"Fair enough," SecDef replied and stood up slowly, bracing himself against the table for a moment as he yawned and shook his head. "For what it's worth, I really am sorry. I've always told my staff to show others respect, and I failed to follow that rule for myself. You've done the entire planet a service that can't even be quantified, and you deserve to be treated a hell of a lot better than you have been. I'm going to grab some shut-eye; thanks for hearing me out."
Bob watched him depart with a frown. The man had completely reversed his attitude, and both of his apologies had seemed sincere.
He'd talk to Thidwell, Dave, Amanda, and Mike about the idea of having floors that were gated by rate to keep a power structure in place.
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Kellan watched Glacier Valley from above, his form silent and invisible. They appeared to have emerged from the wave unscathed. He'd received reports from almost all of the settlements in his Kingdom, each one reporting no casualties, and each in turn reporting the presence of men and women who referred to themselves as The Endless, who had either significantly aided or in some cases completely replaced the defenders.
He was aware of The Endless guild and had three agents within their ranks already. Thus far, the leadership of the guild seemed completely forthright with their goal of making Greenwold a safer place, their actions speaking volumes.
Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
He was pulled from his musings as a portal appeared outside the walls of Glacier Valley, and a column of men rushed through it. Tiny devices rushed into the air, gaining altitude rapidly until they were several thousand feet up. More and more men poured through the portal, rushing forward in a degree of coordination that he'd never witnessed before.
They just kept coming as seconds ticked by, and hundreds of men ran through the portal. Then came a series of machines, all colored in a similar scheme to the men's clothing, but not all made for the same purpose. All of the machines belched wisps of dark smoke as they rumbled into the valley, and while a number of them were moved to the side where they were silenced, others continued. The ones with great, shining blades of metal proceeded in unison until they reached what must have been a predetermined point, where they lowered their blades as one and began to push the dirt forward, creating a berm that was a dozen feet high and hundreds of feet long.
Kellan marveled at the coordination being shown by these tiny, level zero humans. The machines pivoted, moved back, and repeated the action. He shifted his view as the portal winked out of existence, and men continued to rush about. On the ground, it might appear to be chaos, but from above, he could see the truth.
In the span of an hour, a basic berm had been constructed, one mile to each side, with the Glacier Valley Adventurers Guild in its center. At the same time, more of those round-topped buildings had been erected by men working in teams, laid out in precise rows outside the original wall that surrounded the Adventurers Guild.
He couldn't help but be impressed. To have accomplished all of this so quickly, without any skills or magic. His smile was sharp as he wondered just how many of these industrious people might choose to remain on Thayland rather than return to their own battered planet.
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"So, we're in agreement then?" Jessica asked as she looked around.
"Absolutely," Amanda reached out to give her hand a squeeze.
Dave nodded, "One hundred percent, while I haven't talked to Bob yet, Mike warned me that level one would be full today, level two tomorrow, level three the following day, and level four the day after that."
"Nine thousand level zero Marines just walked through a portal, and they're looking to level up, which is why I think it's important to get our own Dungeon going sooner rather than later," Jessica said.
"And no, Jason, it won't be your dream Dungeon," she softened her rebuke with a wink, "that's a project for after we've gotten established, yeah?"
"Do we have a place picked out?" Tony asked quietly.
"I was flying around, and I found another valley just a couple of miles to the east," Vera offered. "It's a lot smaller, only one river running through it. It's about a mile wide and maybe three miles long, so it's nothing like this, but it should do for our needs."
"Can you portal back to Glacier Valley?" Dave asked.
Vera had deviated a bit from the recommended path and had opted for the Dimensional skills first. She was fully invested in Thayland and had decided that if she was hurt, she would be surrounded by dozens of people who could heal, and she really wanted to fly.
"I can, so getting things going over there while still mooching of GV shouldn't be an issue," she replied.
"Blue, you're committed?" Jessica asked Derrick.
