"Was that a..." Jessica trailed off.

"I think so," Amanda said hesitantly.

"Bob said something about the King being a Dragon," Dave muttered as he watched the massive creature winging off into the distance.

Jessica shook her head. Dragons. "So how about that brekky, yeah?" She asked, placing a hand over her tummy. She'd been getting quite the workout, smashing Doarrels with a staff.

"Yeah, breakfast sounds good," Amanda said, grabbing her arm and pulling her towards the tavern. It was a little nuts that they had Adventurers and an Adventurers Guild over here, even if it didn't quite line up with the books she'd read.

Following her mates into the tavern, she was surprised when she felt Amanda stiffen, then rush over to a table in the corner, dragging her along.

"Good Morning Bob!" Amanda said happily as she sat down across from him, leaving Jessica to sit down beside him while Dave took the seat on his other side.

The illustrious Bob was slumped over the table, his head buried in both his hands and the largest cat she'd ever seen outside of a zoo.

The cat was purring, and as she pulled herself up to the table, she could feel the rumble through the wood. It uncovered its eyes by means of flicking its tail, and it glanced at the humans who had seated themselves at its table. Bob raised his head slowly and nodded to Amanda, Dave, and herself in turn. "Good morning, Amanda, Dave, person I don't know," Bob replied, focusing his attention on her.

Jessica's eyes widened. He was male model levels of handsome, the sort of bloke you'd only ever see on the telly. "I'm Bob," he offered as he manhandled the massive cat in front of him, pushing it along the table towards her, "and this is Monroe."

Monroe accepted the manhandling with good grace as he arrived more or less in front of her. She could see that Monroe didn't look like any of the big cats she'd seen at the zoo. He looked like someone had just made a rather fluffy house cat larger. She was startled when Monroe reached out, questing with a saucer-sized paw, before catching her hand and dragging it down to the table, where he nuzzled it experimentally. She cautiously rubbed the big cat's cheeks and then dug into his ruff. This appeared to please him as he slumped down, purring happily, flexing his paws with slitted eyes.

"He's a beauty," she offered as she continued to pet the economy-sized kitty.

"Most handsome kitty in the world, aren't you, buddy?" Bob murmured to the cat, appearing to perk up a little bit.

"How'd he end up so fuckin' huge?" Jessica asked.

"He's level sixteen," Bob replied with a sigh as he sat upright and stretched. "He was always a big boy, but as he leveled up to the tier cap, he sort of became the biggest and best Maine-coone he could be."

Jessica blinked and shook her head. "Your cat is higher level than me," she muttered.

"Don't take it personally," Amanda said soothingly, patting her arm, "Monroe is higher level than almost everyone in Glacier Valley."

Bob nodded and waved his hand towards someone on the other side of the room. "I've been thinking about tiering him up to tier five; it's not really fair for him to be stuck at tier four when I pushed to tier six," Bob looked at Monroe with the sort of deep abiding love that most people wish they'd developed with their spouses. "I just need to figure out a good Path for him, don't I?"

The last was delivered with a head scritch.

"What are these tiers?" Jessica asked.

"It's a little complicated," Bob hedged as he continued petting Monroe, "But basically humans are tier five, which caps our level at twenty-five. Monroe here is tier four which caps his level at sixteen. In order to advance past your level cap, you have to become a higher tier species."

"Wait, so you're not human then if you're tier six?" Amanda asked.

"Yeah," Bob rubbed the back of his neck uncomfortably, "I'm a paragon, which is kind of the next step in human evolution. I probably should have taken another species, but I've had a hard time dealing with the whole 'become something other than human' deal that everyone on Thayland sort of takes for granted."

"You look human," Jessica observed.

"There is a divine blessing called 'Return to the beginning' that lets you resume your original form," Bob replied, "which I pretty much use all the time."

"Can you show us your paragon form?" Jessica asked. "It doesn't have like, tentacles or shark teeth or anything?"