"Yeah," the redhead agreed with a nod, "Jason's got some brilliant ideas that I'd love to get round to, but for the moment, I don't mind just dropping a simple Dungeon straight down."
"We'll all need to pull some bloody long days," Jessica warned them, "we've got to rush everyone up as high as we can, but especially Blue, as he's going to be the one stuck building out our new digs."
"There is another option," Dave said, "not in regards to our own Dungeon, but in terms of getting our level on once we get kicked out of Glacier Valley. If we can drop a Dungeon down to say, ten floors, we can get people farming it, like Bob has. Then we can use some of the crystals gathered to get our Curators and their teammates over to Harbordeep and hit the Dungeon there for some levels. It'll be expensive in terms of crystals, but we'll have to keep out Curators leveling up to drive our Dungeon deeper."
"How expensive?" Jessica asked, "and isn't there a wait like Holmstead?"
"Bob said when he went there, he wound up spending like two thousand crystals, so probably figure that much for each person," Amanda answered, "and apparently the reason there is such a long wait in Holmstead is because of people leaving Harbordeep, in no small part because you have to have a fortune to delve there."
"Sounds good," Jessica nodded, "so that's another problem sorted, yeah? The thing of it is, now's the perfect time to do this; we just had a wave, and there won't be another for six months, by which time we'll be set."
Jessica looked around the crowd. No one seemed to have objectives to the plan.
"Now comes the painful bit," she grinned, "time to empty your purses and wallets; we need to see if we even have enough crystals to make this happen."
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Jack knocked on the front door of the Endless Guild.
He normally couldn't throw a penny without hitting one of them, but even though he'd opened the theatre back up, no one had shown up yet.
Maybe they'd had a celebration after the wave and were sleeping it off.
The door creaked open, and a bleary-eyed young woman looked up at him. "Yeah?" She croaked, shading her eyes from the glare of the sun.
"I was hoping to talk to Eddi," Jack smiled charmingly, "but it seems like the entire Endless guild is sleeping in this morning."
"Lotta toasts," the girl muttered as she gestured for him to come inside, "no one in Greenwold died in the wave last night, mostly 'cuz of us, so we celebrated. Gimmie a minute, I'll get him." She shuffled across the hall and up a massive set to of stairs.
Jack wanted to look around the entrance hall, as he'd never been in the Endless Tower before, but his gaze was arrested by the statue in the middle. It was easily fifteen feet tall, carved from marble. It was Bob, leaning up against Jake, with Monroe sprawled across his shoulders. The statue depicted Bob with a benevolent smile on his face, the hand not buried in Monroe's ruff making a gentle beckoning motion.
The artist had perfectly captured Monroe's expression of indolent indulgence as his human servant delivered the affection that was only his rightful due.
Jake looked equal parts terrifying and hungry.
The entire thing was laughable for anyone who knew Bob, but the degree of devotion the sculptor had imbued into their work was evident. Jack had a sneaking suspicion that Bob hadn't yet encountered this likeness.
As he was walking around the statue for a second time, marveling at the detail of Monroe's tail, he heard Eddi call out from the stairs.
"Jack," his voice cracked, and he coughed, "ugh, Jack, what's up?"
"Oh, just hoping to take another trip back to Earth this morning," Jack replied cheerfully before jerking a thumb towards the statue. "Has Bob seen that yet? And if he hasn't, can I be here when he does?"
"No," Eddi shook his head then winced, "he hasn't yet. That's the work of Sereh; she's really grateful for what Bob's done for us. And I'm kind of hoping he never sees that," he admitted.
Jack chuckled as he strode forward and put an arm around Eddi's shoulders, guiding him towards the doors that led out of the tower. "I've had a hangover or twenty, my friend, and what you need is a special remedy from Earth."
"What I need is a remove poison spell," Eddi mumbled, wincing as he exited the tower.
"Well, sure, you could do that, I suppose," Jack said, "but let me ask you this; have you ever had a bloody mary?"