Bob stood up and sort of twisted, instantly becoming nearly eight feet tall. The rest of his proportions shifted as well, as he became more. "Paragon human," Bob advised before he suddenly resumed his original appearance and sat back down.

"Damn, as if you weren't already a tall drink of water," Jessica grinned approvingly. "So when I reach level twenty-five, I'll have to become an Amazonian princess in order to keep leveling up?"

Bob nodded. "You'll also want to reincarnate back down to level zero to take advantage of everything the new species has to offer."

"So what other species are there?" Amanda interjected, "we didn't really talk much about it."

"I'm given to understood that there are a lot of options out there," Bob shrugged his shoulders, "and they start to get a little crazy as you start to get into the higher tiers."

Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

"Was that Dragon a person?" Jessica asked.

"That was the King of Greenwold," Bob agreed, "he owns this continent by virtue of being the strongest being on it. He stopped by to talk to me about my taxes and my lease agreement."

Jessica let out a chuckle. "Your landlord is a fuckin' Dragon," she grinned, "that's fantastic, yeah?"

"In that whole, if we annoyed him, he could wipe this entire encampment off the planet with a single fiery breath, yes," Bob replied.

"Is he... I don't know, bad?" Amanda asked.

"No, not really," Bob admitted, "he's actually pretty fair and civic-minded, it's just..." Bob shook his head and slumped over. "He put me in charge," he grumbled at the table.

"In charge of what?" Dave asked, "you're already basically heading the effort to save Earth."

"In charge of representing Earth to him," Bob sighed, "I think it was because I'm the only person who is tier six, and one of the things about tiering up is you sort of start to consider the tiers below you as lesser beings. I'm pretty sure the King thought we were somewhat amusing, like otters, doing cute little things with our paws."

"Do you feel like that?" Amanda asked, "like you're better than everyone else?"

"No," Bob replied, "but I think it doesn't kick in until you reincarnate back down, and I haven't been able to do that due to time constraints."

"What tier is the King?" Jessica asked.

"Eight or nine," Bob shrugged, "I'm not really sure, but I think he's level eighty-three."

"So you're going to be responsible for everyone paying their taxes and their rent, yeah?" Jessica tried to stop petting, but a huge paw caught her retreating hand and dragged it back.

"Everyone who takes refuge in Thayland," Bob agreed.

The conversation paused as a young man arrived with plates of eggs, sausage, and hashbrowns for the humans and a bowl of steaming Oxcipine for Monroe.

"So," Jessica began after a few bites. "I'm going to rush to level sixteen so that I can get the portal spell, and I was hoping you'd be willing to build us Aussies a Dungeon somewhere nearby."

Bob grimaced. "I think that after the wave, I'm going to have an influx of active-duty Marines, some of whom are going become Curators, in which case I might have some free time to do so, although I have to warn you that you'll need a pile of mana crystals to get going, although our D&D folks can help you get started."

"How big of a pile?" Jessica asked.

"To drop it down six levels ran about seven hundred thousand mana crystals," Bob replied with a shake of his head. "I wouldn't have been able to do it if the Endless hadn't stepped up and thrown half a million crystals at me."

Jessica considered the sixty-eight mana crystals in her bag, which represented eight hours of smashing Doarrels. Seven hundred thousand of those to build a Dungeon six floors deep.

"Of course, if you have five floors running twenty-four hours a day, every spawn point covered, you'll end up pulling fifty to sixty thousand mana crystals a day, and floor six through ten add another fifteen to twenty thousand a day each, and so on," Bob offered. "I think we're sitting at three hundred thousand or so mana crystals a day from the Dungeon here in Glacier Valley, although you do have to have the manpower to keep it staffed, and right now, the lower levels of this Dungeon are a bit underutilized."

"The first five floors have room for fifty people to stay busy killing monsters," Bob explained, "So figure you'll need seven hundred and fifty people to keep it staffed, and likely another fifty to a hundred folks as support staff. Floors six through ten have room for seventy-five, floors eleven through fifteen have room for a hundred."

"That initial cost is a big one," Jessica said.

"From what I understand, building a Dungeon has always been a sort of community effort," Bob said.

"When is the wave coming?" Dave asked.

"Tomorrow night sometime," Bob replied, "I've borrowed a dozen level capped Endless to help, but honestly, I think the Marines will probably have it handled."

Jessica fell into thought as she ate. It sounded like there wouldn't be much room in the Dungeon for long if there were going to be active duty Marines arriving. Her group would need to rush if they wanted to stay ahead of the new arrivals, riding that narrow band where the original Marines had leveled past and the new ones hadn't reached yet.

She had a feeling that Bob wasn't going to be in charge of who went in and out of the Dungeon for much longer.

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

Mike watched the SecDef as he paced his office, snarling out orders into his phone as he made and received calls.

The man hadn't liked coming face to face with real, palpable power. The fact that the King had dismissed him as completely irrelevant hadn't helped his mood either.

SecDef finished his current call and strode around his desk before sinking into his chair, looking at Mike for the first time since they'd gotten back.

"How quickly can we have some men ready to take over digging and running the monster pit?" SecDef asked flatly.

"A couple of weeks, Sir," Mike replied, "the path that most easily allows for that starts off a bit slow, but we can have them work with a fireteam to push them up."

"Good," SecDef said, "while I can appreciate what Whitman has done thus far, we need someone inside the chain of command; it now appears that he is answerable to a foreign power."

SecDef sighed. "I recognize he was shanghaied into it, and I have a better understanding of why he didn't object, but the fact is that we need our own people in charge over there," he grumbled.

"As far as the King goes, Whitman was right in that he represents a global threat," SecDef ran a hand through his hair. "Beyond moving tactical nuclear weapons into the theatre, I'm not sure what we have that could counter that thing. I'm guessing with his ability to teleport around that even fighters wouldn't be a match for him."

"Sir," Mike began carefully, "from what I understand, a nuke might not be enough to put him down. A total of ten percent of the crystals gathered that aren't dedicated to leveling our troops up is a very small price to pay for occupying the sovereign territory of a Kingdom we have no prior relationship with."

He considered his next words carefully as his stomach churned. He was a retired Sergeant and a Detective, not a fucking diplomat. "Thus far, the King and his Kingdom have been nothing but helpful and welcoming to us. Despite the King's personal capabilities, I would say that we ought to accept their assistance with as much good grace as we can muster." Mike paused to gather his thoughts before continuing. "We represent their first contact with Earth, and I expect that as some of the more contentious nations become aware and develop a presence on Thayland, we will want to ensure that our behavior stands beyond reproach."

SecDef nodded slowly. "You aren't wrong," he admitted thoughtfully, "it's hard not to have a visceral reaction to the King."

"I think it helps to have a few levels under your belt, Sir," Mike replied, "I noticed an increased resistance to a higher tiered priestess after I'd gained another three levels."

He didn't want to mention just precisely what effect Annisa had on him. She'd started finding him when he was taking his meals, asking him questions about things she'd seen on Earth, or the movies she'd been watching, or the books she was reading. He'd tried to fob her off onto Bob, but she brushed aside his attempts. For a priestess of the light, she certainly seemed to take a perverse pleasure in making him uncomfortable.

"Whitman was terrified from the start," SecDef noted idly.

"I believe that had more to do with his awareness of the threat the King represents, rather than his presence, Sir," Mike offered. "Keep in mind that Bob is more than twice my level."

SecDef nodded. "My original plan to have officers rushed through to the highest level, and gating levels by rank, appears to be ideal, although it has become clear that the executive branch will need to be integrated into that plan as well," he frowned. "It'll be an imposition to require that so much time be devoted to killing monsters, but in addition to needing to exist within a hierarchy of levels, we'll also need to demonstrate that we are willing to fight for our people as well."

Mike nodded by way of reply.